Balboa Park news & stories
In late April of 1960, the San Diego Zoo’s curator of mammals, George Pournelle, traveled to one of the most inaccessible parts of the African rainforest on a collecting expedition. His goal was to acquire ...
A crowd of about 100 gathered in an auditorium adjacent to the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park on Tuesday evening (May 30) to discuss the state of the park's improvements and discuss ...
The Old Globe’s multileveled set for The Old Man and the Old Moon — pilings, planks, and wooden boxes — suggests an ancient wharf. Downstage footlights and roughhewn boards say a 19th-century theater. As the ...
About two dozen dog and park lovers braved the rain Sunday for a protest over the lack of city care for the very dusty Dusty Rhodes dog park in Ocean Beach. The dog park that ...
A brouhaha is a public clamor over a critical matter. A foofaraw is a clamor over a petty matter. At Balboa Park's Junior Theatre, a group of parents and attendees believe there have been serious ...
More than 110 years after they were planted in Golden Hill, the trees in Bennington Memorial Oak Grove are getting a dose of proper decorum. In July 1905, when the boiler on the USS Bennington ...
“I feel that if I ask Lucasfilm or Walt Disney [Company] for permission (to use the lightsaber word in the company name),” said Nick Murico, “that might be my Achilles heel.” When the sun set ...
A proposed road from Cabrillo Bridge that bypasses Balboa Park's Plaza de Panama and leads to a newly constructed parking garage must make another stop in San Diego Superior Court. Earlier this month, Cory Briggs ...
The House of Pacific Relations International Cottages in Balboa Park says it is a "near utopian multicultural organization" that was launched in the 1930s "to create a spirit of understanding, tolerance, and goodwill" among various ...
Hundreds gathered at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park Wednesday night (January 25) to celebrate the completion of San Diego's first cannabis-focused business accelerator program. "We're taking entrepreneurs just starting a company ...
“I got the recommendation from [hand-drum pro] Monette Marino,” confides 14-year-old percussionist Carmen Murray. “The symphony asked her for a young player and I got the call one day before the audition. I just played ...
Balboa Park has 65 miles of trails that differ in length, difficulty, and scenery with 19 trails beginning at one of five gateways located at Golden Hill, Marston Point, Morley Field, Park Boulevard, and Sixth ...
Watching Measure for Measure — performed as part of the Old Globe’s “Globe for All” program, which injects free productions into unconventional venues all over town — I got deja vu listening to Angelo, the ...
It’s always nice to welcome an old friend back to town, particularly one who is as bright and talented a filmmaker as Wolfgang Hastert. After years spent studying and getting his graduate degree from Duke ...
After years of delays that included criticism from many sources, lawsuits, and the withdrawal and later reinstatement of millions of dollars' worth of private funding, San Diego's city council on Monday (November 14) approved up ...
After numerous meetings and an epic amount of public rankling about a bridge bypass and parking garage, the San Diego City Council is about to decide whether or not to finalize plans for Balboa Park’s ...
Two big San Diego losers in this week's election are looking for a big-money, tax-funded consolation prize in the form of a hurry-up city-council power-play that could ultimately forever emblazon the name of Qualcomm and ...
Groundbreaking for new cottages in Balboa Park's House of Pacific Relations is slated for November, giving nine nations their own dedicated spaces in four duplexes and one stand-alone building. House of Philippines will stand independently, ...
There have been many notable plays about fathers and sons. Strindberg’s Fathers and Sons and O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night come to mind. Yet none are quite as powerful as the one-man autobiographical musical, ...
If you decide to see the Old Globe’s October Sky, take your seat early. Kevin Depinet’s set has the composition and texture of a quality painting. A massive half-circle hovers over the stage. It’s what? ...
“As long as the buskers are getting along with each other and not fighting…everything is fine,” said Chet Harrison, a guitarist and fiddle player who makes his living as a busker in San Diego. “The ...
A group of advocates for veterans and local politicians gathered in Balboa Park on Monday morning (September 19) to call attention to the plight of servicemembers who, after receiving honorable discharges following their military service, ...
A 52-year-old man who was sleeping in Balboa Park when a park ranger drove over him will receive a $1 million settlement from the city, it was decided Tuesday (September 13). Derrick Marable was sleeping ...
The Old Globe’s got a charmer on its outdoor stage. Director Kathleen Marshall, scenic designer John Lee Beatty, Peter Golub’s original music, and a uniformly fine cast turn Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost into a Greenbelt ...
Opponents have filed their opposition letter pertaining to a ballot measure that, if passed, would extend San Diego High School's land lease in Balboa Park. The letter, written by Balboa Park Heritage Association president David ...
Laura suffers from “Exploding Head Syndrome.” A mere soupçon of stress and — ka-bloooey!
The State of California's labor commissioner has fined the lead consultant on the Plaza de Panama project $19,200 for hiring unlicensed contractors and failing to issue pay stubs to two employees. According to a complaint ...
The San Diego city attorney's office has cleared the way for the city to rehire Plaza de Panama building consultant KCM Group to complete design work on the controversial Cabrillo Bridge bypass road in Balboa ...
It’s not every day that a musical adaptation of English Regency drama comes chock full of hipster jokes. But, Paul Gordon’s Sense and Sensibility at the Old Globe, directed by Barbara Gaines, made me stop ...
Macbeth knows how to kill, but he has never committed murder and fears the consequences.
David Lundin, cofounder of the Balboa Park Heritage Association, was there when Mayor Faulconer announced the resurrection of Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs's Balboa Park plan on June 30. Known as the Plaza de Panama Project, ...
Irwin Jacobs, master of the big-money art of acquiring political influence, is looking to have his best-ever year in 2016. The billionaire La Jolla Democrat, cofounder of Qualcomm, was one of the first to fund ...
Many of us seek and cherish essences when traveling to foreign places: a food, a shop, a fall of light, an open-air market, the peculiar curve or steep of street or hillside, the play of ...
I first went to the Starlight Bowl in 1980 with two pieces of advice: arrive early and try to put up with the planes booming down to Lindbergh Field. I got to Balboa Park early ...
Hundreds of people gathered in Balboa Park on Saturday (May 21) to participate in San Diego's March Against Monsanto, an annual event targeting genetically modified food in general and specifically the Monsanto Company, a leader ...
The Botanical Building in Balboa Park is one the largest lathe structures in the world, according to David Lundin, cofounder of the Balboa Park Heritage Association. The association was formed in 2014 to help create ...
“She’ll be starved and tortured...I want her to accept the punishment of man as a sacrifice to God.”
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the San Diego Zoo and the 50th anniversary of the classic Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. Local history professor and music writer Steve Thorn has a pet project ...
Jose Caballero has no problem that his race to unseat incumbent Republican Scott Sherman in city council District 7 isn’t thought to be “contested.” He says the media, pundits, and political bosses all seem to ...
After other organ tributes went viral online, another “breathtaking” performance took place to honor the late David Bowie at Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. City Organist Carol Williams, with the sun setting to the ...
The five organizers of Saturday’s fundraiser for presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders are amateurs. They have never promoted a music event or fundraiser before. “We did a [pro-Bernie] rally called ‘Enough Is Enough’ at the fountain ...
If you’d have asked me about brunch a few years ago, I would have laughed in your face. Brunch is just breakfast with booze (hardly a novel concept). Brunch is where saps take new girlfriends ...
The lawsuit challenging Balboa Park's Plaza de Panama renovation project is officially over, with a judge issuing his ruling that Save Our Heritage Organisation, the group that challenged the legality of the proposal, was not ...
San Diego Museum of Art’s Art of Music exhibit welcomes visitors with a giant ceramic auricle and protruding ear trumpet that, upon detecting the voices of passersby, proceeds to emit Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge.” It’s a ...
The first weekend in December is stacked with concerts. 'Tis the season to make a choice because many of these promising events conflict. Sunday is like a battle to the death, with no fewer than ...
If you pay money to go through a haunting experience and are warned it may scare you, you can't sue when it does. On October 23, the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, upheld a ...
After many years of ogling cool images of dancers performing in unexpected locations, and even spreading the word both in this magazine and on the radio, I finally got the chance to experience the San ...
The 5th Annual German Currents Film Festival adds a new, somewhat surprising name to this year’s roster of theaters. Jack kicks things off on Saturday night at Balboa Park’s Natural History Museum, while across the ...
“I found out my jam session at Seven Grand was being canceled with just one week’s notice,” trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos related to the Reader over breakfast at Swami’s in North Park. “I mean, the manager, ...
“...It’s a way of life. Without it you’re nobody. And I’m not talking about a lot of clothes.”
On Monday (September 28), San Diego's oldest community pool reopened to the public after getting the thumbs up from the County Department of Environmental Health on September 23. The Bud Kearns Municipal Pool was originally ...
2015 may be one of the gutsiest years ever in San Diego theater. I can’t ever remember so many world premieres. Even though the word on staging them is: do not. They’re too risky, can ...