Downtown San Diego Stories
The stock market is crashing. The city budget is crumbling. The state unemployment rate has hit 10 percent. Maybe it’s not the best time to be spending $1.27 million to subsidize a marina for superyachts. …
The demolition of the old building on Broadway between Eighth and Ninth avenues was completed over a month ago. On the 23rd of February, a work crew was on the site to break up remaining …
Shortly before 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 26, metal chairs and tables rained down from the roof of the Ramada Inn on Sixth Avenue, narrowly missing several passing automobiles. Bent and twisted into nearly unrecognizable …
At 9:30 p.m. on Friday February 27, whoops and shouts could be heard near the Children’s Museum at the intersection of West Island Avenue and Front Street. On Harbor Drive, a police car cruised silently …
On Friday, February 27, San Diegans gathered on the Embarcadero (near the County Administration Building) to take part in a “tea party” to protest the federal government’s economic rescue plan. Taking the cue from the …
To find a restroom downtown, you can wander into hotel lobbies...and Horton Plaza has restrooms located on the top floor of the food court and at all the bars and restaurants. But the mall’s bathrooms …
On February 14, Horton Plaza became a flurry of pillows as 40 people gathered at the fountain to participate in the first annual Valentine's Pillow Fight. "It's intense. I couldn't tell who was hitting me," …
Oh, man. Gonna faint. Just ran a hundred steps up one side of the convention center, two at a time, I swear, and down another hundred to the bay side. Keep jogging along the Embarcadero …
Author: Sandra Keener Neighborhood: Downtown Age: 60 Occupation: Retired Well, there it was last summer for all to see and read, an article in Forbes entitled “America’s Worst Cities to Be a Sports Fan.” It …
On January 30 at around 3:30 p.m., a fire blazed through a second-floor apartment in the Sharp Senior Home on Tenth and Broadway. First on the scene was Cojack, the maintenance/manager of the building who …
Is Jerry Sanders in thrall to his biggest political contributors? Some have thought so, especially as Sanders is said to harbor thoughts of running for statewide office in the not-so-distant future. Now there is evidence …
January 24 saw another spectacular afternoon maritime show, Canon Battles on San Diego Bay, sponsored by the San Diego Maritime Museum. Four 19th-century tall ships roamed the bay firing smoke canons at each other to …
The median price of a resale condo downtown was $564,700 for the 30-day period ended January 21, up $9,600 from last month, and higher $9,100 from the same period in January 2008 ($555,600). The number …
To address the city’s bleak financial future, Mayor Jerry Sanders asked city-council members to take a hard look at their district and try to find areas where the city could save some cash. On January …
The 11th Ave. and C St. trolley station situates itself at the bottom of the new Smart Corner condominiums. San Diego High School and Garfield High School are located down the street off of Park …
Robert Golden and family, 1953. The son of local construction magnate Morley H. Golden, Robert took over as company president in 1956. Though Robert Golden’s 1991 Union obit emphasized his philanthropic endeavors and love of …
On Saturday, January 17, 2009, thousands of people gathered in downtown San Diego after the Martin Luther King Jr. Parade to celebrate diversity at the 11th annual San Diego Multicultural Festival. More than 100 booths …
On Saturday, January 10 at 11:10 p.m., at the corner of 9th Avenue and E Street, a white Mercedes Benz crashed into a grey Nissan Altima, causing the Nissan to smash into the corner of …
Amid the barrage of bad news about our economy, the San Diego Downtown Lions Club heard surprisingly good news at their first meeting of 2009. Alan Nevin of Market Pointe Realty Advisors spoke at the …
On the afternoon of January 2, 2009, at Broadway and Front Street, a demonstration was staged with approximately 500 demonstrators holding signs and chanting "No Justice No Peace." "These demos have been staged to inform …
One Who’s Out and Wants In A man walks into the lobby of a downtown sales office on Sixth Avenue and G Street on a Sunday morning, wheeling his young son in a stroller in …
Twenty-nine years ago this week (12/7/79), the city’s first punk venue, downtown’s Skeleton Club, reopened at 202 West Market Street. The original locale on Fourth Avenue, across from Horton Plaza, had been shut down the …
“If I were to build the perfect comedian, it would be Jerry Seinfeld crossed with Dave Chappelle,” says local comedian Mal Hall. “My comedy is observational. I wouldn’t do anything onstage that I think my …
As a kid, music influenced how I thought about politics — songs such as Alice Cooper’s “Elected” or Cream’s “Politician,” wherein the politico talks a woman into his “big, black car.” As a teenager, I …
At 9 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, November 13th, the city Budget Review Committee met in a crowded and raucous city council chambers to discuss Mayor Sanders’s plan for $43 million in budget cuts …
Mayor Jerry Sanders gave San Diego’s three new city council members a little taste of what they should expect during their first year on the council. The day after elections, while the final votes were …
Ever since the “strong mayor” form of governance was adopted Mayor Sanders has been hard to find at city council meetings. It’s been even harder for the average citizen to get his attention. On October …
Amid the 11 acres of “lush tropical” backdrop at Kona Kai Resort and Spa on Shelter Island, Mayor Jerry Sanders addressed the San Diego Taxpayer’s Association on the economic hardships the city of San Diego …
District 3 councilmember Toni Atkins issued a press release on October 7, asking for reconsideration of the Navy’s plan to redevelop the Navy Broadway Complex. The project puts 15 acres of waterfront property into the …
On Saturday, September 27th, a small crowd of civilians assembled inside Building 12 of the Navy Broadway Complex for the first of three public hearings on the redevelopment of the 15.5-acre site in between North …
Sunday evening. Light's fading. Wandering up Ash and Union, the echoey streets of the world above Broadway. You know, wrong side of the tracks. All the cool eateries are in the Gaslamp. Up here, especially …
Beer garden at City Brewery, circa 1870s. In 1868, the same year Austrian brew-master Christian Doblier established San Diego’s first brewery in Spring Valley (Chollas Valley Brewery), City Brewery opened on the northwest corner of …
Author: Rodney Akins Neighborhood: Downtown Age: 43 Occupation: Homeless After finally moving out of Colonia Libertad, Mexico, which is two blocks across the San Ysidro border crossing, I was homeless with about $50 in my …
Author name: Bryan Varela Neighborhood: Downtown Age: 35 Occupation: “Town drunk” I sit here on the corner of Broadway and Columbia, puffin’ a smoke and remembering the old broad. Carol, I think was her name. …
Is the proposal to build a 40-foot-high, 100-acre concrete deck over the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal so far-fetched from an engineering and economic viewpoint that it is really a hoax? Is the envisioned project, which …
E.J. Wilson sings it like he really means it. “No one can take your happiness, long as you/ Do what you gotta do.” That’s exactly what he’s doing. What he has to do. Busking. We’re …
Girls just wanna have fun, and aging-boomer foodie girls especially wanna have fun at the table (as other options become scarcer). Tabule offers that kind of culinary gambol. (Not gamble — I didn’t taste anything …
9-year-old Lucas attends Comic-Con Popular Designer Jermaine Rogers talks about Comic-Con going Hollywood Hillary & Hanna are sisters at Comicon 2008 Grant Morrison from DC Comics talks about Comic-con going Hollywood. Deepak Chopra at Comicon …
Ahhh... Slurp, burp, slurp again. Pinky finger raised, of course. I clink my cawfee cup down in its saucer. Sitting like a captain of industry here at the corner of Ash and India. Behind yellow …
Two opposing views regarding the ban on brew at San Diego's beaches inadvertently surfaced during the June 25th meeting of the Ocean Beach town council. When Officer David Surwilo, community liaison for the police department's …
Baktiar has surely found the sweet spot. This is where folks wandering down Fourth start running out of steam. They can’t see anything ahead except the bricky Horton Grand Hotel. They hesitate and, most of …
Spreckels Theatre, c. 1915. Signage also advertises “Vaudeville Hippodrome.” Clarence Alan McGrew’s 1922 book City of San Diego and San Diego County mentioned, “In 1915 the Hippodrome vaudeville started to appear at the Spreckels Theatre,” …
Nearly every week, I pour myself a glass of Japanese fizzy-water (Nigori sake), take a deep breath, and call up some rank stranger — the chef of the restaurant I’m currently reviewing. Between the serious …
A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender. — Jim Bishop There are two kinds of women: those who don’t …
Editor's note: As of 2010, this restaurant is closed. Love? This could be it. The question hits me mid-bite into my second-ever quesotaco. It’s a scrunch of crispy grilled cheese over little chunks of steak …
Hank had been on about this for the longest time. He’s a carpenter and wannabe carver, and he reckons the carving of the horses in the carousel at Seaport Village is the best. In the …
Over the door is the “dough” — the Chinese ideogram for the Tao (pronounced “doe”), meaning “the way” in general, and in Taoism, the way of the universe. (George Lucas calls it “The Force,” and …
Excavation of the Spreckels Theatre building at 121 Broadway, c. 1908. Sugar millionaire John D. Spreckels is said to have had it constructed to coincide with the Panama Canal’s opening. (San Diego vied to be …
Clock’s ticking toward midnight down here in the deepest Stingaree. I’m heading for Ciro’s, the pizzeria. Why? Because I’ve spent the last couple hours holding up the beautiful old (1885!) Tivoli bar, listening to a …
San Diego League of Women Voters, in partnership with the San Diego Reader present: Shipshape or MAYDAY ?!! WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KEEP SAN DIEGO AFLOAT? If you want the facts, join us at …
Centre City Development Corporation, the City’s downtown redevelopment organization, has been correctly accused of many things. Arrogance. Bullying. Conflicts of interest. Excessive pay and perks for employees. Loose contract policies. Being in the pocket of …
There were a couple of video-release parties I hit downtown. The first was for a band called Crash Encore. It was a video-premiere party for their song “Stormy Weather” at the Buzz Clothing Warehouse on …