Balboa Park news & stories
A eucalyptus tree measuring at least 30 feet tall fell over at the Balboa Park Horseshoe Club on Wednesday, February 2. The tree’s roots were uprooted amid gusty Santa Ana winds. Nobody was hurt, but …
God created time, an old adage holds, to keep everything from happening at once. If so, then Willy Loman is running out of time. Events from now and yesterday inundate him, often with competing claims. …
The 1915–16 Panama-California Exposition site in Balboa Park is renowned among San Diegans for its incomparably beautiful Spanish-Moorish buildings, its gardens, and the graceful Cabrillo Bridge. That area is the primary destination of the walk …
Balboa Park’s easternmost section, aligned with 28th Street, isn’t well known among most San Diegans, let alone tourists. North Parkians, South Parkians, and Golden Hilliers, along with local golfers, do know of several out-of-the-way features …
Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t frequent adult entertainment establishments. Not anymore. But whenever I drive from the airport to Balboa Park, while going up Laurel I sometimes give a friendly nod to Pure …
“There is a loophole that would allow [a winter shelter for the homeless] in Balboa Park,” wrote Stephen Hill, policy advisor for councilmember Todd Gloria and consultant for the Land Use and Housing Committee in …
Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t. — Lord Raglan It was warm and sunny the Friday before Labor Day — a perfect day to go to the zoo, or at least …
A rope fence installed on September 23 keeps visitors from approaching the Lily Pond in front of the Botanical Building in Balboa Park. “Landscape Renovation Project Under Way,” reads a sign on the fence. “Sorry …
Not being a musician or performer, I have no idea what it’s like to be in a life that lurches from on-the-road lulls between gigs to the raw, over-the-top energy of performance. Like most of …
Summer is a hot time for tourism at Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, even hotter for thieves prowling the cars along Zoo Drive. From January 1 to July 31, there were 64 reports …
Carol Williams — San Diego civic organist and artistic director of the Spreckels Organ Society — hates the heat. She also hates it when the wind blows her hair in her eyes and when June …
San Diegans hear a show’s “Broadway bound” so much the tag has lost pizzazz. The Old Globe’s recent musicals — The First Wives’ Club, Sammy, and The Whisper House — came decked with Great White …
“We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity.” — Stephen Jay Gould (paleontologist) I told myself I was being magnanimous when I invited my sister and her two sons to …
The Old Globe is staging two plays about monarchs gone mad: Shakespeare’s King Lear and Alan Bennett’s Madness of George III. Lear’s is self-inflicted. A seemingly simple test of love has a “butterfly effect.” Families …
We usually think of the Greek gods as figures, as human embodiments, but to the Greek mind the gods were also, above all, states or conditions of being. Poseidon is god of the sea, yes, …
The males in Shakespeare’s original audience for Taming of the Shrew probably saw Petruchio as a Hercules and Katherine Minola as his 13th labor, far graver than swabbing down the Augean stables or slaying the …
Adrian Noble has written a valuable book: How to Do Shakespeare. In it, the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company teaches a master class on the subject. He sums up the objective behind …
In the spirit of this census year, we offer this unofficial, informal, and unscientific census of daily life in San Diego. (No census workers were lynched or faked their own lynchings while gathering the following …
How many people want to be unpaid movie extras, sit in the hot sun all day, and pretend to watch a fake tennis match? For the modestly budgeted Hollywood movie filming around San Diego this …
Three police cars blocked automobiles from taking the Cabrillo Bridge into Balboa Park at about 3 p.m on May 24. Five more squad cars were parked in the middle of the bridge, where about a …
Balboa Park’s Old Globe Theatre escaped the great financial meltdown of 2008 relatively unscathed, at least according to its IRS return covering the 12-month period ending in December 2008 and filed last November 18. The …
Photography is a great dumping ground of sentimental clichés. Lovebirds, autumn leaves, maternity-ward prune-faces, sublime mountain streams, birthday antics... Fill in the list. Grand illusion-maker that it is, and connoisseur of the uncanny, photography is …
Thousands of people flocked to Balboa Park on Sunday, April 18, to celebrate EarthFair 2010. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the celebration, billed as "The world's largest annual environmental fair" by event producer …
About 75 people attended an April 10 meeting of the San Diego chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) at the WorldBeat Center. "We're going to start pushing a lot …
Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings. — Evan Esar The sky was clear and the air was an agreeable 68 degrees — ideal conditions for visiting the zoo. When I …
The Balboa Park Task Force met March 15 in the Santa Fe Room of the Balboa Park Club to discuss the future of Balboa Park with regards to fundraising management and governance. All 17 volunteer …
In the late 1640s and 1650s, the Netherlands’ prosperous Golden Age dimmed. Hundreds of businesses failed, and a major recession enfeebled the entire society. Even Rembrandt, renowned and rich, hit a wall, partly of his …
Jazz in North Park is the new name for an old concert series that hopes to pick up where it left off over a year ago. In 2008, Jazz in the Park (as in Balboa Park) went dark when its host, the San Diego Museum of Art, pulled the plug after a seven-year run.
I asked Sergeant Bret Righthouse about the bad old days, back in 1994, before a cadre of mounted San Diego Police Department officers began routinely patrolling Balboa Park. Transients and illegal aliens had set up …
At about 9:45 p.m. on Sunday, December 13, a driver speeding down Sixth Avenue lost control of his car after taking a sharp turn onto Palm Street. The errant driver’s car hit and smashed a …
“December Nights” in Balboa Park kicked off with a lurch, leaving winners and losers in an all-night battle over parking. The two-day event opened Friday; a night to forget, according to a would-be attendee who …
On October 31, myself and a couple other urban campers went to Balboa Park, at Sixth Avenue and Hawthorne, to take part in a get-together especially for the homeless called “H.O.P.E.” The flyer that was …
Kurt and Tony are friends who travel together for safety. At night they sleep in one of San Diego’s many “cubbyholes,” as the homeless call the spaces behind bushes and buildings. Kurt Wiley said he …
BALBOA PARK Another Perfect DayBy downtownphotoguy, June 26Today we were in Presidio Park in the morning and Balboa Park in the afternoon. We were shooting with a variety of lenses and techniques…. It seems everybody …
Last month on September 15, the San Diego City Council rejected two sites — an East Village warehouse and a parking lot in Balboa Park — for the annual temporary winter shelter, voting 5-2 (one …
At about 5:30 p.m. on October 1, cops swarmed the grounds outside Balboa Park’s Sixth Avenue bathroom across from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Soon after, a tall, thin man wearing sweatpants, sneakers, and a baseball cap …
“I was taking a little siesta,” said a man lying on the grass in Balboa Park, observing an unfolding crime scene on September 25. Just down the hill, a section of north Balboa Park had …
I’m standing in front of a real human body at Body Worlds and The Brain — Our Three Pound Gem, currently on exhibition at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It’s a real human body, …
The boondoggle makes logical sense, at first. A storm capsized Viola and twin brother Sebastian’s ship off Illyria. When the ship split in two, Viola went with one half; Sebastian, lashed to the mast and …
One of Ansel Adams’s most familiar and famous images, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, is the photographic equivalent of Aaron Copeland’s orchestral suite Appalachian Spring, John Ford’s movie Stagecoach, or Edward Hopper’s painting of a corner …
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. — Solomon Ibn Gabirol I waited in the lobby and watched through the window as the cold rain pelted the sidewalk. I nodded …
On February 27, the day the Rocky Mountain News published its last edition and just a few days after owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer filed for bankruptcy, a panel convened at the Museum of San …
In 1810, a black Khoisan woman from South Africa named (by her slave-master) Saartjie Baartman was brought to London and became an entertainment sensation. Kept in a cage, she was exhibited seminude in sideshows and …
On Saturday, January 24, 2009 the San Diego Unified School District held a Magnet Schools Fair at the Recital Hall in Balboa Park from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The fair provided information regarding educational …
Balboa Park's new touch-screen information kiosks are providing visitors with a high-tech way to navigate the park's myriad venues. The kiosks, which were funded by the Friends of Balboa Park and approved by the City …
San Diego’s unique and historic outdoor pipe organ in Balboa Park celebrated its 94th birthday on Sunday January 4, 2009, in honor of which the San Diego Park and Recreation Department, in cooperation with the …
“Every single gift must have its proper folds,” says Lisa Koide Halverson. “In America, on Christmas, you don’t wrap a present in black — usually red or green. On Easter it’s usually wrapped in pink …
Incremental improvements over the past couple of years in Balboa Park’s hidden corners are resulting in the park’s rebirth. Canyon slopes formerly choked with dense undergrowth and used as de-facto drug dens have been cleared …
The Hillcrest Town Council held a community forum on September 9, with District Three candidates Stephen Whitburn and Todd Gloria fielding questions from members of the community. The two candidates attempted to distinguish themselves and …
“I’m not sure if Animal House is as cult-y as Harold and Maude — it might be a little bit more mainstream,” says Lauren Turner, marketing and communications coordinator for the Museum of Photographic Arts. …
“American Tribal Style is an inclusive belly-dance form,” says dancer Sandi Kay. “The dancer in the lead position can cue the dancers on what move they’re going to do next, so every dance ends up …
If the Pacific Ocean is San Diego’s swimming pool, Balboa Park is our backyard. When we want to get out of the house, Balboa Park is where we go, 11 million times per year. And …