A whole different story if I'd been white Golden Age Garden Apartments (740 South 36th Street), built in 1983, has 76 apartments on its four floors. Requirements for obtaining an apartment here are that one …
January 20, 2024
Back to profile
Stories by Barbara Palmer
San Diego blacks: what if I'd been white?
Bin Laden brother runs tulip business from San Diego
Did Bin Laden's Brother Live a Secret Life in San Diego?What was Binladen, now 35, heir to a multibillion-dollar Middle Eastern fortune based on construction and Saudi oil, doing in San Diego? And why would …
September 10, 2023
Spreckels and the train over Carrizo Gorge, Ike and S.D. Country Club
140-Mile Mistake Ritz calls the Chinese the railroad’s “unsung heroes,” but new evidence suggests that labor problems were perhaps the major reason why the railroad took so long to be built. The route of the …
January 17, 2022
Santee's Creation Museum, the nuns behind Mercy Hospital
A Little Bit East of Eden There are also sharp disputes about Noah's Ark within the Creationist movement. Some years ago, in the ICR museum, I helped John Morris, their principal ark investigator, look for …
December 26, 2021
San Diego's madame Karen Wilkening, Metabolife's Mike Ellis and Mike Blevins
My Own True Story One morning, Hercules had left for work around 6:30 and I was still asleep, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door only about a half an inch. …
December 20, 2021
Digging up your San Diego family Who was Pio Pico? Life at the Presidio
How to Do Genealogical Research in SD “On July 1, 1769, soon after the arrival of Father Serra, burials began in consecrated ground on Presidio Hill.... Even though people began moving off Presidio Hill and …
November 22, 2021
Stingaree's red-light rules, early Horton Plaza, Lomaland
Murder in Mission Valley There was a history of immigrants to the area penning Indians up in reservations after throwing them off Mission lands. Indians tried to regain their lands, but they were often unable …
October 23, 2021
Early blacks in San Diego, African-Americans on whites, 60s black power activists
None Darker Than Me “Another fact concerning the woman that occasioned surprise yesterday was the appearance at the undertaking parlors where her dead body lies of H. Milne, a colored blacksmith who lives on K …
January 18, 2021
Race in 19th century San Diego, Marilyn Monroe in Coronado, early drive-in theaters
None Darker Than Me Racial obsession in 19th-century San Diego People of color were beginning to move into Sherman Heights and Golden Hill. There were colored Civil War veterans who lived in Golden Hill — …
October 31, 2020
A select view of San Diego history
My Highschool Days With Lester Bangs When Lester Bangs moved to Detroit to join the staff of Creem magazine, we kept in touch with letters and phone calls that came less and less often. The …
July 19, 2020
Mission Valley – garden-land gave way to shopping centers
The never-ending fix to Hazard Center Drive Hazard Center Drive in Mission Valley East is probably the shortest road incurring the longest completion of any in San Diego. It is approximately three blocks long and …
May 11, 2020
San Diego history you never knew
90 Years of Curl Elwell says Kahanamoku surfed the OB Pier, and when he did, he asked a teenaged lifeguard named Charlie Wright if he could store his board in Wright's beach shack. By Jeannette …
April 19, 2020
Best Reader stories from 2001
How San Diegans reacted to 9-11 “Where were you when the World Trade Center was hit?” “At home.” “And you happened to have the TV on?” “No, my little sister called. She woke me up …
February 1, 2020
African American and in San Diego
Raised not to hope too hard Sherley Anne Williams was delighted when the New York Times listed her novel on its recommended reading list. The book had gone into a third printing, and her publisher …
January 20, 2020
Everything Is Pop
'I loved his art, I loved his image," says Cristina Favretto, director of Special Collections at San Diego State University. "And I loved that he would go places and people would speak for him and …
August 3, 2006
Dad’s Got History
Born in San Diego in 1950, Michael Page was playing bass in local bands when a friend from New York City told him about Greenwich Village and the Bowery. The New York Dolls played at …
June 5, 2003
Ziggy and Iggy
Chuck Berry turned out to be an asshole to a lot of people, but I got along with him really well. I’ve got a cool picture of him signing a contract and using my back to do it.
May 29, 2003
The Best and Worst Band of the Year
KISS was one of the bands that would come to watch the Dolls play. They would take notes and sit right up in front. Sylvain used to say that the Dolls taught KISS how to light their cigarettes.
May 15, 2003
You're Just My Girlfriend
When I went to the bathroom for a second, in the time that I was gone, my girlfriend gave Iggy Pop her phone number. She told him to come and visit her.
May 8, 2003
Sandals, Bell Bottoms, and a Nehru Thing
We had a place in Pacific Beach at Olney and Garnet that was an old Victorian house. And we were a real happening band in San Diego. The King Biscuit Blues Band. We were playing the love-ins.
May 1, 2003
Life Along the San Diego River
“There were two different swimming holes. The girls would have one and the boys would sneak up there, and the girls would be swimming nude and we would try to swipe their clothes.
July 25, 2002
Angel in Black
Besides poverty and the bigoted citizenry, Mother Michael and her nuns suffered the opposition of the most influential Catholic in the town. Father Ubach himself. He attempted to circumvent the incorporation of the hospital.
September 27, 2001
Black settlement in San Diego, part 2
“It was at the corner at the Episcopal Church, Ninth and C. She was crossing the street to go to the store, to get food for my cat. The neighbors heard her scream. She was thrown 15 feet.”
August 9, 2001
Black settlement San Diego, part 1
‘There was never a suspicion in our home,’ said Col. Kastle to a reporter, ‘that Mrs. Monroe was anything else than a white woman. She had none of the characteristics of a colored person.’
August 2, 2001
Union Blue and Dixie Grey
While the revolver was in my grasp, the weapon was discharged, blowing out the end of the scabbard. Before I looked up, General Coon, sitting beside me, gasped, “You have killed me, Grovesteen; I am done for!”
April 26, 2001
How to Do Genealogical Research in San Diego
In Early San Diego and California Families are pedigree charts for the following families: Altamirano, Alvarado, Ames, Arguello, Connors, Cota, Couts, Dominguez, Estudillo, Horton, Lopez, Machado, Pico, Pio Pico, and Serrano.
March 15, 2001
Murder in Mission Valley
A man told sheriff’s deputies that Juan Jose Hillario, an Indian living in Balboa Park, had suggested to him on an earlier occasion that they kill Mrs. Sandrock and rob the store.
January 25, 2001
Out of this world at San Diego's Mt. Hope Cemetery
A cemetery would be started above Old Town the following year, but it was too far away for people in New Town. Old Town was a Catholic community, and Protestants were streaming into New Town and forming churches.
October 26, 2000