No drive-through in my drivewayThe fast-food vendor that owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell is concocting a new recipe for San Diego's Golden Hill community. Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. proposes to rebuild …
October 8, 2023
Back to profile
Stories by Suzy Hagstrom
Golden Hill nixes Kentucky Fried Chicken
Tom Shaw and heavenly transport on Imperial Avenue
Apostolic Prayer Temple, house of exaltation I came here, to the Apostolic Prayer Temple, a storefront in between a nightclub and a fish market in Encanto, to see the Rev. Tom Shaw in the Gospel …
December 18, 2022
San Diego Door, Street Journal, San Diego Magazine
Notes from Underground Most of the paper's staff lived in the Door commune in a Victorian House on Albatross Street that rented for $295 a month. In late 1973 they were asked to move by …
November 6, 2021
Night on University Ave., Olive St. above Switzer Canyon, Rob Quigley's vision for Little Italy
University Avenue Nocturne “We try to cruise by the hot spots where there has been trouble. Bars or restaurants, businesses, what have you. For example. Shooters bar on 30th Street in North Park has had …
March 20, 2021
Oceanside Museum, Balboa Theater, bright eye of MOPA, scandal of MOCA
Pioneer in Oceanside “In San Diego, the most important piece of architecture is, of course, the Mission San Luis Rey. But I feel strongly that this [the Oceanside museum] is the next most important piece.” …
January 23, 2021
East Village – built around a ballpark
Short-term rentals thrive in East Village Is the demand for housing suitable to fill the thousands of rental units that have sprung up in downtown's East Village since the mid-2000s, and enough to sustain even …
April 27, 2020
Golden Hill – slowly gentrifying
19 townhomes at 32nd and C instead of park The largest undeveloped parcel in Golden Hill, once considered by the Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee as a top choice for a neighborhood park, is now …
February 17, 2020
Encanto – snubbed but proud
On top of this little corner of the world Here on Skyline Drive, great swaths of sward stretch out below, springy and green. Here, there are vacant lots littered with possibility, within sight of a …
May 13, 2019
Forgotten Valor
Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards every one. -- Pete Seeger, 1961 James Francis Walter Ford's death was certain, but his life remained a mystery. After he was accidentally struck and killed …
September 2, 2001
Class Warfare in City Heights
Julee Vaughan remembers the first installation of portable buildings at Central Elementary School during the 1960s, when she was a pupil there. That those temporary classrooms eventually became permanent reminds Vaughan that the San Diego …
January 11, 2001
San Diego Mayor Susan Golding's years of big spending
As of Friday, December 8, an enormous portrait of Susan Golding still loomed over disembarking passengers at Lindbergh Field as they made their way across the pedestrian bridge to the parking lot. The tardy removal …
December 21, 2000
Tide Turns for Shellfish Maverick
Most everyone who hears about Don Gilbert's proposal to replenish San Diego's coastal waters with abalone is captivated by the idea. Even officials for the California Department of Fish and Game and the City of …
December 14, 2000
School for Dinosaurs
If the San Diego Unified School District were graded for bolstering mathematics and reading skills, the district might garner above-average marks. During the past two years, students in San Diego's public schools have significantly improved …
November 16, 2000
Through the Air into Darkness
As San Diego police sergeant Boyd Long stopped on the Coronado bridge to check a stalled car, he immediately noticed something was amiss. The stranded motorist stepped away rather than beckon for assistance. "Then it …
October 12, 2000
A Big Message
On concluding its December 6, 1999, session, San Diego City Council honored a community volunteer, but few people knew Janice Kay Loesel or how she died. Councilman Juan Vargas described her as a tireless member …
October 5, 2000
Never Went to Padres Games
A client once remarked to Margarita Alvarez that all of San Diego's fruit and vegetable vendors would eventually move to the edge of downtown. That prediction, made in the 1970s, surprised Alvarez, the assistant board …
September 7, 2000
Political Brush Country
On renting a home in Southeast San Diego last year, Tim Norris was delighted to live near a canyon. "When we first got here, we explored," Norris said, recalling he and his daughters hiked several …
July 13, 2000
Speed Kills
The birthday card Sonia Wilson gave her son last summer contained an unusually prophetic message. One of the passages read, "Time passes, and your innocent little boy starts to test his limits. He lets go …
June 22, 2000
Balboa Go-Around
When a new cast of characters auditions next week for the Centre City Development Corp., it aims to revive San Diego's longest-running empty stage. The Balboa Theatre, a national historic landmark in downtown San Diego, …
June 1, 2000
Cider House Dreams
For some people, charity begins someplace else -- anywhere but home. As children, Joy Warren and Roberta Arredondo found it at San Diego County's Health and Human Services Agency when their parents could not properly …
May 11, 2000
Alex's Interlocutor
Timing is everything. For self-employed journalist Evan Weiner, it was good. For Chargers football team owner Alex Spanos, it was bad. Their chance encounter and brief conversation in the luxurious Breakers' hotel in Palm Beach, …
April 13, 2000
Chicago Does L.A.
Gil Reza, a Times reporter in Orange County said he is counting on management's assurances. "We've got to believe that. It wouldn't make sense for the Tribune to gut the staff, hurt the quality of the paper.”
April 6, 2000
No Drive-Through in My Driveway
"25th and Broadway is the heart of Golden Hill. Putting a drive-through there changes the character of the neighborhood. It just brings in extra traffic. It encourages people to idle in their cars.”
March 2, 2000
Porno and the Piano Teacher
Jean Winslow, a retired elementary schoolteacher in San Diego, doesn't seem like the sort of person who would be even remotely involved with Internet pornography. Her greatest passion is music. Winslow spends time with her …
February 24, 2000
Lap-Dancing on the Web
Notebooks and pens in hand, the students file into a nondescript meeting room at a Mission Valley hotel. They include retirees, business managers, college-age youths, middle-age men, and tall, thin blondes who look like models. …
February 10, 2000
Web of Confusion
It's all in the eye of the beholder. San Diego public relations representative Vicki Garcia regards her client's plan to perform surgery on the Internet as a "news event -- because it's never been done …
February 3, 2000
In the Doghouse
If animals could talk, they, too, might express opinions about recent changes at the San Diego Humane Society and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which investigates complaints of abuse and serves …
January 20, 2000
How to Lose a Library
When Charles Harrington Elster contemplates the task of building a new library in downtown San Diego, the Greek myth of Sisyphus comes to mind. For his crimes of murder, gossip, and greed, Sisyphus was condemned …
January 6, 2000
Padres and city bureaucrats agree to save East Village landmarks
When La Jolla architect Jeffrey Shorn met with San Diego Gas & Electric Co., officials in downtown's East Village in early 1997 to discuss becoming a consultant, he was impressed by the utility's decades-old offices, …
October 7, 1999
East Village's most toxic dirt being trucked to Adelanto
As a biology student at the University of Colorado, Ken Rowland imagined becoming the next Jacques Cousteau, but a bout of seasickness on the way to Santa Catalina Island moored his career to land. Rowland …
September 9, 1999
George Mitrovich – minister of Padres politics
'Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees." That opening line of a recent newspaper advertisement was a plea to look beyond controversies surrounding the Padres' proposed baseball stadium and maintain "the vision" …
August 19, 1999
San Diego Rescue Mission endorses baseball stadium
Foot-stomping gospel music and earnest testimonials about religious conversion enliven the video, but most people in the audience are slumped in their chairs asleep, nodding off, or staring vacantly. Suddenly, at 6:15 a.m., the screen …
August 5, 1999
Baseball stadium to impact Sherman Heights
Louise Torio doesn't expect to see the glare of stadium spotlights, hear the collective roar of thousands of baseball fans, or sit immobile in downtown traffic for almost three years. Yet she is already worried …
July 22, 1999
Susan Brandt-Hawley takes on Padres baseball stadium
Years ago, when a high school friend talked about wanting to become a lawyer, Susan Brandt-Hawley, an aspiring writer, thought, "How dull." Yet, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from San Diego State University in 1974, …
July 1, 1999
San Diego's most endangered historical sites, 1999
When leaders of the National Trust for Historic Preservation met in San Diego in March, they were heartened by the city’s efforts to revitalize North Pork via the trust’s Main Street Center program. They also …
June 24, 1999
San Diego redevelopers close Barney's at 13th and Market
Kheder "Barney" Attisha gently refuses to sell a customer a pint of vodka. "You can't buy no alcohol. You drink it and sleep in the street," he explains. "I'm so cold. I'm so tired," the …
June 17, 1999
Tom Hom's Farmer's Market condemned by Padres new ballpark
Like many merchants in downtown San Diego's East Village, former city councilman Tom Hom didn't know he was skating on such thin ice by doing business there. Hom thought he might benefit from the construction …
June 3, 1999