Sustainable Communities Toolkit
| WHAT CAN YOU FIND ON A TREASURE HUNT? |
by Barbara Storey
"Treasure" can mean a person or thing considered very valuable, and can mean to cherish or to value greatly. "A Treasure Hunt," a guided bus tour through urban San Diego, will showcase treasure in both senses of the word.
First stop on this League sponsored tour is City Heights, a Mid-City community of 90,000 people, often called the Ellis Island of the West Coast. Perhaps the residents of City Heights are the community’s greatest treasure. These urban pioneers volunteering by the thousands, have removed more than three million pounds of garbage and debris from canyons and alleys, all by hand and sweat of their brow. Volunteers from organizations and businesses have joined residents to stay on top of graffiti removal, and have painted it out by the gallon and in matching colors when possible.
It must be an astonishing sight to anyone when they see block after block of houses getting a finished "FaceLift" on the same day. Sponsored several times a year by a community-based nonprofit group, volunteers from many sectors join them to give as many as 50 homes a bright new coat of paint and a clean yard planted with new, colorful flowers.
Volunteerism isn’t the only treasure to be found in City Heights. Millions of dollars have been invested from HUD, foundations, and nonprofit organizations to create the City Heights Urban Village. Within a two-block radius of its new state-of-the-art library, this unique Village brings together a performance annex, elementary school, severalrecreational facilities, police substation, and space to house Headstart, the Town Council, and a city service center. A new middle-school is located a few blocks to the south. An adult continuing education center and a two-block commercial component are now under construction in the Village.
In Barrio Logan, one can discover a project that contradicts the negative stereotype of affordable housing rentals. Tenants of the Mercado Apartments govern themselves and their "pride of ownership" is self-evident.
The 112-year-old community of Golden Hill with its historic district is a living museum. Here, one can trace the path of San Diego’s early development in residential architecture from the early 1870’s Victorian and early 1900’s Craftsman to post-World I Art Deco and Spanish bungalow. Prior land use decisions and private restoration continue to save more homes in this unreplaceable treasure-trove which includes designs attributed to Will Hebbard, Irving Gill, and William Templeton Johnson, to name a few.
The Sherman Heights Community Center, a modern design by San Diego architect, Rob Quigley, compliments this neighborhood’s historic structures. Juxtaposing the old with the new, Centre City is getting additional new housing units through the restoration and redevelopment of existing Cortez Hill structures like the 1920’s El Cortez Hotel, and the new Heritage Apartments which include affordable units. Architect Jonathan Segal’s Waterfront development in Little Italy will provide loft apartments in this old world neighborhood.
Tour participants can view the hustle and bustle of a restored Gaslamp Quarter’s streets, Prado restoration, and dine in the new Prado Restaurant.
As the tour guide, I urge Leaguers to join us on May 20 for all of the above and more. Come discover treasures which already exist and the treasures which are being created in urban San Diego. See the flyer enclosed in this issue of the Voter for tour information. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.