Photo Essay: The View from Above Balboa Park's Former Expo Grounds

I think most of the towers I've ever climbed have been lighthouses, clock towers, or cathedrals. Sure, I've visited observation decks on skyscrapers like LA's City Hall, the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, Windows on the World, and Baltimore's World Trade Center, but I don't recall ever having climbed a tower that was just...a tower.

I've stood at the bottom of Coit Tower in San Francisco, the Old Baltimore Shot Tower, Seattle's Space Needle, Toronto's CN Tower, Hollywood's High Tower, and Bowman's Hill Tower in New Hope, Pennsylvania, but for whatever reasons of time, place, or money, I haven't gone up in any one of them.

Of course, the ultimate tower for climbing would be the Space Age, blinking towers of the New York State Pavilion and Tent of Tomorrow from the 1964/65 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens.



So last year when I heard that the California Tower from the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-17 was reopening to visitors after being closed for 80 years, I thought, Eureka!



I'm ashamed to say that although I'd been to Balboa Park twice before, I had never heard of the Panama-California Expo and had no clue that Balboa Park shares a similar origin story with Flushing Meadows. Both were planned with the event in mind. Both events were similarly focused on the theme of progress: "To Show What Will Be by What Has Been" and "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe," respectively. And finally, for each event, structures were built that were meant to be temporary and subsequently torn down.



And this is where their stories diverge, because Balboa Park became more popular than ever, the crown jewel of San Diego. The Expo's architecture (primarily Spanish Colonial) was so beloved that the temporary structures (like the Casa de Balboa and Casa del Prado, made cheaply out of chicken wire and other flimsy materials) were reinforced and kept, rather than being torn down—which is what happened in Queens. A century and two more expos later, Balboa Park still thrives, while Flushing Meadows has largely been abandoned and forgotten in just 50 years since the fair.



San Diego originally wanted to host a World's Fair—but when the city was deemed "too small" for such a large, international public exhibition, they decided to put on an official one, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, first used in late 1914. The resulting Panama-California Exposition gave rise to the baroque California Building and the California Tower. Always intended to be a permanent fixture of Balboa Park even after the expo was over, it became a centerpiece of the expo, and it's now a centerpiece of the park.



From its somewhat neo-Gothic facade (designed by architect Bertram Goodhue, of LA's Central Library fame), ornamented with statuary and gargoyle-like faces (all made out of concrete poured into molds), it looks like a church—but it's actually a non-denominational "hall of fame" of prominent historical figures like Serra, Cabrillo, Portola, and two kings of Spain. In fact, it's never served as a church—although it did briefly serve as a hospital for the Navy and double as Xanadu in Citizen Kane.



No, this place doesn't focus on heavenly creatures, but rather on the study of earthly humans and their societies, in its current iteration as the San Diego Museum of Man. Its permanent collection includes mummified human remains.



But from that 180-foot tower (198 feet above the ground), I wanted to see the California Building's 60-foot dome, which is inscribed with the biblical phrase Terram Frumenti Hordei, ac Vinarum, in qua Ficus et Malogranata et Oliveta Nascuntur, Terram Olei ac Mellis ("A land of wheat and barley and vines…a land of live trees and honey").



I wanted to see the rest of Balboa Park—and beyond—from that tower.



And so, I climbed 125 narrow and sometimes harrowing steps to concrete block observation deck on the seventh floor, which is as far as visitors can go these days (since the upper two floors are not currently up to code).



Up there, past the dome, you can get a good view of the Old Globe (built for The 1935-36 California Pacific International Exposition—but more on that later).



The dome's tiled design was inspired by the Church of Santa Prisca y San Sebastian in Taxco—a distinctly Mexican dash of color on an otherwise gray edifice. The tiles were fired locally by California China Products Company, based in nearby National City.



The tower feels like a belfry, but actually no music ever came from it until 1947. Now, it's got a 100-bell carillon operated by a keyboard located on one of the lower levels of the tower. Speakers mounted up at the top of the tower broadcast Westminster chimes every quarter hour and a series of instrumental songs every day at noon. (The carilloneur even takes requests.)



The California Building and Tower were originally part of the California Quadrangle (Plaza de California) of the Expo, along with Evernham Hall and St. Francis Chapel of the Fine Arts Building across the street (and now taken over by the museum).



They provided a grand entrance to the Expo for pedestrians crossing the Cabrillo Bridge, a concrete and redwood walkway specifically built for it.



The Cabrillo Bridge was the first multiple-arched cantilevered bridge of its kind in California. Now open to cars as "El Prado," it provides one of several entrances to Balboa Park. Having survived three fires (one arson in 2004), it's been designated a civil engineering landmark.



While it once traversed a creek (which park officials dubbed a "lagoon"), San Diego just didn't have enough water to keep it going.

circa 2018

And now, Cabrillo Bridge crosses over the Cabrillo Freeway (SR-163), built on the floor of Cabrillo Canyon and completed in 1948.


Circa 1915 (Image courtesy of The Commitee of One Hundred)

At some point, I've got to go back to explore the grounds of the Great Depression-era California Pacific International Exposition of 1935-6, so stay tuned for more dispatches from Balboa Park and San Diego.

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Photo Essay: Exploring the Navy's Explosive Island Across the Santa Barbara Channel

I'm a completionist. So of course I've been tracking how many of California's Channel Islands I've been to—and how many I can eventually get to. 

I've already been to Catalina, Santa Rosa, Anacapa, Santa Cruz, and San Nicolas. (Santa Barbara is closed until they can fix the anchorage, and San Clemente is off-limits as a Navy station.)

And as of last weekend, I've crossed yet another off my list: San Miguel. 

Photo Essay: Cabrillo Beach & A Crumbling Concrete Bunker

I love a good pile of rubble.



Over by the Sunken City slide area in San Pedro, it's not surprising to find plenty of stuff that has crumbled down to the beach.



Even the houses that are still up there look as though they're going to come tumbling down any minute.



When walking the Cabrillo Coastal Park trail along Outer Cabrillo Beach towards the tide pools, though, you come across a pile of broken concrete that doesn't look like it's from a house up above.



The large chunks of concrete don't look like they washed ashore from the ocean tide, either.



As you explore the ruins, the palm trees by the marina in the distance...



...you realize this looks distinctly military in nature.



Although big pieces of it have clearly toppled over, there are plenty of sections that still stand, embedded in the bottom of the bluff...



...while other pieces which still stand have separated from the earth, a trail eroded behind it, now free-standing...



...ravaged by graffiti.



Although there are some tags on the front...




...the standing concrete slab has clearly been painted over many times...



...presumably to try to cover up repeated vandalism in the past.



It turns out that these concrete slabs are what remains of a military bunker which the U.S. Army Coast Artillery planned to use in its defense during World War II. They comprise one of five bunkers that were built in 1916, from which floating mines placed out into LA Harbor would be remotely detonated.



The mines never actually went out into the habor, and so the bunkers were built, but never used. They've taken a beating by the ocean waves that come in at high tide, which accounts for the rubble.



What we couldn't figure out was how vandals got past the fixed, rusty grill (which appears to have been there a while) and into the bunker to completely cover its inside walls with graffiti (which looks relatively recent).



It's not surprising, though, to find some military relics in this area, given its proximity to Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, Point Vicente on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and Point Fermin.



Now, of course, Point Fermin is known for its historic lighthouse (which served as a lookout tower for the Navy in WWII) but also for its biodiversity...


...amidst the other-worldly landscape...



...that surrounds the tide pools in the Point Fermin State Marine Park.



At low tide, you can do some rock-hopping to get to small pools...



...where marine life collects in the seawater that becomes trapped in the depressions in the rocks after the tide goes out.



You can find hermit crabs and sea anemones and even maybe a starfish or an urchin...



...and you can poke them gently...



...but you can't collect them as souvenirs.

Instead, watch the sunset and the tide come in, watch your step on the way back out, and beware of debris that may fall from above.

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The Seussian Mysteries of Mountain Munchkins and Bridges for Trolls

I'd gone to Mount Soledad in 2008 on my first trip to San Diego, but it was more or less by chance.



I'd read that there was a mountain with a view of the ocean and a cross on top of it, so I suggested we go check it out.



I didn't know then that Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) had called this mountain home...



...or that the mountain's lore was nearly as mythical and magical as the fantastical creations in the Seuss canon.



First, there are the Munchkins (as in, The Wizard of Oz). They never lived or even stayed on Mount Soledad, despite rumors to the contrary—but the myth was perpetuated because some of the houses that were built on the steep incline looked rather miniature.



And then there's the mini version of the Cabrillo Bridge, which famously brought visitors into the west entrance of Balboa Park for the 1915-16 Panama–California Exposition. The petite doppelgänger at Al Bahr Drive (Arabic for "By the Sea") followed in 1928.



its resemblance to the landmark of the Expo grounds—10 miles southeast as the crow flies—was no coincidence. The mini one was commissioned by San Diego transplant (by way of Indianapolis) William French Ludington, who'd purchased a large plot of very steep land on the slope of Mt. Soledad—considered "worthless" by many. "W.F." Ludington had been an early merchant in the prominent subdivision of La Jolla, moved to San Diego in 1904, and later became a director of the 1915-16 Panama Exposition.



In that role, he helped create the Cabrillo Bridge (Puente Cabrillo) as a way to traverse an unforgiving landscape. Likewise on Mount Soledad, he relied once again on those classical arches so that automobiles could access his new Ludington Heights development and snap up its ocean-view lots.



But one bridge proved to be not enough, so he built a second at Castellana Road—with a deck that connects to the dead-end Puente Drive (Spanish for "Bridge Drive") and a winding road that double-backs along a hairpin turn to send you under where you originally came from.

This one is even smaller, and it's obscured by lush landscaping that darkens its tunnels—which has earned it the nickname of the "Troll Bridge" (though that moniker has come to refer to both bridges on Mount Soledad).



The dense plantings were the work of past neighborhood resident Delbert C. "Del" Colby and his wife Lois, who used to live by the bridge at 1775 Castellana Road. Colby was a landscaper who owned Rancho Santa Fe Nursery (closed December 1992), and he used many of his own specimens to plant the triangular parcel. It's now designated Colby Park in his honor.



The construction date of this continuous concrete beam bridge presents another mystery of Mount Soledad, as conflicting reports have it as circa the 1930s, 1949, and 1950. CalTrans has no date at all for it in its Statewide Historic Bridge Inventory.

But considering the fact that Ludington himself died of a heart attack in 1928, it seems pretty clear that both bridges were built that same year—before the stock market crash of 1929 rendered much of his property worthless, at least for the duration of the Great Depression.

It appears that a resurgence of development came to Ludington Heights in 1947—but at that point, I'm pretty sure the bridges were already there.

And of course La Jolla as a whole, as well as Mount Soledad and Ludington Heights, are quite posh now.

Yet despite the popularity of the area, these two bridges remain curiosities, hidden from view for most.

Related Posts:
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