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48-677: The Gaslamp Quarter is a historic neighborhood in downtown San Diego, California . It extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive and from 4th to 6th Avenue. The neighborhood is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places as the Gaslamp Quarter Historic District . It includes over 90 historic buildings, most of which were constructed in the Victorian era ; many are in use as restaurants, shops, entertainment venues, and nightclubs. The Gaslamp Quarter

96-521: A collection of media since 1950. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy featured aerial shots of the downtown area. Demolition Man was filmed along Harbor Drive near the San Diego Convention Center and America Plaza trolley station. Parts of The Samuel Project were filmed in the Gaslamp district . Other films shot in the downtown neighborhood include Everybody Dies by

144-503: A fixture of the neighborhood until their retirement in 1939. In 1964 the multi-story City Hall and Community Concourse were dedicated on a four-block-square property at 202 C Street. Recent mayors and city councils have discussed building a replacement city hall, but no replacement plan has been approved. In the 1960s, Centre City began to fall into a state of disrepair and disrepute. Major businesses and stores moved from downtown to suburban shopping malls. The downtown area became known as

192-484: A great personal loss. Eventually, the California Southern Railroad (now a part of BNSF Railway ) became the first line to connect the city with the rest of America's rail network in 1885. But land values crashed in the late 1880s, devastating much of Horton's fortune. By the time he died in 1909, he had lost much of his former wealth. Horton went down in history as a tireless, enthusiastic supporter of

240-549: A hangout for homeless people and sailors on liberty. Tattoo parlors, bars, and strip clubs were predominant forms of business. Trash littered the Gaslamp Quarter , many 19th century Victorian houses were rundown, and there were few buildings of significant size (the tallest building at the time was fourteen stories, the locally famous El Cortez ). Despite this, low- and mid-rise buildings were beginning construction. In 1975, redevelopment plans were created for downtown. In 1985,

288-530: A large number of Chinese began to move to San Diego, establishing a concentration; with up to 200 Chinese making up a minority of the 8,600 who lived in all of San Diego. At its peak, about a thousand Chinese lived in San Diego and were faced with discrimination . The concentration became known as Chinatown, and an effort to demolish the area due to the Panama–California Exposition was attempted but

336-412: A lecture about the ports of California, he later recalled his excitement, "I could not sleep at night for thinking about San Diego, and at 2 in the morning, I got up and looked on a map to see where San Diego was, and then went back to bed satisfied. In the morning, I said to my wife, I am going to sell my goods and go to San Diego and build a city." Upon visiting there, he noticed that while the small town

384-620: A newspaper, the San Diego Herald in December 1850, soliciting advertisements and subscriptions from the towns-people; the first issue was published on May 29, 1851. However, New Town did not do well due to a lack of fresh water, a financial depression in 1851, and opposition from the established settlements in Old Town and La Playa . In 1852, a San Diego grand jury called for the removal of several Kumeyaay villages close to any White settlement and

432-484: A significant concentration of Chinese Americans in the former neighborhood. Located in central San Diego, downtown San Diego is delimited by San Diego Bay to the west and southwest, Bankers Hill , Middletown , and Balboa Park to the north, Sherman Heights and Golden Hill to the east, and Barrio Logan and Logan Heights to the southeast. San Diego International Airport is just northwest. Due to San Diego International Airport 's proximity to downtown, there

480-879: A venue for live performances and concerts. Both the Spreckels and the Balboa theaters are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Other downtown theaters include the Lyceum in Horton Plaza , which hosts the San Diego Repertory Theatre as well as concerts and art shows, and the Sledgehammer Theater. Nightclubs such as the House of Blues and Croce's feature well-known musical groups. The Museum of Contemporary Art, also located in downtown San Diego, has displayed work across

528-814: A year call at the cruise ship terminal. A passenger ferry connects downtown San Diego with Coronado , and San Diego Bay harbor tours depart from Harbor Drive. Downtown events include the Big Bay Balloon Parade, held in conjunction with the Holiday Bowl ; the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade and Festival; the Parade of Lights featuring holiday-decorated boats on the Bay; and the San Diego Street Scene music festival. Every mid to late July, downtown San Diego

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576-449: Is a FAA imposed 500-foot height restriction on all buildings within a 2.3-mile radius of the runway. The height regulation exists because when planes approach the airport, any structure taller than 500 feet within the radius could interfere with flight operations and potentially result in a collision. The United States Postal Service operates the downtown San Diego Post Office at 815 E Street. The city's former main public library

624-472: Is a historic urban cultural park that borders the area. San Diego International Airport is located three miles (4.8 km; 2.6 nmi) northwest of downtown. The downtown of San Diego was previously inhabited by the Kumeyaay who referred to the area as Tisirr, and also established a village called Pu-Shuyi near what is now Seaport Village. The city of San Diego was originally focused on Old Town near

672-454: Is also parking available at the County operation center (located between Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway, just north of Ash), as well as Seaport Village . 32°43′14″N 117°9′16″W  /  32.72056°N 117.15444°W  / 32.72056; -117.15444 Alonzo Horton Alonzo Eratus Horton (October 24, 1813 – January 7, 1909) was an American real estate developer in

720-525: Is called to this day) as the heart of the growing city. In 1885, the transcontinental railroad reached San Diego. The Santa Fe railway station opened downtown in 1887 (that station was replaced in 1915 by the downtown landmark Santa Fe Depot , which is still in use). In 1886 the city's first electric lights and first streetcars were established in New Town. In 1912 the Spreckels Theatre opened downtown,

768-793: Is home of the San Diego Convention Center , the city's primary convention center. It is also home of the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Opera , as well as several performing arts venues, such as Jacobs Music Center , the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park , and the San Diego Civic Theatre . Downtown San Diego is located on San Diego Bay , which houses the USS Midway Museum and the Maritime Museum of San Diego . Balboa Park

816-635: Is known for its nightlife . It is the site of various events and festivals, including Mardi Gras in the Gaslamp, Taste of Gaslamp, and ShamROCK, a St. Patrick's Day event. Petco Park , home of the San Diego Padres , is one block away in the East Village neighborhood. In the 1860s, the area was known as New Town, in contrast to Old Town , the original Spanish colonial settlement of San Diego. Intensive development began in 1867, when Alonzo Horton bought

864-600: Is known to have married at least thrice, but relatives claimed he married about five times. In 1862 Horton returned to California, this time to San Francisco, where he opened a furniture and household goods store at 6th and Market streets. While there he heard about growing settlement and interest in a small town called San Diego, located in far southern California, just north of the Mexico–United States border . It had become heavily acclaimed for its dry, warm, healthy climate, very welcome to many cold-weary Easterners. After

912-684: Is located across the street from it at 8th and E streets, but currently is vacant. A new nine-story Central Library opened in 2013 on Park Boulevard at J Street. Other government buildings downtown include City Hall and other city administration buildings, the San Diego Police Headquarters at 14th and Broadway, the State of California office building at 1350 Front Street, and a three-block federal office complex at 8th and Front streets. County and federal courthouses are also located downtown. The downtown area contains numerous sites that are listed on

960-401: Is now "Downtown Hortonville". The price per acre at that time was only $ .70. But before he could file he had to take an oath that he had seen and inspected the land and that no other settler resided on the land. To do so meant travelling by foot to inspect the land which was almost all dense woods with no trails. Then he had to go back to Green Bay by foot to file and return again. No easy task as

1008-454: Is served by San Diego Unified School District . Washington Elementary School is located in the downtown area. San Diego High School and San Diego City College are located in the northeastern corner of downtown adjacent to Balboa Park. Middle school students from downtown attend Roosevelt Middle School in the Balboa Park area. The charter high school e3 Civic High School is located inside

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1056-717: Is served by the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System , the San Diego Trolley . There is also a commuter train linking downtown with northern San Diego County, called the Coaster , which also stops at communities along the San Diego County coastline, as well as the Amtrak passenger rail system. Parking is mainly concentrated in various "pay to park" lots, with metered parking spaces alongside most streets. There

1104-619: Is that even numbered streets go south, and odd numbered streets go north. East–west streets are laid out alphabetically from A to K, with the exception of D, H and I, which are replaced with Broadway, Market Street and Island Avenue, respectively. Streets north of A Street are named after trees, starting with Ash Street and going up to Laurel Street. Main thoroughfares include Broadway and Market Street (east–west), and Harbor Drive, Pacific Highway and Park Avenue (north–south). Three freeways either pass through or start/end in downtown San Diego. State Route 163 (SR 163) ends in downtown with

1152-534: Is transformed for San Diego Comic-Con , the largest entertainment and comic book convention in the world. San Diego Comic-Con is held inside the San Diego Convention Center , but the convention has expanded to other nearby hotels, parks, and plazas which include the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel , Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina , Hilton San Diego Bayfront , Omni San Diego Hotel and the Gaslamp Quarter as major supporting venues. The downtown area

1200-672: The National Register of Historic Places . They include: The San Diego Civic Theatre in the Community Concourse is the home of the San Diego Opera as well as traveling shows. The San Diego Symphony is headquartered at Jacobs Music Center , a renovated movie palace on 7th Avenue originally built in 1929 as the Fox Theater. The Spreckels Theater at 1st and Broadway, in continuous operation since 1912, hosts local and traveling performances and productions. The Balboa Theatre , built in 1924, re-opened in 2008 after extensive renovations as

1248-459: The Presidio , several miles north of current downtown. The location was not ideal because it was several miles from navigable water. In 1849 Lt. Andrew B. Gray , a surveyor working with the boundary commission to establish the boundaries of the new state of California, suggested that an area closer to San Diego Bay would be a better location for a city because it would be better for trade. He proposed

1296-688: The $ 1. By coincidence, the two met again years later in Wisconsin, and the purchaser remembered the incident. He told a large group of citizens in Wisconsin. "I would trust Horton with everything I have in the world." In 1847, after the American success in the Mexican–American War , Horton traveled to St. Louis, Missouri , then the gateway to the Western frontier, and by purchasing land warrants from veterans of that war, gained 1,500 acres (6 km ) of land in

1344-642: The End , Friend of the World , Hacksaw , In God We Tru$ t , My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? and Scavenger Hunt . The Columbia (waterfront) neighborhood of downtown hosts the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum ship , as well as the eight ships and boats of the Maritime Museum of San Diego , headlined by Star of India . The San Diego Convention Center and Petco Park are located downtown, as well as Seaport Village . More than 200 cruise ships

1392-606: The Mother Lode. However, he became a success yet again not so much through gold, but through trading ice in the mining towns. In 1857, he returned to Wisconsin via Panama . During an Indian attack, he lost a bag of gold dust worth $ 10,000, but kept the money he had made trading ice. During the late 1850s and early 1860s, Horton spent some time in the East, even marrying his second wife, a prominent New Jersey woman. Horton's first wife, whom he met in Wisconsin, had died of consumption. Horton

1440-469: The Texas Pacific Railroad into San Diego, the progress of the city froze. Many of the workers in the city had paid Horton a large down payment on their property of 1/3rd the value, and offered to surrender the sum along with the property if Horton would only release them from the contract. Instead, Horton is said to have canceled the contract of anyone who asked, and returned all the money paid, at

1488-552: The Whig ticket. But having developed a cough, and with his family and friends fearing tuberculosis, he was advised to move to the West. At that time, the Western frontier was Wisconsin , and in 1836 he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin . A story was told that when Alonzo was eight years old and still living in New York he sold a pig for $ 1. By mistake, the man gave him $ 2. The next day Horton returned

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1536-482: The area continued on until World War II. Beginning in the early 1900s, Filipinos began to move to San Diego, and settled in and near Chinatown. In 1995, the Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District was created to preserve the remaining structures that remained from the era when Chinatown, as well as Nihonmachi (Japantown), existed. While a few of the buildings remain, there no longer exist

1584-507: The area underwent more redevelopment with the completion of Horton Plaza , the Gaslamp Quarter revival, and the completion of the San Diego Convention Center . Petco Park , a ballpark used by the San Diego Padres , opened in 2004. In the 1860s, the first Chinese people moved to the downtown area. In the 1870s, the Chinese were the primary fishermen in the area. Beginning in the 1880s,

1632-689: The downtown library . Monarch School , a public K-12 school for students who are homeless or affected by homelessness , is also located downtown. A few private or religious schools exist in the area. California Western School of Law is located downtown. Streets are laid out in a grid pattern and many are designated for one-way traffic. North–south roads have both names and numbers. The named roads begin with Harbor Drive and then move east past Pacific Highway, Kettner Boulevard, India, Columbia, State, Union and Front streets. The roads are then numbered and are called avenues, starting at 1st Avenue and continuing to Park Boulevard (12th Avenue). The general pattern

1680-411: The end of Fifth Avenue in 1869. He vigorously sold property and gave away land to promote development of the area, fueling the first of San Diego's many real estate speculation booms. People flocked to the area, known as New Town, because of its better access to shipping. In 1871 government records were moved to a new county courthouse in New Town. By the 1880s New Town had totally eclipsed Old Town (as it

1728-575: The first modern commercial playhouse west of the Mississippi. A new commercial pier, the Broadway Pier , was built by the city in 1913. In the 1910s, downtown became one of the many San Diego neighborhoods connected by the Class 1 streetcars and an extensive San Diego public transit system that was spurred by the Panama–California Exposition of 1915 and built by John D. Spreckels . These streetcars became

1776-406: The heart of the growing city. Local land exploded in price throughout the 1880s, making Horton a success yet again. Horton helped to establish San Diego's Chamber of Commerce in an effort to further expand the developing city. In 1867, Horton was the first person to ask for a public city park to be developed, which later became Balboa Park . When the U.S. Congress withdrew its proposed aid to bring

1824-407: The idea to William Heath Davis , who recruited four other investors. The partners under Davis's leadership purchased 160 acres (65 ha) of land in what is now downtown San Diego. They laid out a street plan for New Town and built a wharf and warehouse. Several people built houses there, including the still-standing William Heath Davis House, now a museum. John Judson Ames wrote a prospectus for

1872-419: The interests of whatever locality he happened to be living in. Saying after moving to Wisconsin and founding the village of "Hortonville" as one of its first settlers in 1848, "My principle is to be as happy as I can every day, to try and make everyone else as happy as I can, and to try to make no one unhappy." Today, the village of Hortonville, Wisconsin honors its founder with "Alonzo Park", one of three parks in

1920-452: The land in hopes of creating a new city center closer to the bay, and chose 5th Avenue as its main street. After a period of urban decay , the neighborhood underwent urban renewal in the 1980s and 1990s. It was rebranded the "Gaslamp Quarter" during the redevelopment and preservation efforts that occurred during the 1980s, though the streets were generally lit by arc lights , not gaslamps . Downtown San Diego The downtown area

1968-565: The nineteenth century. Horton was born 1813 in Union, Connecticut , the scion of an old New England family, and grew up in Onondaga County, New York . By his 20s he had developed a keen entrepreneurial spirit, and in 1834, when he was 21, he began transporting grain by boat from the Lake Ontario port of Oswego, New York , to Canada. He also taught school there, and in 1834 ran for constable on

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2016-531: The rural wilderness of northern Wisconsin. In 1848 he filed the first warrant for what would become the village of Hortonville, Wisconsin , in Outagamie County near Appleton, Wisconsin . Today, Hortonville is a village with a 2010 population of over 2,700. In 1848 Horton filed his first Warrant in Green Bay, the County seat for Brown County which the area was a part of at that time, for 160 acres of land which

2064-580: The small town. He also had an effect on San Diego's political scene; when he moved there in late 1860s, most locals, many of whom had migrated from the South or the border states, had supported the South during the Civil War and were Copperheads , or Democratic sympathizers of the Confederacy in an officially Union state. Upon being told that San Diego was a "Copperhead hole", Horton remarked, "Then I shall make it

2112-482: The southbound lane of the freeway becoming 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue becoming the northbound lane at Ash Street. Interstate 5 (I-5) passes above the downtown area and is accessible from selected streets outside of the actual downtown area or at the intersection of 10th/11th and Ash (where 163 starts and ends). Additionally, SR 94 enters downtown from the east, with westbound SR 94 becoming F Street and G street becoming eastbound SR 94. The downtown area

2160-409: The trip was around 40 miles and the area has many streams and rivers that he needed to cross along the way. After this he became a success at trading land, establishing businesses and cattle. In 1851, with his town a success, Horton decided to join many in seeking his fortune in the gold fields of California. He sold his interests for $ 7,000, and traveled to El Dorado County, California , the heart of

2208-461: The village of Tisirr was razed to the ground. In 1867, Alonzo Horton purchased 800 acres (320 ha) of pueblo lands in the current downtown area, and in 1869 he added Davis's 160 acres (65 ha) to his holdings; the area was referred to as the Horton Addition. Davis's wharf had fallen to pieces by then, but Horton realized the area was still ideal for a harbor. He built a new wharf at

2256-648: Was built around the old Spanish presidio (fortress) well inland near the mouth of the San Diego River, no large settlements had been made along the large San Diego Bay just a few miles south, even though all ships sailing to the town docked in the bay. In 1867, Horton sold off his merchandise in San Francisco and journeyed to San Diego. There he bought 960 acres (3.9 km ) of land on San Diego Bay for just 27½ cents an acre ($ 67.95/km ), which became known as "Horton's Addition." Earlier pioneer William Heath Davis

2304-442: Was the original founder of San Diego's "New Town", about 12 years before Horton appeared on the scene. "New Town" did not flourish because of lack of freshwater. "Horton's Addition" adjoined the already existing Davis "New Town" subdivision. New businesses began to flood into the "Horton's Addition" due to the promise of a rail connection from the harbor to the east. Eventually, the new addition began to eclipse Old Town in importance as

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