Category: Culture

By Anne Haule / San Diego Free Press

On Mother’s Day, a group of about 30 women (and a couple men), some of the women mothers and some not, gathered at the Lyceum Theater to celebrate with champagne and listen to a panel of experts discuss “The (True) History of Feminism in San Diego”.

The panel, assembled by the Women’s Museum of California, preceded a viewing of “Rapture, Blister, Burn”, a contemporary Pulitzer-nominated play by Gina Gionfriddo – a funny and poignant feminist play running for another week that I highly recommend.

The panel, consisting of a politician, a research psychologist, both a professor and a masters student in women’s studies was moderated by Ashley Gardner, the Executive Director of the Women’s Museum.

First up was former United States Congresswoman, Lynn Schenk.

JL: This article was originally published in the 1969 print edition of the San Diego Free Press. It follows on to our 4 part series on affordable housing in San Diego. So what else is new? Nothing except the price of real estate. [Items in parentheses are my updated comments.]

Rent Going Up? Planning to Move? Welcome to the Street

By John Lawrence

The housing situation in San Diego, especially for people with low incomes, bears all the earmarks of a terminal illness. The condition is grave and seems destined to get worse. The City will tell you that 1968 was a year in which San Diego experienced a record boom in housing construction, but their figures are completely misleading.

It is true that there were 12,525 units of housing begun in 1968, as compared with 6,100 units in 1967, and that while city building doubled, rural building was up 47% in 1968 over the previous year.

This is the latest of our occasional reports on the comings and goings of businesses on Newport Avenue – the main street of Ocean Beach, plus any new developments that have occurred recently. This is what we found on Monday, May 9th:

Renovations at the Sunshine Company

New exterior and changes inside the Sunshine Company may surprise locals who haven’t been there in a while. Part of the exterior wall in the front has been removed to move the establishment into the new way of drinking – visible and right off the public sidewalk. Upstairs, there is now more light and visibility.

Inside, the long counter and a series of tales has been taken out and replaced with cushioned seating along the wall and round tables in the middle.

We have to ask: Was the Chinese Flame Tree on Voltaire needlessly cut down on May 3rd by the City?

At the time of the cutting, locals who inquired of the crews doing the work were told that the tree was causing cracks in the sidewalk and needed to be removed.

This particular tree was 17 years old and had been planted along with other Chinese Flames, as well as other types of trees, along Voltaire as part of a project sponsored by then-Councilman Byron Wear.

The problem with the explanation is that there are numerous trees along that block of Voltaire that have apparently caused similar cracks in the asphalt or concrete, or that exhibit lifts to the sidewalk, or that have patch jobs around them.

“Soft Opening” on Friday the 13th

The owner of the OB Noodle House is opening a brand new restaurant and bar in the former Gallagher’s on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach.

In an exclusive interview with the OB Rag, Steve Yeng stated that he has taken over the former Irish pub and is opening a new restaurant that will have “American food and Asian Street food”. Food, he said that didn’t need refrigeration.

Yeng wouldn’t give out the name of the new place – “it’s a secret”, he said, but he did say that the new restaurant – his family’s third within OB – will have some kind of OB historical theme – “honoring OB’s history,” he said.

Here are the final results of AWOL & Hodad’s 1st Annual Ocean Beach Pier Surf Classic

Final Results

Grom Boys Final:
1st: Evan Gallen
2nd:Ben Murphy
3rd: Ethan Haughey
4th: Shane Neiner

Grom Girls Final:
1st: Summer nelson
2nd: Aurora Jackels
3rd: Hanna Dunfee

Jr Boys Final:
1st: Steve Musutts
2nd: Jack Gallen
3rd: Lucas Minori
4th: Riley Morgan
5th: Cole Brucher
6th: Thor Willin

By Jim Miller

This easy life knows no pity.

Recently Nelson D. Schwartz of the New York Times did an interesting feature on luxury tourism on cruise ships, “In an Era of Privilege, Not Everyone is in the Same Boat,” that described the experience of travelers as “a money based caste system” catering to the rich rather than the unwashed masses.

While there is clearly nothing novel about elite travel, the story noted that “What is new is just how far big American companies are now willing to go to pamper the biggest spenders.”

By Sloanranger

Well here it is, wild and wooly. We thought it was already crazy — obstructional, destructional — dysfunctional to the ‘nth degree. Tea parties, three parties — and the mob finally playing their Trump card. But no trustbusters, not yet – maybe because the trust of the people had long gone, anyway.

Nuclear options, up and down votes, heck, just stop everything. And inside the beltway, the people’s business — or rather lack of it, went on as usual. Our representatives listening only to lobbyists and extremists, corporate paid pundits and media, not much was said about us…to us or for us.

The talking heads blathering on, like nothing’s going on – at first. And then — quelle surprise! Look everyone, at what’s going down… and I do mean down.

* Healthy Chinese Flame Tree Cut Down by City on Voltaire

* Newport Avenue to Be Repaved in June
* Roundabout Being Considered by City at West Pt Loma and Bacon
* Many Former Hippies Turn Out for Frank Gormlie’s Talk on “Hippies in OB”
* OB Tenants United Meeting
* Now OB Residents Can Order Their Booze Thru Delivery Service
* Update on Police Cameras – Signage Finalized, Still Month Away From Placement
* Oldest in the Country: the OB Kite Festival – May 14th
* OB Fire House to Have Major Rehab
* OB Library Expansion Could Be Caught in Catch-22 as City Insists on New Design Assessment
* City Budget Includes Gains for OB
Lifeguard Rescues for March

OB Planning Board Presented with Final Version of Plan, New City Planner

“This Changes Fundamental Things … About Surfing”

Kelly Slater is an 11-time world champion surfer, but he’s done something else no one else has – and that is to make great artificial waves in the middle of farmland. He posted a video of him riding waves from the machine and within a week, it had 9 million hits. Up to then, he’d been keeping his project a secret.

The LA Times sent a reporter out to find him and filed a report:

Yup, dear ones, it is time to get your photos to the annual “OB EXPOSED” – an event sponsored by the Ocean Beach Historical Society – to be held this year on Friday night, May 20th.

Photos are due no later than Thursday, May 19th at the OB Business Center at 4876 Santa Monica Avenue no later than 5pm.

By Jeeni Criscenzo / San Diego Free Press

It doesn’t take the recently released Point in Time Count report to know that the number of unsheltered people in downtown San Diego is exploding.

Seeing every vacant lot encircled with blue tent and tarp encampments propped against chain-link fencing has ceased to evoke alarm. It’s now the norm.

The fact that we have become so accustomed to seeing human beings huddled in these makeshift shelters is a pathetic indictment of our city’s dismal failure to solve our housing problem.