Category: Ocean Beach

Originally posted July 9, 2009

by Frank Gormlie

Earlier this week I set out to get to the bottom of this July 4th OB Pier Parking Lot controversy. On Monday, July 6, the Reader ran an on-line article that we supplemented about how 26 RV owners were evicted from the Pier parking lot by police in the early morning hours of July 4th. They were threatened with arrest and having their vehicles impounded. The police wanted the parking lot for their own vehicles. …

by Frank Gormlie

It wasn’t all fun and fireworks in Ocean Beach on July 4th. Christopher Bowd was somehow and somewhere knocked unconscious possibly on Newport Ave after the marshmallow fight and taken to a hospital – where he remains today still unconscious. Bowd’s family and friends are seeking answers and are turning to the rest of OB for help.

Police are currently conducting an investigation and believe Chris was injured at Newport and Bacon around 11pm July 4th.

The Reader reported on Monday, July 5th, that over two dozen RV owners were forced out of the OB Pier parking lot by San Diego Police.

And alot of grumbling was going on. Apparently, many of the RVs had pulled into the parking lot at the end of Newport Avenue in the early hours of the 4th in order to get close, set up their grills and their families. The police arrived at 8 am and forced them all to leave, upon threat of arrest and towing of their vehicles.

Fireworks at the end of the OB Pier are always good for a huge crowd. The beach, the pier, the surrounding blocks, the overlooking hilltops, and the cliffs are packed. It seems like the whole world comes to OB for the fireworks every 4th. And why not? They’re great!

by Larry Kosta, Jr.

When I got to know Dave Gilbert a little better, I asked him what he did. He told me he was a dog walker.

I thought to myself, is that really a job? This isn’t New York City. Do people in San Diego actually pay to have their dogs walked?

Most locals know about the famous OB Marshmallow Fight that happens after the fireworks each July 4th right at the beach. Two great throngs gather and begin pelting each other with the mushy white gobs. This goes on, with each side advancing or retreating until enough people tire and the event melts away like the last fireworks.

Who did start the first OB marshmallow fight?

by Frank Gormlie

Reposted from July 6, 2008

OCEAN BEACH, CA. There are secret caves along the cliffs in Ocean Beach. It just so happens that the stretch of cliffs next to the boulevard of the same name, from Point Loma Boulevard south to Ladera Street, contain an array of beautiful, hidden and fairly inaccessible caves.

Only during real low tides are some of them reachable. But these hidden geological grottoes and cuts in the sandstone cliffs and the beaches and pools inside them are nature’s displays of the wondrous interplay of land and sea that has occurred over time – right here on our front porch.

THE JETTY IS STOPPED

There was definitely turmoil in OB the summer of 1970. For a number of weeks during those hot days, OB residents used a combination of direct action and legal moves to battle efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers and the City to construct a jetty parallel to the southern edge of the San Diego River channel — next to what is now Dog Beach.

Many locals viewed the jetty as a prelude to an attempt by the City and developer interests to create a marina and resort district at Ocean Beach’s waterfront.

Originally posted on January 12, 2008

by Frank Gormlie

Always intrigued about the origin of words and idioms, I found interesting the history of Ocean Beach street names.

It is axiomatic in our world that whoever plans out and develops a community gets to name the streets! And the rest of us then get to live with those street titles. Now, of course, who does plan out and develop a community from scratch? Who was responsible for putting together the sub-divisions that make up what is the present community of Ocean Beach?

Originally posted June 19, 2008

2 ENTREPRENEURS DEVELOPED TOWN IN THE LATE 1800s

By Joe Tash / UNION-TRIBUNE /June 14, 2008
Long before Dog Beach, the People’s Organic Food Market and The Black became Ocean Beach fixtures, Billy Carlson and D.C. Collier put their stamps on this seaside community. The two entrepreneurs are considered co-founders of Ocean Beach for their pioneering roles during the late 1800s and early 1900s, said Pat James, a businessman and president of the Ocean Beach Historical Society.

Diligent researchers at the OB Rag blog have just unearthed an entire batch of foggotten photos from OB’s Street Fair held last weekend.

These photos, by Jeff Stone, cover a variety of subjects. We need assistance however in determining who is in the photos. So if you see someone or some band you know, give us a shout-out.

By Mary E Mann

A young man spins unlit fire chains by himself, in the middle of Collier Park at Soto & Greene. His phone rings, a tinny sound from his pocket. He pauses to answer it, tucks it between his shoulder and his ear, and continues to spin while he talks. The spinning is almost an afterthought, his body dancing slowly, almost like tai chi, but with whizzing metal balls on chains involved.

Slowly a troupe forms, ten people or so, mostly men and mostly young-looking, in their 20’s and 30’s. MORE INSIDE …