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Central San Diego

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Like most regions, Central San Diego has its lower-income neighborhoods. But this area is much more likely than most to have redeveloped or “currently in redevelopment” districts—it’s part of a regional rebirth that began a decade or two ago.

A repository of historic structures, Central San Diego is also chock-full of venues for arts, culture, entertainment, shopping, and fine dining.

Central San Diego’s neighborhoods include:

Balboa Park/Downtown
Barrio Logan
Core/Columbia
Cortez Hill
East Village
Gaslamp Quarter
Golden Hill
Horton Plaza
Little Italy
Logan Heights
Marina

View healthcare facilities in Central San Diego

Balboa Park/Downtown
An army of cultural facilities stands guard over history and the arts in Balboa Park. San Diego set aside the acreage in 1868 for a nature park, later renaming it after Pacific Ocean discoverer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. Now the park is home to much more than birds and bees and flowers and trees.

Balboa Park’s museums and cultural institutions include San Diego’s Natural History Museum, Automotive Museum, Museum of Man, Model Railroad Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Children’s Museum, and the open-air Starlight Bowl. In addition, Balboa Park offers the San Diego Museum of Art, the San Diego Art Institute, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, and the Mengei Museum of Folk Art. The area also boasts the open-range San Diego Zoo, one of the world’s largest menageries.

Balboa Park is just one of Downtown’s neighborhoods, where renovated 1920s architecture blends with sleek skyscrapers. But the city’s heart for business, shopping, dining, and entertainment wasn’t always so glamorous. Downtown was marked by either seedy and dilapidated structures or worker-drone buildings—until the advent of the Horton Plaza shopping venue in the 1980s. Upscale hotels, luxury condominiums, modern townhouses, fine restaurants, and hot nightspots soon followed. As a result, downtown’s coming-of-age story has been one of redevelopment success.

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Barrio Logan
Admittedly lacking in affluence, the often-disparaged Barrio Logan nonetheless has appealing elements. Its identity as a Chicano neighborhood began in the early 20th century, when Mexicans fled the unrest in their native country. Barrio Logan provided low-cost housing for Mexican Americans employed in the fishing, lumber, shipbuilding, and railroad industries.

Once part of Logan Heights, Barrio Logan was sliced off with the 1964 construction of Interstate 5. In the 1970s, residents joined hands around a city bulldozing project, demanding respect for their neglected community and insisting the construction site be turned into a park. Locals celebrate the resultant Chicano Park with an annual festival—a tribute to the power of community determination. That same initiative fuels “Christmas in April,” a charity project that rehabilitates local houses.

About three-quarters of Barrio Logan’s population is Hispanic, with Caucasians and African Americans as the second- and third-place minorities. Despite common perception, crime isn’t any worse here than in other San Diego neighborhoods.

Tucked into Central San Diego’s southwestern corner, Barrio Logan is bounded by San Diego Bay, Commercial Street, and Interstate 5.

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Core/Columbia
Chiefly commercial, the Core and Columbia neighborhoods mind their own businesses. Core includes such government and arts facilities as City Hall and Copley Symphony Hall. Construction plans aim to multiply the limited housing opportunities available in both neighborhoods.

The Core neighborhood extends from A Street to Broadway, and from Union to 12th Avenue. The Columbia neighborhood contains Broadway, Downtown’s ceremonial “Main Street.”

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Cortez Hill
The elegant El Cortez Hotel inspired the name of this distinguished neighborhood, which emerged in the 1920s as a synthesis of residential life and fashionable entertainment. Empty for two decades, the namesake hotel reopened its doors in 2000 as 1920s-style luxury apartments.

Condos, apartments, and Victorian homes dot the hill—the highest elevation in the city’s core—and look down upon Balboa Park, San Diego Bay, and the rest of Downtown.

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East Village
As San Diego’s warehouse district for about a century, East Village ultimately evolved into an artists’ colony. Now, artists have their studios, shops, and galleries here, and live in warehouses-turned-lofts. The former Carnation Dairy processing plan, rechristened the ReinCarnation Project, houses the Sushi Performance & Visual Art facility as well as the Debra Owen Gallery.

But the best in this neighborhood’s metamorphosis is yet to come. Scheduled to open here in 2004 is the new San Diego Padres Ballpark, the impetus behind a tsunami in accompanying residential (condos and apartments) and commercial development.

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Gaslamp Quarter
History books judge the commercial background of this national historic district as being not particularly honorable. But it is darn interesting. Wyatt Earp ran several gambling parlors here in the late 1800s, while saloons, opium dens, and brothels indulged the city’s wild side. Scores of surviving historic buildings now house nightclubs, restaurants, shops, galleries, offices, apartments, and lofts.

Gaslamp Quarter had grown squalid by the 1970s, but a group of preservation-minded activists worked to save its historic richness. Gaslamp now celebrates its past; a walking tour even reenacts some of its more colorful Victorian characters. Electric-powered “gas lamps” line the Quarter’s sophisticated streets, which offer cappucino nooks, cigar bars, boutiques, antique stores, and sidewalk cafés.

Wild times in the modern Gaslamp Quarter include several annual block-party events—the Mardi Gras Celebration and Parade, Sham Rock, the Easter Bonnet Parade, Cinco de Mayo, Taste of Gaslamp, and the Street Scene food-and-music festival.

The 16.5-block Gaslamp Quarter extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive, and from Fourth to Sixth Avenues.

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Golden Hill
Revitalization projects, such as ornamental streetlights and irrigation for trees along the streets, are restoring the gilded shine on this formerly deteriorating residential neighborhood. First developed in 1870, Golden Hill has retained some impressive older structures. Bungalows and townhouses join a housing market of Victorian, colonial revival, craftsman, and farmhouse styles.

While “dilapidated” aptly describes some parts of Golden Hill, great houses can be found at cheap rental rates. Corner stores and tiny taverns are sprinkled here and there. Coyotes and foxes may be spotted roaming about, due to canyons criss-crossing the mostly Hispanic neighborhood.

Golden Hill’s boundary lines include Juniper Street, 32nd Street, Marlton Drive, State Route 94, and Interstate 5.

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Horton Plaza
In 1867 Alonzo Erastus Horton bought much of the modern Downtown for just $267. Three years later, Horton built a hotel and set off a half-block in front of it as a public park. But for decades in the 20th century, the park known as Horton Plaza suffered continual deterioration and ill-conceived improvement efforts. In 1985, however, the park was spiffed up and rededicated, and a nearby shopping center by the same name opened later that year.

That shopping venue, Horton Plaza, has led to a rebirth of the formerly blighted Downtown. Covering more than six blocks and painted in 43 colors, the whimsical architectural structure houses nearly 140 shops and restaurants, a movie theater, and the Lyceum Theatre. Horton Plaza also features the 21-foot-tall Jessop’s Clock, built in 1907 and displaying 21 dials that show times from around the world. Such attributes lure about 14 million patrons annually to the shopping center.

As for Horton Plaza the district, this 15-block area also includes Downtown’s first high-rise condominiums, luxury apartments, office buildings, and federal courthouse.

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Little Italy
The scent of tomatoes and garlic, the sound of Italian seniors gabbing to each other, the sight of bocci players in Amici Park—this is San Diego’s Little Italy, an area that appeals to many senses.

For three decades, a faltering tuna industry and the home-destroying construction of Interstate 5 kept the neighborhood anemic. But in the early 1990s, businesses and property owners began rebuilding Little Italy to its full strength. Enhancements include attractive housing developments and street improvements.

The pedestrian-friendly community boasts plenty of cafés, restaurants, delis, bars, and boutiques, especially on India Street between Cedar and Grape Streets. Residents live in single-family homes, apartments, and condos.

The 48-block district is bordered by Laurel Street, Ash Street, Pacific Highway, and Front Street.

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Logan Heights
More than a century ago, this community was made up of upper-class Caucasians and was called the “East End.” In the 1880s, the city of San Diego annexed it. Today, the neighborhood is poor, mostly Hispanic, and called Logan Heights.

The neighborhood has had some tough breaks, such as when the newly constructed Interstate 5 cut off Logan Heights from what is now Barrio Logan, displacing thousands of residents. But although Logan Heights has had more than its share of hardship, it offers some of the city’s best Mexican cuisine. It also features a mix of single- and multi-family dwellings, a farmer’s market, and the Logan Heights Family Health Center.

Bounding Logan Heights are Interstate 5, Highway 94, 25th Street, and Imperial Avenue.

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Marina
Marred by warehouses and vacant lots, the 215-acre Marina neighborhood was due for an urban makeover. Thankfully, redevelopment efforts converted ugly ducklings into swans: Warehouses and empty lots gave way to high-rise and mid-rise condos and apartments, townhouses, residential-working lofts, schools, and retail establishments.

The Marina neighborhood encompasses the San Diego Children’s Museum and the San Diego Convention Center. And open space hasn’t been left out of the neighborhood’s beautification equation. Across from the Children’s Museum, the Children’s Park features grassy knolls and a large fountain. Huge trees provide shade at Pantoja Park. And along Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade, joggers and bicyclists enjoy flowery landscaping and public art.

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Healthcare facilities in Central San Diego:
Scripps Clinic