Coastal Traveler - Spring 2008 - (Page 54)

coastaltraveler San Diego By Robert Plotkin In the 1970s, my mother, a Sabra from Haifa, declared to my father that San Diego was, “Death with a view,” and when he refused to give up his law practice, she left him and moved to Los Angeles to start a record company. But for me, San Diego in the 1970s was like an Eden, where my friends and I would boogie-board in the morning and hunt dove in the afternoon. Private school girls posted alongside us on hunter/jumpers, as we walked down Eucalyptus trails, double-guns broken and balanced across our shoulders. San Diego was small then, less than a million, but had a lot of natural beauty between a harbor-side downtown and the coastal villages of La Jolla and Del Mar, just 15 minutes away up the Highway 5. Downtown was seedy, filled with arcades that sold brass knuckles, and the stink of bussed Greyhounders. Now the city has tripled in population. Where once cows grazed, now stand Fashion and Mission Valley shopping centers. McMansions squat on my hunting grounds. The hillsides have been terraced and stuccoed in pink. There is traffic. But growth has brought benefits in sushi and nightlife. The young affluents displaced the drunks downtown. They refurbished the brick Victorian architecture, turning downtown into a pedestrian village centered around the Gasslamp Quarter just south of Broadway, around 5th. Balboa Park, just north of downtown, has 1200 acres filled with Spanish Revival museums and the famous Zoo. Little Italy, on India Street, a few blocks north of Broadway has become chic, with notable architecture, cafes, art stores and Nelson’s Photo, one of the best independent camera stores left. There are boutique hotels, and hip hotels and the Grant, the white shoe hotel since 1910. Or one can cross a bridge that spans the bay into Coronado Island, and stay at the oceanfront Hotel Del. San Diego is becoming a smaller, West Coast Miami, without the South American toplessness. For that, you have to drive 30 minutes to La Jolla, in the summertime. San Diego has an earnestness about it, a desire to please, to be, “America’s Finest City.” The people drive around with their tops down, hanging a short Hawaiian sleeve out the window, pitying those who live anywhere less Mediterranean. Where to Stay Grant Hotel • 326 Broadway • 800.837.4270 Hotel Del Coronado • 1500 Orange Ave • 619.435.6611 • www.hoteldel.com W Hotel • 421 W. B St. • 619.398.3100 • Ivy • 600 F St. • 619.814.1000 • Where to Eat Safron • 3731 India St. • 619.574.0177 Stingaree • 454 6th Ave. • 619.544.9500 or 800.803.0926 •www.themarshallstore.com The Mission • 619.220.8992 Dobsons • 956 Broadway Circ. • 619.231.6771 Where to Shop John’s Fifth Avenue Luggage 3833 4th Ave. • 619.298.0993 • www.johnsfifthave.com 54 coastaltraveler spring http://www.hoteldel.com http://www.themarshallstore.com http://www.johnsfifthave.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Coastal Traveler - Spring 2008

Coastal Traveler - Spring 2008 Contents Coastal Connoisseur Coastal Picks Coastal Scenario Coastal Art Coastal Driver Coastal Roadkill Coastal Eco Coastal Hotel Coastal Desert San Diego La Jolla Laguna Beach Malibu Santa Barbara San Luis Obispo Big Sur Carmel Monterey Santa Cruz San Francisco Sausalito Mill Valley Stinson Beach Bolinas Olema Point Reyes Station Fairfax Inverness Marshall, Tomales Sebastopol Petaluma Sonoma Coast Redwood Coast

Coastal Traveler - Spring 2008

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