A quick one, while he’s away: I’m blogging from the Hilton in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, where I’ve arrived for a very short conference. In all my years of business travel, this is my first event in San Diego … And I do believe this is my first time in this part of SD since moving away in February 1987!
Thanks to Kristen Tobiason’s documentary efforts via her “Then and Now” series, we’ve virtually revisited sites of past glories before this neighborhood was cleaned up and relabeled the Gaslamp: the Zebra Club/Saigon Palace, Greenwich Village West, Studio 517, Funland …
My time is short and packed with grown-up business, but I’m hoping for a few minutes to stroll the old ‘hood. What do you think I’d see, if I could walk away from me?
The Pawn Shop on 5th. We played there Christmas Eve 1980. Jay Johnson opened an art gallery there. I do not think there is even a trace of it left.
The Crypt. What is it now?
Damn … This is kind of a gut-wrench: The Sun Cafe sign is still up on Market Street along with the glass tiles and the top of the Art Deco facade, but the place has been gutted. It’s a Mexican joint called “Funky Garcia’s at SUN CAFE.”
Did Kristi put on the first Go-Go Impossible show on this block of Market St.? I think I got a ticket around here making a U-turn to drop gear for a gig … But with Noise 292. What club woulda been on the 400 block of Market? Hmmmm.
Awww, man. 517 Fourth Ave. is just as nondescript as Kristen described … Little park on the corner’s kind of cute and seems to be the last redoubt for downtown homeless.
You can never go home again
Which one was the Crypt, Robin?
I feel, like, 120 years old. Sheesh!
there’s an urban outfitters and a multi-plex smack dab in the middle of it all. sad, really.
hen and i stayed in the sofia hotel, above the greyhound station.it used to be an epic flophouse.
strange times, looking at the urban renewal through the lens of a down economy… no?
qualifier: the sofia is a “boutique” hotel my mom arranged for us a couple of years ago for a family funeral.
Here’s an original observation: Everything looks a lot smaller than I remember.
(And that, my friends, is why people pay me to write!) LOL
I’ll pay you to stop writing
There was an INJECTIONS graffiti on an overpass on University in between Hillcrest and North Park??? Was there forever….wonder if the ghost of it can still be seen??????
>>Everything looks a lot smaller than I remember.
That happened to me once. You have to eat the cake that says “Eat Me” to get back to normal.
So little about downtown is recognizable. But now that I’m in New England, I have to admit that I’m happy to hear rumors that the coolest guy remaining in the Gaslamp might be headed to Boston soon:
http://deadspin.com/5491453/san-diego-padres-the-fleeing-padre
Lou, the pawn shop owner was shot a few years back. It is still there in a sense with the windows boarded up and a vacant look about it. It needs to be an art gallery, music store or a whore house.
Ava, ‘epic flophouse’ -- truly epic words, I can only imagine the dump!
Yeah the placGaslamp has been cleaned up, glossed over and sanitized for your protection…
…but, Nicky Rottens had a over powering odor of cleaner as if they were still trying to exorcise the stench of stale beer, cigarettes and urine from the glory days of yore!
Ava --
Flophouse? The Pickwick Hotel! A ridiculous franchise outfit that located at Greyhound stations all over the country.
I think it was one rung below Greenwich Village West, and one rung above the YMCA.
My “favorite” thing about the new Gaslamp is when they pulled up perfectly good concrete to put in European flavored cobblestone to make it look like an old city.
Matthew, did you walk past Greenwich Village West? Most of these buildings still look pretty much the same to me, but then I was there through most of those changes.
if you squint and look northeast from the gaslamp at about 3:30 pacific time you might see chris mathis and lou damian having pepsi in bottles
>>Most of these buildings still look pretty much the same to me, but then I was there through most of those changes.
Dave: See, my last interaction with this neighborhood was when Horton Plaza was brand-new. (GVW does look pretty much the same. The others … Dang!) 🙂
If you drop a hit of acid, you may see Gary Vitalis, DT Xterminator, and me, on the rooftop of the old pawn shop
jeremiah> to hear the new owners speak of it it was a rat trap with nightmares behind every door. stands to reason that those who gentrify would be horrified by anything less than four star… right?
whoa, those links have good reads…
Robin: The Crypt is now on the corner of University & Park Blvd., bold and drapeless at the main transfer point for the #7 busline.
>Flophouse? The Pickwick Hotel! A ridiculous franchise outfit that located at Greyhound stations all over the country.
Ava: I stayed at the Sofia the last time I was in San Diego and it was real nice (I could stay with family, but…I try to stay in historic hotels as much as possible). I liked the way the hall lighting was back-lit sconces with old photos of downtown. Good restaurant there also (Currant) that I’ve eaten at a few times.
Jerry: From the look at their history, it looked like a pretty fancy place when it was built, though I remember it was pretty sketchy in the 70s when I used to explore downtown quite a bit. When I stayed in the Sofia I had to peek inside the Greyhound station (cleaner, but not much has changed).
>There was an INJECTIONS graffiti on an overpass on University in between Hillcrest and North Park??? Was there forever….wonder if the ghost of it can still be seen??????
As well as one on the outside wall of the North Park Lions Club.
There was a large billboard by the Ken Cinema that had a U.S.M.C. ad, someone had climbed up and changed it, it read, the few, the proud, the injections.
Lou was always way ahead of his time…tagging…before it was a word!
not I
Anybody know a rockabilly band called the Stilettos? They were playing at a bar I just walked by …
In the late 70’s, I used to go on SDPD downtown graveyard shift ridealongs with my mom’s uber cool cop boyfriend.
This is when Horton Plaza was actually a little plaza with a fountain that the homeless people would bathe in and relieve themselves.
What was the name ofthe SUPER COOL record store that was across from Horton Plaza by Carl’s Jr?
>>SDPD … uber cool cop
Never seen those words in the same sentence before.
I know what you are saying. I am with you!!! However,he was an exception and an amazing man!
@dean, i liked it. it was just super done… and the rooms were puny! still, nothing beats being able to just walk out the door and be right there…
Is the El Cortez there ? Does anyone remember Dehlia ?
Coffee/tea with Kristen T. at 4th & Market was the perfect punctuation mark on my visit.
The Gaslamp is a weird place! In some ways, the traffic flow is not so different from the naughty old days … Every restaurant seems to have at least one young woman stationed out front, hailing passersby. It’s got an odd, strip-club kind of vibe.
Record store was probably Arcade Records, run by Dave Hakola -- they had a branch store in OB for awhile too. Here’s two pics of the downtown store I shot in 1980 --
Robyn: I believe that was the original location of Tasha’s Music city
Tasha’s. But there was another one near 6th and F? I can’t recall their name. Their inventory was bought out by Cow Records/Dougs Records in OB in the early 90’s.
Dave Rinck sprayed the University Ave. “Injections”, near Florida St. According to him, at least -- in ’84.
It was there for many years…
I am nostalgic for a time when having a drink in the Gaslamp meant stumbling several blocks down Market Street, past the Army-Navy Surplus store to Gaslamp Liquor and then back to 517 with a 12-pack of Shaeffers under one arm.
I refuse to ever stand in a line to enter a bar, much less a bar where some greasy douchebag doorman must nod his approval at my appearance.
Anyone remember the graffiti under the HIghway 5 overpass on Laurel Street that read, “FIGHT FOR WORKER’S R” ? It must have stayed there two or three years at the end of the seventies. I always imagined the artist getting run off by the cops before he had a chance to finish the sentence. Ron Silva used to say, “Fight for worker’s raisin bran” . . .
Naaah….”Dave Rinck sprayed the University Ave. “Injections”, near Florida St. According to him, at least – in ‘84.
It was there for many years…”
It was there from 1980 on….went back in ’82 or so…still there. Must have been someone else…I think a FONO friend.
Bruce Injection
>Anyone remember the graffiti under the HIghway 5 overpass on Laurel Street that read, “FIGHT FOR WORKER’S R?
Yeah. I struggled with the urge to just finish the job already.
>>I refuse to ever stand in a line to enter a bar, much less a bar where some greasy douchebag doorman must nod his approval at my appearance.
I must say, for all the vaunted gentrification of the place — the restaurants I ended up in were not really good.
Ray says~”I am nostalgic for a time when having a drink in the Gaslamp meant stumbling several blocks down Market Street, past the Army-Navy Surplus store to Gaslamp Liquor and then back to 517 with a 12-pack of Shaeffers under one arm.”
Also BoonesFarm and if we were in the $ Tanqueray.
I agree! I also miss seeing the tumbleweed roll by when leaving (or arriving) at studio 517.
I recall downtown being scary and 5th Ave. full of triple x theaters and hookers. Not that we walked down 5th Ave.very often.So many Sailors.
It was a big disappointment when they replaced Horton Plaza with a mall. So sad!
I got my 1st tattoo downtown when I was 15yrs old with Cricket Logan (aka:B.Brim), it was at Tiger Jimmy’s. Funny times!
Steve Garris at the Sun Cafe, courtesy of Lou Skum:
I also got my first tattoo at Tiger Jimmys
Since RInck is on this blog, I think we can get his non-denial… He claimed that it was part of a spree that he went on, with Johnny Vomit -- spraying “The Injections” across town.
>>Johnny Vomit
Wow, that name rings very dim, 30-year-old bells. Did Mr. Vomit continue to do business under that moniker?
I was the first drummer for a band named Trowser’s, remember all this and more. The new Gaslamp sucks liked it when it was a mini Tomes Square
L-R Cliff Cunningham, Johnny Vomit, Terry Marine (collection Lou Skum)
Trowsers were big fun!
>>Trowsers were big fun!
OK, OK … Let’s get this straight once and for all: Is it “Trowsers” with a “W” or “Trousers” with a “U”? I always thought it was the former, but I’m finding lots of online references to the latter.
Is it Tomes Square with a “O” or Time with an “I” ? I always thought it was the latter, but I just saw a reference to the former.
>>Is it Tomes Square with a “O” or Time with an “I” ?
Lou: You’re thinking of the Thames — it’s in France.
oui
Whee!What’s up Johnny?Gotta put my trausers back on(sad pants)!Jerry,do you remember when Johnny was one of my roomates at the park blvd. house?You slept sitting up in your peacoat on a wooden chair there when he and Thaddeus were my roomates.I still have drawings you did in my sketchbooks back then.
Bobby,
I remember! I slept upright and dressed a lot, in those days! I am amazed that you have notebooks from those times….
Hell, I remember some fun in those few short weeks -- before The Morlocks and I split north. “We’re just bags of water, with some magical spark in them.”
It was Trowsers with a “W”. It was originally the One -eyed Trowser Snakes, but when Joyce & I joined, they shortened it. We played the Zebra Club for four nights a week, four sets a night for over a year….it about killed me! But it was alot of fun. Wiley, the singer/founder is now a chiropractor in Hawaii.
Here’s a group shot of the Trowsers from Joyce Rooks … Caption suggests it’s backstage at the Zebra Club ca. 1980-’81:
And one 1980 street scene for luck: