May 31,
2007
Have you got your tickets yet for Avenue Q?
The fluffy orange Q car was parked in front of Park Manor Suites yesterday afternoon. The Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q will open June 30 and run through August 5 at the historic downtown Spreckels Theatre.
The musical tells the hilarious story of Princeton, a bright-eyed college grad who goes to NYC with big dreams and a tiny bank account. He soon discovers that the only neighborhood in his price range is Avenue Q; still, the neighbors seem nice. The newfound friends struggle to find jobs, dates and their ever-elusive purpose in life.
Don’t
miss it!
May 30,
2007
— Incoming chair of the Mission
Bay Park Committee re: Mayor Sanders land vs. water argument
“And given City Hall’s recent history, we shouldn’t be surprised that the mayor and City Council would shrug off a potential fault in the city's controls as no big deal.”
May 29,
2007
— Coronado Mayor Tom Smisek re:
the community’s battery-powered cars
May 28,
2007
Hillcrest Book & Literacy Fair
Booksellers and bookworms have Sunday, June 10th circled in red on their calendars to mark the upcoming Hillcrest Book & Literacy Fair. This exciting HBIA event for readers young and old will take place in the heart of Hillcrest from 10am-5pm. Southern California booksellers are getting their best offerings ready for hungry readers to browse, select and buy. We hope you can join us.
The bookfair will open with a Scottish bagpiper (which should get the community’s attention!). At 10:30am the San Diego Woman’s Chorus will open the “San Diego Reads” stage in the Washington Mutual Bank parking lot (on the corner of Fifth and Robinson) followed by storytellers from the Kumeyaay Nation.
The Fair is proud to present Resilience Of The Spirit from Hillcrest’s own Sixth@Penn theatre featuring children’s drama directed by Leigh Scaritt and UCSD’s Professor Marianne McDonald with award-winning author and poet Gayle Brandeis. “San Diego Reads” will feature local personalities including City Attorney Mike Aguirre and Councilmember Toni Atkins reading from their favorite books as well as local Hispanic playwright Erika Perez presenting Sonia Nazario’s Pulitzer Prize winning Enrique’s Journey, which was featured in SD Public Library’s-KPBS remarkable community reading event “One Book, One San Diego.”
Local authors will include poets from the newly published San Diego Poetry Anthology and Amy Wallen’s comic novel Moon Pies and Movie Stars which made the LA Times best seller list. Lt. Col. Jay Kopelman will tell of Lava, the pup rescued from Falluja streets in From Baghdad with Love.
The afternoon will feature the SD Men’s Chorus and stories of neighborhood history as we celebrate Hillcrest’s 100th anniversary. For more information about this year’s bookfair contact organizer Cecelia Moreno at (619) 253-3403.
May 27,
2007
— Young bloodied Russian calling
for the
right to hold a gay march
May 26,
2007
Two proposed developments at Walnut on Fifth are providing a vision (or nightmare) of what could be the future of our community since the result of the type and scale of development in question will destroy Hillcrest’s identity and make it a mere extension of downtown. The Hillcrest Town Council voted overwhelmingly at its last meeting to support the proposed interim 65-foot height limitation, which would remain in effect until the Uptown Community Pan (now almost two decades old) is updated.
The 14-story highrise proposed on the east side of Fifth (see May 17) would contain 16 units and is being marketed as luxury living with a panoramic view. It would overshadow the surrounding two to four-story neighborhood. But, this project is dwarfed by what is proposed on the west side of the street (APEX) with over 200 units extending the full block from Walnut to Brookes. On Thursday (May 24th) I met with these developers. To their credit they now understand that Hillcrest has concerns and have taken their initial project off the table. Instead, they will come to the Uptown Planners meeting on Tuesday, August 7th and begin a community discussion re: what would be more appropriate on this site.
The developers also know about the need to preserve an attractive Spanish style bungalow court in the block. Several months ago, the underlying owner obtained a demolition permit to destroy the bungalows. This was prevented by the outstanding work of Janet O’Dea, who chairs the Historic Resources Subcommittee of Uptown Planners. She challenged the demolition permit and saved the court. The developers now appear ready to preserve the historic bungalows, and will build their project in a manner that will complement the existing architecture.
What is disturbing about these developments is what they forebode for the future. Is every new development in Hillcrest now going to be 14 stories? Will our history, and the heart of San Diego’s LGBT community, be obliterated in glass/steel highrise jungles? In particular, I would request Councilmember Toni Atkins take a position in favor of preserving the historic and cultural integrity of Hillcrest.
Leo Wilson, Uptown
resident
May 25,
2007
Wanna guess how many tenants have signed on to the controversial project? None, but “Leasing is proceeding as scheduled,” according to their spokeswoman.
“If you had a choice of going into a building that was a known hazard declared by the FAA or a building that wasn’t, which would you choose?”
— Marten Barry,
president of real estate broker NAI San Diego
“How can the mayor reward a campaign contributor, the city continue to enable developers to do what they want, and still appear to the voters that all is under control?”
May 24,
2007
— Fifth Avenue Gazette’s Tony
Phillips re: the SD Registrar of Voters issue
