Walking in America: Leaving San Diego edition
Change is nigh
'Walking in America’ is a series that documents what it’s like to walk in America. You can view previous entries here.
I, the founder, editor, sole contributor, and business manager of Out in Left, have left San Diego, my home for 12 years, and am going to be a writer only. I am moving to Paris.
I criticize San Diego a lot in these pages, especially in this series. But here’s a relevant, fun fact: San Diego has an airport you can comfortably walk to. I thought it a fitting end to my time there by walking to my flight out of town.
And, as always, my trip was so amazing I felt compelled to show off my (former) city.
I was tired after four-and-a-half years in local politics, nearly a decade in public policy, and my entire adult life in government, and I was buoyant after returning my apartment keys. Not even this box truck, making an illegal left turn onto Seventh Ave from Broadway thirty seconds into my walk, could bring me down.
Besides the stained and wide roads, the empty storefronts, a conspicuous lack of vibrance away from the waterfront, and a dearth of public space, downtown San Diego is great! Just ask the tourism industry, which runs the neighborhood and extracts any bit of wealth and humanity and shovels into the private equity abyss.
There are urban oases, though, persisting like the green shoots after a wildfire. Time Out Sports Tavern is one of them. It’s there I watched the Philadelphia Eagles dismantle the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl with friends, including best-selling author and fellow South Jersey native
. We completed an ultramarathon, or: the consumption of five buckets of Michelob Ultra for each quarter of football.
Further up Broadway, pictured here in the background, is city hall, or, in official parlance, the City Administration Building. The fading, cigarette-yellow paint gives it gravitas, like a sagacious old man who has seen it all. The missing panels on its mid-century facade only add to this effect. The ground floor lobby is a free museum—it hasn’t been changed since the building’s construction in the 1960s.
I am being ironic, of course. The building is a shit hole. The elevators barely work. Disruptions to the HVAC and plumbing systems are common and often require the building to be evacuated, for asbestos might have been disturbed. You can hear conversations through the thin, “temporary” bulkheads. The City Council chambers and offices are cheap and dated and do not invite decorum or elicit reverence for the city. City hall even hides behind other buildings, as if it’s embarrassed.
There is no money to maintain it, and there is certainly no money to build a new city hall. The dominate characteristic of San Diego’s political culture is that we believe nothing costs anything and therefore we don’t need to invest in the city through taxes. I busted my ass in that building, and I accomplished a lot, but I deserved better. All the public servants there do. No self-respecting body politic would allow its government representatives to work in such a place.
Couldn’t be me that needs a ride to the airport! Although, the 992 provides a useful reference for air-walkers. Just follow its route—Broadway through downtown, make a right on Harbor Drive, and don’t stop until you’re at the terminals.
This is a sports and politics newsletter, so I must highlight the monument to Lane Field, the Padres’ first ballpark, at Broadway and Harbor Drive. A young Ted Williams used to shatter the windows at Mastro’s Ocean Club.
Balboa Park is San Diego’s crown jewel. Why? Because the San Diego Tourism Authority says so. But the best park in all of San Diego County is Waterfront Park on Harbor Drive. Anchoring it is the stately County Administration Center, one of the finest projects by F.D.R.’s Works Progress Administration. It’s almost as if investing in high-quality public facilities results in positive, generational impacts.
But only if the WPA designed intersections. Somewhere over the horizon is the other side of the street, and there lies the multi-use path that lines the San Diego Bay.
Now, this is a political platform I can get behind.
Is this separated, safe, and pleasant path to the airport too good to be true? No, you think, here is a typical American scene. Signs prohibit pedestrians from doing something while cars get a free pass. But then, salvation:
They thought of us! It’s like finding and following the yellow brick road.
I make it, and it will be an even easier and shorter walk once the new Terminal 1 is finished.
So long, San Diego. I’ll write more about you once my head comes in from orbit.
As for Out in Left, it will be mostly idle until September. Like a good European, I am going on vacation, a long one—What song should Oasis open with at Wembley???—then I move to France at the end of August.
I’m going to use the respite to:
Freshen up the Out in Left branding.
Refine the newsletter’s angle.
Not have a deadline.
Out in Left will always exist at the nexus of sports and politics, but through my work at San Diego Magazine I found that I really enjoy reporting and interviewing. I want to incorporate more of that here while maintaining the voice, viewpoint, and weekly cadence. I need to figure out what that looks like from France. That’s what I’ll be working on in between pints and concerts.
Thank you, and see you again soon.
God Bless You
Adventure awaits and don’t forget your passport 🫶🏻