La Gente Disturbing the Gentrifiers in Chicano Park - Barrio Logan - San Diego

The 53rd annual Chicano Park Day Celebration and Car Show was held on Saturday April 22, 2023, in the traditionally Mexican American Barrio Logan neighborhood. This very popular event honors the movement started when the people of this neighborhood organized to stand up against the City of San Diego after the city made several unilateral moves without input from the residents. These included giving large sections of the neighborhood to the US Navy and cutting off the resident’s access to the beach and the San Diego Bay. Then the city changed the zoning of barrio logan to allow industrial businesses to move in. Noise and air pollution from junk yards and other industries mixed in with the residential homes made life in Barrio Logan intolerable. The Interstate 5 freeway and the on-ramps for the Coronado Bay Bridge were built and bisected the neighborhood. The last straw was the city reneging on their promise of building a park for the residents in Barrio Logan but then without warning beginning construction of California Highway Patrol station in its place instead. The people revolted, banded together and physically stopped the construction project. They occupied the land for 12 days while negotiating with the city. The city, seeing that they could no longer do as they wanted without significant opposition, acquiesced and the 32,000 square foot park was built on the site later that year. It features a large collection of outdoor murals and has been designated a national historic landmark.

Ironically, upwardly mobile young professionals have been moving into the neighborhood and are displacing long-time residents. In prior years they might not have felt safe here, but they now see this area as a desirable place to live. I think all the noise and crowds that attend this show must disturb these new residents. Hopefully they take the time to understand the importance of the day.

This wide-angle view depicts one of the murals painted on the concrete support for the bridge on-ramp. It reads “Varrio Si Yonkes No!” This does not mean Yankees go home or anything similar. It means neighborhood yes, junk yards no! Just beyond the park’s borders you can see a building containing new condos.

Sunrise at Chicano Park

Kathy and I arrived at Chicano Park around 5:30AM but found the area swarming with cars and people in the early morning light. We had to park about 6 blocks away. We should have arrived at least an hour earlier. We had talked about taking the train but at the last minute I found myself driving Kathy's car to the park. Oh well. I caught this Chevy station wagon rolling into the park just as the sun was rising. Normally it is not recommended to shoot directly into the sun, but I like breaking the rules. 

Spectacular Sunrise Worth Waiting for - Port of San Diego

Kathy and I spent a weekend in San Diego in late March. We stayed on Shelter Island which is only an island in name. It is actually a man-made peninsula built with material that was dredged up from the San Diego Bay in the 1940's. The dredging was needed to make the natural harbor deeper to accommodate, shelter, and protect big the warships transiting the Pacific during World War II. It is located quite close to Point Loma and the Cabrillo Point Monument. Today, Shelter Island is a world apart from San Diego. It is a quiet, serene place in the center of urban sprawl. There are several resort style hotels and nice unique restaurants nearby. We had stayed on the “island” a few times before and enjoyed it. As is normal for me lately, I went to sleep early every evening and was wide awake 2 hours before sunrise. On the morning after our arrival, freshly showered I walked out onto the balcony of our hotel room at just after 5:00am and saw that the morning light was violet in color and heavy clouds were moving slowly overhead. I had hoped I would be able to photograph a beautiful sunrise from the fishing pier. The chances of doing so didn’t initially look too promising. I took a few shots including the one below from the balcony.

After about an hour and a half, breaks in the clouds started turning very slightly orange so I packed up my cameras and headed downstairs, walking across the street and onto the fishing pier. From this vantage point, I could clearly see the San Diego Bay inlet channel and the US Navy North Island facility across the way. Some of the lights on the base were still on and the San Diego skyline loomed forebodingly under the dark clouds.

12 minutes later the rising sun began pouring light down onto the downtown buildings through a long, narrow tear in the clouds. It was a dramatic sight. The glass walls of the curved roof hangers at the Navy helicopter base were beautifully backlit. This unusual and stunningly beautiful scene only lasted about 3 minutes. I was shooting images the entire time with both of my cameras. So glad I got up early and didn’t miss this sight!

Fleetline Sunrise

The primer paint on this fleetline in no way stops it from showing off it's classic curves at morning's first light.  I shoot a lot of cars but I have to say I am a sucker for the 1947-48 fleetline. Given the choice between a 2022 corvette or a restored 48 fleetline, call me crazy but I'm going the fleetline way everytime. 

Not Fade Away

I spotted this beautiful 1940 Chevy Deluxe Special convertible sitting quietly by itself off to one side at the Pomona Auto Swap Meet. It seemed a little out of place being surrounded by cars typically considered to belong to the Hot Rod genre. Exactly the type of cars which I generally do not photograph. This Chevy was a different story. While all the cars surrounding her seemed to be ready to emit a throaty roar from their lake pipes, she would probably rather glide serenely and quietly, all grace and elegance over the well-worn pavement. Her stereo playing an oldie tune as she slowly faded from view.

Pomona Sunrise

Arriving at the Pomona auto swap meet before dawn has its benefits. We drove over to the Pomona fairgrounds along very empty freeways and arrived just after 5:00 am. As we got closer, we began seeing lots of classic cars making their way to the entry gates. After paying for parking, we found a place to park not far from the entry gate and got our camera bags and tripods out of the car. It was bracingly cold outside and quite a bit colder than at home. Having attended this swap meet in the winter previously, we were well prepared and brought our scotty vest jackets to keep warm. For those who are unaware, the Pomona Auto Swap meet is a very large event that has been held for the past 47 years in Pomona California. It typically is held 7 times a year from 5:00am to 2:00PM on selected Sundays. I’ve heard you can find nearly any type of part for any type of car there. After having walked up and down a few of the aisles, I believe it. It is also a place for people to show off their cars. Sections for doing so are provided as well as places to display a car you wish to sell.

We like arriving early so we beat the crowds and are always there before sunrise in case it turns out to be a spectacular one like it was on this January morning. Even before the sun began peeking over the horizon, the sky to the east started glowing a yellow orange color which was promising and there were some clouds for the orange light to illuminate. The western sky was still deep in the blue hour when the sun rose above the horizon and the most beautiful orange colored sky quite suddenly lit up. Kathy and I returned to the cars we liked most that morning and began shooting some images. I really liked this 1940’s Fleetline panel delivery vehicle. I shot this from several viewpoints and was generally pleased with the results.

Why you want to leave me?

Kathy and I..., well mostly Kathy decided she wanted to go to the bomb club car show being held in the infield of the Santa Anita racetrack. She had attended this show at the same venue in prior years, but I had never attended before. In fact, It had been a while since I had gone to a car show. There just aren’t many where we live in south orange county unless they are filled with brand new mustangs and dodge chargers. No thanks, not interested. We previously lived in Los Angeles county in a town that was ground zero for lowrider and bomb car shows and I guess I took that for granted. Now I miss seeing the type of cars I really love. So it was with very little hesitation I agreed to acompany my wife to this particular car show. We arrived somewhat late, and the horse track's infield was packed with classic cars from the 1930's 40's, 50's and 60's. In other words, back when style was king. We setup our cameras and started walking around taking photos. We came upon this flamed 1947 red chevy fleetline. In truth I readily recognized it as a fleetline but I have to confess I'm basing my guess on the year by peeking at my wife's photo of this same car. You can see it here. In all the years I've been going to car shows with my wife I've learned one thing. If I happen to be tagging along with her and If I want the best photo I can get of any car at the show, I only need copy my wife's viewpoint for her shot. She has a great eye for composition, so I figure why mess around? I normally would just wait for her to be done and then place my tripod down in the same place and take my shot. Waiting was not an option on this day, the driver of this car was leaving. His engine was running, headlights were on, and he was just waiting for people to move out of his way before departing. I was silently urging my camera to quickly finish shooting the sequence of shots I would need to make this single composite image. I finished just in time. I looked over at Kathy and she said, "Copying my shot again huh?" The nerve.

Gathering of Fleetlines

The Blvd Bombs Car Club held a fundraiser car show at the Bobs Big Boy Broiler in Downey CA. We arrived in time for the spectacular sunset and found quite a few 1940's Chevrolet Fleetmasters and Fleetlines like these pictured here. The red convertible fleetmaster was particularly stunning. Convertable fleetlines are a comparatively rare sight at car shows so I try to photograph them whenever I see them.

East Facing Pontiac

Kathy and I have a habit of getting to car shows very early. This show, actually a auto swapmeet held at the Pomona fairgrounds opens around 5am. We arrived only slightly afterward and there were already thousands of cars in place. This ncluded the subject of this photo a pontiac with a very cool hood ornament. This was shot with my nearly 40 year old 100mm macro lens.

Kingman Arizona to California and Home Again

I drove 365 miles today and had some time to reflect on this long road trip.

Train Travel:

I had long wanted to take an extended train trip crossing several states and time zones. I never expected to ride four of the great train routes in one trip however. To recap, we rode the California Surfliner for 39 miles from Irvine California to the historic Union Station in Los Angeles. There we transferred to the Coast Starlight riding it to Portland Oregon's own Union Station a distance of 964 miles. At one point our train was running about an hour behind schedule so we thought we would miss our connection to the Empire Builder. Somehow Amtrak got the train back on schedule and we had about a 40 minute wait in Portland before we could board. We then rode the Empire Builder 2,206 miles to Chicago. After spending the night, we boarded the Capital Limited train and rode that to Washington DC's beautiful Union Station a distance of 594 miles. We covered a total 3,803 miles by train.

Would I make that journey again? I would, but instead of paying for sleeper cars, I'd buy a hop on hop off train pass. Having private accommodations on three of the trains was great especially with the coronavirus to consider. In a post coronavirus world, a train pass would allow me to see more places and sleep in more comfortable surroundings. It would also allow me more flexibility to change my plans during the trip. I'd love to stay for a few days in Glacier National Park for example.

Car Travel:

Renting a car and driving it the 2,785 miles we covered including side trips to Dayton Ohio and Santa Fe New Mexico was fine. I drove for all but about 10 miles. I wanted my wife to relax and take in the view and avoid the stress of driving. I noticed some interesting things. The highways in every state we visited are being expanded or improved. We saw lots of construction throughout the drive across the country. Drivers in Texas were probably the most aggressive while those in Oklahoma the most polite.

The Wearing of Masks and Social Distancing:

I noticed that two states stood far apart from the others when it came to not people not wearing masks or maintaining a social distance. Those were Illinois and Oklahoma. We saw lots of people in downtown Chicago without masks. When we stopped for gas in Springfield, we wore our masks and were stared at by the other customers. I only saw the gas station attendants wearing masks and they all had their noses exposed. In Tulsa and Oklahoma City we had similar experiences. We always wore our masks when we left our sleeping compartment on the train or left our rental car. We also took care to maintain a social distance from others.

Navigating Route 66:

As mentioned on a prior post, navigating old Route 66 was very difficult. I noticed in many small rural towns, many intersections had no street signs whatsoever. Route 66 signs were more often than not missing and instead another street name or highway number was displayed. Using the GPS unit we purchased for the trip was of limited usefulness as it typically wanted to guide us to the fastest route which was rarely Route 66. We also saw sections of Route 66 which were just closed for maintenance or permanently shut down, requiring us to resort to the interstate. I think better planning on my part is the answer here.

Would I Do It Again?

So after 6,588 miles, was it all worth it? Were this two weeks well spent? Absolutely! The most enjoyable thing was spending time with my family. Long, unhurried conversations with my brother-in-law were great and we laughted a lot. We all kept seeing interesting things and had the time to stop and look if we wanted to. I also got reacquainted with my camera equipment. I definitely packed too much stuff. I also pushed myself to meet and speak to more people. I found ready smiles and nearly everybody who asked "Where are you going?" seemed amused at my pointing vaguely at the western horizon as I explained "That way!" I loved not having a set schedule, not knowing in what city we would sleep in or where we would have our next meal.

Conclusion:

Coming home today, after following a long winding ascent, we crested one final mountain and found ourselves high atop a desert plain with the road now ramrod straight, descending and stretching out unbroken to the horizon. Not one cloud marred the sky, and we knew we had returned to the place we had started, California. While I'm glad to be home, I'm sorry this great adventure is over. For now, I'm too tired to post new photos. I'll add them tomorrow.