Loma Portal (from Latin ''porta'' "gate") is a neighborhood in the community of

Point Loma Point Loma (Spanish: ''Punta de la Loma'', meaning "Hill Point"; Kumeyaay: ''Amat Kunyily'', meaning "Black Earth") is a seaside community within the city of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the w ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is a hilly area northwest of Rosecrans Street and northeast of Nimitz Boulevard, overlooking

San Diego Bay San Diego Bay is a natural harbor and deepwater port located in San Diego County, California near the U.S.–Mexico border. The bay, which is long and wide, is the third largest of the three large, protected natural bays on California's of c ...

Features

Loma Portal is home to

Point Loma High School Point Loma High School is a public high school in the San Diego Unified School District in San Diego, California, United States. It is located in the Loma Portal neighborhood of Point Loma. The school serves the neighborhoods of Point Loma and ...

, Dana Middle School, and several elementary schools. Also, Plumosa Park, a 1.4-acre passive park, is located in Loma Portal. The neighborhood also includes the James Edgar and Jean Jessop Hervey Point Loma Branch Library, which opened in 2003, replacing a smaller public library. The area is primarily residential, with a business and retail center located on Voltaire Street. Loma Portal lies directly under the takeoff flight path for nearby

Lindbergh Field San Diego International Airport , formerly known as Lindbergh Field, is an international airport northwest of Downtown San Diego, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.. US Federa ...

, making it the home of the “Point Loma Pause” where all conversation ceases temporarily because of airplane noise. Loma Portal is known throughout San Diego for its neighborhood holiday decorations. Several blocks of Garrison Street near Chatsworth are particularly known for elaborate decorations. Also, a neighborhood-wide lighting of

luminarias A ''luminaria'', a small bonfire are lit during Las Posadas, a nine-day holiday running December 16–24. Farolito is a small paper lantern (commonly a candle set in some sand inside a paper bag), particularly in the broader Southwestern Uni ...

occurs each Christmas Eve in the Plumosa Park area. Major north-south roads are Rosecrans Street, Chatsworth Boulevard and Catalina Boulevard. Many of the east-west roads are broken into several disconnected segments due to the steepness of the terrain. The east-west streets form part of what are known as the "alphabetical author streets." This series of streets begins in the adjacent Roseville neighborhood of Point Loma and is named for authors in alphabetical order from Addison to Zola, with a second partial series from Alcott to Lytton. Another distinctive feature of this neighborhood is the placement of street lights in the middle of intersections instead of on the sidewalks. A 2014 book, ''Reading Between the Lampposts'', gives details about each of the authors for whom the streets are named, as well as referencing the unusual street lights.

References

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