South Park is a neighborhood in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, California, adjacent to the southeast corner of Balboa Park. It stands out in San Diego for its tree-lined streets and walkable business district. Predominantly a single-family residence area with some small apartment buildings and

bungalow court A bungalow court is a style of small housing development which features several small, usually detached houses arranged around a central garden or yard. The bungalow court was created in Pasadena, California, in 1909 and was the predominant form ...

s, it is noteworthy for its fine and varied collection of

Craftsman Craftsman may refer to: A profession *Artisan, a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative *Master craftsman, an artisan who has achieved such a standard that he may establish his own workshop and take o ...

and

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish architecture in general. Thes ...

style homes built between 1905 and 1930. These include works by

Irving Gill Irving John Gill (April 26, 1870 – October 7, 1936), was an American architect, known professionally as Irving J. Gill. He did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the ...

, William S. Hebbard, and Richard Requa. In 2017 San Diego designated the area of the original South Park Addition subdivision as the South Park Historic District, recognizing it as one of the best examples of an early 20th century

streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...

. The neighborhood is home to restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, taverns and wine bars, art galleries, the Albert Einstein Academy Charter School, and other local businesses. It is also home to Pathfinders, one of the oldest residential treatment centers for alcoholism in California. The main roads through South Park, forming its business district, are 30th Street, which was named the nation's best craft beer boulevard by Men's Journal, and Fern St. The neighborhood is dog-friendly and has one of the few designated dog parks adjacent to a residential area in San Diego. The South Park neighborhood is part of the Golden Hill Community Planning Area. The San Diego Police Department classifies South Park as a Central Division neighborhood bounded by Balboa Park on the west at 28th Street, Juniper Street on the north, A Street on the south, and Juniper Canyon and SR 15 on the east. It includes zip codes 92102 and 92104.

History

First registered as a subdivision in 1870, the South Park Addition was too far from

downtown San Diego Downtown San Diego is the central business district of San Diego, California, the eighth largest city in the United States. It houses the major local headquarters of the city, county, state, and federal governments. The area comprises seven d ...

to attract development until its purchase in 1905 by E. Bartlett Webster. The Bartlett Estate Company put in sidewalks, water, sewer, electricity, and other amenities and began selling lots, positioning the neighborhood as a "high-class residential district". Further development was spurred by the 1906 opening of the South Park and East Side Railway, an electric

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

line linking South Park with downtown San Diego and making South Park the city's first

. In the 1910s, Golden Hill and the area now referred to as South Park became one of the many San Diego neighborhoods connected by the Class 1 streetcars and an extensive San Diego public transit system that was inspired by the

Panama–California Exposition The Panama–California Exposition was a World's fair, world exposition held in San Diego, California, between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as t ...

of 1915 and built by

John D. Spreckels John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853 – June 7, 1926) was an American businessman who founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the son of German-American indu ...

. These streetcars became a fixture of this neighborhood until their retirement in 1949, when the number 2 streetcar was replaced with the number 2 bus.

Events

The Old House Fair is an annual summer community event in South Park, centered on the intersection of 30th Street and Beech Street. Vendors are primarily local businesses selling home furnishings and other items of interest for owners of vintage homes. Musical groups also perform on a stage on Beech Street. The South Park retail and restaurant community hosts quarterly Walkabouts on Saturday evenings in March, July, October and December. Shops are open late, live music and refreshments are provided, and a free trolley carries attendees from Beech Street to Grape Street to Juniper Street.

References

External links

South Park, San Diego Official Site

San Diego District 3 - South Park Community

Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee

Greater Golden Hill Community Development Corporation

Old House Fair

Pathfinders of San Diego
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South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...