CityScape: Bay-to-Park Paseo Is a Laboratory for a Future Walkable San Diego

Urban planners rhapsodize about walkable cities and friendly inviting streets, but these are difficult to realize in places such as San Diego, where growth has exploded and urban locales are chock-full of bland buildings and cold public spaces. 

A laboratory experiment in how we might transform downtown is the current public art installation called Bay-to-Park Paseo, spearheaded by Pete Garcia and Beth Callender, partners in the nonprofit Urban Interventions.

In conjunction with World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024, their Paseo is the product  of 100 design and art professionals recruited to rapidly create and install public art along 13 blocks of Park Boulevard between the bayfront Hilton Hotel and Balboa Park at Interstate 5.

The idea of a paseo from the waterfront to Balboa Park dates back to planner John Nolen’s 1908 “San Diego: A Comprehensive Plan For Its Improvement.” He describes “a suitable link, parkway, or boulevard” that can bring these destinations into “direct and pleasant relation”. His proposed “paseo” would have run from where the County Adminstration Center now stands, up Cedar Street to the park.

Of course, Cedar today is no paseo. It was eventually dissected by Interstate 5 and is today broken up by neglected blocks and a mixed-bag of development. 

Meanwhile, on a recently Saturday morning, Garcia and Callender led a group on a walking tour of their Paseo. Twice-monthly tours continue through Sept. 21.

He is a ball of energy who could probably convince you that San Diego will soon be Paris. He guides us ahead in animated bursts. She is a calming force, hanging back with fellow walkers to provide elaboration and details.

Garcia grew up in Cuba, visiting construction sites with his father, an architect. He became an engineer, developer and consultant on major projects. He is also the author of a novel (“From Amigos to Friends”) and a movie script (“Azucar Amarga” aka “Bitter Sugar”) as well as a prolific painter. 

Callender was a principal at Greenhaus, an advertising and marketing company where specialties include “placemaking” for projects in California cities as well as in Cabo San Lucas and Hawaii, among others. She is also a longtime member of the Urban Land Institute, where she served as chair of the community development council.

Eleven of 13 Bay-to-Park Paseo installations are in place.

At the foot of Park Boulevard by the bay, where our tour began, Garcia described the Paseo’s yet-to-come “legacy” piece. In a few months, on the side of Safdie Rabines Architects’ pedestrian bridge over Harbor Drive, you will spy a “Game of Thrones”-scale Hermes copper butterfly — an endangered native species — depicted as a hanging steel mesh curtain with tiny colorful tabs that will flicker in a breeze. 

A few blocks away, next to UC San Diego’s Park & Market arts center, “What Does Home Mean to You,” reflects San Diego’s troubled housing situation with a mural of the city skyline and housing types ranging from Victorians to townhomes to tents. On the adjacent sidewalk are freestanding glass silhouettes of homeless individuals, with buttons you can press to hear stories of homelessness.

At the Balboa Park end of the Paseo is artist Perry Vasquez’ “Kate Sessions @ San Diego High School.” Sessions was the matriarch of San Diego gardening, also a teacher at Russ Public School, which became San Diego High School, situated nearby.

The installation consists of five 7-by-7-foot photos of trees in Balboa Park, printed on vinyl and attached to steel fencing where Park Boulevard crosses Interstate 5. The trees range from palm to pepper to Canary Islands Dragon. The idea of native species replaced by non-natives to Euro-fy the city’s identity makes you think about other less beautiful aspects of our region’s conflicted transformation. 

Other works along the Paseo are decidedly DYI, such as plastic shopping bags suspended beneath trees as odd aerial sculptures, orange plastic construction fencing that snakes through eucalyptii, and construction tubes, painted pink and stood on end as planters. The hanging bags, in this area where you’ll find hungry homeless people, were once full of groceries.

Garcia says that Urban Interventions — which has created a dozen projects — takes inspiration from the “tactical urbanism” movement, which at its most extreme means fast, temporary, cheap public art. Such interventions are intended to bring life to neglected spaces and inspire citizens, developers and elected officials to get behind permanent upgrades. 

Several books, websites and a wiki are devoted to the topic. An authoritative volume is “Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-Term Change” from Island Press.

As Garcia and Callender have discovered, there are many obstacles, including homelessness, crime and vandalism. Recently, someone tipped over a few of the Paseo’s pink tubes, and Garcia and Callender also had to restore Vasquez’ photos after they were graffiti’d and one was torn down.

Most municipalities don’t prioritize public art. It’s worth noting that the Port of San Diego contributed $30,000 of $130,000 that was raised for the Paseo, while the city of San Diego provided a snail-pace permitting process. City officials assure Garcia they learned a few things that can speed up future such projects. 

Needless to say, the millions in public and private funding required for new infrastructure and public art along a major thoroughfare like Park Boulevard are a pipe dream, but there’s no doubt better streetscapes benefit everyone. 

One key reason to make cool pedestrian-friendly public spaces is the critical mass of people they attract. Jane Jacobs, the famed urbanist, coined the term “eyes on the street” to describe the self-policing that occurs when sidewalks and adjacent buildings teem with life and people look out for each other. 

In a year, there won’t be much left of Garcia and Callender’s proto-Paseo, although the copper butterfly should remain airborne for years to come. At any rate, permanence was never their goal. This rapid sprucing-up simply provides a sample of what is possible in the realm of placemaking. Maybe a critical mass of San Diegans will become motivated to demand more of their city.

Dirk Sutro has written extensively about architecture and design in Southern California. His column appears monthly in Times of San Diego.

CityScape is supported by the San Diego Architectural Foundation, promoting outstanding architecture, landscape, interior and urban design to improve the quality of life for all San Diegans.