Little Italy

Tuna built this place. Italian-Americans, chiefly from the Italian Riviera and Sicily, led the work of building the boats that founded the American tuna fishing fleet and canning industry in San Diego, which became the tuna capital of the American West Coast. The first large cannery, the Pacific Tuna Canning Company, was founded in 1911. By the mid-1930s the canneries employed more than 1,000 people.

The fleet was staffed mostly by immigrant fishermen from the Portuguese Azores and Italy. Many Italian fishermen moved to San Diego after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Rising costs and foreign competition closed the last cannery in the early 1980s. Their influence is still felt in Little Italy and Point Loma.

Interstate 5 changed the neighborhood. When it was built in the 1970s, it split Little Italy in two, and the part east of the freeway became part of Bankers Hill. A sculpture for cannery workers stands in Barrio Logan, and a Tunaman's Memorial statue stands on Shelter Island.

India Street is the commercial spine, running through the heart of the neighborhood. The area covers a highly walkable 48 square blocks, and high-density mixed-use buildings stand next to single-family bungalow-style historic properties. The southern part is mostly high-rise and mid-rise buildings, while the northern part is less dense.

Some older buildings have been renovated for new uses, and newer ones try to copy the feel of the originals. India Street itself has public art, plazas, street trees, galleries, antique stores and many restaurants with outdoor seating. Most events center on India Street, usually bordered by Grape Street to the north and Beech Street or Ash Street to the south.

Amici Park, at Date and State Streets, is known for its bocce courts and for Italian recipes engraved in the sidewalk plaques and tables around it. The San Diego Firehouse Museum, on Columbia Street in the neighborhood, is dedicated to the history of firefighting in the city.

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, at 1668 State Street, was established in 1925. The neighborhood's own guide says it has guided fishermen safely to shore and has been home to many of the families who helped build this Italian church, and that it became the center of spiritual, social and cultural life in Little Italy. The church was designed with murals, stained glass windows, gilding, trompe l'oeil and other decorative detail.

Nearly a century of use took a toll. The interior was repainted several times, and murals designed by the Venetian painter Fausto Tasca were covered by layers of soot and discolored varnish. In 2017 the parish hired a preservation firm to restore the interior to its original look. Artisans studied the building to find the original colors and tested cleaning methods before they started. The work won a 2021 Preservation Design Award for craftsmanship from the California Preservation Foundation. In preparation for the church's centennial in 2025, a $2.5M restoration remastered the original paintings and replaced the carpet with Calcutta marble, with Rojo Alicante marble in the center and side aisles.

The Little Italy Association, a nonprofit set up in 1996, oversees revitalization and beautification and speaks for residents, property owners and businesses. It runs a Business Improvement District and a Community Benefit District, and the neighborhood association handles trash collection, decorations and special events.

The Italian Cultural Center of San Diego is based here. Founded in 1981 as a 600-member nonprofit, it teaches the Italian language with native speakers and runs cultural events, workshops and lectures year round. The Convivio Center and Little Italy Heritage Museum is the neighborhood's newer home for Italian heritage and culture.

Most events are Italian in theme and centered on India Street. The Mercato farmers market runs every Saturday on West Cedar Street and every Wednesday on West Date Street, with fish, produce, pastries, flowers and local art. Carnevale, a Venetian mask event, falls on the Saturday before Mardi Gras.

April brings ArtWalk, which draws over 120,000 people, with artists set up along India Street to show and sell their work, plus music, dance and interactive exhibits. The same month, the Gran Fondo Colnago San Diego bicycle ride, whose 3,000 riders start under the Little Italy sign, offers 32, 53 and 100 mile routes. The Sicilian Festival in May, launched in 1993, was the first Italian festival held here. There is also a Taste of Little Italy in spring and again in November. In September the Labor Day Stickball Tournament puts leagues on the streets, and every third year the San Diego leagues invite New York and Puerto Rico to a West Coast Invitational.

October is the biggest month. The Little Italy Festa, called the largest Italian festival outside New York City, has over 150 booths, three stages, the Gesso Italiano chalk street painting festival and a bocce tournament, with cooking demonstrations and traditional art and music alongside. Also in October, more than 50 Lamborghinis gather for the Bulls of St. Agata Charge Little Italy. A Christmas Village and tree lighting follows in December, with Santa arriving on Little Italy Fire Engine #3.

Little Italy's western edge runs along San Diego Bay and Pacific Highway, and the bay is also where the county's seat of government stands. The San Diego County Administration Center, in a Beaux-Arts and Spanish Revival style, fronts the water and is nicknamed the Jewel on the Bay. It was completed in 1938, mostly with money from the Works Progress Administration, and the architects were Samuel Wood Hamill, William Templeton Johnson, Richard Requa and Louis John Gill. The design was meant to match the buildings of Balboa Park, with a red Mission tile roof and arched doors and windows. The building went onto the National Register of Historic Places on May 16, 1988.

The path to it was long. Voters rejected a 1908 plan by the city planner John Nolen that would have put a civic center downtown. His 1926 plan placed it on newly dredged tidelands and was approved in March 1927. Critics feared an unstable building in an earthquake, so builders drove 30-foot-long steel pilings into the ground and alternated some to bear sideways stress, a novel design for its day. The Great Depression and engineering issues delayed construction until 1935. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the building on July 16, 1938, before a crowd estimated at 25,000 people.

The city moved its offices out in 1964, so the building has held only county offices since. It is still home to the Board of Supervisors, the Assessor, the County Clerk, the Treasurer and Tax Collector and many public records. On the harbor side stands a sculpture fountain, Guardian of Water, made in 1939 by Donal Hord. In May 2014 the 12-acre (4.9 ha) County Administration Center Waterfront Park opened on the former parking lots north and south of the building, with open lawns, drought-tolerant gardens, picnic areas, a playground and an interactive water fountain.

County Center/Little Italy station is a trolley stop on the Blue Line and Green Line, on the Surf Line right of way between West Beech Street and West Cedar Street. It opened on July 2, 1992, and was the northern end of the North/South Line (later renamed the Blue Line) until the line was extended to the Old Town Transit Center in June 1996. The station closed from August 6 to October 14, 2012 for renovations as part of the Trolley Renewal Project.

It has four tracks, two for the trolley and two passing tracks used by commuter, intercity and BNSF freight trains. The station also sits at the County Center, where many buildings of the San Diego County government stand, in an area of medium and high-density housing. The Green Line comes south from Mission Valley and Old Town, passes through Little Italy and stops at Santa Fe Depot, the Mission-style station where COASTER commuter trains and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner call.

By car, a downtown guide says the Ketner Blvd. exit from Interstate 5 gives the most direct access into Little Italy when coming from the north. Downtown is dense enough to walk, though it is a long walk from Little Italy to Petco Park.