North Park

It began as a lemon grove. In the summer of 1893, the San Diego merchant Joseph Nash sold 40 acres (16 ha) northeast of Balboa Park to James Monroe Hartley, who wanted to plant lemons. Clearing the land was slow, and irrigation never stopped being a problem. Barrels of water had to be hauled from downtown up a wagon trail that was later called Pershing Drive.

San Diego grew until it caught up with the grove, which was roughly bordered by Ray Street on the west, 32nd Street on the east, University Avenue on the north and Dwight Street on the south. Hartley called it Hartley's North Park, and the city later used the name North Park for the new suburb. In 1905 Hartley's eldest son Jack and his brother-in-law William Jay Stevens started the first real estate firm there, Stevens and Hartley. In 1911 they developed the plot as one of the city's early residential and commercial districts.

In 1912 they built North Park's first high-rise commercial building, the Stevens building, on the northwest corner of 30th Street and University Avenue. Thirtieth and University became the symbolic name of the place and, within ten years, its heart. In the 1910s North Park was also linked by the streetcar system that John D. Spreckels built after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. Streetcars ran here until 1949.

A single streetcar line was first extended from downtown San Diego along University Avenue in 1907. It had to cross the Georgia Street hill, so crews cut through it and spanned the gap with a short redwood bridge. In 1914 a reinforced concrete bridge replaced the wooden one, and a larger cut with vertical walls let the company double-track streetcar line 7, which greatly improved service to the growing community. The concrete Georgia Street Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Line 7 was part of the San Diego Electric Railway, the system John D. Spreckels established in 1892. In 1925, roughly the system's largest extent, line 7 ran through Balboa Park and Hillcrest and then east along University Avenue through North Park to City Heights. Line 2 ran east on Broadway through South Park and up 30th Street to North Park. The last streetcar ran on April 24, 1949, when the company switched to buses.

The first subdivision maps for what became Greater North Park were filed with San Diego County in the 1870s, but at least 30 years passed before many houses were built.

North Park has mixed architecture from many eras, but one area stands out. The Morley Field area, named for the sports complex in Balboa Park, is lined with turn-of-the-century Craftsman bungalows and California bungalows. Many were designed by the builder David Owen Dryden, which gave the area the name Dryden Historic District. It includes homes along 28th Street and Pershing Avenue between Upas and Landis Streets.

The path to designation was long. An application was filed in May 2007, and a supplemental one in January 2009. On June 23, 2011, the city's Historical Resources Board approved the district by a vote of 8 to 0 and also approved Edward F. Bryans, who built more than a dozen homes there, as a Master Builder. Of the 136 homes in the district, 104 were approved as contributing resources.

The North Park Historical Society, a volunteer group, keeps up interest in local history with articles, walking tours and an annual car show. It published a book, North Park: A San Diego Urban Village, covering the neighborhood's development from 1896 to 1946.

Burlingame is a neighborhood bordered by North Park to the north and east and by South Park to the south, within the Greater North Park Community Planning Area. The City of San Diego recognizes it as a historic district for its mix of styles: Craftsman Bungalow, Tudor Revival, Mission Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Prairie School, Art Deco and California Ranch, along with homes that blend several of them.

In the Dryden Historic District, David Owen Dryden began building homes along 28th Street and Pershing Avenue, from Upas Street to Landis Street, in 1915. The North Park Historical Society calls him a recognized Master Builder who specialized in architecturally complex Craftsman bungalows. The district's six blocks show a range of architecture that includes Craftsman, Spanish Revival, Mission Revival and early California Ranch. The Society itself is an all-volunteer nonprofit with no paid staff or office. It offers walking tours, a historical building permit search and a free advisory service.

The North Park Water Tower was completed in 1924 and gave the area a better water system, with 1.2 million gallons of storage held up high enough to provide pressure. It is empty now. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 and designated locally in 2015, and it once held more than a million gallons for urban use and fire protection.

The North Park Theatre opened in January 1929, built for both new talking pictures and live performances, at a time when vaudeville was still popular. It was restored and reopened in 2005, which a local history group describes as a key element in the revitalization of North Park. The district's signature sign has a longer story. The first North Park sign was hung across 30th Street and University Avenue in 1935. In 1948 it was replaced by a scalloped version that stayed until it was taken down in 1966. The community never forgot it, and a new sign was set in the median of University Avenue near 30th Street in 1993, the third version to mark the community's commercial heart.

Two North Park natives made their names in sports. Ted Williams, who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Maureen Connolly, who dominated women's tennis from 1951 to 1954, both came from the neighborhood.

In 2012 Forbes named North Park one of America's best hipster neighborhoods, citing Craftsman cottages, cafes and diners, coffee shops, microbreweries, boutiques and the farmers market. The Los Angeles Times described it as culturally diverse, with art galleries, boutiques, bars with handcrafted cocktails and local brews, and restaurants that food lovers approve of. Independent coffee shops and an eclectic mix of restaurants line the main arteries of 30th Street and University Avenue.

Downtown North Park contains the Ray Street Arts District. Ray at Night, a gallery walk held the second Saturday of every month, is the largest and longest running art walk in San Diego's history. The Observatory North Park, a concert venue, occupies the former Birch North Park Theatre, once the home of Lyric Opera San Diego. The theater was renovated in 2005, and its permanent seats were removed in 2015 for its new use.

A farmers market runs every Thursday from 3:00 to 7:30 p.m. on North Park Way between Granada Avenue and Ray Street and in a mini-park behind the Observatory, with over 35 independent vendors. The San Diego Music Foundation hosts the North Park Music Thing each fall on El Cajon Boulevard, and the North Park Lions Club presents the Toyland Parade every December. The North Park Community Association puts on free Bird Park Summer Concerts. Like other urban San Diego communities, North Park has a high rate of pedestrian activity compared with other parts of San Diego County.

Switzer Canyon lies east of Balboa Park and marks the boundary between the neighborhoods of North Park and South Park. It stays an oasis of natural vegetation between some of the city's most urban neighborhoods. It was named after E. D. Switzer, who moved there in 1869 and had a five-acre farm at the downtown end of the canyon. Because it was far from downtown, it served as an isolation camp during the city's smallpox scare of 1887, with a group of small houses set up for patients east of 30th Street.

Developers floated plans for parts of the canyon in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Burlingame Homeowners' Association formed in 1980 mainly to save it, every proposal failed, and in 1987 the City of San Diego bought the canyon as an open space preserve. In 1998 a plan for a sewer maintenance road on the canyon floor led residents of North Park and South Park to join the Sierra Club. Their group, the Friends of Switzer Canyon, became a model for what is now over 40 canyon preservation groups in San Diego County. It installed information kiosks along the trails between 2000 and 2005.

Interstate 805 is reached from the University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard exits. Those two streets are the main east-west roads. University Avenue leads west to Hillcrest and east to City Heights and La Mesa, and El Cajon Boulevard leads west to Washington Avenue and Mission Hills and east to the city of El Cajon. Florida Street connects North Park to downtown through Florida Canyon, and 30th Street links it to Adams Avenue and Normal Heights to the north and to South Park and Golden Hill to the south. Texas Street heads directly north into Mission Valley.

Bus routes 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 215 connect North Park to downtown and the Old Town transportation hub. Routes 7 and 10 run along the University Avenue transit corridor, the busiest bus corridor in the San Diego metro region.

Several groups serve the community. North Park Main Street, a business improvement district, serves the business community. The North Park Community Association, an all-volunteer group, runs a Stop Graffiti Now campaign and connects neighbors. The North Park Planning Committee advises the city on land use. The old North Park Post Office on Grim Avenue closed in July 2011 because of budget cuts, and the building now houses a pizza restaurant.