Another Stop On Mike Nelson's Virtual Tour of San Diego--Coronado

Panoramic view of downtown San Diego from the old Coronado Ferry Landing. This picture was taken at about 7:00 pm on May 8, 1998. This is a stitched picture using 3 shots by a Sony Mavica MD-7 and ArcSoft's Photostudio for Windows 95. Click on the picture to see a bigger picture.

Coronado sits out on the end of the peninsula in the heart of the San Diego bay. To the north is downtown San Diego as shown above. To the west is Point Loma and its historic lighthouse. To the south is open water. To the east is The Strand which connects it to the mainland, Chula Vista, National City, 32nd St Navy Base and more.

Although Coronado has a San Diego zipcode, it still has its own mayor, cityhall and police department. It is also home to the Hotel Del Coronado which was built more than 100 years ago and was featured in the Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon movie, "Some Like It Hot." The Hotel achieved some national notoriety again in 1997 with the M. Larry Lawrence being buried in Arlington National Cemetary scandal. Coronado purportedly holds claim to being the home of more retired admirals than any other city in the world. It is also home to the Navy with NAB Coronado with its Navy SEAL training and officer training commands and NAS North Island with its air strips and carriers.

Coronado, more than any other community in San Diego County has withstood the ravages of the massive growth in the county's population. It has done so for several reasons: 1) Access is difficult--either via the 4-lane Silver Strand highway or via the toll Coronado bridge. 2) It is expensive. Housing is definitely upscale--only behind Fairbanks Ranch, Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla. 3) The main drags haven't gone to strip malls like so many other areas in San Diego. Even though it is nearly the end of the century, Coronado still reeks of urbane gentility and sedateness that marked it when I first moved out here in 1974.

A ferry traversed the bay from 1848 until 1969 when it closed after the completion of the Coronado Bay Bridge. A new ferry landing was installed in the 1990s along with a small shopping mall for tourists about a mile east of the original landing. The Coronado Bay Bridge bonds were to be repaid by tolls along with the provision that the toll would be eliminated upon retirement of the bonds. As everything else where government gets its hooks in, the toll has never been eliminated even though the bonds have been paid off for years. Currently, the toll applies only to vehicles coming onto Coronado from the mainland and carpoolers are exempt.

That's all for now, I'll add more pictures in the near future.

This page was last updated on 05/09/98. Address: https://members.tripod.com/~m_nelson/coronado.htm
© 1998 Mike Nelson

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