Where? Often referred to as "San Diego's Urban Jewel," Balboa Park features about 15 museums and the San Diego Zoo. The park is named after Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the Spanish explorer who discovered the Pacific in 1513.
San Diego's Balboa Park has so many attractions that visitors could stay a week and still not see it all. There you'll find one of the best aviation museums in the country, the excellent San Diego Aerospace Museum, but it's just one of a plenitude of attractions within this 1,400-acre park.
Claiming to be the largest urban park in the United States, Balboa Park ( www.balboapark.org) had its beginnings in 1868 when the city set aside a large tract of land. The park is known for its wonderful gardens and collection of exotic plants, primarily because of early work by horticulturist Kate O. Sessions.
In 1915 San Diego built a series of architecturally significant buildings on the park property for the first Panama-California Exhibition. With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, San Diego saw an opportunity to take advantage of its geographical position — as the first U.S. city that boat-weary travelers would be able to set foot in after weeks at sea. Additional buildings were added in 1935 and 1936 during the California Pacific International Exposition.
The original buildings along El Prado walkway are magnificent examples of the highly ornamented and flamboyant Spanish Colonial Revival-style architecture. Credit for saving the buildings from destruction (the city wanted to level them in 1967) and refurbishing them goes to the Committee of 100. For more information on this organization, the buildings it saved, and expanded explanations of the history of the park, visit the Web site ( www.C100.org).
Flying into San Diego
San Diego is a big city with light aircraft, helicopters, and both Navy and Marine Corps military traffic mixed with regular commercial cargo and passenger flights crisscrossing the area. As a consequence, the airspace is convoluted — the borders of Class B, Class C, and Class D airspace fit together to form a parallelogram instead of the classic upside-down wedding cake — fliers who haven't been into San Diego would be well served to contact approach control for guidance, although there are corridors and approach and landing procedures in place for VFR fliers. These procedures rely heavily on a working knowledge of local landmarks — a San Diego VFR terminal area chart details the airspace well.
Montgomery Field is the closest GA airport to Balboa Park but is affected by marine layer fog, especially during the early summer months (called the "June gloom").
Eight miles to the east is Gillespie Field. Gillespie is quieter than Montgomery and is often fog-free earlier in the day, but it's farther from Balboa Park. Both airports have on-field restaurants and rental cars. And both airports have instrument approaches, although only Montgomery has an ILS.
The museums of Balboa Park
Even leaving aside the San Diego Zoo, there's a different and significant museum and exhibits every few steps along El Prado promenade. Here's a partial list: The San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum, the San Diego Natural History Museum, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center (with adjoining IMAX theater), the San Diego Automotive Museum, The Museum of Photographic Arts, the Mengei International Museum, the San Diego Historical Society, the San Diego Japanese Friendship Garden, the San Diego Art Institute, the San Diego Museum of Art (which was exhibiting the complete set of 73 bronze sculptures by the French impressionist Edgar Degas during my visit), and the San Diego Museum of Man. Visitors should stop by the Balboa Park visitors center and buy a Passport to Balboa Park (it's only $30) — this pass permits unlimited entry into the attractions listed above for one week.
In addition there are free exhibitions — a few steps off El Prado is the Timken Museum of Art. Its collection includes works by Old World masters Rembrandt and Rubens, as well as pieces by American masters Eastman Johnson, John Singleton Copley, and Albert Bierstadt.
The San Diego Aerospace Museum
A short walk past the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, where since 1981 free Twilight in the Park concerts have been staged every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night during June, July, and August, is the astonishing San Diego Aerospace Museum. In addition to the 67 airplanes featured at the museum proper — there's also an annex at Gillespie Field — the museum features a who's who of aviation in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame.
The hall of fame has thumbnail sketches of famous aviation pioneers, such as Sir George Cayley, who flew a manned glider in 1853. In the hall of fame you'll learn that the city's Montgomery Field was named for John Joseph Montgomery, who as early as 1903 rode his gliders down from tethered balloons at holidays and carnivals throughout California.
An amazing 22 out of a total of 33 airplanes in the Dawn of Powered Flight, World War I, and Golden Age of Flight galleries are original aircraft, with the oldest airplane being the Deperdussin C (1912), which was the first airplane to exceed 100 mph in flight. It was powered by a 50-horsepower Gnome rotary engine.
One of the things that make this museum so compelling is access — visitors can get up close to the airplanes. Up close, it's easy to appreciate the courage of early pilots. America's first fighter aircraft flown in combat — the museum's Nieuport 28 (an original airplane) — is tiny; the wingspan is just over 26 feet and the maximum gross weight topped out at 1,625 pounds. An information sheet at the museum advises that it was known for having a "dangerous tendency to shed its top wing fabric in a dive."
The museum also houses an extensive collection of aviation history books and artifacts. More information is available online ( www.aerospacemuseum.com).
Tall ships, and more
Airplanes and sailboats seem to draw the same crowd, and that crowd can take a break from park attractions to visit the Star of India, an iron-hulled, fully rigged barque built in 1863. This beautifully preserved ship is the star attraction of the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Plans are in place to add the newly decommissioned aircraft carrier the USS Constellation to the museum of ships. For more information visit the Web site ( www.sdmaritime.com).
In addition to the museums at Balboa Park, there are also museums that preserve the site of the first European settlement in Alta, California, at the Serra Museum. Information on this and additional museums is available online ( www.sandiegomuseumcouncil.org).
Additional helpful Web sites ( www.sandiegohistory.org and www.sandiego.org) provide more information. San Diego is also home to the Computer Museum of America. This site explains how Adm. Grace Hopper discovered the first computer "bug." Visit the Web site ( www.computer-museum.org).
There seems to be something for everyone in San Diego. It's located in a beautiful part of the state, and since San Diego has done a masterful job of accumulating, restoring, and caring for its history, even the most jaded visitor will soon find some attraction to get excited about.
E-mail the author at [email protected].
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