Golden Hill : After 100 Years, a Place Where All Sorts of People Love to Live

Residents like it for its differences, its diversity and unpredictability. They lovingly describe it with words such as “eccentricity” and “warmth.” They say it has something that many places surrendered long ago--a feeling of community, of belonging, where neighbors are really neighbors, even if the skin color doesn’t match.

Golden Hill was a century old in February. But it won’t celebrate its centennial until today, when residents and friends from beyond its boundaries honor it in a special ceremony from noon to 5 p.m. at the Monkey Tree in Balboa Park.

That’s a common meeting place in Golden Hill, has been for years. The Monkey Tree is at 28th Street, between Ash, Beech and Cedar streets. It’s surrounded by a neighborhood equal parts ethnically and economically diverse, by Queen Anne Victorian mansions and multiple-family units filled with poverty-stricken residents.

A Place to Live and Love

John Wedemeyer has lived in Golden Hill since 1968. He helped found The Bridge, a home for runaway kids. The Bridge evolved into San Diego Youth and Community Services, which still exists. Wedemeyer says he would live nowhere else.

“I like variety,” he said with a laugh. “Golden Hill is not a good place to live if you want to avoid other people.”

“It’s the only community I’ve ever lived in that was truly a community,” said Gail Hoagland, who assists Golden Hill youths and seniors through the Neighborhood Outreach Program. “Here the neighbors are really neighbors--they look out for each other. What I don’t like is the crime. Seniors feel threatened by that. Some seniors feel like targets.”

Dave Dean has lived in Golden Hill for 17 years. He went from being a social service worker--a colleague of Wedemeyer’s--to being a real estate agent specializing in Golden Hill. Dean says Golden Hill has problems--absentee landlords, crime, increasing numbers of the homeless roaming its streets, but that it’s still the best place to live in San Diego.

“The pros of living here,” said Dean, who runs Towne Realty, “are the feeling of community, of cohesiveness, working with good, active neighborhood people. You have proximity to downtown without the headaches of being in the heart of downtown. The freeway access is miraculous. The views and the weather are unbeatable. We have constant breezes off the bay, and the views-- spectacular views--of the Coronado Bridge, Mexico, mountains to the east, canyons to the west . . . We border one of the best parks in America. We even have a golf course running through Golden Hill. And on the northern border, we have a great cafe and meeting place--the Big Kitchen. We can’t be beat.”

‘Suffocating’ Freeways

Dean describes the borders of Golden Hill as Interstate 5 to the west, canyons leading to Interstate 15 on the east, California 94 on the south and Grape Street on the north. He says the freeways have a “suffocating” effect at times, but do sharply define the boundaries. Within such boundaries is diversity, a “constant” that Dean sees eroding.

“It’s changing rapidly,” he said. “Because of downtown redevelopment, the convention center and other factors, property values are zooming up. That’s both good and bad. I don’t know what it’s doing to our mix of people, but we have this danger of gentrification, of yuppies taking over. The minorities and the poor could get pushed out. I don’t desire that. What makes Golden Hill an exciting, vital, valuable place is its range.”

The range Dean speaks of carries risks. Warren Parr moved to Golden Hill in November after eight years on Manhattan’s East Side. Not once was he mugged in New York City. But it happened in Golden Hill.

He was walking home from work when a group of teen-agers jumped him at 25th and B streets. They snatched his groceries and eyeglasses and pursued him farther, hoping, apparently, to grab his money. He entered a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and jumped over the counter, scaring off the intruders.

“I still like the neighborhood but now, unfortunately, I do have reservations,” said Parr, 28, who rents a one-bedroom apartment for $325 a month. “I’m a tad paranoid now. I personally think those kids were on something--crack, crystal, whatever.

“I think the process of gentrification creates tensions. People getting displaced inevitably feel hostility, and I can’t blame them. On the one hand, I understand robbery. On the other, I ain’t no rich man. I wanted to scream, ‘I’m on your side,’ but they went after me like crazy.”

Gail Hoagland is aware of such tensions. It’s partly her job to counsel youths, including gang members. A Golden Hill drawback, in her mind, is the lack of activity for youths. A thin sliver of Balboa Park cuts through the neighborhood, offering some greenery, but other than that, Hoagland said, kid’s places for play are limited. The streets can, at times, be mean.

Pat Martin moved to Golden Hill years ago and has been a community activist ever since. She helped start the Golden Hill Mediation Center, the Golden Hill Action Group and the Golden Hill Trash Tigers, a coalition of kids bent on cleaning up every scrap of trash in the neighborhood. Martin started the Trash Tigers (a rival group is the Street Sweepers) out of concern for what Hoagland expressed--kids needing something to do.

Martin describes Golden Hill as a mixture of Asians, Latinos, blacks, gentrified whites and the elderly. She says crime is a problem, especially burglary, auto theft, petty theft, vandalism and graffiti. She says absentee landlords are a problem, being slow to clean up buildings and keep them well-maintained. Absentee landlords own about 70% of the area’s property, she said.

“Red-lining is a problem,” she said. “That’s banks wanting more density than we have space for. That’s a bank urging a prospective owner to sandwich 12 people in an apartment instead of 6. People at the banks think this is still a depressed area. We’re trying to change their perception.”

Planners Seek Change

One agent of change is the Golden Hill Planning Committee, which has a tie-in to the city Planning Department and seeks to police such matters as red-lining. The planning committee also strives to increase the number of residents who own their own property.

Hoagland says Golden Hill numbers millionaires and welfare families, seniors and the very, very young. Wedemeyer says almost every house has character and personality, setting apart the neighborhood from acres and acres of tract homes in the suburbs. He says there’s a reason the place has character.

When Golden Hill was formed in the late 19th Century, it was limited to the white upper class. William Terry Ork, editor of the recently revitalized Golden Hill newspaper, The Neighborhood Reporter, said the lots sold slowly, exclusively, on a controlled basis.

“It was a ritzy community,” he said. “Deliberately.”

Renowned architect Irving Gill designed many of the homes, which included among their owners the Scripps family. (The Scripps house was sold recently.) The Golden View Apartments contain the oldest elevator in San Diego; some residents call it the oldest west of the Mississippi.

Some of the more noted Victorian houses include the Quartermass-Wilde home, owned by attorney Milt Silverman Jr.; the H.A. Frost house; the Samuel Rynearson house, and the Villa Montezuma in Sherman, which Ork says (unfacetiously) is part of “greater” Golden Hill.

Real estate agent Dean said Golden Hill was initially attractive to some of the founding fathers of San Diego, as well as doctors, judges and artists. The decline of Golden Hill occurred during and after World War II, when many of its once-regal homes were divided into multiple units, and the aristocracy sought refuge elsewhere. The renaissance began in earnest around 1974, Dean said, when the Arab oil embargo forced young urban professionals to start looking closer to downtown for living space.

“Even now,” Dean said, “you can get a small condo for around $69,000, a bigger one for about $130,000 and a Queen Anne Victorian for less than you might think. I don’t think the values can be matched anywhere in the county.”

But, he concedes, change is coming on, and with any change comes loss. Change may enhance Golden Hill economically and aesthetically but, longtime residents mourn, change could alter it culturally.

And drastically.

“Right now,” Hoagland said, “it’s the most culturally diverse community in San Diego. I would hate to see the diversity vanish--that makes it exciting.