King Parade Signs Posted on Market St.

Market Street, the 6 1/2-mile stretch of roadway that drew national attention last year when San Diegans voted to strip it of the name Martin Luther King Jr. Way, is now posted with permanent signs proclaiming it as the official route of the “Kingdom Day Parade.”

For its first five years, the parade commemorating the slain civil rights activist was held in an area roughly bounded by Imperial, Euclid and Logan avenues and 47th Street in Southeast San Diego. A City Council resolution in late 1986 moved it to downtown San Diego.

A request from parade organizers last November prompted the city’s Citizens Assistance Department to relocate the metal parade signs depicting King from the old to the new parade route on Market Street, from 22nd Street to Columbia Street.

Relocation of the 19 signs was completed in January, said Gus Brown, of the General Services Department’s street division.

The signs, most of them on the north side of the street, will stay up permanently, said City Manager John Lockwood, who in a January memo to Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the City Council backed the relocation request as “the demarcation of the parade route which was established by council resolution.”

“Anything we can do to honor Dr. King is appropriate,” said Tod Firotto, who headed the Keep Market Street Committee.

The committee, a group of downtown merchants who brought the issue to the ballot box, said they protested the name change for two principal reasons: the historical significance of the Market Street name; and their contention that the 1986 council vote to change the name was taken without proper public notice.

G.T. Frost Jr., a Market Street merchant who supported the voter initiative, said: “I’m actually kind of proud to see these signs go up.”

“The issue was the (historical) significance of Market Street,” he said. “There are going to be some wonderful things done in this city in memory of Dr. King.”