Sun Sets on a Towering Downtown S.D. Mystery

I love an urban mystery.

So I was intrigued by the immense hexagonal yellow things atop the towers of the 30-story Emerald-Shapery Center at the foot of C Street in downtown San Diego.

The office part of the Emerald-Shapery, greenish glass and panoramic views, is to open Monday. It’s a common story: Japanese money, San Diego ingenuity.

But what about those yellow things visible from Pacific Highway, the Harbor Seafood Mart, Seaport Village, San Diego Bay and the Coronado Bridge?

Landing pads for extraterrestrial vehicles? Come-hither signs for enormous bees? Bull’s-eye targets in case Coronado attacks?

A San Diego Stonehenge? Proof that some East County cult has an equity interest in the building?

The truth proved both more prosaic and more astounding.

Craig K. Collins, director of public relations for Emerald Shapery, explained that the five yellow things are slanted roofs, with skylights in the middle, thus quite visible from points southwest.

The yellow is a primer. The final color will be a more burnished bronze.

The roofs are slanted at 33 degrees. San Diego, you see, is 33 degrees above the Equator.

Thus, on the summer solstice, the sun will shine directly down on the roofs and the skylights. Honest.

All of this in a $130-million building on a site that used to accommodate tattoo parlors, strip joints and greasy spoon eateries (“Just Good Eats”).

I toured Emerald-Shapery to see the yellow things close up. Then I hied over to Karl Strauss’s Old Columbia Brewery & Grill, a new yuppie place around the corner.

I had a beer and a pickled egg.

Used to be that if you wanted a beer and a pickled egg near the San Diego waterfront, the guy on the next bar stool would probably have an extensive rap sheet.

The guy next to me wore a beeper and was talking on his cellular phone to his broker.

Is San Diego changing or what?

Bernhardt’s Counterattack

In-your-face politics.

* The camp of Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt is taking the offensive against the recall movement.

Whenever recallers take their petitions to shopping centers in Scripps Ranch and Mira Mesa, the pro-Bernhardts are sure to follow.

The Bernhardt loyalists stick close to the petition passers and provide shoppers with reasons why they shouldn’t sign. Shoppers see a political argument in progress and most avoid the whole mess.

The recallers have been forced to walk door-to-door in neighborhoods, a much less-effective tactic for a campaign short of money and volunteers.

Conclusion: What looked like a good bet to qualify for the ballot is now dicey.

* Dan Kripke, the La Jolla psychiatrist running for the third time against Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), is trying to force Lowery into a debate.

He regularly taunts Lowery as “the cowardly congressman.” Now he has offered to donate $1,000 to the homeless services at St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center for every debate Lowery agrees to.

Lowery is unmoved: Too busy with matters of war and peace to debate.

Article Was No Help

The Fugitive Apprehension Unit of the San Diego Police Department was searching for a bad dude charged with possession of methamphetamine and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

The dude was finally tracked to a house in Oceanside.

Federal marshals and cops from the fugitive unit crept up and peered in the window. He was lounging comfortably, reading a magazine.

Knock-knock. An apprehension was made without trouble, and three guns were confiscated.

Then one of the cops went back to see what the dude had been reading so intently.

Answer: a recent copy of Law Enforcement Quarterly, published by the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

The feature story was about the successes of the Fugitive Apprehension Unit of the San Diego P.D.