Little Italy

After Fabrison's, we walked up India Street, the main drag in Little Italy. These were some tiles by a fountain just up the street...



These signs were everywhere...

I love taking photos of stickers/street art...

The Little Italy sign. There were also banners that had Italian and Italian American icons on them.

Landmark sign info. Look at the house behind the sign. It's a two story yellowish orange home with elaborate white painted iron work with a gate flanked with two (kinda gaudy) cherub statues. Whoever lives there has a prime spot in Little Italy. When we passed by it earlier, there as an elderly man wearing MC Hammer looking shades sitting out on the porch just watching the street life.

A painted utility box featuring a sport most Americans don't care about. World Cup? World what? Hey now, there's my shadow again.

Here's another painted box, this time featuring an homage to the tuna fishermen of the days of yore. This was back when tuna fishing was the main source of income for the immigrant Italian and Portuguese families in San Diego, most of them living in Little Italy and in Loma Portal respectively.

As we headed up, we saw a sign for an art exhibit so we went upstairs to check it out.. This is the same building that houses Landini's Pizza and across the street from Blick Art Store.

We met the artist , Grant Pecoff, who was super cool. Bert was attracted by his vibrant paintings.

He and his wife have traveled to many different countries. I love how his paintings tell stories of these places...In other part of the gallery, TC recognized NYC's Flatiron building although Grant's version was an electric orange.

Recognize the larger painting? It's the Museum of Man dome and the California Bell Tower. You can see it when driving across the Prado Bridge to get into Balboa Park. It is also featured briefly in the opening sequence of Orson Welle's classic, "Citizen Kane" as part of "Xanadu", the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane, not that godawful disco movie staring Olivia Neutered John and the music of ELO!

"I'm funny how? Like a clown? I'm here to amuse you?" - Joe Pesci from "Goodfellas".  Now that was one fucking good movie! Check out the other quotes from IMDB's Goodfella's quotes. Not for the easily offended.

Shot of Landini's and the Pecoff Gallery taken from across the street. I was waiting for Bert and TC at Blick.

As we headed back, I noticed that the Mexican Consulate was down here. Never knew that.

Here's a lone Mexican Place on the outer edge of Little Italy, Mexican Fiesta. Check out Kirk's post here from way back in 2007!

Closed that Sunday afternoon...

"You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!" (cue a large volley of gunshots!) -  Al Pacino as Tony Montana in the classic gangster epic, "Scarface". If you thought "Goodfellas" had a lot of profanity, I think "Scarface" beats it. This is one of my sibiling's fave flicks. My sister's favorite actor is Al Pacino. Al Pacino and Robert deNiro were badasses back then. Now DeNiro is doing crap like "Little Fockers". C'mon Bob, you have more than enough $$$ to pay the bills than to take crappy roles like that!

On a whim and also to take advantagee of yet another beautiful and sunny weekend (we're so damn spoiled), we headed uptown to take the scenic route up Balboa Park. I had another yet coupon. This time for for the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

Here's the historic landmark El Cortez hotel which used to be the tallest building in San Diego in the 1960's. A few years ago (pre-blogging days), my cousin had her wedding reception there at the opulent Don Room with the cocktail reception on the outside patio. The views of downtown were so rad from up there!

We went up 5th to hang a right at Laurel to go on the Prado Bridge. Next stop, Balboa Park.