San Diego Plays To Both Visitors And Residents National Recognition Has Community Pride Is At A Well-Deserved, All-Time-High In The Third Largest City In California

For years, this California metropolis felt like Rodney Dangerfield. Though it had a lot going for it, it got no respect.

It was always Hollywood or Los Angeles or San Francisco that got good press.

But now San Diego is riding the crest: What surprise team made the Super Bowl this year? San Diego’s Chargers.

Where were the America’s Cup yacht races being held? San Diego.

What city is going to host the Republican National Convention next year? You got it: San Diego.

And for the trendy, what city just opened a Planet Hollywood cafe? Cool.

All this is building a sense of community pride in California’s third-largest city.

“We used to be a sleepy Navy town,” said Alison DaRosa, who travels widely in her job as travel editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Now we’re a cosmopolitan city with national respect.”

All of which is producing a heady feeling in this city of almost 1.2 million people, long overshadowed by the despised colossus to its north, Los Angeles.

What other hold, besides a more leisurely pace of life, does San Diego have on its citizens and visitors?

For one thing, the city’s setting is a thing of beauty. Situated on a large bay bisected by the soaring Coronado Bridge, San Diego melds waterfront glitter with mountain ambience.

At sunset, boat sails make white triangles against a sky and bay bathed in gold and red. In the other direction, the mountains glow purple-red behind downtown’s glassy skyline.

It’s a scintillating sight, made more pleasant by a climate that many perceive as near-perfect; with an average summer high of 74 degrees, air-conditioning is not often a necessity.

Beyond its physical beauty, however, San Diego possesses an unusual variety of places and activities that appeal to both residents and visitors - among them, a restored downtown, a worldfamous zoo, a museum quarter on the former site of two world’s fairs, a nightlife district in a refurbished Victorian quarter, bay cruises, a waterfront dining and entertainment complex, a historic Old Town, major league baseball and pro football.

As you might expect in a major seaport, the harborfront is an important attraction, and the nice thing is that it’s quite accessible.

Stroll along the downtown bayfront and the scents and sights of the sea come to meet you. Sightseeing cruises, sport fishing and whale-watching boats leave from the Embarcadero, as do large cruise ships. (Whale watching occurs only from December to April, when the gray whales are migrating between Alaska and Baja California.) You’ll almost always see a military vessel or two as well, as San Diego is still the U.S. Navy’s major base on the Pacific coast.

Farther along the waterfront stands the striking $165 million Convention Center, whose sail-like fabric roof has become a San Diego landmark. Close by is Seaport Village, a 14-acre shopping and entertainment complex built to resemble a harborside setting of a century ago. Pathways wind among the 75 shops and restaurants in the village as well as on the seawall. And if the sea beckons, you can hop aboard a new water taxi service ($5) that makes several stops.

San Diego’s zoo is world famous, and deservedly so. More than 3,400 animals dwell in such expansive new habitats as Tiger River, Sun Bear Forest and Gorilla Tropics. Newest of the animal homes is Hippo Beach, a river clearing bordered by a rain forest where the huge mammals can be seen above and below water. Several other multimillion-dollar habitats are being developed over 10 years.

For another view of animals, visit the Wild Animal Park, where the animals run free and the visitors travel by monorail. Allied with the zoo, it’s 30 miles northeast of town.

Downtown San Diego is divided into several distinct areas. Glassy high-rises mark the corporate district, Victorian-era buildings pepper the restored Gaslamp Quarter and through it all runs the bright red San Diego Trolley, a marvelous conveyance that will take you all the way to the Mexican border.

Centerpiece of the revitalized downtown is Horton Plaza, a 11.5-acre, 150-store shopping mall built in 1985 whose colorful, perky design makes it something to see whether or not you’re shopping. Recently opened as part of a $16 million expansion of this “Disneyland of Shopping” is a Planet Hollywood, a cinema complex, and several new restaurants and stores. A more upscale mall is the Paladion San Diego fashion center, whose stores include Tiffany, Gucci, Dunhill, Cartier and Ferragamo.

Gaslamp Quarter, a National Historic District, is the nexus of the night scene. New restaurants seem to be popping up almost daily, and clubs and shops reflect the taste of a younger crowd. The quarter begins just across the street from the Convention Center. Quite splendid are the buildings in this spacious former site of two world’s fairs, the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915 and the California-Pacific Exposition of 1935. Thirteen museums occupy these imposing Spanish-Moorish structures, none of which were intended to be permanent. Now some are being rebuilt exactly as they were, but with better reinforcing and longer-lasting materials. The museums range from art, aerospace and automobiles to sports, science and railroads.

North of downtown in Mission Valley is Old Town, the first European settlement in California, with 12 acres of restored historic buildings and a couple of pleasant restaurants. A good place to spend a couple of pleasant hours soaking up California history, then sitting for a spell listening to mariachi music in a Mexican cafe.

Also in Mission Valley is the Alcala Mission, the first of a series of 12 California missions built by Father Junipero Serra. It stands near Jack Murphy Stadium, where the San Diego Chargers play their home games. Two large shopping malls and a major hotel complex are situated here.

In nearby Mission Bay is the original Sea World, the marine attraction that has spawned clones in Florida, Ohio and Texas. Mission Bay also has 27 miles of beaches and plentiful waterways for water skiing, swimming and fishing.

Between the bay and the ocean sits Coronado, a lovely peninsula whose famed red-roofed Hotel del Coronado remains a major attraction. Thomas Edison himself attended the opening of the hotel in 1888, and it was at this Victorian beauty a half century later that the Duke of Windsor, then the Prince of Wales, reportedly met Wallis Warfield Simpson, his future wife.

Coronado’s downtown is home to many upscale shops and fine restaurants; beginning in July, summer concerts are held every Sunday in the park. Coronado can be reached by ferry or by road.

San Diego’s prettiest coastline, I think, is at La Jolla, where the beaches nestle in rocky coves and million-dollar homes perch on the hillsides above them. When the folks who live in those homes go out to shop, they don’t have to go any further than their own small downtown, where some of San Diego’s toniest stores spread their awnings. One of the world’s great marine laboratories, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is found here, along with its Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum. The La Jolla Playhouse, a legitimate theater founded by actor Gregory Peck, operates most of the year.

MEMO: For more information: San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau: 401 B Street, Suite 1400, San Diego, CA 92101; call (619) 232-3101.