Gaslamp Quarter

Explore the Victorian-era shops and restaurants of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter with a special hotel rate that starts at $139 a night. The deal: The rate (which totals $169 with taxes and fees) is available at the Sofia Hotel through mid-December; travelers who stay four or more nights receive 25% off. The hotel: The Sofia, built in 1926, underwent a $16-million renovation last year and was named a National Trust Historic Hotel earlier this year.

The Westin Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego has newly redone rooms and a deal for downtown visitors. This package comes with trolley tickets, which offers a great excuse to see the city without taking your car. Rooms start at a nice price too. The deal: The Downtown and Downtime package makes it easy to hop around the city. The package includes a night at the hotel and two adult tickets for the San Diego Old Town Trolley , which stops at Balboa Park, the Maritime Museum of San Diego, Old Town, the San Diego Zoo and other sites.

With an adult bookstore and several dilapidated buildings as neighbors, a storefront San Diego Police Department substation has opened in the Gaslamp Quarter. The station is intended to provide the visible physical presence of the law that police and merchants hope will deter crime and change the perception people have of the area. The storefront, at 739 5th Ave.

WHERE TO STAY IN SAN DIEGO Old: The U.S. Grant Hotel, 326 Broadway; (619) 232-3121, www.usgrant.net. Built in 1910, the 270-room Grant stands in the middle of downtown. It got a $60-million face-lift between 2004 and 2006. Its dignified public rooms befit a place that has hosted 14 presidents; lobby displays extol the heritage of the current owners, the casino-operating Sycuan Indians of San Diego County. Upscale features include the Grant Grill restaurant. However, if you want to swim, you have to use the Westin's pool across the street.

The Gaslamp Quarter Council has selected a San Diego government analyst and consultant as executive director. Craig Lee, 35, of Harris & Lee Governmental Relations, learned Tuesday of his appointment and plans to begin as the full-time executive director with an annual salary of $52,000 on Aug. 1. Lee, who "brings tremendous enthusiasm to the job," is working limited hours in his new post while phasing out his own business, Kay Carter, the council's outgoing executive director, said Friday.

Moving to invigorate the Gaslamp Quarter, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday raised the height limit on buildings in the historic downtown district and relaxed restrictions on alcohol sales to encourage development of restaurants and nightclubs. At the same time, the council tightened restrictions on the sale of alcohol for off-premises consumption in Centre City East to help combat public drunkenness.

The new Kansas City Steakhouse held its grand opening in mid-June but delayed its actual opening until the final days of 1989. The hiatus whetted appetites already salivating over the prospect of a prime beef house in the heart of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. But now that the kitchen's wood-fired grill is in full flame, the pertinent question seems to be whether management might not better have delayed the opening until its house was in order.

The Bowery Theatre has a new home in the Gaslamp Quarter--the Onyx Building at 860 5th Ave. The theater hopes to hold off on the move until Jan. 1, when renovations are completed on its new space, but that depends on the new owner of the New Palace Hotel, the Bowery's present home. The Downtown Senior Corp., run by Mavoureen O'Connor, twin sister of Mayor Maureen O'Connor, at one point sent the Bowery a letter saying the theater company would have to leave the premises by June 30, 1988.

San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter can be viewed as home to a wildly improbable mix of restaurants, or, alternatively, as the nucleus of a truly cosmopolitan and diversified family of eateries. In either case, the going hasn't been easy for the entrepreneurs there in recent years.

The pioneering Morgan Restaurant finally gave up the ghost last summer after more than eight years as the gastronomic anchor of the most difficult--at least for a restaurant of any pretension--section of the Gaslamp Quarter. In its early years, Morgan counted among its immediate neighbors a pair of shelters for homeless men, a fact that limited its clientele largely to a group that savors the variety and unexpected moments of a rough-shaven urban environment.

SAN FRANCISCO Edwardian World's Faire and Ball When, where: Jan. 22 and 23, Regency Ballroom Highlights: The faire, on Jan. 22, is a dramatic celebration of the turn-of-the-century era with performances, gardens, a bazaar and exhibition halls about Edwardian arts and technology. The 10th annual ball, which is on Jan. 23, features elaborate costumes, dancing, music, circus arts, burlesque and ballroom-dancing classes. Cost: Tickets to the faire start at $26; tickets to the ball start at $36. Info: www.edwardianball.

It was the bottom of the fifth, and the Florida Marlins were leading the San Diego Padres, 3-1. The crowd roared as a flashing sign in Petco Park implored the fans to make some noise. From my seat, I heard and saw it all. But I was a block away, relaxing, drink in hand, on the ninth-floor terrace of Hotel Indigo. I had a clear view through the outfield to home plate, though binoculars would have helped. But what I missed I could see on the stadium's oversized screen. And what fun to be a rooftop voyeur on a warm summer night.

It's a beautiful summer day and tourists are enjoying the waterfront delights: harbor cruises, the carrier Midway museum, seafood restaurants, the tall ship Star of India. A quaint addition to the scene are the pedicab operators eager to pedal visitors to their next destination: a restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter, perhaps, or the stores of Seaport Village. Or maybe back to their hotel. But the tourist tradition has become a civic nuisance as the number of pedicabs has soared in recent years.

A man in his early 20s stabbed two women, 70 and 68, and took their 1988 Cadillac early Thursday in downtown San Diego, police said. The women had befriended the man at a local casino and offered him a ride to the Gaslamp Quarter. Once there, he stabbed the women and stole the car and their purses. The 68-year-old woman was stabbed in the chest, the 70-year-old woman behind the ear. The injuries were not life threatening, police said.

Explore the Victorian-era shops and restaurants of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter with a special hotel rate that starts at $139 a night. The deal: The rate (which totals $169 with taxes and fees) is available at the Sofia Hotel through mid-December; travelers who stay four or more nights receive 25% off. The hotel: The Sofia, built in 1926, underwent a $16-million renovation last year and was named a National Trust Historic Hotel earlier this year.

We visited rural Ireland and urban Brooklyn on a recent weekend. Not bad tracks, considering we never boarded a plane. Instead, we did what we have long wanted to do: drive to San Diego and let the wonderful theater companies there transport us further through time and space. My wife, Leda, and I have visited San Diego for summer beach vacations and, in between family cookouts and bicycle rides, usually have squeezed in a night of theater.

The San Diego Police Department has begun a new "walking beat" operation in the Gaslamp Quarter, police spokesman Bill Robinson said Friday. This was done, in part, because of requests by Gaslamp Quarter business owners, he said. Twelve uniformed officers have been put on the Gaslamp beat in addition to two officers who have been regularly patrolling the area.

Art Skolnik, executive director of the Gaslamp Quarter Council and one of San Diego's leading advocates of preservation of historic buildings, Wednesday announced his resignation, effective the end of the year. Skolnik, 41, who has held the high-visibility position since April, 1984, said his resignation stems from accumulated stress and weariness involved in commuting each weekend to Seattle to visit his wife and children.

A dozen pedestrians are huddled on a downtown street corner. It's sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight on a Friday, and they stand a few blocks below Broadway, in the heart of a downtown zone whose Victorian storefronts have seen decades of seriously bad news. Are these people prowling for hookers? Waiting for a drug connection? Or are they sailors at liberty, looking for that certain special tattoo parlor? Twenty years ago, when I was a teenager in San Diego, those would have been good bets.

The 12th annual Street Scene takes place here tonight through Sunday with a lineup of more than 100 performers--far and away the most comprehensive the fest has offered yet. A diverse array, it is being served up on 12 stages covering 21 blocks in downtown's Gaslamp Quarter, and for the first time, a third day of shows has been added.