Lights, music, promenade in San Pedro

This is a nice start, especially the interactive feature for kids at First Street. But there are a couple of questions that are not covered in the story:

1. Is there any free parking nearby or do we have to pay to park in the cruise ship lot to enjoy the main fountain?

2. What industrial blight "along the waterfront"? I see a lot of run down buildings across the street, but not much along the waterfront per se.

3. Unless of course you are talking about the south end of Ports O' Call that used to have a nice lawn. It's pretty run down now, no doubt due to landlord Jayme Wilson's lack of care. Is this the blight the article talks about?

This is a great addition to the waterfront and is a step in the right direction toward gentrification beneficial to downtown San Pedro... just wanted to add this comment before the inevitably negative comments posted by the stay at home bloggers who want to tear down anything positive this city does, which seems fairly typical for this website.

The Times is running an article on the traffic hazard this thing is causing. And while that may be true I believe it is also true that it is a thing of beauty in an otherwise not so nice area - but getting nicer.
However, don't we have a water crisis every year? Has anyone calculated how much water will be evaporated into the air when the fountains are going? Maybe they should be limited to weekends to both reduce traffic problems and evaporation?

rgb wrote:

The Times is running an article on the traffic hazard this thing is causing. And while that may be true I believe it is also true that it is a thing of beauty in an otherwise not so nice area - but getting nicer.
However, don't we have a water crisis every year? Has anyone calculated how much water will be evaporated into the air when the fountains are going? Maybe they should be limited to weekends to both reduce traffic problems and evaporation?

The Times. It figures. I drive by there every day and it's hardly a traffic hazard. Occasionally people slow down but once the novelty wears off that won't be a problem any more.

Yes there is some evaporation, but that's what cools the air. Just as much will evaporate away when the fountain is still and since it's next to the ocean, the air is already moist, so, not like having a fountain in the desert. I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

Don Diller wrote:

This is a nice start, especially the interactive feature for kids at First Street. But there are a couple of questions that are not covered in the story:
1. Is there any free parking nearby or do we have to pay to park in the cruise ship lot to enjoy the main fountain?
2. What industrial blight "along the waterfront"? I see a lot of run down buildings across the street, but not much along the waterfront per se.

3. Unless of course you are talking about the south end of Ports O' Call that used to have a nice lawn. It's pretty run down now, no doubt due to landlord Jayme Wilson's lack of care. Is this the blight the article talks about?

What industrial blight? Um, the tank farms, fuel depots and giant stacks of containers, decrepit chain link fences, graffiti covered train cars,weed strewn storage areas- need I go on?

Pedro Resident wrote:

This is a great addition to the waterfront and is a step in the right direction toward gentrification beneficial to downtown San Pedro... just wanted to add this comment before the inevitably negative comments posted by the stay at home bloggers who want to tear down anything positive this city does, which seems fairly typical for this website.

Yes, yes, yes! The fountian is awesome and a great step. Let's keep going.

the only nice thing in san pedro

I think the new fountain is awesome and a great addition to San Pedro. However, I also think the Daily Breeze acted a little irresponsibly showing kids sopping wet and playing at the edge of the fountain itself. I thought the Harbor Department was trying to keep kids out of the fountain. Anyone looking at these pictures without reading the story would think the Harbor Department built a City pool for the public. It'll be interesting to see how soon the lawsuits start rolling in when someone is hurt.

Yeah, I'm "Confused too".

Showing the kids taking a shower in the water is only a reminder of what the homeless will do to shower.

Thanks Breeze - a picture tells a thousand words!

The fountain is nice though.

Very nice fountain. Might be a little excessive in this economy and with our drought conditions though.$14 million dollars is a lot of money that maybe could have been used a little more wisely. And for that money couldn't we have got multi-color lights?

SP Thinker wrote:

Yeah, I'm "Confused too".
Showing the kids taking a shower in the water is only a reminder of what the homeless will do to shower.
Thanks Breeze - a picture tells a thousand words!
The fountain is nice though.

I hear they have security down there now to keep an eye on the fountain. Which is actually good. Having security around the promenade area is exactly what is needed.Once the kids fountain gets built I think kids in this one will be less of a problem

Pedroan wrote:

Very nice fountain. Might be a little excessive in this economy and with our drought conditions though.$14 million dollars is a lot of money that maybe could have been used a little more wisely. And for that money couldn't we have got multi-color lights?

That 14 million didn't disappear into the ether, it paid people to design and build the thing, materials that keep suppliers employed, too. Multi colored lights is a bit much, I think. So we'll just have to disagree on that one.