La Jolla, San Diego, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

La Jolla (pronounced /ləˈhɔɪ.ə/ lə-HOY-ə) is a wealthy^[1] seaside resort community, occupying seven miles of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. Although within the city limits of San Diego, California, La Jolla retains its own small-town atmosphere and its own civic pride. Home to roughly 42,808^[2] residents, La Jolla is defined on three sides^{[citation needed]} by its rugged coastline of ocean bluffs and beaches, backed by steep canyons and hillsides culminating at Mount Soledad.^[3] Located twelve miles north of Downtown San Diego, and 40 miles south of Orange County California,^[4][5] La Jolla is probably best known for its beautiful weather year round with an average daily temperature of 70.5 °F (21.4 °C)^[6][7][8] making this area a tourist hotspot. In addition, La Jolla is well known for its elite shopping and dining, with upscale boutiques, import shops, and gourmet restaurants lining Prospect Street.^[9][10][11]

La Jolla is home to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the Salk Institute, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This community also has the second largest concentration of biotechnology companies in the United States, behind Boston. ^[12]

Contents 1 Identity 1.1 Community groups 2 Neighborhoods 3 Education 3.1 University of California, San Diego 3.2 Other schools 4 Landscape 4.1 Beaches 4.2 Mount Soledad 4.3 Development 5 Attractions and activities 6 Origin 6.1 Antisemitism 7 Notable residents 7.1 Arts and entertainment 7.1.1 Beauty Pageant Winners 7.1.2 Actors 7.1.3 Film and television executives 7.1.4 Literature 7.1.5 Music 7.1.6 Visual and performance art 7.2 Business and finance 7.3 Crime 7.4 Government and politics 7.5 Science and technology 7.6 Sports 7.7 Academia 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Panoramic view of La Jolla from the Torrey Pines cliffs

Beach Panorama - La Jolla, California (2008)

[edit] Identity

The toponym La Jolla is derived from a mispelling of the Spanish word for "the jewel" (properly spelled "la joya"). The U.S. Postal Service has designated "La Jolla" as the only acceptable place name for use in mailing addresses for the ZIP Codes covering the area, because historically the La Jolla post office was established before the community was absorbed within the San Diego city limits.^[13] This - along with the fact that La Jolla has had its own unique local phone book since 1937, the La Jolla Blue Book,^[14] - can give the impression that La Jolla is a separate incorporated city, even though it is part of the City of San Diego.

The community's border starts at Pacific Beach to the south and extends along the Pacific Ocean shore north to include Torrey Pines State Reserve ending at Del Mar, California. Along the way La Jolla encompasses neighborhoods^[15] like Bird Rock, Windansea Beach, the original or "old" village of La Jolla, La Jolla Shores, La Jolla Farms, Torrey Pines, Mount Soledad and La Jolla Village. The City of San Diego defines La Jolla's eastern boundary as former Highway US 101, which is now Gilman Drive, with the exception of some of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). ^[16]

[edit] Community groups

La Jolla has several community groups which work to unify the voice of the community. The La Jolla Community Planning Association advises the City Council, Planning Commission, City Planning Department as well as other Governmental agency as appropriate in the initial preparation, adoption of, implementation of, or amendment to the General or Community Plan as it pertains to the La Jolla area.^[17] The non-profit La Jolla Town Council^[18] represents the interests of the La Jolla businesses that belong to the Council.

[edit] Neighborhoods

• La Jolla Farms - the homes on top of the cliffs above Black's Beach and adjacent to the western boundary of the UCSD campus.
• La Jolla Shores - the residential area and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus along La Jolla Shores beach and east up the hillside. Also includes a small business district of shops and restaurants along Avenida de la Playa.
• La Jolla Heights - the homes on the hills overlooking La Jolla Shores. No businesses.
• Hidden Valley - lower portion of Mount Soledad on the northern slopes. No businesses.
• Country Club - lower Mount Soledad on the north-west side, including the La Jolla Country Club golf course.
• Village - a.k.a. Village of La Jolla (not to be confused with La Jolla Village) the "downtown" business district area, including most of La Jolla's shops and restaurants, and the immediately surrounding residential areas.
• Beach-Barber Tract - the coastal section from Windansea Beach to the Village. A few shops and restaurants, mostly on La Jolla Blvd.
• Lower Hermosa - coastal strip south of Beach-Barber Tract. No businesses.
• Bird Rock - southern/coastal La Jolla, and the lower slopes of Mt Soledad in the area. Shops and restaurants along La Jolla Blvd.
• Muirlands - relatively large area on western middle slope of Mt. Soledad. No businesses.
• La Jolla Mesa - A strip on the lower southern side of Mt. Soledad, bordering Pacific Beach.
• La Jolla Alta - The neighborhood east of La Jolla Mesa.
• Soledad South - Southeastern slopes of Mount Soledad, all the way up to the top, east of La Jolla Alta.
• Muirlands West - The neighborhood between Muirlands to the south, and Country Club - to the north.
• Upper Hermosa - North of Bird Rock, east of La Jolla Blvd.
• La Jolla Village - (not to be confused with the Village of La Jolla) - north-east La Jolla, east of La Jolla Heights, north and west of I-5, and south of UCSD. This neighborhood's namesake, The La Jolla Village Square shopping and residential mall, including La Jolla's two movie theatres, is located here.

It should be noted that The Village (of La Jolla) and La Jolla Village are not at all the same; they are distinct neighborhoods within La Jolla.

[edit] Education

[edit] University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego is the center of higher education in La Jolla. The campus's original name was UC La Jolla before it was changed to UC San Diego. UCSD includes the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

[edit] Other schools

National University is also headquartered in La Jolla, though its San Diego campuses are located elsewhere in the city & county. Among the several research institutes near UCSD and in the nearby Torrey Pines Science Park are The Scripps Research Institute, the Burnham Institute (formerly called the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation) and the Salk Institute. The community's prep schools are La Jolla Country Day School, The Bishop's School, and The Preuss School UCSD. Elementary schools include The Children's School, Integral Elementary School of La Jolla, Delphi Academy, All Hallows Academy, The Gillispie School, Evans, Torrey Pines Elementary, La Jolla Elementary, and Bird Rock Elementary. The public high school, La Jolla High School, is in the San Diego City Schools district.

[edit] Landscape

La Jolla, like most of Southern California, is an area of great natural beauty with a mixture of geology - sandy beaches and rocky shorelines good for a variety of outdoor activities. The area has a number of public beaches, parks, as well as shopping areas.

[edit] Beaches

The most compelling geographical highlight of La Jolla is its ocean front, with alternating rugged and sandy coast line and wild seal congregations. Popular sandy beaches, dotting the coastline from the south to the north, are:

• Children's Pool Beach
• La Jolla Cove
• La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club
• La Jolla Shores
• Scripps
• Black's Beach (a de facto nude beach leading up to Torrey Pines State Reserve)
• Windansea Beach
• Wipeout Beach

[edit] Mount Soledad

Mount Soledad is covered with the narrow roads that follow its contours and hundreds of homes overlooking the ocean on its slopes. It is the home of the large concrete Mount Soledad Easter Cross built in 1954, later designated a Korean War Memorial, that became the center of a controversy over the display of religious symbols on government property.

[edit] Development

The landscape of La Jolla today is shaped by its development. With palm-lined streets, large estate homes in masterplanned and gated developments, La Jolla has become one of the most expensive neighborhoods in San Diego, boasting some of the county's wealthiest people.

[edit] Attractions and activities

La Jolla is also the location of Torrey Pines Golf Course, made famous by the PGA Tour's Buick Invitational held there each February (in 2005 and 2007, the competition was held in January). In 2008, Torrey Pines also hosted the 2008 U.S. Open which was played on the south course. Down the steep cliffs from the Salk Institute and the Torrey Pines Golf Course is the famous de facto nude beach, Black's Beach.

Downtown La Jolla is noted for its jewelry stores, upmarket restaurants and hotels. Prospect Street and Girard Avenue also have several famous boutiques and restaurants (including local favorites, such as the Girard Gourmet and Harry's Coffee Shop). Notable for its architectural and historical presence is the La Valencia Hotel, which used to welcome movie stars on retreat from Hollywood during the silent film era.

A notable architectural and cultural landmark is the La Jolla branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, founded in 1941 located just above the waterfront in what was originally the 1915 residence of philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps.

Skimboarding and surfing are very popular at many of La Jolla's beaches including Windansea Beach. The location is mentioned in the legendary Beach Boys song, 'Surfin' USA,' in the final verse with the line "All over La Jolla..."

Ocean swimming at La Jolla Cove is very popular year round, where a swimming channel in the underwater park is demarcated and marked with buoys. For many years, La Jolla has been the host of a rough water swim.

Spectacular views of the ocean and much of San Diego can be seen from the Mount Soledad Memorial Park at the top of Mount Soledad.

[edit] Origin

The La Jolla area was known as “La Jolla Park” at least as early as 1886. The origin of the name is obscure. Some say it is a corruption of “ahoy”, called out by sailors seeking the attention of people on the shore. Promoters of La Jolla claim it is from the Spanish “la joya”, meaning the jewel. A more likely though less glamorous theory is that “La Jolla” is a corruption of the Native American word “Woholle”, meaning hole in the mountain, referring to the caves in the north-facing cliffs next to La Jolla Cove Park.^[19] The main cave is accessible today via tunnels built by Professor Gustav Shultz in 1902.^[20]

[edit] Antisemitism

La Jolla was always marketed by developers as a bastion of isolation and exclusivity. Antisemitic housing practices in La Jolla can be traced back all the way back to 1926, when developers began construction on La Jolla Shores. In La Jolla Shores and La Jolla Hermosa, only people with pure Caucasian blood could own property, and housing notices included racist comments against Jews and other minority groups. Housing restrictions were thought to be enough to keep "undesirable" ethnic groups from living in La Jolla, until the 1948 Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer prohibited such restrictive covenants. After that ruling, real estate companies used more underhanded tactics to keep Jews out of La Jolla. Real estate agents would be fired if they sold a house to Jewish clients. There were no signs put up on for-sale properties, so many Jews could not know which properties were available. If a real estate agent suspected that a potential home buyer was a Jew, they would demand higher down payments and display green cards on their dashboards marked with the Star of David to warn the seller. The sellers would also send codes to their real estate agents: if their porch lights were on during the day, they did not want Jewish buyers.^[21]

By 1962, however, La Jolla, and the non-restrictive La Jolla Scenic Heights in particular, had a substantial Jewish population due to talk of establishing UCSD in the area. The university would bring many Jewish professors, who would need to live in nearby areas such as La Jolla. In the words of UCSD patriarch Roger Revelle, "You can't have a university without having Jewish professors. The Real Estate Broker's Association and their supporters in La Jolla had to make up their minds whether they wanted a university or an anti-Semitic covenant. You couldn't have both."^[22] Today, there are three large synagogues in La Jolla, and over 60 percent of San Diego Jews live in La Jolla or farther north. Due to UCSD, La Jolla now boasts a large and thriving Jewish population.^[23]

[edit] Notable residents

[edit] Arts and entertainment

[edit] Beauty Pageant Winners

• Carrie Prejean- Miss California 2009 & Miss USA 2009 First Runner-Up

[edit] Actors

• Gregory Peck 1916-2003 - Film actor.
• Robin Wright Penn - Film and television actress, attended La Jolla High School.
• Autumn Reeser - Television actress (The O.C.), born in La Jolla and lived there until age 17.
• Cliff Robertson - Film actor.
• Raquel Welch - Film and television actress.

[edit] Film and television executives

• Donald De Line - Studio executive and film producer (Pretty Woman — 1990) at Walt Disney Productions and its Touchstone Pictures division since 1985, native La Jollan.
• Jeff Kleeman - Former MGM production executive, native La Jollan.
• Sunmin Park - Film producer, attended La Jolla High School.
• Conrad Riggs - Executive producer of Survivor and The Apprentice, attended La Jolla High School.
• Gore Verbinski - Director of Pirates of the Caribbean, native La Jollan.

[edit] Literature

• Raymond Chandler, an early influential noir novelist, moved to La Jolla late in his career, staying until his death 13 years later, having uttered the bleak aphorism about then-stuffy La Jolla, "A nice place — for old people and their parents."
• Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), a children's author and long-time resident of La Jolla who died there in 1991.^[24] The Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego, is named for him.
  • Audrey Geisel - His widow
• Anne Rice - Novelist and author of Interview with the Vampire, moved to La Jolla from New Orleans in March 2005.^[25]

[edit] Music

• Pierre Bouvier - Lead singer of the band Simple Plan, has a house in La Jolla.
• Robin Crosby - Rock musician who played electric guitar for the metal band Ratt, attended high school in La Jolla.
• Warren DeMartini - Rock musician who plays electric guitar for the metal band Ratt, attended high school in La Jolla.
• Michael Franks - Musician.
• Sam Hinton - American folk singer and marine biologist.

[edit] Visual and performance art

• Armi Kuusela - Winner of the first Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1952.
  • Albert Norman Williams, her second husband, retired State Department officer and diplomat
• Richard Allen Morris - Painter who has lived in La Jolla for over twenty years.
• Rey Mysterio - World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler.

[edit] Business and finance

• Margaret Anne Cargill, philanthropist, an heir to Minneapolis-based grain-trading conglomerate Cargill, and member of the Forbes 400.^{[26][27][28][29][30]}
• Deepak Chopra ran his Center for Well Being in La Jolla until recently.
• David C. Copley, owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune and member of the Forbes 400.
• Benjamin Graham, noted economist and value investor lived in La Jolla at the end of his life.
• Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts is a La Jolla native.
• The Hearst family of Hearst newspapers fame.
• Irwin Mark Jacobs - Electrical engineer; Cofounder and former chairman of the board of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan.
• Ted Waitt, founder of Gateway, Inc., built an estate on top of Mount Soledad where he lives with his family.

[edit] Crime

• Ivan Boesky - Financier convicted of insider trading who lived in La Jolla for several years.
• Andrew Cunanan - Infamous spree killer of Gianni Versace and three others, graduated from The Bishop's School in 1987.
• David Hall, Governor of Oklahoma from 1971-1975, moved to La Jolla after serving 19 months in Federal prison for racketeering and extortion, and went on to become a successful sales executive there.

[edit] Government and politics

• George Gigov - high-ranking United Nations diplomat, retired admiral (US Navy), and a former Boeing executive.
• John McCain - United States Senator from Arizona, 2008 Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, owns a home in La Jolla with his wife, Cindy McCain.^[31]
• Mitt Romney - former governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, has a $12 million vacation home there.^[32]
• A. Latham Staples - LGBT civil rights activist, and Empowering Spirits Foundation founder and executive director.

[edit] Science and technology

• Geoffrey Burbidge and Margaret Burbidge, astronomers holding positions at UCSD after many years, reside near La Jolla Shores.
• Francis Crick, Nobel prize in medicine winner for his work to identify the essential structure of DNA, was a long-time resident of La Jolla.
• Clive Granger, 2003 Nobel Prize in economics winner, lives in La Jolla.
• Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prize in Chemistry-winning biochemist and surfer from La Jolla, invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method of DNA analysis.
• Walter Munk, oceanographer, lives in La Jolla.
• Carl Rogers, psychologist and researcher on psychotherapy.
• Ellen Browning Scripps, philanthropist, founder of Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Scripps College, member of the Forbes 400.
• Jacob Bronowski, was a British mathematician and biologist of Polish-Jewish origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man.
• Benjamin Elazari Volcani, discovered life in the Dead Sea and pioneered biological silicon research at The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He and his wife, Eleanor Susan Brownell Anthony "Toni" Solomons Jackson Volcani, lived in La Jolla.

[edit] Sports

• Buzzie Bavasi - Former Major League Baseball executive who lived in La Jolla from 1968 until his death in 2008.
• Rolf Benirschke - Former placekicker for the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League, attended high school in La Jolla.
• Dick Enberg - Sportscaster for NBC Sports.
• Doug Flutie - Former quarterback for the San Diego Chargers.
• Rey Mysterio - Professional WWE wrestling champion
• Joel Skinner - Former manager and current third base coach of Major League Baseball's Cleveland Indians, born in La Jolla.
• Michael Schreiner - Renowned junior golfer, born in La Jolla
• Alexandra Stevenson - Women's Tennis Association professional tennis player and 1999 semifinalist at The Wimbledon Championships, born in La Jolla.

[edit] Academia

• Martin Bunzl, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University
• Deborah Hertz, Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies at the University of California, San Diego

[edit] See also

• San Diego Historical Landmarks in La Jolla, California

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• La Jolla Blue Book Community Directory
• San Diego Community Profile: La Jolla
• SANDAG population and housing estimates (PDF)
• La Jolla Town Council
• La Jolla Shores Association - serving the La Jolla Shores community
• La Jolla High School Home Page
• La Jolla Elementary School
• La Jolla Neighborhood Guide

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Coordinates: 32°50′24″N 117°16′37″W / 32.84°N 117.27694°W / 32.84; -117.27694