Point Loma, San Diego

Old Point Loma Lighthouse
Jon Sullivan

Point Loma is a neighborhood of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, the east by the San Diego Bay and Old Town and the north by the San Diego River. Along with Coronado, California and the Silver Strand, Point Loma separates the San Diego Bay from the Pacific Ocean.

Point Loma has an estimated population of 45,887 (including Ocean Beach), according to the 2000 Census Bureau[1].

Landmarks

Point Loma's well known landmark is the Cabrillo National Monument, named after Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator sailing in the service of Spain, the first European explorer to see San Diego Bay. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse is part of the monument, where visitors tour the historic lighthouse that guided ships through the San Diego Bay from 1855 to 1891.

Commercial and Military

Point Loma is also home to the iPayOne Center (formerly known as the San Diego Sports Arena), the popular rock concert venue SOMA, Point Loma Nazarene University, the US Navy's SPAWAR program, as well as many hotels, unique local businesses, and the former US Navy Recruit Training Command / Naval Training Center, or RTC/NTC San Diego. In 2005, it was the setting for MTV's The Real World (San Diego), and has some of the most expensive residential real estate on the West Coast.

Another view of "Old Point Loma Lighthouse"

Recruit Training Command, San Diego served as training grounds for new Naval recruits. Naval Training Center, San Diego gave the sailors career training. October 1996 these schools were moved to Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois. The site of the Point Loma facility is no longer a Navy base. It is now known as Liberty Station[2], a 361-acre mixed use redevelopment project that includes residential, office, retail, educational[3] and civic, arts and cultural districts[4]. Liberty Station, developed by the City of San Diego and The Corky McMillin Companies[5], also includes a 9-hole golf course[6], a 46-acre waterfront park and a 100-acre historic district on the National Register of Historic Places[7]. Naval Base Point Loma, at the end of Rosecrans Boulevard, is still in operation. This is the home of Submarine Squadron 11, several Nuclear Fast Attack Submarines, and historic Fort Rosecrans, a former US Army Coastal Gunnery Facility of the First World War era, which includes the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and the USS Bennington Monument.

External links

• ePointLoma.com - local information and businesses
• Naval Base Point Loma History
• Point Loma Neighborhood Guide

32°40′12″N 117°14′31″W