Seated in History
American Legion Post #201
4061Fairmont Avenue
San Diego, CA
2024
City Heights Plaza Del Sol and City Heights Place
Are sister projects built by Wakeland Housing Corp in partnership with Price Philanthropies.
More than years in the making, it was completed in 2024 for the neighborhood of City Heights in San Diego. Sun Country Builders Special hello to John and Kevin. Placed Design, Christy Wolf. Deborah Smithton Architects.
So I was asked to commemorate the The DeWitt C. Mitchell Memorial American Legion Post #201. This post had left the historic building and moved to Lemon Grove, which is where I found (in the attic) many great artifacts.
I went to the old building and saw these benches along the walls. The seat parts lifted and there were (still) sports equipment in them. American Legions had many social functions. I saw lots of photos, snapshots and newspaper articles. They also had sports, Boy Scouts and many war efforts. In fact the entry door was wide enough to bring in an ambulance in case the building had to be used as a hospital at some future date. I grabbed a chunk of the thickened terrazzo for the bench during demolition. The Hall supported Boy Scout Troop #1. The legend Ted Williams played ball for the 201 as a school boy. Every time I dug deeper I found a treasure trove of cool things. DeWitt’s mother built the Hall to commemorate her son (a “Gold Star Mother”) who died technically in WWII, but was in Texas and perished from the flu. He was an attorney. I worked on this project at the end of Covid. The images I found with masked soldiers was eerily familiar to current times.
Okay, so we replicated the old benches. There are historic images above the bench, which are cool. There is a photo of me lifting the original lid (the inspiration) and so one is invited to do the same. A light turns on with the lifting lid and inside is more quirky items that for me made everything human. The neighborhood had many waves of immigrants and that formed yet another layer of interest. More in that in a minute.
There are many components to this project for me. The red bench that you just read about. There is a plaque on the street level so everyone has access to the history. A portrait of DeWitt that is framed by the clay and glazed frame I inset into the exterior bricks.
The other building has a kitchen in their community room which you can see from the street. There use to be a bank at that site and the vault door is still there as a side note. There are three major immigrant groups that came to Mid City in specific- East Africans, Cambodians and Vietnamese. I had the fun of researching recipes and making 3 collages for the dinning room. Here, a special shout out to Loan Nguyen who maintains a Vietnamese food Facebook site and was a work friend of Ralf’s. She was also on an early boat leaving Vietnam as a teenager and I had the privilege ofhearing the entire story. It was amazing.
There are lots of walls in two buildings. Under the purview of the first project manager, Kim Duran,(all the best at your new job) we thought it would be great to use the art of local, specifically MidCity artists. The pieces were reproduced digitally (artists got to keep their original art) and mounted by ColorPlak in Temecula. If a piece gets injured, it can be reproduced. Artist got paid. Street scenes are local and very recognizable. There were some 30 such pieces. Shout out to Christy Wolf (Placed Design) who I coordinated with on how things in the interior looked. People who live there are surrounded by very cool visual art, amazing architecture, walkable and vibrant street culture, and it’s affordable.
Wall Artists
Wick Alexander, Amanda Kachadoorian Jordi, Michelle Montrose, Pasquale Verdicchio