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| Why would anyone name this beloved water tower anything other than the North Park Water Tower? |
FREE LECTURE ON PROPOSED
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS WATER STORAGE TOWER DISTRICT—This Thursday, the noted
San Diego historian Alex Bevil, will lead a community discussion on the history
of North Park’s Water Tower and its surrounding water system facilities.
When: Thursday, March 14, 6:30 pm for refreshments
and 7 pm for the presentation.
Where:
Grace Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 3967 Park Boulevard at Lincoln
Avenue. Entrance and parking via
Lincoln.
RSVP:
619-297-3166.
The
presentation is based on the historical designation application that Bevil
prepared for the North Park and University Heights historical societies. The application is for the water tower to be
placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the “University Heights
Water Storage and Pumping Station Historic District.”
Sponsors
of the lecture say “Alex prepared the extremely detailed and very interesting
application completely on his own time as a contribution to the community.”
This
blog (one man’s voice) supports the needed historic designation for the water
tower and loudly applauds the historical societies and Mr. Bevil for carrying
forth this labor of love.
However,
this blog questions the University Heights name selection for the proposed
historic district and seeks only an answer to the question: why is it so named
University Heights and not North Park?
Granted
back in 1888 (125 years ago) the entire area from Park Blvd. to what is now
I-805 was called University Heights.
Few,
citizens in either North Park or University Heights refer to the tower as the
University Heights Water Tower. Nor, do
we call the area New Spain.
The
green beauty is known to an overwhelmingly majority of citizens as the North
Park Water Tower to the point of being self-evident. The Water Tower was built
in the 1920’s in North Park. It was
built on land the City mapped and named North Park—not University Heights.
Was
the Empire State building built in New Amsterdam? If 1888 is our benchmark then why isn’t the
historic North Park Theatre called the University Heights Theatre?
To
have University Heights Water Tower as a name to be placed on visible national
historic documentation or eventually community site plaques is misleading,
inaccurate and against common sense.
Yes,
naming rights may fall in some arcane letter of the law gray area, but
overwhelmingly the spirit of the law cries out for the Tower and surrounding
district to be called “North Park Water Storage and Pumping Station Historic
District.”
Furthermore,
if an 1888 map is to be used as a benchmark for historic designation naming,
then are we to accept that some future historic designation at 30th
and University be part of the “Nebraska and Fillmore Streets Historic
District?” In 1888, Nebraska was 30th
Street and Fillmore was University Avenue.
Yet,
if there be overwhelming evidence presented on March 14 as to why it should
forever be called the “University Heights Water Storage and Pumping Station
Historic District” then so be it—the people via their representative historical
societies have spoken.
But,
don’t ask me to refer to it as the University Heights Water Tower in polite
company.
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