The Euclid Tower
It’s rare to drive through a residential neighborhood and find a 110-foot tower. Not a building, but a tower. Although 10 feet would be a 10-story building, so that might be a litttle out of place in a residential neighborhood, too. However, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and University Avenue in City Heights, there’s just such a tower, the Euclid Tower.
The Euclid Tower was built in 1932 as a drive-in soda fountain. It was 110 feet high and consisted of a spire sitting on top of a two-story building shaped as an octagon. Clocks on each side of the building were eventually removed because children kept shooting out the glass with slingshots (LIKE if you ever had a slingshot…..lol).
Euclid Tower was renovated in 1964 when a car crashed through it. In 1995, the building was given another facelift, and the tower was painted in bright, vibrant colors. At that time, third-grade children throughout the area were asked to draw pictures of City Heights, some of which would be reproduced as tiles and set around the top of the building.
The original spire was removed in 1999 because it had started to lean, more than the Leaning Tower of Pizza Pisa. The base building and the children’s artwork tiles were saved. In 2009, the San Diego Redevelopment Agency rebuilt an 80-foot replica of the spire.
There have been various tenants throughout the years. Current tenants are a tattoo parlor and a bar. Happy hour daily from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.
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Posted on October 4, 2012, in History, Manmade, Out & About and tagged city heights in san diego, euclid tower in san diego. Bookmark the permalink. 23 Comments.
That storybook building really is real!
What a great history, and I’m so glad that it is valued instead of being torn down. We had an unusual building with a smaller lookout tower for was once a speak easy. I think we lost in it in a fire a couple decades ago. No one cared enough to save it–such a shame.
I love that they kept the kids’ work.
What a cool building! I’ve only been to San Diego once, spent much of those few days (too few!) in the Little Italy area. On my next visit, that tower is top of the list!
So glad you enjoyed visiting my blog. Come back anytime!
wow! awesome that they took the time / money to rebuild it rather than just knocking it down for some parking lot! when i saw the post title i thought you were here in ohio
When I was researching the tower I saw that there was a Euclid Tower there in Ohio. Haven’t read about it yet, though.
cool.
Gosh. I haven’t been in that part of town in years!
I got lost over there today. Getting lost on purpose is a specialty of mine.
Wow what a building just for show… wonderful…
It looks like a toy
Love the building. I see you’ve been camping on my blog. the trouble is I can’t clear your campsite away. Every time I click on your likes to usher them into ‘delete’, the computer has a nervous breakdown and says something like “an error has occurred”. Is Zoey playing tricks?????
I’m confused. Why would you delete likes from your posts?
no way would I delete your Likes , it’s the e-mail messages that won’t go away… I’ve tried again this morning, but they’re still hanging in, so I think I may be searching for Meaning as well as finding a Solution.
Butt don’t give up coming to the campsite, it’s always great to see Zoey peering at me!!!!
That’s weird, and I can offer no help or explanation.
Never mind, I’ll take it as a sigh that Zoey like this place !!!!
Cool. We had to “beg” my wife to take at the look of Your post, because we both enjoyed the acceptor of the post. Great!!!
Hmm…cool tower, but a bar and a tattoo parlor are always a dangerous combination. You can hardly come out of one without wanting to go into the other.
And you can camp out in my blog anytime you want – I’m keeping all your likes for posterity.
This story in-spired me. Thanks for the great history of building.
Well that building never looked like that when I lived down there! Nice use of color and imagination on the part of those who did the painting! And what a great idea to immortalize the kids! Thanks for this post Russel!
How wonderful is that?
Beautiful photo! it would be great to see a photo of the original tower.
Thank you for sharing!
There were two photos, the top half, and the bottom half. I simply had Photomerge stitch them together for me.