About East Village Green
An Industrial District
The eastern part of downtown San Diego was, for much of the twentieth century, a working class industrial district. Warehouses, factories, shops, and modest housing for the families who kept the city running filled its streets.
In the 1920’s it was home to some of the city’s most productive operations. The Qualitee Dairy Products Company established its plant and offices on 11th Avenue in 1928. Four years later, the Carnation Dairy Factory opened at 10th Avenue and J Street, producing milk, ice cream, and other dairy products for the region. Together the two operations defined the dairy character of the neighborhood for decades. The Carnation operation ceased in the 1970s and its building sat largely vacant. Across the eastern downtown blocks, industrial businesses closed and warehouses emptied as San Diego’s economy shifted and the city’s working class base moved outward.
An Artists’ Neighborhood
By the 1980’s and into the 1990’s, artists and performers priced out of other downtown areas and began moving into the cheap warehouse spaces of East Village. The low rent attracted the creative community that would reshape the neighborhood from the ground up.
The Neighborhood Today
The old Carnation and Qualitee site at 11th and J was later redeveloped into the ICON residential complex four towers painted blue, red, yellow, and white to evoke the façade of the original 1927 dairy factory. The dairy buildings are gone, but their footprint remains part of the neighborhood’s identity.
Research is ongoing. Primary sources include the San Diego Downtown Community Plan (City of San Diego), the San Diego History Center, the California Border Region Digitization Project at Calisphere, and the Voice of San Diego. —