This photo, taken on June 19, 1942 looks westward at Alabama Street. At the left, a Qualitee milk truck edges around the corner. Behind it is a billboard for Kellogg's Variety Package cereal. A Piggly Wiggly store is hidden in the trees at the top of the hill. The original Horace Mann Junior High, once the State Normal School, is visible beyond the Piggly Wiggly. I think that's the 7-Up bottling plant on the right, and ethyl gas is 19¢ a gallon at the service station. Nitro is 15¢. (San Diego History Center photograph)

I attended the school at the top of the hill.  It was called Alice Birney when I went there.  Now it is called Birney.  However, the big building at the top right where I had classes in now used just for storage and appears so badly neglected it breaks my heart.  I wish the city had funds to fix the roof and designate the building as historical.  It would be fabulous used as a complex for the local library and art studios -- Elaine Robinson Davis ’61

I read with interest the recollections offered by fellow Colt Elaine Robinson Davis '61.  I live out on east Adams Avenue, within walking distance of Old Trolley Barn Park and the Mission Cliff Gardens site -- now residential -- beyond it. The Teacher Training Annex Building, constructed in 1910 has survived happily, while that gorgeous old State Normal School building fell to the wrecking ball in the mid-1950s, I think. The Annex Building has been used in subsequent time as a storage facility by the San Diego Unified School District.  I hope Elaine will take heart from the fact that it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.  It's also being eyed by the University Heights Library Task Force as a possible new home for its branch library. Let me commend to her attention the WEB SITE of the University Heights Community Development Corporation: .  There is lots of useful information there, historical and otherwise, including links to various University Heights committees and activities.  Hopefully she can get in touch with the UHLTF folks and learn more about her old school building -- Terry Shewmaker '68