NOT YOUR AVERAGE BEARS
Bronze-cast grizzly statues added to Automotive Museum in Balboa Park, completing restoration project
Balboa Park just gained two new grizzly bears — and they’re not living at the San Diego Zoo.
On Monday morning, two bronze-cast bears, each measuring 8 feet long and 5 feet tall, and two flagpoles were perched high atop the San Diego Automotive Museum to complete an almost decadelong restoration project.
The effort to restore the San Diego Automotive Museum, which was originally the California State Building, to how it appeared at the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition was led by an all-volunteer group called the Committee of 100. The exposition was held to invigorate and promote San Diego’s economy amid the Great Depression.
Ross Porter, president of the nonprofit group, hopes that this project will help visitors “appreciate that 1935 was an important moment in the park’s history.”
Porter said 1935 “also represented an important year because San Diego was struggling through the economic depression, and the vision and courage to build another exposition to encourage people to visit San Diego was a civic endeavor and something that we got help with from the state and from the federal government.” He added: “These art deco elements on the facade help recall some of that 1935 gusto.”
Founded in 1967, the Committee of 100 is the city’s oldest park support group and was formed to save and restore Balboa Park’s most historic structures. The preservation-driven nonprofit turned its attention to the Automotive Museum’s facade in 2015 as part of a larger plan to make the entire Palisades region
— also home to the San Diego Air & Space Museum, Municipal Gym, Starlight Bowl and Comic-Con Museum — into more of a standout park destination. The group’s efforts have been aided by the city, which in 2020 turned the area’s south parking lot into a car-free zone known as Palisades Plaza, adding turf, brightly colored tables and chairs, and enhanced landscaping.
The most recent and notable restoration of the San Diego Automotive Museum facade was completed two years ago when four 8-by-18foot murals depicting the 1935 exposition were installed. They display a Depression-era march of progress through visual representations of commerce, scenic beauty, agriculture and industry.
Atop the building, the original flagpoles, presumably made of wood, and the bears, likely made of plaster, were not built to last long and were taken down a few years after the exposition.
Starting with a blackand-white image of the facade, park restoration enthusiasts worked to painstakingly sketch designs, source materials and rebuild this moment in time through architecture.
Robert Thiele, volunteer project architect and board member of the Committee of 100, said he’s elated to complete the project as it not only revitalizes history, but also reflects the community spirit in difficult times.
“The park has always been a part of San Diego’s
history,” Thiele said. “The military took it over right after the fair, and that was probably part of the reason for the removal of the bears and the murals because they needed to turn it into a military facility . ... The Palisades was an inoculation center for COVID in the middle of (the pandemic), and so once again it sort of stood as a symbol for the importance of public space.”
The entire project cost about $750,000, with a majority of the financial support coming from the Jack and Irma Redfern estate. As a tribute to these major donors, the bears were named “Red” and “Fern.” The bears’ eyes are painted red and green to correspond with their names.
Thiele said that each bear, life-size in scale, weighs 350 pounds, or about the average weight of a large female grizzly bear. Each statue is secured on a steel platform, so the bears’ claws hang off the corner of the building.
Another finishing touch: The tops of the new flagpoles are covered in a 23-karat gold leaf finish.
With the bears taking their post, Porter said the park restoration group is turning its attention to its next project. It is looking at new ornamentation for the Municipal Gym, lights and a fountain at the nearby plaza to be installed over the next 10 years.