|  Petco Ballpark San Diego Night Game picture-id: PCO-019 request pricing 
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| | San Diego Petco Ballpark Night Game
It’s that time of year again, baseball is underway. Here’s a shot looking down into Petco Ballpark during a recent home game between the Padres and the Dodgers. Petco Park was built in what at the time was a rundown area of downtown San Diego called East Village. Its promise was that it would serve not only as a new home for the Padres but also as a catalyst to revitalize the entire downtown area around it. By any measure it has more than fulfilled that promise. Completed in 2004, it triggered redevelopment projects that continue to this day.
Back in the mid nineties you would not have gone into most of East Village unless you really needed to. It was blocks of decaying basically abandoned old warehouse and factory buildings. I remember one afternoon walking into the open door of a corner bar looking for some directions. Once inside I paused to let my eyes adjust as it was quite dark inside. Once able to look around it was obvious that business was not good. What was once a bar was nothing but wreckage. Broken tables and chairs lay strewn everywhere along with the piles of glass that used to be the inventory. One of several guys who had kicked in the door and moved in told me there was no more room at the lodge and I had better move on.
Today the area around the ballpark has been transformed. Abandoned buildings have been replaced with high end condos with ballpark and harbor views. The Gaslamp Quarter has become the evening social center of downtown with its wide selection of restaurants and clubs.
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