The ‘Diary of a recovery’ project started on Monday, June 1. The San Diego Union-Tribune’s new enterprise editor, Dan Beucke — pronounced Berky — had an idea to take one block in San Diego and follow the people living and working there as they struggled to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic lockdown.
We chose the area around University and Euclid avenues in City Heights. It’s a low-income neighborhood struggling to bounce back, like so many places in American right now. But it’s also highly diverse and teeming with all types of cultures and viewpoints.
As we wrote in our first story, Diary of a recovery: One San Diego block begins to climb back from the pandemic: “The intersection of Euclid and University avenues is starting to vibrate again with car engines and waves of rap music rumbling under conversations in Chinese, Cambodian, Thai, African dialects, Spanish, English and Arabic.
“A young Latina mom walks her toddler down the sun-baked sidewalk. A Black man jogs by White hipsters in sunglasses. A Muslim couple in traditional dress strolls down the block as two Asian kids on bikes weave into traffic.”
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Over the last month, photographer Sam Hodgson and I introduced ourselves to as many locals we could find who were willing to participate in the project. We ran into Shimeles Kibret, who’s fighting to keep this Ethiopian restaurant, Red Sea, open after decades serving as a social hub for the African refugee community. We met Bill Lutzius, owner of Brooklyn Bar & Grill and David Chau, who attended San Diego State University and started Lotus Garden after escaping the Vietnam War as a teenager.
Most recently, we spent time hanging out with the folks who use the bus stops on University Avenue at 47th Street. We were surprised to find out that the Route 7 bus, which runs between downtown and City Heights, is now the busiest route in the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System.
In our latest installment, Diary of a recovery: A bus stop for riders who have few choices in the pandemic, we talked to folks such as Roland Howard. The former pastor from Michigan was attacked during a robbery and fought his way back to health over nearly a decade. Today, he uses a motorized wheelchair and enjoys public transit. He said he even found his church through a bus driver who’s also a preacher.
As we wrote in the story: “The neighborhood is full of people like Howard — older, many with disabilities, many who have no choice but to use public transit even in the midst of a pandemic.
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“For three months, as much of life froze across San Diego, the Route 7 bus kept rumbling along, connecting City Heights to downtown San Diego. Now it is providing a vital lifeline as this diverse neighborhood struggles to recover.”
The goal of the project is to follow these folks over time, to bring you coverage of the pandemic in a way that honors people’s individual experiences. Too often in a big news story those get lost as people turn into casualty statistics.
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June 28, 2020 at 08:05PM
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Reporter’s notebook: How we started our new project 'Diary of a Recovery' - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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