Where to Celebrate Fourth of July in San Diego 2025

There’s a famous video.

“This is insane!” the guy filming it seems to proclaim. “It’s the best fireworks show ever!” a companion confirms, inspiring a debate lasting over a decade.

All told, 7,000 fireworks exploded in the span of 25 seconds over San Diego Bay on July 4, 2012. A Michael Bay amount of unison. $125,000 worth of shells, cakes, Roman candles, and skyrockets had been placed on a barge—enough for 17 minutes of decorative sky flares—and…

Boom.

The sky looked like someone had set a giant Rorschach test on fire. Or as if whatever we all see in our Rorschachs—butterflies, clowns, tongue kissing, dads—was being electrocuted and lifted heavenward, amen. It was shocking how bright it was, how much it sizzled the local cosmos. Could’ve been one of those sci-fi films where a hole is ripped open between warring universes. But angstier, more metal—the work of some methy creator in a sleeveless concert tee.

The sound?

Lou Reed once released an entire album that contained 64 minutes of mindflaying guitar screeches and machine noises. No regular songs, just a fascinating amount of ear distress. His record label reps no doubt heard the melodic outro of their careers, but everyone else was in pain and stumped. That album still sounded better than the bay did that night. The bay sounded like a god who struggled with emotional regulation had blown his speakers and was working through the anger stage of AV grief.

In the left frame of the video, a middle-aged woman is attempting to drag her husband off by the hand. In no way does he want to go, possibly because he had missed the time Roseanne Barr sung the national anthem at a Padres game, simultaneously disemboweling and amusing America through the power of song. He would not willingly abandon an equally worthy San Diego trainwreck.

Another woman in the video appears to have just filled her beer, rushing to sit down for the show. She pauses mid-sit and returns to the full and upright position to properly bear witness. What was supposed to be prolonged entertainment has been so radically shortened that she will have to find another reason to drink. Lucky for her, drinking will be the only way to adequately process.

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Locals remember the conspiracy theories. People wondered if the fuses had been tripped by a saboteur who was sympathetic to dogs, fish, or the growing suspicion that late-stage capitalism is a gorgeously branded but impossible dream sustained by remarkably efficient top-tier wealth retention and the soft compliance of fireworks-watchers who can no longer afford a house, a beer, or the personal impacts of human reproduction.

Speaking of being terrified of babies, babies were terrified. The children who witnessed it probably still can’t go near a candle store. But those kids will be tougher, perfectly scarred kids. They’ll write better songs.

That night helped us absolutely dominate the national news cycle. For a hot minute, we became America’s water-skiing squirrel. Now, years later, when you Google “fireworks gone wrong,” San Diego is always a top contender, along with that poor Nebraska family who nearly wiped out a couple generations in their front yard, their minivan somehow turning into a howitzer of recreational TNT.

There is still debate as to whether Big Bay Boom 2012 is the worst or greatest fireworks show of all time. But the advanced parts of civilization arrived at the truth as quickly as the women in the video did. It was undeniably amazing.

First of all, the point of Fourth of July fireworks isn’t “the intricate choreography of sky fire over a guaranteed amount of show time.” It’s about creating a vivid memory shared with some people you like, love, or would like to love.

BBB2012 used large-scale chemical fire to create the ultimate memory.

Sure, some people who iron their jeans subjected their family to a sermon about how San Diego managed to botch America’s birthday like a Disney princess-for-hire who smelled of quite a few Sauvignons.

The rest of us saw how perfectly it nailed the actual feeling of being an American. Because only a miniscule percentage of us bake postcard apple pies where every inch of crust is perfectly laminated like the wood in an Irish bar. Very few of us can paint on par with Picasso. The rest of us—despite truly believing in our America-activated abilities to achieve greatness in almost any field of our choosing—burn pies. We try to paint only to realize it looks like our fine motor skills have entered active death.

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That’s why BBB2012 was the most perfectly American fireworks show ever: A wildly ambitious idea galvanized thousands upon thousands of people to both work on it and come to hold a beer and gawk at it, only to have it fail in the most glorious TMZ-level spectacle.

America isn’t about immaculate, storyless wins. It’s about how the framework of a country is solid enough that we can accidentally detonate our entire lives—a few times—and still probably be OK.

No one has America’d quite like San Diego did on that day. It was performance art. Lou Reed’s heart slow-clapped. Any brief municipal embarrassment quickly became a pride of our people. I can only hope the same for the Nebraskan yard family whose Dodge Aerostar became a hyperactive Death Star.

P.S. Local writer Maya Kroth compiled a quite great oral history of that night for Thrillist. The bottom lines for me were—it took nine months to prepare, no one was hurt, and even though the pyrotechnics company tried to zero out the bill, Big Bay Boom founder H. P. “Sandy” Purdon refused and paid them in full. This year will mark the 25th Anniversary of the yearly Big Bay Boom.

It’s always kitten season in San Diego.

This doesn’t sound like a problem (cute babies!), but for Hannah “Kitten Lady” Shaw, it’s a big issue—one she’s dedicated her life to solving.

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“I moved to San Diego in 2018 because it is a very special place for kitten welfare,” says Shaw, who has lived all over the country. “All along the southern border of the US is where we see the most kittens coming in. At many animal shelters, the policy is to euthanize any kitten under eight weeks, [or adoption age].

National statistics for 2025 show that, of all the cats dying in shelters, 58 percent are pre-adoption-age. “That’s because they can’t stay in the shelter overnight,” Shaw explains. “They’re dependent on around-the-clock care, and most shelters don’t provide that.”

If you’re shocked to hear that young kittens are often euthanized, you’re experiencing the same emotion that set Shaw on a new path. Seventeen years ago, after rescuing a neonatal kitten from a tree, she called a friend who worked at a shelter, only to learn that the little one likely wouldn’t make it there.

“I found it horrifying, and I ended up adopting her,” she recalls. “I started finding kittens everywhere and caring for them. People started calling me and saying, ‘Hey, are you that kitten lady?’”

A few years later, Shaw began developing relationships with shelters. At that time, foster programs didn’t exist in the way they do now, so her idea was to be able to take home neonates and raise them to adoption age, only to be bowled over by the sheer volume of kittens arriving on a near-daily basis.

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“We have over one million of these kittens coming into shelters every year,” she says. “It was incredibly overwhelming. I couldn’t look away, but I also couldn’t do it all myself,” Shaw says. She started teaching everyone in her network to become fosters: friends, neighbors, colleagues of friends of friends.

“Eventually, I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll make a couple little videos, so I don’t have to keep repeating myself,’” she adds. This was the early days of YouTube; it was little more than a video hosting site where Shaw could send a quick link to neonate newbies. Nevertheless, views started climbing—1,000, then 10,000—as strangers shared her content. “It was people just like me who found kittens and were realizing that the animal shelter couldn’t help them,” she says. “They wanted to care for them and needed to learn how to do that.”

Nowadays, Shaw’s online presence is enormous, with more than four million followers across all her channels. For a decade, saving kittens has been her full-time career: She speaks at conferences and other events, produces a massive volume of educational materials, and has written 11 books, all with the goal of making animal lovers aware of the huge problem these tiny cats face—and how they can help.

For the everyday person, that looks like working with local organizations including San Diego’s Feral Cat Coalition to trap, spay or neuter, and release strays (“community cats,” as Shaw calls them) to reduce the number of animals born each year. And, of course, the most direct way to save kitten lives is to foster. “Any of us can put some kittens in our bathroom for three weeks, and that could be the reason that they survive,” Shaw affirms.

In 2016, Shaw built another platform for supporting pre-adoption-age cats: Orphan Kitten Club, a nonprofit that turns donations into lifesaving programs, research, and grants. “If a shelter doesn’t have supplies, we fund supplies. If it doesn’t have a physical space [for neonate kittens], we fund a physical space,” she explains. “We even fund kitten-focused staff members.”

The club’s grants have provided surgeries for cats born with congenital defects or impacted by injuries—and inspired other shelters to perform the same operations on animals whose cases were previously considered hopeless. To date, the organization has given out over $4 million.

While the stats she shares are heartbreaking, Shaw’s socials also constantly highlight the stories of cats who got their second chance. There’s Avery, a tiny “tripod” who found love at first sight with her foster parent’s mom. And Freebie, who was saved after someone posted her in a “Buy Nothing” Facebook group when she was just three weeks old. And Maxine, who arrived at an SD shelter in a maxi pad box—her story went mega-viral, and now she’s inspiring people all over the country to take in babies just like her.

It helps that Shaw and Orphan Kitten Club tend to post some pretty gorgeous pictures of the kittens, thanks in part to Andrew “The Cat Photographer” Marttila, Shaw’s husband. The two met in 2016.

“A friend told me about his work—they said, ‘Oh, you gotta follow this guy’s Instagram; he’s a professional cat photographer.’ I was like, ‘That’s the craziest-sounding job ever, other than professional kitten educator,’” Shaw remembers. “We ended up arranging to do a photo shoot of some kittens. Now, we’ve been together for almost a decade.” Shaw and Marttila married in April 2023 at Farm Animal Refuge in Campo, where their rescue pig served as ringbearer.

Recently, the couple got the opportunity to combine their talents for Cats of the World, their 2024 book featuring photos and tales of kitties from 30 countries. The project took several years to complete. “The most profound thing that I learned from it is that there’s really not a corner of the Earth that doesn’t have somebody taking compassionate action for animals,” Shaw says. “Even on the most remote island [or] rural part of the world—it doesn’t matter where you go; there are cats everywhere, and there are people being kind to cats.

I didn’t think I would find myself on the back of a motorcycle going around India with people who grew up really, really differently than I did, but who share this love of cats. There’s a softening that can happen when you realize that there are a lot of different ways to be a loving and compassionate person in the world.”

Shaw models many of those ways herself: In between traveling, filming, and running a nonprofit, she still somehow finds time to personally foster high-needs kittens, in addition to caring for her own six rescue pets. Orphan Kitten Club’s programs have impacted more than 88,000 cats.

“Each of these individuals is one in a million, but they’re also all one of a million, and I can’t personally put my hands on one million kittens. That’s the harder and heavier thing for me,” Shaw says. “But sadness is a motivator. We get to see these amazing transformations and know that every kitten has so much potential to be somebody’s best friend.”

Christopher Ashley is a failed child actor, a former computer programmer, and a Yale alum. He’s also San Diego’s Hal Prince. In 18 years as one of the most acclaimed artistic directors in the history of La Jolla Playhouse, he produced 20 world premieres that went on to Broadway, including Jesus Christ Superstar, The Outsiders, and the Idina Menzel–led Redwood. Now, he’s saying goodbye. It’s a formidable loss for the city’s underrated theater scene.

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Following a lifetime of acting (poorly, he claims) in summer theater programs, Ashley switched to directing in high school. A successful New York theater career (the programming stint was just to pay off those Yale loans) eventually brought him to LJP in 2007. His tenure transformed the institution into a nationally acclaimed proving ground for fresh, fearless works.

“In the earlier incarnations of the playhouse, there was much more of a mix of revivals and new work. I have really leaned us into new work. We’ve done [57] world premieres in my time here,” he says. “Everybody at the playhouse really takes seriously the idea of the new and the next. Being a doula to new projects is really satisfying—I get to run a theater during a golden age of American writing for the theater.”

Central to that mission is the 12-year-old Without Walls (WOW) Festival, an annual spring showcase of site-specific and immersive performances. “We were on the leading edge of a kind of work that is starting to really take hold in America,” Ashley adds. “These shows really challenge the relationship between audience and artist. People go because they know it’s going to happen only tonight and never again. Theater offers community—[an opportunity] to come together to experience a story—and that feels more powerful in this moment than it ever has before.”

The sentiment is especially poignant in light of Ashley’s imminent return to New York as artistic director of Roundabout Theatre Company. But he’ll never forget his time here. “It’s the main chapter in my life,” he says. “I don’t know that San Diego gets quite the credit it deserves for what a great city for the arts it is.” Thanks to Ashley, though, it’s begun to receive its fair share of star billing.

San Diego’s epic, photogenic bridge was nearly an eyesore.

If earlier developers had succeeded, the Coronado Bridge would’ve been a mass of chunky, criss-crossed trusses and trestles jutting into our view of San Diego Bay, scarring the skyline with industrial steel. But serendipitous delays (and firm resistance from a local architect) changed the plans.

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The idea for a vehicle crossing to Coronado goes back to 1926, when magnate John D. Spreckels proposed a bridge to ease travel to his money-making properties. The War Department shot it down, citing possible interruption to naval activities. In 1928, developers obtained permits for a subaqueous tube; the Depression kept that at bay. The Coronado City Council floated the bridge idea again in 1935. Once more, Navy opposition promptly sunk it. Would it block ships sailing out to sea from South Bay? Would it collapse in an earthquake and strand the fleet? An admiral testified that Navy dollars would cease to flow into San Diego if the bridge came to pass.

The State of California revived the Coronado crossing idea in 1955. Bridges for autos were going up all over the state. The Navy finally got on board, with the deal-clincher that the bridge’s height allowed enough vertical clearance for aircraft carriers. The USS Midway, the tallest carrier at the time, was 222 feet from keel to highest point. To meet the height requirement, bridge designers eventually devised the now-famous curve—worked out one afternoon with a few pushpins and a piece of string. But as the bridge concept took its first steps forward in decades, its now-award-winning design was still a twinkle in an architect’s eye.

The state’s architectural plans from 1957 show harsh-angled beams and legs marring the Coronado crossing, out of place against the gently sloping shoreline and gentle waves of the bay. Coronado residents balked, bringing lawsuits as the possibility of a bridge became concrete. It threatened the peninsula’s scenic beauty and tranquil quality of life. On the San Diego side, the planned bridge landing cut through historic Barrio Logan.

James R. Mills, San Diego representative from 1960 to 1982, opposed the bridge on behalf of his townsfolk. “Like me, most of them wanted their town to stay as it was, and they loved the ferry boats, which had been running to and fro across the bay since 1886,” Mills wrote in a 2009 op-ed.

In 1961, Mills voted “no” on a state budget that “surreptitiously” slipped in a bond measure to finance the bridge. On the day of the decision, “people were scurrying around the floor handing out envelopes with thousands of dollars of cash to those who would vote for it,” Senator Mills later told his friend, Coronado author and historian Joe Ditler.

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Those greenbacks likely came from John Alessio (the “A” in Mister A’s), Hotel del Coronado owner and big-money contributor to California Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown.

“‘John Alessio wants that bridge. He bought the Hotel del Coronado with the land south of it so he could make a lot of money by selling that vacant land for a high-rise residential development, and that will only happen if a bridge is built,’” a colleague told Mills, as Mills later recalled in the op-ed. “[And] if John wants that bridge, Pat [Brown] wants it.’” It passed by one vote.

Though resistance couldn’t stop the bridge, delays worked out in San Diego’s favor. Coincidentally, a few years prior to the bridge’s green-lighting, Governor Brown had instituted a new program: Every state bridge project would have an architect consultant to ensure “no more ugly bridges”—his response to Bay area residents who objected to the industrial-looking Richmond—San Rafael Bridge in 1956. The Coronado Bridge was the second built under this mandate.

Yet even the bridge’s designer, local architect Robert Mosher, initially called the idea “nuts.” Mosher (who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright and founded San Diego’s oldest architectural firm, Mosher Drew) worried about “ruining” Coronado Island. Nevertheless, Mosher’s longtime colleague Larry Hoeksema told SDM, he accepted the job and made every effort to “take care of all the aesthetic components: the color, the curve, the arches, the graceful line.”

When Mosher came aboard in the mid-1960s, the open-trestle design from 1957 was still the top contender. “The design was strikingly similar to that of the hated San Rafael– Richmond Bridge,” Mosher reflected in his writings.

So Mosher and a team of state engineers came up with a new proposal: closed box girders (horizontal support beams tucked under the bridge) for a neater look and a new, German-patented orthotropic design to eliminate towering trusses. Mosher added graceful arches below to echo San Diego’s mission-style architecture. The sides were purposely low to give drivers the best view. Then came the curve.

But Mosher’s ribbon-esque, elegant new design wasn’t a shoo-in. The plans came within inches of rejection by the state committee for “budget concerns.” As Mosher tells it, he threatened to alert the press (he had friends at both the Union and San Diego Magazine) that the state—contrary to the governor’s promise—had doomed San Diego to an unattractive bridge. The state opted to save face; Mosher’s team found ways to meet that budget.

“Instead of just a crossing, we wanted to make the event of crossing enjoyable,” Mosher told a reporter following the design’s public unveiling. “Going across the bridge will be equally as interesting in its 20th-century way as the ferry is. It’s going to be fun.”

Construction finally began in 1967, with a price tag of $45 million (almost $450 million in 2025 dollars). Workers drove 487 concrete piles 100 feet into the mucky bottom of the bay and put up 30 arches. The 215-ton steel box girders were fabricated in San Francisco, shipped to San Diego, and hoisted into place with a barge-mounted crane. All told, building the bridge took two years; 94,000 cubic yards of concrete; 20,000 tons of steel; and 43,000 gallons of paint.

Mosher had to fight for his finishing touch, too: the distinct blue paint that blends hues from the sky and bay. Rust-proof red was the default for bridges over water, Hoeksema says, but Mosher reminded the team that “ugly” was not an option.

Historian Ditler moved to Coronado in 1967, as a teenager, and watched the bridge take shape. He and his buddies “thought the whole thing was ridiculous,” he says.

That didn’t stop them from riding the last midnight ferry (service ceased from 1969 to 1986) and being “the first hitchhikers,” he adds, to cross the new bridge when it opened on August 2, 1969.

In the back of an MG with a happily stoned couple in the front, “we sat on the convertible top that had been folded over the back seat,” he recalls. “Like being in a parade, we drove over that big, scary bridge, waving at everyone we saw.”

Tucked away on the outskirts of Julian, just a few miles from antique shops and apple pie, is an organization fighting to protect one of the world’s most misunderstood predators.

In 1977, Paul and Judy Kenis opened the Julian Center for Science and Education, now called the California Wolf Center. They and their original pair of northwestern gray wolves set out to educate the public about wolves and their vital role in the ecosystem. Over the years, additional passionate people signed on, and the movement grew into a mission to create a future in which wolves and humans can safely coexist.

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“What inspires me most about this work is seeing how understanding transforms fear to awe and respect,” says Christine Barton, executive director of the California Wolf Center. “When people experience these animals up close, it changes the way they think about wolves and wildness, the balance in nature, and our shared responsibility to protect them.”

Protecting the Predators

There was once a time when wolves were common in California. However, the nomadic predators got a bad rap as a danger to people and livestock, and by the 1920s, wolves were wiped out statewide. The stigma endured for generations, and by the time the California Wolf Center was founded, just 13 of the Mexican gray wolf subspecies were left in the wild.

Though wolves have returned to Northern California, notably starting with an animal called OR-7, who journeyed south from Oregon in 2011, they remain on the state’s endangered species list.

The California Wolf Center has taken a proactive approach to helping the species recover. The organization has been a part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction) program since 1997. The goal is to increase genetic diversity among the Mexican gray wolf population so more can be reintroduced to the wild. To date, 85 Mexican wolf pups have been born at the facility in the Cuyamaca Mountains. Of the 60 institutions in US and Mexico that participate in the AZA SAFE program, the California Wolf Center is among the top three with regards to the number of Mexican wolves in human care.

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The California Wolf Center factors in the human side of the equation, too, working with nonprofits and government agencies to support wolf recovery with cross-fostering, range riders, and field volunteers. It also collaborates with communities throughout the Southwest who share their environment with the returning wolf population, providing information on and financial support for techniques that ranchers can use to reduce wolf-livestock conflict.

“We are one of only a very few organizations that, by raising funds through our Mexican wolf conservation program, donate directly to supporting ranchers and the communities living with Mexican gray wolves in the wild,” Barton says. “It’s important to us to help ranchers and communities, as well as the wolves, because we all have to live together. We supply non-lethal deterrents and fund education efforts to teach practical coexistence solutions on how to peacefully live with Mexican gray wolves in the wild [so] not just wolves can thrive, but the ranchers and communities that share the landscape with them thrive, too.”

Fighting Extinction with Education

Though conservation groups have made progress in restoring wolf populations over the years, there are only around 286 Mexican gray wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico (no Mexican wolves currently live outside of captivity in California). Conservation efforts still face challenges. Genetic diversity among Mexican gray wolves is limited and, unfortunately, habitat loss and human-caused mortality continue to be issues.

A vital part of the California Wolf Center’s mission is changing perceptions by educating the public about the important role these keystone predators play in the ecosystem. Through education and outreach, center staff emphasize that without apex predators like wolves, environmental systems begin to fall out of equilibrium.

“One of the main things we do is teach about the balance of nature, and the shared responsibility to protect it,” Barton says. A handful of the center’s lupine residents act as ambassadors, and five others are shown to the public locally—the California Wolf Center offers guided public, private, and school tours of the facility. The center’s remaining wolf population is not on display. Instead, the animals on the property live in large acre habitats.

“We work hard to bridge the gap between conservation goals and community realities through collaboration, education, and transparency. We welcome visitors to learn about these incredible animals—Mexican gray wolves and the northwestern wolves that reside right here in California,” Barton says. “We share and educate on how conservation connects directly to healthy landscapes and communities.”

The center also welcomes volunteers and interns who are interested in hands-on experience and knowledge. Some volunteers train with the center’s educational staff. Others who are not so comfortable getting up close and personal with the wolves or their habitat work in the offsite visitor center and nature store in downtown Julian. Interns who are pursuing a career in wildlife conservation, biology, or other life science fields collaborate with staff members to care for the center’s 21 resident wolves and interact with visitors.

Working Toward a Wilder Tomorrow

The California Wolf Center is currently aiming to expand its programs and facilities to engage even more people in wolf recovery and ecosystem conservation, Barton says.

“We’re now looking ahead to an exciting new chapter at the California Wolf Center,” she adds. “We want to fulfill the need in San Diego to want to make an even bigger impact for wolves and wild places, not just with Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, but with our wolves and wildlife right here in California. I’m really looking forward to sharing that journey with everyone—whether it’s through our programs or educational efforts or by simply helping people connect with nature in a meaningful way.”

But they can’t do it alone. It takes collaboration between different agencies, facilities, and organizations, along with support from the public.

“The strength of our mission lies in community—staff, volunteers, partners, and supporters all play a crucial role,” Barton says. “We want to see wolves and other wildlife be here for many, many years to come.”