Here in San Diego: Aztec throwback

👏 Congrats to Chaz F. for recognizing the remains of the Aztec Bowl, still standing in the rear of Viejas Arena.

Zoom in: Aztec Bowl opened in 1936 and was home to SDSU's football team, but is best known as the site of a 1963 speech by President John F. Kennedy.

• "No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry," he said during the speech, which is commemorated with a marker near the site.
• Historical preservationists forced the university to design a new arena that sat inside a piece of the old Aztec Bowl, rather than destroying it entirely as the university intended.

Fun fact: The Grateful Dead performed at the Aztec Bowl in May of 1969, along with Canned Heat and Santana.

• Most of the show is available at the Internet Archive. Members of Santana sat in for a raucous Turn on Your Love Light, and the performance of Morning Dew, featuring a rare instance of Jerry Garcia in a mustache, is on YouTube.
• About 30 years ago, the Aztec Bowl hosted Lollapalooza, headlined by the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Nick Cave, L7 and George Clinton.