Walking through the halls of the former Naval Training Center’s Command Center at Liberty Station, Jennifer Garey spoke with a grace and air of timelessness that wove itself through the annals of Point Loma’s history.
As she strolled through the building on a mid-summer day in July, she recounted crucial moments in region’s history. Captured through historic photographs and artifacts framed in “National Geographic yellow,” these moments are assembled to create a journey through Point Loma’s weathered and storied past.
The “Point Loma Legacy Walk Through Time” exhibit, which Garey wrote and produced, now accentuates the walls of the Command Center and gives the historically curious a peek into how Point Loma, as we know her today, came to be.
From the story of the Kumeyaay Indian nation, which settled and roamed the area for thousands of years, to Navy development and the history of the booming Chinese fishing industry of the 1800s, Garey highlights the most significant bygone eras of the Peninsula.
Those who have the opportunity to hear Garey speak about it in person get a rare narration of a visual history suffused with pivotal moments and unfolding melodrama.
Her thoroughly researched exhibit makes for an authentic presentation that gives breath to long-silent voices from a time when the area around San Diego Bay was bountiful and growing.
“There was so much tuna in the bay that you could ” the story is ” you could walk on them,” Garey said.
Garey is an anthropologist and curates for Liberty Station through her company Arts and Antiquities, Inc. She has also served as museum commissioner for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Oversight Commission, which is working to protect and return the remains of ancestors to Californian and other Native American tribes.
With her expertise, Garey starts her narrative of Point Loma with the Kumeyaay nation’s historical home near what is now the San Diego Bay area.
She tells the story of Point Loma in several parts, or narratives, with each playing an important role in the region’s economic and cultural development.
“The Navy Story” tells of key moments in local naval history like the morning the USS Bennington exploded in the bay on July 21, 1905.
Garey’s careful placement of old mess hall recipe cards, used to feed thousands of naval recruits, stirs a hunger for the historical. They show what Navy recruits might have seen as they passed through the former NTC over the decades.
Alongside “The Navy Story,” history buffs will find San Diego Historical Society photos of easily recognizable local landmarks such as the Point Loma Lighthouse, which later became part of the Cabrillo National Monument in the 1930s, according to Garey.
Each section, or story, highlights everything from the maritime, military, commercial, education, and the arts and entertainment industries.
Visitors can follow one story at a time through a guided visual tour or try to take in the expansiveness of it all.
Many of the items on display are those Garey collected on loan from the San Diego Historical Society, but some items, like the recipe cards, were just hidden treasures left behind at the former Naval Training Center over the years.
Liberty Station continues to re-brand itself as an arts and cultural center for Point Loma. As part of that cultural heritage, the exhibit’s pictures and stories help piece together the present-day incarnation of the former Navy hub; these are pieces of time that passionate professionals like Garey rush to preserve for others.
The “Point Loma Legacy Walk Through Time” exhibit is on display indefinitely at Liberty Station’s Command Center, 2640 Historic Decatur Road, Bldg. 200.
For more information, visit www.ntcpromenade.org or www.artantiquities.net.