Corridor, San Diego, CA

Soda Bar books touring indie bands into a 200-capacity room on El Cajon Boulevard, and it sits in Corridor, the San Diego neighborhood inside City Heights that lies between El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue. The name is literal. This neighborhood is the land between two of Mid-City's busiest commercial streets, running from the North Park line east to State Route 15. Both edges are lined with places to eat. Venice Pizza House, a family business that traces its history to 1954, still turns out pies on El Cajon, and El Salvador Pupuseria on University is the stop for broccoli or queso con loroco pupusas. Sprouts at the western end of El Cajon handles a full grocery run, and taco counters, Ethiopian kitchens and small markets fill the blocks in between. Homes in Corridor are mostly apartments, with older houses set along the short residential streets that run north and south between the two boulevards. Lots are small, buildings sit close together, and few homes have much of a yard. Teralta Park, at the eastern edge, sits on a concrete lid over State Route 15. It was California's first freeway cap, a scaled-back version of a 1990s community plan to cover eight blocks of the freeway, and it now gives the area about five acres of grass and open space where there would otherwise be traffic. Transit is a real strength. The freeway-level Centerline stations at University and El Cajon opened in 2018 and let Rapid buses skip surface traffic, Rapid 215 runs along El Cajon Boulevard toward downtown and San Diego State, and local routes 7 and 10 work University. Interstate 805 is just west. Quiet is hard to come by. Every home is a block or two from one of the two boulevards, so traffic, buses and late-night bar noise are part of the soundtrack. In return, Corridor puts a live music room, a pizza place with roots in the 1950s, and two rapid bus lines within walking distance.