Mount Hope, San Diego, CA

About 115 acres of Mount Hope belong to the city cemetery that gave this San Diego neighborhood its name, a rolling, landscaped burial ground set aside by a citizen committee led by Alonzo Horton in 1869. Horton is buried there, along with horticulturist Kate Sessions and novelist Raymond Chandler, and Greenwood Memorial Park lies next door with its 1919 Cathedral Mausoleum. Around the cemetery, the neighborhood climbs hills between State Route 94 and Imperial Avenue, with I-15 on one side and I-805 on the other. Homes are mostly single-family, with denser apartment buildings on the blocks north of Broadway. Market Street runs straight through, and the Gateway Center East Business Park fills a large section of the neighborhood. Chollas Creek cuts across the neighborhood's northwest edge inside a concrete channel. Bowlegged BBQ, at 4255 Market Street, is the neighborhood's best-known restaurant. The family has run it in its own building since 2018, smoking baby back ribs and brisket over applewood in an East Texas style, with sweet potato pie on the side, Wednesday through Sunday. A small produce market and a few taco counters sit on the same stretch of Market. Dennis V. Allen Park, a five-acre park off Gateway Center Drive close to Boundary Street, has a playground, basketball courts, picnic tables and walking paths. The city has been holding public meetings, the latest in January 2026, on plans for a new recreation center, a loop trail and a dog park there. Getting around leans on the freeways and Market Street. The Orange Line curves around the two cemeteries, with the 32nd & Commercial station on the western side in Logan Heights, and buses run along Market. So much land given to graves and business parks leaves few shops and only one real park, and most errands need a car. In return, the largest open space in Mount Hope is a historic, landscaped hillside that the city has cared for since the 1870s.