La Jolla is home to many educational institutions and a variety of businesses in the areas of lodging, dining, shopping, software, finance, real estate, bioengineering, medical practice and scientific research.[10] The topographic feature that gave rise to the name "holes" is uncertain; it probably refers to sea-level caves located on the north-facing bluffs, which are visible from La Jolla Shores.[13] During the Mexican period of San Diego's history, La Jolla was mapped as pueblo land and contained about 60 lots.A real estate boom in the 1880s led speculators Frank T. Botsford and George W. Heald to further develop the sparsely settled area.Visitors were housed in small cottages and bungalows above La Jolla Cove, as well as a temporary tent city erected every summer.Between 1951 and 1963, other elementary schools (Bird Rock, Decatur, Scripps, and Torrey Pines) were established in the area to ease overcrowding.[19] Scripps College is located in Claremont in Los Angeles County (not to be confused with Clairemont, a neighborhood of San Diego).Local civic leaders had long toyed with the idea of a San Diego campus of the University of California, and the quest became more definite following World War II.[23] The Camp Matthews site for the university was selected with some hesitation; one of the concerns was "whether La Jollans in particular would lay aside old prejudices in order to welcome a culturally, ethnically, and religiously diverse professoriate into their midst".The Real Estate Broker's Association and their supporters in La Jolla had to make up their minds whether they wanted a university or an anti-Semitic covenant.Originally known as the "Mount Soledad Easter Cross", its presence on publicly owned land was challenged in the 1980s as a violation of the separation of church and state.This was a cluster of twelve rustic cottages that included The Green Dragon, Wahnfried, and The Ark, a boat-shaped structure with port holes and swinging bunks.The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego was founded in 1941 in La Jolla, in the former home of Ellen Browning Scripps (designed by Irving J. Gill).This unique ZIP code allows addresses to read La Jolla, CA, and is the only neighborhood within the City of San Diego so recognized.La Jolla's offshore waters are known to be home to an endless array of marine wildlife, including sea lions, harbor seals, whales—such as migratory gray, humpback and blue whales—harbor porpoises, dolphins (including, at times, hundreds of common dolphins, as well as rough-toothed, bottlenose, Pacific white-sided and Risso's dolphins, and orcas), green sea turtles, countless fish (such as garibaldi, sculpin and more), many migratory and resident sea and shorebirds,[43] and many different sharks, ranging from diminutive, clam-eating dogfish and leopard sharks to the formidable great white shark.Many of the marine animals live within and/or depend on the extensive offshore kelp forest, where scuba divers often venture to explore and encounter interesting species.Oftentimes, tourists can see California sea lions and harbor seals hauled-out on the rocks, basking in the sun; however, as many local divers and swimmers can attest, pinnipeds are not always a good omen, as their presence usually lures bigger, predatory sharks—namely the great whites.[45][46] During the winter, these apex predators breed, hunting the plentiful seals around the kelp forest, and sometimes, coming even closer to shore.[47] Piers, caves, and buoys are areas that surfers avoid for these reasons, as sharks patrol these locations to ambush pinnipeds diving back into the water.It is the home of the Mount Soledad Cross, built in 1954, later designated a Korean War Memorial, that became the center of a controversy over the display of religious symbols on government property.The most compelling geographical highlight of La Jolla is its ocean front, with alternating rugged and sandy coastline that serves as habitat for many wild seal congregations.Locals and surfers will walk barefoot down to the beachfront, occasionally using ropes and planks to safely cross otherwise impassable, steep passageways down the cliff-face.[52] Torrey Pines Gliderport is another a staple of the La Jolla cliffs, offering views of gliders scattered throughout the air.[59][60] During some parts of the year, people will find the shallow ends of the beach filled with harmless leopard sharks, as they come closer to shore to breed.[71] Community organizations include Independent La Jolla,[72] a membership-based citizens group seeking to secede from the city of San Diego.La Jolla is the location of Torrey Pines Golf Course, the site each January or February of a PGA Tour event formerly known as the Buick Invitational and since 2010, called the Farmers Insurance Open.[87] The San Diego Trolley light rail system has four stops on the Blue Line located in the La Jolla neighborhood: These four stations were opened on November 21, 2021, when the Blue Line was extended nine stops north from Old Town Transit Center to serve areas such as La Jolla Village, UC San Diego, and University City.
"Red Roost" and "Red Rest", two bungalow cottages built in 1894 on the road above
La Jolla Cove
. In recent years the cottages have been covered in
tarpaulins
.
The side view of "Red Roost", a bungalow cottage built in 1894, one of two that still exist on the road above La Jolla Cove