The Gaslamp Quarter is sixteen blocks of largely intact late-Victorian commercial architecture in downtown San Diego, running from Broadway south to the waterfront. The buildings — mostly three to five stories of brick and cast iron from the 1880s through 1920s — house restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops at street level, with offices and apartments above.
The district is San Diego's most concentrated nightlife zone, with everything from craft cocktail bars to large clubs to Irish pubs occupying ground-floor spaces that once held hardware stores and saloons. The architecture is the reason to come in the daytime: the Horton Grand Hotel, the Yuma Building, and the William Heath Davis House are among the more interesting structures. The Saturday morning Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation tours give good context for the neighbourhood's complicated history.