About Talmadge

Talmadge is located near San Diego State University and isolated by canyons on the north and west and set off by the Talmadge Gates which run through the heart of the community. Talmadge was established in 1925 by real estate developers Roy and Guy Lichty and funded substantially by Joseph Schenck, who was then President of United Artists.

Talmadge was named after the wife of Mr. Schenck, Norma Talmadge, and her sisters, Constance and Natalie. The three sisters were noted silent film stars. On January 3, 1926, the sisters hosted a dedication ceremony in Talmadge. More than 10,000 San Diego residents as well as famous actors Buster Keaton and William S. Hart were in attendance. The community was advertised as a self-sufficient community, a place from which "residents could send their children to school from Kindergarten through college and not have to move."

The Talmadge area was called by the San Diego Union newspaper on July 28, 1928, "the city's most attractive close-in residential tract."

Talmadge Community Links
Ken/Tal Community Association
Talmadge Maintenance Assessment District
Contact Talmadge E-mail

Talmadge Community Groups
The Kensington/Talmadge Community Association offers a dinner for a reasonable price before their monthly program. The chair is Mr. Rex Downing and they meet every fourth Thursday at the Kensington Community Church, 4773 Marlborough Drive, beginning at 7pm.

The Kensington/Talmadge Planning Group deals with land-use and planning matters with the communities of Kensington and Talmadge. The chair is Allan Frostrom, who can be contacted at 619/284-9171. They meet every second Wednesday in the Kensington Community Church, 4773 Marlborough Drive, at 6:30pm.

The Talmadge Community Council (TCC) works on neighborhood issues and concerns in Talmadge. They meet every third Tuesday at 4725 Lucille Drive beginning at 6:30pm.

The Talmadge Maintenance Assessment District (T-MAD). In 1998 local residents banded together to create the Talmadge Maintenance Assessment District (TMAD) to restore, maintain and improve the quality of life for Talmadge residents. The City of San Diego approved the TMAD master plan on July 17, 2000. The T-MAD oversees the community's assessment district which is currently restoring the Talmadge historic gates and coordinating the improvements to the traffic circle at 49th Street and Adams Avenue. They meet every fourth Tuesday of the month at Our Father's Church, 4481 Estrella Avenue, at 6:30pm.

Community Newspapers
The Kensington/Talmadge Community News - they can be reached at Newsletter, c/o Ken-Tal Planning Committee, P.O. Box 16391, San Diego, CA 92176, or e-mailing kentalnews@yahoo.com

The Talmadge Gates
The City of San Diego Historic Resources Board declared the Talmadge Gates as Historic District #422 on May 25, 2000. The gates are of a unique design in the City and provide a distinctive community identifier and supplemental street lighting. The gates were designed in the mid-1920's by engineer Frank R. Carlson. They were cast in 1927 at Union Machine Works in San Diego, at 406 West Market Street at a cost of $1,000 each! The gates surround the Talmadge Park Estates Unit #1 and Talmadge Park Unit #3. The gates are wrought iron and approximately 10 feet wide and almost 15 feet high and are decorated with fanciful curves and shapes reminiscent of Andalusian iron work and reflective of the Spanish revival designs of the 1920's in California. There are two distinct designs: one a symmetrical arch frame spanning the sidewalk with a decorative light fixture and secondly a flat arch frame crossing the sidewalk and an arched "giraffe" neck arm that supports a decorative light fixture.