LOGAN HEIGHTS, Calif. (KGTV) — Logan Heights lost an icon when Father Richard H. Brown passed away on May 20, 2020. With the coronavirus still keeping everyone at home, the Parish didn't have many options to celebrate the man who helped so many. In the book "We Made San Diego," local historian Mária García writes, "not even the COVID pandemic stopped Barrio Logan from celebrating our beloved Padrecito del Barrio."
With only 10 days to plan and organize, the community put together a Mass and Memorial service. Only a handful of people were inside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, but 12,000 people watched from home as the mariachi Mass and the ensuing parade of lowriders were live streamed. While beautiful and memorable, it wasn't the full celebration of life they wanted for Father Brown.
This Saturday, they have an opportunity to change that. The City of San Diego is renaming the street by the Church Father Brown Street.
"It's huge," says Adela Garcia, a lifelong member of the Parish and former president of the OLG Catholic Youth Organization. "When people see [the sign] they're going to ask 'Who was Father Brown?' and I hope they ask that because his goodness as an individual and as a wonderful priest and a man of faith, you can't find that everywhere."
The renaming discussion has been a years-long effort. Our Lady's School graduate Danny Montaño called it a labor of love. He worked with Councilmember Vivian Moreno to make the idea a reality.
To understand why Father Brown is beloved, you have to look at the past.
Industrialization started taking hold of the area in the late 1920s, according to the San Diego History Center. Much of the waterfront land was rezoned from residential to industrial, slowly pushing out families and preventing new ones from establishing their roots. Decades later in the early 1960s, the neighborhood was hit again because of the construction of the Coronado Bay Bridge and the I-5 freeway.
The freeway project cut the neighborhood in half, forming Barrio Logan at the west of the freeway, and Logan Heights to the east.
"It was a depressed area because so many families had left," Garcia said.
The Church pews were empty, and enrollment at the school dropped. The church needed help.
Enter Father Brown.
"He came during the summer of 1968," recalls Garcia. "And all of us that met him fell in love with him, he was just so different."
The Jesuit Priest and San Diego native immediately got to work, connecting with the families around him, as well as local leaders and officials. While Father Brown couldn't undo the damage of industrialization or prevent further projects from targeting the neighborhood, he did become the glue that kept the neighborhood together. His charm, wit, humor and loving heart attracted so many back to church, but the work still wasn't over.
To bring in the younger generation of worshippers, he formed the Catholic Youth Organization at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Garcia joined with her sister, and soon became president of the group for years.
"We started off as a small group of kids, and within a year, we were hundreds," Garcia said, adding that to so many of those children, those were the best years of their lives. "They were absolutely beautiful times with him because he made it so wonderful. You always felt protected and loved."
Still, enrollment was low both at Our Lady of Guadalupe School and Our Lady of the Angels. Montaño explained that rather than closing, Father Brown pushed to merge both schools, forming Our Lady's School, which is now known as the oldest Catholic elementary school in San Diego County.
"He saved this school," Montaño told ABC 10News anchor Kimberly Hunt. "Father (Brown) was all about inner-city Catholic education. He was an advocate for families that may not have been able to afford tuition."
Through his connections, Father Brown secured money for scholarships and helped organize fundraisers to try to keep tuition manageable for neighbors.
His advocacy also reached groups that weren't seen in a positive light.
"To us, it was being accepted in our own community," said Rigoberto Reyes, also known as Rigo.
He co-founded Amigos Car Club and the San Diego Lowrider Council. He explains that shortly after the council was formed, they lost their meeting place and the group was struggling to find a space.
"Father actually opened the doors to Our Lady of Guadalupe to us lowriders. Which at the time, frankly, it wasn't as acceptable as it is today... Lowriding was frowned upon even by our own communities, but Father Brown never did that to us," Reyes said.
A new friendship was formed. Within a year, the council and Father Brown started the annual blessing of the cars on Kearney Avenue. The event soon became so popular, the small one-way street wasn't enough, and they moved it to Chicano Park.
"This is where Father Brown would come and bless our cars on a yearly basis," Reyes said.
You can still find glimpses of that bond in the park today. The Amigos Car Club mural near the 5 on-ramp shows a caravan of cars making their way up from Las Playas de Tijuana, a popular cruising spot for lowriders back in the day. The painted cars travel through Chula Vista, National City, until arriving at Chicano Park.
But if you look closely to the right of the Chicano Park kiosko, you'll see the painting of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Further into the park, you can see the image of Father Brown on the Brown Image Car Club Mural.
"Father Brown was so iconic in this community and what he meant to this community," Reyes said.
That connection between the priest and his community will now forever be cemented with the sign that will read: "Fr. Brown St."
The event begins with Mass at 11 a.m., followed by the street naming ceremony at noon. All are welcome, just as Father Brown would have wanted it.
Head to the church website to learn more about the event.
