North Park is a neighborhood in San Diego, California, United States, as well as a larger "community" as defined by the City of San Diego for planning purposes. The neighborhood is bounded: on the northwest by Park Boulevard and University Heights on the west by Florida Canyon and both University Heights and Hillcrest on the southwest by Balboa Park on the south by Switzer Canyon and the South Park neighborhood on the east by Interstate 805 and City Heights The pre-Interstate 805 boundary of North Park was widely considered to be 35th Street, which is now part of City Heights. It includes the sub-neighborhoods of Burlingame, Altadena, and the Morley Field area (site of the Dryden Historic District). North Park is part of the 53rd congressional district, and San Diego City Council District 3. The "community" of North Park as defined for planning purposes includes University Heights on the north and Juniper Canyon as the southern boundary, thus including as far southeast as Cedar Ridge Park in the officially defined community. The North Park sign can be seen at 30th Street and University Avenue, and this intersection is considered to be the heart of the neighborhood. History In the summer of 1893, San Diego merchant Joseph Nash sold of land northeast of Balboa Park to James Monroe Hartley, who wished to develop a lemon grove. The Hartley family began the arduous process of clearing the land to prepare the earth for the grove, but providing the fledgling trees with proper irrigation was always a problem. Barrels of water had to be hauled from downtown San Diego up a wagon trail that eventually was called Pershing Drive. As the growth of San Diego eventually caught up with the original Hartley lemon grove, it eventually became roughly bordered by Ray Street to the west, 32nd Street to the east, University Avenue to the north and Dwight Street to the south. Hartley deemed his area Hartley's North Park, and years later, the City of San Diego referred to the new suburb as North Park. In 1911, Hartley's eldest son Jack and brother-in-law William Jay Stevens developed the plot into one of San Diego's early residential and commercial districts. After first establishing Stevens & Hartley, North Park's first real estate firm, in 1905, Jack and William built North Park's first "high rise" commercial building, the Stevens building, on the northwest corner of 30th Street