Beachgoers and scuba divers who flock to Kellogg Park in La Jolla Shores may soon have somewhere new to sit. The Walter Munk Foundation for the Oceans is raising $90,000 to install four wave-themed benches on the east side of The Map of the Grand Canyons of La Jolla, the sprawling mosaic plaza that has become a landmark for ocean science education along the shoreline.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the foundation has already secured funding for one bench and is now seeking three more $30,000 donations to complete the set. Each bench costs $30,000, and the city has agreed to allow one or two bronze plaques per bench so donors can recognize themselves or loved ones. Once all four are fully funded, the foundation will purchase and install them, with any leftover money going toward additional events at the plaza.
Mary Munk, connected to the foundation, said benches are scarce along that stretch of beach, which serves both scuba divers and beachgoing families. Similar wave-themed benches already sit on the west side of the mosaic and alongside the La Jolla Shores boardwalk, and the new additions would extend that seating to the plaza's opposite side. The San Diego Parks & Recreation Department has given the foundation permission to install all four benches, which organizers hope to have in place by the end of 2026.
A Plaza Built to Bring Ocean Science Ashore
The Map of the Grand Canyons of La Jolla is no ordinary plaza. It's a 2,200-square-foot lithomosaic featuring more than 100 life-size marine-creature designs, built to let visitors walk across a life-size rendering of the submarine canyons just offshore. The installation was officially dedicated on October 19, 2020, on what would have been oceanographer Walter Munk's 103rd birthday, the culmination of a $600,000 public art effort detailed by the Times of San Diego.
The mosaic itself was built using a patented LithoMosaic process invented by artists Robin Brailsford and Wick Alexander, bonding more than 500,000 hand-cut tiles to mesh before it was all embedded into poured concrete, per KPBS. The plaza also includes a 4,000-pound 3D bronze sculpture that reproduces the bathymetry and coastline from Mount Soledad out to a mile offshore into La Jolla's submarine canyons, according to lajolla.ca, giving non-divers a tactile way to picture the underwater drop-offs most people never see.
Honoring the ‘Einstein of the Oceans’
The foundation's namesake, Walter Munk, spent nearly eight decades at Scripps and earned the nickname the “Einstein of the Oceans” for pioneering surf forecasting techniques that helped ensure the success of Allied amphibious landings during World War II, according to Physics Today. His legacy stretches well beyond Kellogg Park: in October 2021, Scripps scientists announced that a newly mapped 12,477-foot underwater mountain west-southwest of Hawaii, mapped via sonar by the research vessel Sally Ride, had been officially named after him, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune. The City of San Diego had already renamed the La Jolla Shores boardwalk “Walter Munk Way” in October 2017 to mark his 100th birthday.
That municipal tradition of honoring Munk through park infrastructure continues this fall. Walter Munk Day, held every October, returns to Kellogg Park on October 3 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year's event will highlight the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Scripps Scientific Diving Program — the nation's oldest continuous civilian scientific diving program, established in 1951 by oceanographer Conrad Limbaugh after a 1950 diving fatality in La Jolla — as well as the 10th anniversary of the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology, which Munk helped launch with seed funding from Damien Leloup in 2016. Organizers say the day will also mark the 50th anniversary of the release of the film Jaws.
Funding Education for Underserved Students
Beyond benches, the foundation is also raising money for buses that would transport students from underserved communities to future Walter Munk Day events. Mary Munk said the foundation's broader mission is to bring students from underserved communities to the ocean, supporting field trips, docent walks and other educational gatherings tied to the mosaic plaza.
The bench campaign fits a familiar pattern in La Jolla, where major park upgrades tend to rely on private philanthropy rather than city capital budgets. Hoodline previously reported that private donations through the San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation funded new rescue vehicles and Jet Skis for La Jolla Shores lifeguards earlier this year, another example of nonprofit dollars filling gaps in the city's coastal infrastructure.
Kellogg Park has also drawn scrutiny this year after a lawsuit was filed against the City of San Diego in July, following a toddler suffering severe foot burns from hot coals hidden in the sand there. That case, which Hoodline covered in a report on the toddler's burn injury lawsuit, underscored how heavily families and beachgoers rely on the park for everyday recreation — the same visitors the foundation hopes will soon have a few more places to sit.
