El Cajon Boulevard is a busy shopping district; additional retail establishments are at South Campus Plaza, a university housing and commercial complex on College Avenue.

On August 18, 1948, the "Campus Drive-In" movie theater with a capacity for 900 cars was built at the intersection of College Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard.

[1][2] In 1961, snack-bar employee Tom O'Leary was convicted of manslaughter for stabbing a patron named Dennis O'Connor to death at the drive-in.

The dead man's family became active in city politics and eventually his sister Maureen O'Connor was elected mayor of San Diego in 1986.

A large canyon opens up in the center of the SDSU campus known as Aztec Bowl and descends toward Alvarado Creek in Mission Valley.