I was looking around on the assessor's web and came across this old plat map from 1892:
It is of the "Capitol Addition"... the neighborhood west of the state capitol, to about where I-17 is today. I found a few things interesting about this. First, look at the north/south roads. Originally, they are actually named, rather than just numbered avenues. Although it would be harder to navigate the city, I've always kind of wanted named north/south streets just like our east/west streets.
Second, now, here is the neighborhood today:
Aside from going through some serious decay, and it being a travesty that it couldn't have been preserved in its original state through care and maintenance through out the years... what has the city done to itself?
I mean there are some almost multi-family "PJs" or "projects" out there, and the worst thing is the commercial/Industrial land uses on the north and south of the neighborhood. There are some rough/terrible looking businesses and steel companies, etc. It's like once the city allowed a change in zoning, a cancer spread over the neighborhood with the edges in horrendous shape (money outflow probably then coincided).
Is this another blame we can peg on Phoenix's sprawl? Did our easy money on the fringes suck the money out of our central neighborhoods faster than it normally would have, or are other cities out there in the same boat? It just seems like Phoenix's central city neighborhoods, more than any other city out there, have just completely fallen apart/decayed.
Is it the sprawl or the zoning changes? Either way, I want to punch the leaders of Phoenix-past in the mouth.
Anyway, I love the look of the grid of the original neighborhood.
EDIT: I just realized that this plat was dated, signed, published, and dedicated on my birthday (October 22).
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