that home in the picture is an old ranch home, which I don't think is out of place at all if you use your noggin to think about it being there as a farm house before anything else was there. Think of Timmy and Lassie playing on the front yard.
Location: Country Club Park, Greater Coronado, Midtown, Phoenix, Az
Posts: 4,610
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicelord John
that home in the picture is an old ranch home, which I don't think is out of place at all if you use your noggin to think about it being there as a farm house before anything else was there. Think of Timmy and Lassie playing on the front yard.
Right I meant its out of place in todays world in that neighborhood. Its all mid century apartments and low slung ranch style homes now. Obviously that area was probably rather sparsely populated when that building was built so there were likely never many like it. Combine that with our lack for preserving buildings in this town and it stood out to me considering its neighborhood.
Location: Country Club Park, Greater Coronado, Midtown, Phoenix, Az
Posts: 4,610
Amazingly depressing. I cant believe how bad our predecessors fucked up. In that second picture there seems to be a marquee saying "Rialto", I wonder if that was a theater of some kind. I know about the old Fox Theater but havent heard of that one.
Amazingly depressing. I cant believe how bad our predecessors fucked up. In that second picture there seems to be a marquee saying "Rialto", I wonder if that was a theater of some kind. I know about the old Fox Theater but havent heard of that one.
Phoenix and Tucson both had a Rialto Theater until 1955:
Thankfully the 3 tallest buildings in the 2nd picture are still around... but yeah, pictures like this make me ill. I guess I just can't fathom anyone during any time period being OK seeing beautiful strutures (and all of their ornaments, craftsmanship, etc.) being torn down for a terrible looking parking garage, or nothing. I guess cars were seen as the signs of the times... and the advent of A/C must have made the decision of demolition or retrofitting a tough one. I can see people thinking many of these old buildings sucked since they likely didn't have A/C. Installing A/C in an old home or building was likely very costly, and building anew was a pretty good option for some of the building owners.
Wow, those pictures make me sad beyond words. If only a few blocks from back then had been spared the wrecking ball, it would make downtown so much more interesting. I still think it would be great if a developer re-created some of the old buildings (or at least a close approximation). Wouldn't it have been nice if the Cityscape retail portion had tried to do this is some fashion? I know it's probably cost prohibitive, but that is such a visible and important block. I wish the city would have insisted on architecture that was more in line with the surrounding Luhr's buildings and the old City Hall. Oh well...it would have been nice.
I wish I could travel back in time and walk those streets in the 1920s.
Oh well.
To answer John's question, yes, if Phoenix had not wiped out so much of her history, we would have more of a gaslamp district today, or at least the possibility of one.
--don
PS: My collection of historic Phoenix postcards that I digitized last year:
Anyone notice how all of the buildings fronting the street had shade structures?
Why doesn't the city of Phx require this? This may actually encourage more people to come DT if they can avoid the blistering heat during the summer months.
I'm currently preserving my second 1920s Phoenix home (still have the first one too). Damn its a lot of work, but they SURE don't build them like that anymore, and I love my neighborhood.
4 houses down from my other place. I'll send you some pics.
BTW, I got a 7' tall by 6.5' wide builtin for $50 from one of your neighbors about 1/4 mile directly south of you to incorporate into the re-do of this place.
Last edited by DowntownDweller; Nov 30, 2009 at 10:57 PM.
If you can imagine, when I was little, in the fifties, there was nothing North of North Mountain, now you can drive for over an hour past there before the buildings start thinning out. We were practically in the dessert, neigbors were always killing rattle snakes in their yards and scorpions in their houses. Shea Boulevard was a dirt road on the way to the Salt Rive and everything was citrus groves and vacant lots. Lots more Grapefruits than Oranges, actually. It was kind of a western town. We didn't have too many people here. The tallest building in town was the Westward Ho Hotel because of the radio tower on it. Now the highrises downtown dwarf it. There were actual cowboys and there were riding stables (dude ranches, also) South Phoenix was a nice part of town, just older. And what is considered the historical section now were just thought of as OLD. Families were lucky if they owned a TV, we had neighbors who used to come over to watch shows like Lawrence Welk and the Chevrolet Hour with Dinah Shore. Central Avenue always had the palm trees and there was actually a Palms Theater on Central. We didn't have any culture in downtown except the Art Museum but it was tiny. MacDonalds was at Central and Indian School down the street from the Carnation parking lot. My dad used to take me to MacDonalds back when the logo on the sign was still Mr. Speedy and he could buy a hamburger for 14 cents or a cheeseburger for nineteen cents. The big deal for the teenagers was to "cruise Central Avenue" and park at the Carnation parking lot. Later when they got hungry they would go to Bob's Big Boy Restaurant at Central and Thomas Road, where they actually had car hops that would serve you in the parking lot. Also right there was the J.B. Bayless store that was a replica of A.J.Bayless Markets owner's father's original store, now it is a museum type of place and his daughter is grown and several years ago ran for governor. The Phoenix Indian School was right on Central Avenue.
At seventh street and Missouri Avenue there was the Drive In Theater which that plaza is named for now, the Cinema Park Drive-in Theater is now the Cinema Park Mall. I had friends who lived on the corner of their lot in a small house but they had a speaker in their back yard and they could sit in their back yard at the picnic table and watch and listen to the movies for free. Coffee shops like Guggi's and Helsing's were popular then. There were two expensive restaurants then that were called Green Gables and Neptunes Table both of which by todays standards would be considered less fancy than Denny's. Although Green Gables had a "castle motif" and there was a knight on horseback that led people to their parking space with a big lance, wearing a suit of armor.the most radical music we hear back then was Elvis. Most of the young people listened to the radio on AM stations. Wallace and Ladmo were the local cartoon hosts on the most popular show for kids and they had celebrities on there who wanted to advertise, on the kids show in between cartoons. One of them was Waylon Jennings. Later on I found out that my mother had gone to high school with Marty Robins in Glendale. She asked me one time if I knew who Stevie Knicks was and we all started laughing at her, then she said that she went to school with her father also, Charlie Knicks. My dad worked for Salt River Project but started with them when they were the Salt River Valley Land Reclamation Unit, then The Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, then SRP. We used to go to Encanto Park and go to kiddie land on the rides and the merry go round seemed like a big ride, it has been refurbished and is still there I understand. We would sit up on the hill with a picnic basket on a blanket and listen to music played by some local band who played in the band shell. My mother would drive a whole station wagon full of kids to the Sunnyslope high school pool where we could swim for 10 cents each all day and then afterward, she would come get us an take us to Ted's Tastey Burger on Seventh Street and feed us all there where she could get ten burgers for a dollar. One of the big events in town every year was the Jaycees Rodeo of Rodeo's Parade on Central Avenue. My dad used to take us to the state fair every year.
No More My Brain Hurts,
Arizona Mildman
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