My earliest memory of Scottsdale is what would most intrigue a little boy: The fire station. The Rural Fire Department sat at Second Street and Brown. It had long outgrown its small building, so yellow-painted fire apparatus were parked all around. In the early 1960s, Scottsdale still retained much of its flavor as one of the minor farm towns that surrounded Phoenix. To that had been added "Western-style" storefronts: It was "the West's Most Western Town." With a few blocks on Fifth Avenue, Main and First Avenue, it was a tourist trap. It had a few hotels, such as the Valley Ho and the Sahara, as well as the wooden-sided stadium — continuing the playfully fake frontier theme — and a modest art colony.
We moved from Midtown Phoenix to what is now south Scottsdale in 1970. My mother had been alarmed by an incident at West High where a student had been kicked to death. Despite our modest means, she wanted me to attend the excellent Coronado High. I got to know Scottsdale very well. The neighborhoods around Coronado and Los Arcos mall were still separated from downtown Scottsdale by farm fields and vacant land. Scottsdale Road lacked curbs, gutters or sidewalks. Our house sat a block east of Scottsdale Road; one old, unoccupied house faced on Scottsdale Road across the alley, leaving a spectacular view of the Papago Buttes. It was an alley prowled by the "Refuse Wranglers" city garbage men. Closer to downtown was the YMCA, where I did a stint as a lifeguard, and the Scottsdale Daily Progress building. Then came the new Scottsdale Baptist Hospital and downtown, which still held some small-town retailers such as Lute's Pharmacy.
East of Brown, however, many of the houses were seedy, a few occupied by bikers and drug dealers. City Hall was only being planned. The police were based out of the old schoolhouse. But close to Scottsdale Road and Main Street, local businesses flourished, from Lute's Drugstore to Saba's Western Wear, along with the gas station with the iconic cowboy sign promoting community events. It was still a small town run by a local merchant class. The future giant Fashion Square was a Goldwater's department store. Newer suburbia marched ahead, of course, especially around Saguaro High. But most of Scottsdale ended just north of Camelback, where the horse ranches took over, then breathtaking empty desert. The airport was little more than a former Army airfield with a handful of newer, small buildings. Drinkwater's Liquors, a Circle K and a few other buildings sat at the crossroads with Shea "Boulevard." That was two lanes out to the Beeline Highway. On the way, you could make the long trek through nothing to reach Taliesin West. My friends and I launched model rockets in the desert southwest of Bell and Scottsdale. I got a glimpse of the plans "somebody" had for the place when the Hilton was built in the middle of nowhere on Lincoln Drive and Scottsdale Road; I worked as a bus boy at Paul Shank's, riding my bike every night along that no-shoulders, no sidewalks, no streetlights highway.
The "Little Red Schoolhouse," which was later Scottsdale's police station and then the Chamber of Commerce. It's still preserved in the downtown mall.
After high school and before and during college, I worked as an emergency medical technician, spending a year in Scottsdale on the elite mobile emergency unit of Kord's Ambulance, the first advanced-care ambulance in the state. This took me all over the area, from the (by today's standard) modest resorts to the Salt River Indian Reservation. We worked with the renamed Rural-Metro Fire Department, still privately owned and run by founder, Chief Lou Witzeman, now operating out of the new station at Thomas and Miller. Scottsdale had redeveloped the seedy downtown with new civic buildings. A new high school (Chaparral) was built farther north to keep up with growth. For all its gaps and hints of phoniness, this Scottsdale was still pleasant and sweet. It was largely middle-class until one got closer to Paradise Valley. It was changing fast, of course. McCormick Ranch was being developed as I left town in 1979.
Today's Scottsdale is an entirely different creature. Its per-capita income as most recently measured was $39,158, compared with $20,275 for the state. But that hardly tells the story. Much of south Scottsdale is fairly typical Phoenix tract housing in decline, with a sizable Hispanic population and Coronado High considered a distressed school. Scottsdale north of Bell (even McDonald) is very wealthy, exclusive and willfully disconnected from the old town (except as a veto elite against most civic projects). Downtown seemed at a tipping point downward in the early 2000s, but has been righted. Still, most of Old Town's business seems to come from tourists and residents of the city of Phoenix. The richies brag about not being SOBs (South of Bell).
I can't claim expertise about the place during the years I was gone. But local leaders of the 1980s and 1990s, especially the late Herb Drinkwater, were all about development and got what they wanted. Taliesin is now surrounded by lookalike suburban roofs. Somewhere Frank Lloyd Wright is cursing. Scottsdale is what passes for success in metro Phoenix. Becoming such a wealth magnet, and craftily outwitting Phoenix for awhile in the race for sales-tax dollars, it avoided many of the problems that plague the region. The Airpark is now the center of what's left of corporate Arizona (not much), as well as the hub of its small entrepreneurial class. The latter, unfortunately, is usually rich men playing with companies that they will later sell, rather than building headquarters that would be major assets to the state. Scottsdale's tourism industry is "world class," at least in the spa, golf and sun niche. Even hotels inside the Phoenix city limits use "Scottsdale" on their addresses. Scottsdale attracted most of the investment of the last "boom," in such things as the Waterfront, etc., while Phoenix largely languished.
This phenomenon is complex, partly a result of Arizona's very limited economy and economic-development paralysis at state and city level, abetted by white-right politicians whose article of faith is that low taxes and light regulation are a strategy for competitiveness. But Scottsdale has become a parasite on the region, too. It refused to be part of the light-rail system. The exclusive crowd didn't want "those people" coming to their all-white streets. (Hint: "Those people" have cars; not too many robbers or burglars jump on mass transit after the crime). Scottsdale used its wealth to lure an ASU appendage ("Skysong"; gag). But it refuses to be part of a team effort along with Phoenix and Tempe to market themselves for technology companies. And why should it? Scottsdale has done quite well on its own, a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of metro Phoenix.
This brings consequences. The place is politically crazy, with an incoherent backbeat that seems to say "we want to keep Scottsdale unique" even as its distinctiveness has been built out of it. This political upheaval is continuous and scary, with a cohort of angry gadflies that have frightened the political center into impotence. The nutballs in Scottsdale who want to be left alone and not "forced to become Portland" need not worry. They've won. They're sore winners, like all the right-wing nutballs in Arizona. Unfortunately, this leaves Scottsdale choked on automobile traffic and without much of a plan once it has skimmed what cream is left from the metro economy. Many residents of Scottsdale have the money and clout to make metro Phoenix better; instead, most are part of the problem that is manifested in, say, giving to the arts being far below comparable-sized metros. Most sit on the sidelines as Arizona goes ever nuttier, as Phoenix falls further behind and decays. Some seem quite happy with "Phoenix becoming the Hispanic Detroit," as if this will help their property values. Living behind gates and walls encourages such delusions.
Scottsdale always wanted to be Santa Fe. That's impossible for a city so populous and geographically stretched out, with a congested corporate center right in its heart. (Even Santa Fe has commuter rail service). It could have been something its own, but the Growth Machine would have none of it. Thus the upscale spreads around Scottsdale look like the mind-numbingly identical Phoenix shopping strips found all over, only with more expensive faux Spanish/Tuscan/Hungarian crapola ornamentation added. Scottsdale is "exclusive." It is also a freak show (e.g., Ted Williams head) and a bleak parade of grotesque human appetites satisfied, yet still hungry. A zombie movie with plastic surgery. For all the sentimental charm certain pieces of it retain for me, and its lure for tourists and a certain kind of rich person, Scottsdale faces its own peculiar tribulations in our future of discontinuity and unsustainability. Money can paper over only so much. It certainly hasn't bought Scottsdale happiness.
At least it now has a "socialist" city fire department.
Parting memories: Main and Scottsdale Road in the late 1950s, above, and Parada del Sol headed south on Scottsdale Road, below, a true small town.
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Part of the Freak Show included the lurid murder of actor Bob Crane (Hogans Heros) and the suicide of French actor Charles Boyer. Back in the 60s and early 70s, when Arizona was the national land fraud capital, bodies of "players" used to turn up in the Arizona Canal near Scottsdale Rd.
As much as I dislike the faux Tuscan archtitecture of north Scottsdale, the topography of the upslope is magical. In the summer when Phoenix is being roasted 24/7 the thunderstorms Phoenix used to get will still rumble off the McDowell Mountains. Around "Troon", the desert gets so lush it's almost something else entirely.
Old Scottsdale south of Camelback has bits of magic, particularly the Palm Springs elements evoking margaritas by the poolside and car-culture fun. The problem with the new wealth on the north side is that it doesn't really look like it's having a good time. In fact, it looks like fun has been banned altogether.
Money is a consolation in a place that is disconnected from its history, lore, and better possibilities. The emptiness is suggested but never discussed. If it were, the quiet desperation might get raucous.
Posted by: soleri | June 03, 2010 at 05:18 PM
An excellent, descriptive, engaging history. However, I still hold that South Park said it best . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2q8pk6ua0
Posted by: Rate Crimes | June 03, 2010 at 07:01 PM
My father grew up in Scottsdale and graduated from Coronado in 1970. He said that they only people that lived at that time in Scottsdale were poor whites, poor hispanics and crazy artists.
Posted by: mikey | June 04, 2010 at 09:21 AM
I had a recent 'mirage in the desert moment' when visiting the Musical Instruments Museum, which is technically in North Phoenix. This museum is a real gem. It completely surpassed my expectations. Not because it was entirely privately funded by Scottsdale’ rich white men, who made their money in other places, but because of the quality of the exhibits. Entering this museum felt magical and sad at the same time. Magical for the building and the presentation of the collection and I have been to the best museums on the subject in Paris and London, sad because this museum could be so much more than a manicured box at a freeway exit. In a way that epitomizes what happens with Phoenix's, i.e. Arizona's best assets. This state still has great assets, it's just not been able due to a lack of imagination, coordination and vision to set a frame around them and capitalize on them to the extent it could.
The museum would have been a mold breaker and could have elevated downtown Phoenix to an actual travel destination (it’s really that good..) would it have been built in downtown or maybe mid-town along Central Avenue, if Phoenix wouldn't be this car crazed, disembodied shell of a city with a leadership marked by a particular kind of limited vision and now thanks to the thanks to the implosion of the FIRE economy limited means. In other cities this place would have been built right smack in the center, surrounded by pedestrian areas with shopping and housing. Denver did it with its new art museum.
Posted by: Chris | June 04, 2010 at 03:06 PM
Chris: the wonderful MIM was Bob Ulrich's brain child, funded with $50 million from his personal checkbook. Bob is Target's retired CEO and a product of its arts and community service culture whereby it still (I believe) gives 5% of pretax profits to those causes.
He has great digs on Camelback mountain (in addition to Minnesota) and has loved Phoenix since his days in the 80's as Dillard's CEO. To me, he's a latter-day role model for making a difference. Does Scottsdale have individuals who deserve mention here? Or are the big dogs content with the salubrious life of golf and gated communities?
Posted by: Jim Hamblin | June 05, 2010 at 08:28 AM
I tend to think Chris' misgiving about the new museum's location correctly illustrates the Scottsdale problem. While it's great that wealth will endow a wonderful cultural amenity, why place it in a far corner of the metroplex? If north Scottsdale is segregating itself socially and economically, this seems to drive the point home with a thumping crescendo.
Bob Ulrich, no doubt, is entirely generous in bringing this stunning museum to Arizona. He could have located it in some other far-flung rich suburb, say Plano, Evergreen, or Schaumberg. But putting it ten miles north of downtown Scottsdale seems to suggest that American civic culture has become unmoored from geography itself. Places really don't matter except insofar as wealth insulates them from various social stresses.
Poor Phoenix still has its jewels but the old dowager is looking increasingly ragged. The real money has moved outside the center city. Not that it matters that much anymore. The Old Guard has either died or moved away, taking with them the pride that regularly regenerated our civic spirit.
Posted by: soleri | June 05, 2010 at 02:31 PM
For all the man's generosity, etc., the museum will not get my patronage. With my limited "consumer" dollars, I will support the Phoenix Art Museum and the Heard. Because I want a real city with real critical mass and a real soul. Sorry to say, it comes down to this in a zero-sum America. Also, I don't feel welcome in north Scottsdale (or "Desert Ridge"), and reciprocate the feeling (As FDR said, "I welcome their hatred."). The Troon abortion and all its kin defiled some of the most beautiful land in the West. Few remember it unspoiled. Whatever.
The museum is instructive. Like much in Arizona, it can't be disconnected from some larger private land play. Thus, the football stadium is in the middle of nowhere, disconnected from transit, an infrastructure drain, and inconvenient to most metro Phoenicians — but private speculation built on the public stadium trumped any civic good. Or even the common sense of stadiums downtown. In this case, the museum is far from any real public spaces, which most Arizonans don't even comprehend. It does nothing to add to a cultural critical mass as it would had it been placed in the central city near other museums. I can't imagine the land in far north Phoenix was less expensive, than anything near the Phoenix Art Museum or Roosevelt Row. It is another car-dependent "amenity" for the vast development plans of this affluent part of the "city."
I'm sure good intentions abounded. The Target guy might have been steered the right way with real city leadership. But Phoenicians can't even comprehend critical mass, public spaces, a central city and the good that can come from such things.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | June 05, 2010 at 08:01 PM
"Many residents of Scottsdale have the money and clout to make metro Phoenix better; instead, most are part of the problem that is manifested in, say, giving to the arts being far below comparable-sized metros."
One of my Phoenix Symphony-going group, a retired university prof from the Midwest, berated metro Phoenix for its lousy arts scene and then, not more than a sentence or two down-conversation from his criticism, remarked that retirement in Arizona was still terrific because his property taxes here are only one-fourth of what they were back in Madison.
Posted by: Joe Schallan | June 06, 2010 at 04:56 PM
So, compared to the "I've got MINE" crowd of affluent retirees and seasonal residents with Scottsdale addresses, Bob Ulrich's generosity certainly stands out, doesn't it? True, he could have had better vision as to the MIM's placement but he gave the Valley something of great value. Hard to know what went into the site location decision, but his retailer's mindset may have been based on demographics and all those occult metrics like "gravity studies". I'm just glad this wonderful asset came to our area vs. many others with a more evolved arts community.
Posted by: Jim Hamblin | June 06, 2010 at 06:15 PM
I believe Jon has written before about the problems with channeling public investments to strategic locations that could create a critical mass in a city over 500 sq. miles large. The museum is another reminder of this.
In addition to geography, I think the Phoenix City Council district system also plays a large role here, with each council person acting as their district's mini-mayor and trying to channel dollars and capital into their own little "city".
Jon is right that the government doesn't really have a location strategy for economic development. As long as the development falls within the City's boundaries, they don't care. Thus W.L. Gore is building a manufacturing and R&D outfit in a location closer to Anthem than downtown Phoenix - where it would have done much to infuse the core with high end private sector jobs and contribute to a technology agglomeration.
The light rail system could be a template to organize strategies and create a focused development strategy. Apparently, no heads are giving this any serious thought and no one is knocking them.
Posted by: Kevin | June 07, 2010 at 08:03 AM
If the writer of the article is so un happy with the way it's going ,he should stay away from us conservative people, we've got along just fine without him. TERRY
Posted by: Terry Justice | August 24, 2016 at 08:50 AM