Phoenix 101: Before superblocks

"Superblocks," with one project, be it an office, apartment, or parking garage, taking up an entire block, are one of the biggest enemies of a vibrant downtown. Think of old Civic Plaza (right) or the Chase Tower and its parking hulk. Even CityScape, which has many shops, offices, and restaurants (unfortunately facing inward), consists of superblocks that once held dozens of individual buildings, each with distinctive architecture and attitude to the street.

This is not a problem confined to central Phoenix — superblocks are profitable for developers. But this is a Phoenix-centric blog and no other major city lost more of its good urban bones to teardowns and, in many cases after decades, rebuilding into massive projects that are nearly dead at street level.

It's important to recall what Phoenix had. Not for nostalgia, but for lessons in how good cities really work (which is usually the opposite of what urban planners want) and because so few Phoenicians even know what once existed.

So thanks to the new digital archive of the McCulloch Brothers collection at ASU and other shots archived by Brad Hall, let's examine the energetic, walkable, full-of-life-and-commerce Phoenix:

Here is First Street and Washington, looking west in the 1940s. It's now entirely covered by the former Phelps Dodge tower built in the late 1990s.

Newberry's and Kress set off this block at First Avenue and Washington, graced by Art Deco architecture and awnings in the 1950s. It's all gone now, taken up by the two towers of Renaissance Square.

Busy Washington Street near Central in the 1930s. These buildings were lost to empty lots and finally the former Phelps Dodge tower.

Central and Adams, looking southwest and featuring Vic Hanny's men's store. This was another set of commercial buildings replaced by Renaissance Square.

This is another view of Baker's Shoes and the Studio Theater with a wider angle, in 1940. Lerner Shops's neon was a downtown beacon at night. Note the different styles of buildings. Every few steps, a new store welcomes the stroller. Awnings keep shoppers cool.

The famous Saratoga Cafe, Rialto Theater and numerous other buildings occupied this block between Central and First Avenue, Washington and Jefferson — all were torn down to make the wasteland of Patriot's Square. Now it's part of CityScape.

This expansive view shows buildings torn down for the superblocks of Valley Center, the 1970s-era Hotel Adams (Renaissance), Hyatt Regency, Civic Plaza (today's Convention Center) and more. Many blocks laid empty with teardowns in the 1980s.

Central Avenue looking north from Monroe in the 1940s. Note the intact streetscape. The low-rise commercial buildings were lost to Valley Center (now Chase Tower) in the early 1970s. The Standard Oil office building on the northeast corner of Van Buren was razed and remained a parking lot for decades.

It's 1972 and the car dealerships and offices running on the west side of Central between Van Buren and Fillmore are still complete. All would be lost except for one commercial building that's part of the ASU park. The ugly central transit station site closer, on Van Buren. But the cohesiveness of the block was lost.

While not exactly lost to a superblock, this is the east side of Central Avenue, across from the Post Office and Hotel Westward Ho. It hosted a variety of uses, from the small "auto court" at lower right to Central Methodist Church in the top. For decades, much of this land sat vacant.

Here's the iconic Fox Theater on the southeast corner of Washington and Second Street in 1950s. This and the other blocks are full of businesses and activity. The Fox was demolished in 1975 for a Maryvale-style building meant to be the city bus terminal. Planned in the 1990s as the site of twin towers, Block 23 of the original townsite is now the dead at street-level, a surface parking lot between CityScape and Collier Center. The 1953 Penney's underground garage is still there.

The Fleming Building was tucked amid busy shops, offices, and theaters at First Avenue and Washington. This valuable example of territorial architecture was torn down for the off-the-shelf box of the First National Bank of Arizona (now Wells Fargo) tower and garage.

Another view of the Fleming Building, framed between the City Hall-County Courthouse and Arizona Title Building. Close inspection shows that only the courthouse took up an entire block, and this included a lush park around the handsome building.

The northeast corner of First Avenue and Adams, including the Balke Building and the Flame restaurant. This became the monolithic Arizona Bank (now US Bank) tower in the 1970s.

We're on First Avenue looking north toward the Title and Trust Building at Adams. Another set of buildings lost for the Wells Fargo superblock. Buildings such as these were saved to make Denver's Lower Downtown Larimer Square.

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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.

 

Comments

[soleri]

The Phoenix attitude back to the late '50s was one of triumphalism. This was a city that was going places, that was not declining like old cities back east, that got things done and loved showing off its sparkly new stuff. It couldn't wait to demolish the old buildings that didn't announce the Big Bright Tomorrow that was Phoenix's destiny and calling card.

Better cities began to see the problem with inactive streets and sidewalks resulting from modernist monoliths. But the old guard in Phoenix was not chastened or alarmed. It's only when Terry Goddard became mayor that people really started wondering if the sterile downtown they created was worth the price we had paid. But by then it was really too late. Civic Plaza, dead on all fronts, occupied six crucial block in the postage stamp-sized downtown. Government and bank buildings with their gigantic parking garages rendered more blocks into dead zones. Finally, the sports' venues took out virtually everything else. There were a couple of blocks on Adams and Monroe that still had some activity, but for the most part, downtown was embalmed.

Phoenix is not unique in its disrespect for urban vitality and architectural gems. In the '60s the American Dream was to own a house, drive a car, shop at a mall, and enjoy life as it was celebrated on TV sitcoms. This was America's triumph too: Brady Bunch civilization. We gave up vast treasures of wonderful old buildings and lively urban spaces for a cartoonscape that we called the Good Life.

I have a theory that some of our political dysfunction and rage is really about this: the loss of beauty, meaning, community, and common purpose. In 1950, America had wonderful cities, great public spaces, effective mass transit, and neighborhoods with close-by retail districts. It was a wonderful life. We gave it up for the cult of auto-mobility, soulless housing pods, and the Big Bright Tomorrow that is our waking nightmare.

[Pat]

I love the picture of Hanny's, with its admonition to "Buy War Bonds!" above the aesthetically stunning Woody. The Wagon probably belonged to some affluent professional from out in the country, like Palmcroft, or North Central. Anyway, that's how I like to imagine it.

[soleri]

The authors of the indispensable Winner Take All Economics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class have an op-ed piece in this morning's Times that makes a strong case for reality-based politics
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html

In a very similar vein, Nick Kristof has a column that makes a similar case with a pointed look at the Sudan: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/opinion/big-government-looks-great-when-there-is-none.html?ref=opinion

Realism is not a popular taste but it sure beats the alternative.

[Cal Lash]

Jon nice photos, I passed them along.
AND here is some more.
Swilling has an 'original' idea. - In the late 1860's a guy named Jack Swilling and a group of people moved to a flat area just north of the Salt River, planted corn, wheat, squash and pumpkins, and started a city. They called it Swilling's Mill, then Helling Mill, and then a few other names. They just couldn't find a good name. Anyway, it didn't make much difference because they didn't like the location anyway. So they moved down the road to this spot, where there happened to be old Indian ruins and the remains of pre-historic canals. The settlers built a few houses, a store and a saloon. They needed a name for the new settlement, again. One person said the place should be called Salina. One moron suggested Pumpkinville, pointing to the crop out in the field. Still no name. After a few fist fights and a round of booze, a guy named Duppa stood up and said it should be called Phoenix, probably because the town (all five mud huts of it) was obviously built on top of the ruins of an ancient Hohokam Indian village (which archeologists call "La Ciudad"). Anyway, somebody grabbed a pen and wrote down the word Phenix on the map. Close enough.
From what my grandfather told me, Duppa actually threw in a few lines from Shakespeare's famous poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle, at that historic moment, as follows:

http://www.sierraestrella.com/vanburen.html

[Pat]

My great Uncle knew Swilling from around Prescott, and encountered him once at a makeshift saloon Swilling had set up in the town of Gillett, and Swilling was running a card game ( Swilling was, among many things, an adept gambler). He had one of his children, a girl of about nine, standing near the table holding a large knife, which Swilling had instructed her to plunge into any of the dumb miners who took issue with being stripped of their earnings. Sometimes I wonder why nobody has ever made a movie about Jack Swilling, he was way more colorful and interesting than the Earps.

[Gary O'Brien]

I think Soleri is spot-on with his idea about the origin of our political dysfunction and rage.
"[It] is really about this: the loss of beauty, meaning, community, and common purpose. In 1950, America had wonderful cities, great public spaces, effective mass transit, and neighborhoods with close-by retail districts. It was a wonderful life. We gave it up for the cult of auto-mobility, soulless housing pods, and the Big Bright Tomorrow that is our waking nightmare."
Always enjoy lurking the commentary here.

[Gary O'Brien]

Oh, yes. Thanks to Jon for the heavy lifting of picture editing. These images are new to me and very illuminating.