The park Phoenix almost lost

Today's Papago Park is full of delights and history, from the Desert Botanical Garden to the Phoenix Zoo, Hole-in-the-Rock, hiking, baseball, and Hunt's Tomb. As the official website says, "Its massive, otherworldly sandstone buttes set Papago Park apart, even in a city and state filled with world-class natural attractions."

But Papago Park almost didn't happen.

For those of you who don't venture south of Bell, north of "south Chandler," or are out-of-town readers, I'm writing about land that sits in east Phoenix and north Tempe. Technically, the boundaries run from McDowell on the north to Tempe Town Lake on the south, and 52nd Street and the Crosscut Canal/College Avenue to the west and east respectively. The park could have been much larger.

These magical uplands were five-and-a-half miles from the original Phoenix townsite when they were included in the reservation for the Pima and Maricopa tribes by President Rutherford B. Hayes. This was 1879, when the biggest concerns of the hardscrabble settlements of Phoenix and Tempe were reclaiming the Hohokam canals for agriculture. The National Park Service claims the Hohokam used Hole-in-the-Rock to mark the solstice. Early American settlers also appreciated the beauty of the ancient rock formations, including Carl Hayden (born in 1877) growing up across the river in Tempe.

Later in the 19th century, the reservation was contracted to the present-day borders of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Some desultory mining activity took place around the buttes and they became more popular as exotic destinations for visitors. In 1914, a grown up Hayden, the new state's only representative in the U.S. House lobbied his friend, President Woodrow Wilson, to make the area a National Park. Wilson declined, but using the presidential powers of the Antiquities Act, declared it the Papago Saguaro National Monument. At the time, it stretched from the Salt River to Thomas Road.

Initially, this seemed promising. Wilson's proclamation noted the new monument held "splendid examples of the giant and many other species of cacti and the yucca palm, with many additional forms characteristic of desert flora, [that] grow to great size and perfection and are of great scientific interest, and numerous prehistoric pictographs of archaeologial and ethnological value." The designation had been a step to the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest becoming National Parks. Montezuma Castle was the third National Monument created after President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act in 1906, to the relief of the Arizona Antiquarian Association. In 1918, Wilson declared the Casa Grande ruins a National Monument, too.

But a Papago Saguaro National Park was not to be. Responsibility for care of national monuments was not clear for many years. At first, it was the responsibility of the General Land Office. The young National Park Service (established in 1916) lacked the resources to police all of them and appropriated $70 a year for the monument's upkeep. This stinginess was especially true during the Harding administration's return from World War I's bigger government to "normalcy" (forever corrupting the word "normality"). Coolidge austerity further starved the government of the means to protect these treasures.

By the 1920s, Phoenix was no longer a dirt-poor frontier settlement but the growing hub of an agricultural empire. Transcontinental passenger trains made Phoenix a popular tourist destination, with trips to the nearby monument part of the appeal (the postcard above is from 1930). In addition to tourists and locals, the area attracted vandals and cactus thieves. Perhaps a majority of its original saguaros were stolen. Roads were cut into the monument, cattle grazed and cement aggregate mined there, graffiti and commercial messages painted on Hole-in-the-Rock. Trash was dumped. Its geological and environmental value was further degraded by the building of the Crosscut Canal. It didn't help that the pungent Tovrea feedlots, among the largest in the country, were just to the west.

The Papago Saguaro National Monument was a local example of "the tragedy of the commons," with neither Phoenix, Tempe, nor the state of Arizona seeing it worth their while to police and protect the land. The monument was close enough to the towns to be damaged by use and misuse, yet far enough away to be low on priorities. Phoenix was not completely without vision. It spent $17,000 (around $239,500 in today's dollars) to acquire what became South Mountain Park from the federal government in 1924 — and this was even farther from the city limits. But it proved unable and unwilling to fund full-time rangers for the federal monument. Indeed, within the city limits, Phoenix had too few parks for its size well into the 1960s. Meanwhile, despite petitions of conservationists, the Legislature would not make Papago a state park.

In 1930, Papago Saguaro became the first National Monument to be delisted.

Whether a Hoover administration in crisis offered the city of Phoenix a deal similar to the one given by Calvin Coolidge in 1924 is unknown. With the Great Depression drying up the city treasury, it's unlikely the city could have paid for it. So the delisted monument was parceled off piecemeal. The Salt River Valley Water Users Association bought a piece for power lines and other expansions. Little Tempe, population 2,495, acquired some of the southern end. The state took the rest, including the northern end for the National Guard.

Over the next two decades, good and ill played out. Easter sunrise services became a community tradition. Long-serving Gov. George W. P. Hunt wanted to make it a state park, but the Legislature didn't go along. Still, the area began to be called "Papago Park." Hunt built a bass fish hatchery there. A tuberculosis sanatorium was added. In the Depression, with the completion of the Mill Avenue Bridge, Tempe developed part of it as a city park, and Civilian Conservation Corps workers made improvements. When Hunt died in 1933, he was entombed in a white pyramid on a hill at the park. The now world-class Desert Botanical Garden, created by Gustaf Starck and Gertrude Webster, opened in 1939 (the city of Phoenix later reduced its size by nearly two thirds).

Still, the park was mostly unofficial and damage continued. The military reservation took up the entire northern end, famously serving as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. After the war, it was used as a Veterans Administration hospital. It became the headquarters of the National Guard (in the 1960s, a Cold War bunker was built in a small butte intended to be the county's command center in the event of nuclear war). The base has been continuously expanded on the northern half of the onetime National Monument. In 1954, McDowell Road was rammed between the iconic twin buttes. 

According to historian William S. Collins, Phoenix Mayor Nick Udall looked into building a golf course there in 1950, but it went nowhere. City hall's ambivalence about the park continued through most of the decade. The fish hatchery closed and the parcel reverted to the state Land Department as further pieces of the former monument were sold. Arizona State College President Grady Gammage Sr. toyed with building part of the campus in the park, then a football stadium. The state fair commission proposed building new fairgrounds there, along with a Turf Paradise horse track. In 1957, Frank Lloyd Wright offered to design a state capitol building for the site. Fortunately, these gambits went nowhere. However, more of the park was lost when the Salt River Project built a new headquarters on its south end, replacing its offices downtown.

By the mid-1950s, civic groups the Pulliam press, and leaders of Motorola, AiResearch, and the AFL-CIO began pressing the city to develop Papago Park. Although the Desert Botanical Garden was there, desert preservation was not a priority. The Pulliam newspapers, especially, wanted a Balboa Park-like setting. A golf course and zoo were pushed consistently. The city plan that emerged would have manhandled most of the remaining desert land, including turning the area north of the large southern butte (the larger northern one is named Barnes Butte) into a lavish water recreation park. In addition to artificial waterfalls, the planners envisioned a golf course, sports fields, a deer park, "model mineshaft" at Hole-in-the-Rock, and a practice trail for bow hunters. And you wonder why Jane Jacobs hated the professional planning elite?

Fortunately, most of this never happened, largely because Phoenix City Council didn't want to appropriate adequate funding. Robert Maytag, an heir of the appliance company founder, did give $100,000 to the Arizona Zoological Society to begin a fundraising drive. The Phoenix (Maytag) Zoo opened in 1962 around the old fish hatchery lagoons. It remains the largest privately owned, non-profit zoo in the nation (and Phoenix's zoo, while beloved, is far beneath its level as a big city). The city finished an 18-hole golf course in 1963 and soon opened Municipal Stadium. Legend City, our amusement park, was nearby from 1963 to 1983.

Only gradually did preservation of the remaining park become a priority. But by the time I was a teenager and older, it was one of Phoenix's gems. I remember beer parties at Hole-in-the-Rock during high school (yes, we policed our beer cans). On the ambulance, I recall two vivid incidents. One involved a man who had gone through the fence of the military reservation and attempted to scale Barnes Butte. He fell and it was hours before he was found. He had died there, looking out on the jewel of lights, help so close and yet so far. In another case, a police lieutenant's son had taken his date, visiting from Chicago, to the park at night. A gang attacked them, nearly killing him and raping her. This was the mid-1970s, when Phoenix still had the feel of a small town and the park was often a place of solitude. But it was a big, bad city and the solitude could contain menace.

Phoenix is a city of lost opportunities. It's interesting to consider what might have been: the pristine National Monument stretching for miles, no military reservation, zoo, golf course, McDowell highway, or office "parks" along Washington Street. But that didn't happen. We're lucky Papago Park turned out as well as it did.

Papago Park Gallery (click on the photo for a larger image):

This 1892 map shows how isolated the future Papago Park was from Phoenix, and, on the other side of the river, from tiny Tempe. It was also east of the north-bank residents' focus: the canal system.

Riders on horseback in 1930, the year Washington delisted the Papago Saguaro National Monument. Camelback Mountain is in the background (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

An Easter sunrise service between the buttes in 1934, four years after the National Monument designation was taken away. (McCulloch Brothers/ASU Archives)

The sanatorium built circa 1930. It was later expanded to a two-stories and the Moorish theme removed. (McCulloch Brothers/ASU Archives)

Tire companies used the park for testing their tires. This is around 1943. (McCulloch Brothers/ASU Archives)

Camp Papago Park, a POW camp during World War II and site of a German escape attempt.

McDowell Road heading east toward Barnes Butte in the 1960s, only four lanes wide and with cooling shade trees on the property to the left. McDowell had been punched through the two buttes and the park in 1954 (Brad Hall Collection).

McDowell heading east at 56th Street. The military reservation across the street is another example of how the park was cut up for other uses (Brad Hall Collection).

Hunt's Tomb, a landmark many people see as their airliners are landing at Sky Harbor.

Hole-in-the-Rock.

A trail at the Desert Botanical Garden.

The Phoenix Zoo entrance in 2014. It was originally named the Maytag Zoo after its chief benefactor.

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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

[B. Franklin]

Sadly, the stories you tell of Phoenix almost always seem to be stories of missed opportunities.

"If only we had...but we didn't."

[Cal Lash]

Papaago Park now needs to get rid of the National Guard complex and take over what was the old Motorola grounds. And the Equestrian club. And let it all go back to desert. Plus they need to jerk Tovrea Castle off the hill and let the Giant Sahuaro that currentl inhabit the grounds expand.

The biggest missed opportunity was keeping dams from being built in the Southwest.

B
I left U a comment back on last blog and I'm about to post a billy Clinton immigration disaster over thar.

[soleri]

When I was growing up, much of Phoenix was poor, unattractive, jerry-built, and, in retrospect, a paradise. There were cottonwoods lining the canals, old mining shacks built from rocks, honky tonks in unexpected places, and strange mysteries that were the visible finger prints of time and circumstance. But even back then I could see the attrition as roads widened and citrus groves disappeared. You can't stop progress and we didn't try.

Over time, Phoenix became wealthier and more homogenized. But its loss of character took a psychological toll on me. There wasn't any one year that I remember telling myself that was the final nail in the coffin. The damage was gradual and cumulative but never quite definitive. Sometime, maybe around 2000, it settled in my mind that Phoenix was probably a lost cause, that it no longer had any real chance to preserve some of its old magic and it no longer really mattered since that magic had attenuated to virtual extinction. Encanto Park no longer enchanted. Dreamy Draw was now little more than a freeway and a Gosnell development. Downtown became an incoherent collection of large set pieces with nothing vital at the granular level. North Central's Wilshire Boulevard-like dazzle turned to rust. Sunnyslope's small-town flavors turned to vinegar. Nothing lasts in a city where the only constant is change and traffic.

Up here in Portland, a week doesn't go by in which there isn't an announcement that another old building will be demolished. Portland does get it. There's a large historic preservation movement here and city planners are sympathetic. But the law almost completely favors the rights of property owners to do what they want. I assuage this sense of loss my telling myself that a major earthquake could level the city in 30 seconds. Don't hold on too tight. Everywhere you go, nothing lasts.

I remember Papago Park still retaining magic through the 1970s. Van Buren still had some of its old highway charm. Around 56th St, you could see how the road dipped and wended according to the gullies. There were still some evocative antiques from the tourist trade - old motels, roadhouses and such. Now, it's all gone. I look at the pictures and sigh but I know the storyline by heart, that doom is inevitable for all things that rust and splinter. Nothing lasts.

Phoenix once had local color and differentiated character. It had weirdness and tragedies, and grace notes lovely beyond any physical measure. It's all been washed away in value-engineered sameness. This is Arizona's story, too, and increasingly, the nation's. I wouldn't be surprised to see high-end condos on Prescott's Courthouse Square someday. You find peace by no longer taking it personally. But if you were born into a particular time and place, you'll always hear its voices and see its ghosts in the cracks of time. They'll tell what you always wondered about life itself, that somehow we're born, we live, and we die. It's not even mystery, really. It's the love you felt and still feel for something transient that still haunts our dreams. It's ineffable and little more than a passing mood. You pause a moment, then let it go.

[B. Franklin]

"Growth For Growth's Sake" will be our epitaph.

Cal, I responded to your Clinton immigration post on the previous thread...

[Cal Lash]

I forgot, the Golf course on the west end needs to go.

[Trevor Huxham]

I live just across the river in Tempe and can’t imagine Phoenix without this precious slice of the desert in the center of the city. It’s such a tragedy it was ever parcelled off to become golf courses and office parks.

[Scotch Cactus]

Wow, what a great article about Papago Park. I'm a Phoenix native now living half a world away in Scotland. RC has been a precious resource for me for about three years and I have also enjoyed the wonderful comments section. Cal Lash and Soleri feel like two wonderful voices I've been eavesdropping on in a old downtown restaurant.

Soleri's meditation on Papago Park is stunning. It's a wonderful prose poem and has made an exile weep with fleeting thoughts about his youth in North Central from his very different Glasgow present. Thanks to Jon, Cal, Soleri and the rest of this wonderful community.

[Cal Lash]

Thanks Scotch Cactus. Scotch Cactus??
And will
INPHX scribble a few words on this subject?

[Robert H. Bohannan]

Great column, Jon!

Sorry, Soleri, but I'm not buying your relentless pessimism. Not only does Phoenix have Papago and South Mountain Parks, but what about the Mountain Preserve? Yes, some private development existed or was grandfathered before the mountaintops were bought, but we could have ended up with restaurants on top of Camelback and/or Piestewa Peak, or--perhaps worse--rolling "waves" of houses flowing up, over, and all around the mountains (as I have seen in some parts of Southern California) instead of just part-way up the sides.

Phoenix is not perfect and has a long way to go, but we have light rail, the beginnings of downtown rehabilitation, and may be in the process of reinventing ourselves. Climate is a factor, of course, but the flip side of heat is solar energy. Whether the utilities embrace it or not, solar is increasingly efficient at the "grass roots" (Household) level, and will continue to grow nevertheless. Bike-and-ped friendly streets are on the increase.

The glass is half-full.

[INPHX]

Phoenix changed.

Soleri aged, and then moved.

And????

According to page 9 of this, for Medium low density cities, Phoenix has about twice the average for park acreage compared to total city area:

https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/files/files_upload/2015-City-Park-Facts-Report.pdf

That's plenty as far as I'm concerned.

It's also a higher percentage than Seattle and just a tad behind Portland.

Doe anyone thing Phoenix needs more parks?

Maybe we pull some money out of the light rail funding for that?

One other thing- Soleri writes:

There's a large historic preservation movement here and city planners are sympathetic. But the law almost completely favors the rights of property owners to do what they want.

Boy, those laws sure do get in the way, don't they?

[Cal Lash]

I'm for more Wilderness (more parks ok too) and less people. More sand and Sajuaros and less invasive east coast plants. How about we blade south and SW from Papago and move SRP and others "down" town. And blade the houses up against Piestewa park on the south and west.
The great Sonoran Desert, what's left of it.

[soleri]

Phoenix is an also-ran city that attracts little investment beyond homebuilders and strip-retail developers. I'm not here to rain on anyone's parade, however. If you like driving from one end of nowhere to the other, Phoenix is definitely a good place to live. It's cheap, forgettable, and as unexciting a city as any in the country. When I tell people in Portland where I'm from, the usual response is a groan and a story how they once visited it and couldn't believe how dreary it was.

But I really loved Phoenix for a long time, and hoped against all evidence that it would someday break the spiral of mediocrity that makes its synonymous with low-density sprawl and driving. But even with light rail and new downtown apartment complexes, the die is permanently cast. You boosters don't love Phoenix for its history and lore, or its vandalized building stock and Sonoran desert. Quite the opposite. You love it because it's cheap, forgettable, and unexciting. You're the proof of failure, not success.

I really don't think Phoenix had another destiny, either. That's why I'm not really interesting in litigating the bad decisions and short-sighted politics of the place. You don't build major cities in the middle of hostile climates without discernible and compelling reasons. Phoenix exists in its shape and size only because of a set of unrepeatable accidents like the invention of air conditioning, or the post-war boom that sent millions of cold-weather refugees here. But it didn't attract global capital for a reason. It's simply not that kind of place.

When I left Phoenix in 2013, I actually was feeling better about the city. I lived near 7th Avenue & Camelback and was very aware of the renaissance in the uptown Phoenix neighborhoods. I visited again this last February and noted the altered downtown landscape and explosion of activity in and around the Roosevelt Row. What I didn't see is what can't be restored: the sense of community and shared values that every dynamic city manifests, usually in its core. Phoenix for its myriad all partial successes remains marooned in a disconnected archipelago of could-be-anywhere suburbs and linear slums.

I grew up in a paradise but I left a purgatory. Rogue tells the story over and over here called What Went Wrong. I'm not saying you have to believe him or trust his magisterial command of fact and analysis. I totally get that people have a right to their own opinions. But for all the happy talk, I really don't see your underlying defensiveness as a cogent counter-argument. The only reason I commented on this story was to suggest what my love once felt like. I don't sense anything like love coming from the other side here. I'm not sure what I'd call it - satisfaction? positive thinking? - but it's not love because for that you need something deeper than statistics and talking points.

[INPHX]

Soleri:

I'm glad you like Portland; we can only venture what the years of living in Phoenix despite your dissatisfaction did to your psyche.

Based on your writings, the answer is probably "a lot".

I have no idea why you need to lecture anyone on what's wrong with Phoenix and the mistakes that you perceive. I really don't.

I guess we could go back and forth on the relative pros and cons of different places but really- what's the point?

How about more of just a live and let live approach- you know- some people like pepperoni and some like sausage.

One other thing- about the Phoenix you grew up in:

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood...back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

Father time is undefeated.

[B. Franklin]

Having nothing better to do, and freely acknowledging my pronounced link fetish, I dove deep into INPHX's park info...

It's a wonder what you can choose to find or choose to ignore when it comes to statistics.

For instance, Phoenix is way down the list, far behind what we might consider our peer cities, in a few categories. Items like Spending on Parks (both overall and per resident), Walkable Park Access, and Number of Playgrounds.

One might conclude that we give Parks the same care that we give other "quality of life" amenities.

"Cheaply done and indifferently maintained" is the phrase that comes to mind.

But hey, you get what you pay for.

[soleri]

INPHX, okay. I'm a psycho but you're still a racist asshole supporting a racist con artist for president. It's a free country, and if supporting a Putin puppet and tax evader for president is your idea of mental health, I'll gladly take my own. Thanks for your concern.

BTW, I'm not aware that I'm "lecturing" here. I do get a little peevish with your allies on the far left, the objectively pro-Trump Bernie Bros. But I'm otherwise okay with disagreement. It's not like I'm part of the Breitbart/Drudge Flying Monkey brigade issuing death threats on the internet to liberal infidels.

This blog is about many things, perhaps the major focus being Phoenix and what's wrong with it. Or were you too busy to notice? Maybe being an authority on racism from the perspective of a white racist blinded you to this little fact. Like I told Ross the other day, no one is forcing you to share your idiocies here. You've volunteered for no apparent reason and now you're complaining about one of the few people here who wholeheartedly endorses the purpose of this blog. Just a reality check.

BTW, take your psychobabble and shove it up your ass.

[Rogue Columnist]

Excellent point, Franklin. Phoenix's macro parks showing is distorted by large desert preserves. Glad we have them. But the city still badly needs a better Steele Indian School Park and other, better designed green parks. I always deeply appreciate Soleri's writing and insights.

[Cal Lash]

Ah comon folks, fisting leads to serious shit!

And no matter what we do, the desert always wins.
And the air is so dry:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/19/israeli-company-produces-water-out-of-air/

[Rogue Columnist]

Move along, INPHX. You had your trolling soap box. That's enough.

[David A.]

Before I start, I would like to commend Mr. Talton on another wonderful (if sad) article about Phoenix, my current home (and one I sometimes have a difficult time loving). Also, congrats on the kudos from "Phoenix New Times" - very well deserved!

Papago Park was the first city park I visited when I moved out to Phoenix twelve years ago, and it's one I enjoy sharing with out-of-towners. The Buttes are stunning, especially in the right sunlight. Since my first visit to Papago Park, I've had the chance to explore many other city parks in the Valley of the Sun, and I am thankful for these parks in developing my love of the Sonoran Desert. (The mountain biking, although very rough in parts, is incredible here. I don't know of too many American cities that can boast the sheer number and diversity of trails for cycling.) I wish more transplants made the effort to appreciate these lands - I know many who only complain about "the lack of shade". Of course, that means more trail for me! :) I guess it also means these lands won't be loved to death, which may not be a bad thing.

It's a shame the region itself did not become a permanent national monument, but I'm glad to see that at least a portion of it was saved. I give many thanks to those who pushed to set land aside! In a world of laptops and smart phones, we need wild lands more than ever.

[Petro]

I totally got stoned at Hole-in-the-Rock on at least three occasions, all before 1980. I'm not sure why it was more than one, because to this day all I can remember is the sketchy trek down a steep, stony, hot and spiny not-actually-a-trail after getting all blazed.

I believe the Oxford comma was unnecessary in that last sentence, but go ahead, have at me.

[cal lash]

sketchy trek down a steep, stony, and hot and spiny not-actually-a-trail after getting all blazed.???

[B. Franklin]

I always knew it was a spiritual place.

[Petro]

Yes, cal, a sketchy trek down a steep, stony, and hot and spiny not-actually-a-trail after getting all blazed.

Never skinned a knee.

[Cal Lash]

Petro, glad to see Ur back from a Secret Order. How was Harvey? I still owe you a coke. But is busy here caring for the elderly like myself and getting ready for my 58th High School reunion, I'm in charge of who is dead.
And its time to renew my membership to the Desert Botanical Gardens and give a 100 bucks to the Sunnyslope Historical Society.
Ruben has been trying to get tossed off the blog so we got to do something to get him out of the woods and back down into the Great Sonoran Desert. Whats left of it.

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds". Edward Abbey

[Mike Doughty]

"Today's Papago Park is full of delights and history, from the Desert Botanical Garden to the Phoenix Zoo, Hole-in-the-Rock, hiking, baseball, and Hunt's Tomb. As the official website says, "Its massive, otherworldly sandstone buttes set Papago Park apart, even in a city and state filled with world-class natural attractions."

Per above-today we have a park that we can be proud of.But only because a few people had the cajones and vision to push for it.Instead of being condescending of them,we should celebrate them.I visit this park in the winter when climate is perfect for a visit and avoid it in the summer which is what intelligent people should do.Also in the winter you don't need the shade trees.

[Ed Dravo]

"You find peace by no longer taking it personally."

Why I had to move from Phoenix.

[phxSUNSfan]

I don't have much time, but I would briefly add that you don't move to Central or Downtown Phoenix because it's cheap: quite the opposite.

You DO move downtown because it's exciting, young, growing, and actually does have a sense of community within communities. In downtown and the Central City, a new cliché is that "every bar is a gay bar" which isn't exactly true but it speaks to the openness of the communication it.

I for one will tell you as a Millennial that if you find Phoenix boring that is because you choose to isolate yourself from the diversity and vibrant communities in the core. Phoenix has amazing nightlife (to include Scottsdale and Tempe) that would put many cities, including Seattle and Portland, to shame. Now those things might not tickle the fancy of the 50+ set, but they are important to my age group. It is too bad the economy is not yet as exciting, but there is opportunity here.

[phxSUNSfan]

Typo in the above post, I apologize, using a smart phone and grammar/spelling/coherence sometimes goes out the window.

The last sentence of the first paragraph should read: "...it speaks to the openness of the community."

[Mark in Scottsdale]

Interesting article, thanks.

Over here in Scottsdale where our voters approved taxes to create the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, we have a battle over whether the city should build a Desert Discovery Center in the park or not. It's been being studied and planned for lo these many years (decades, now), but like the 202 freeway the closer it gets to fruition the more heated the debate becomes.

Currently one tack is to try to get the issue before the citizens for a yes or no vote, which I generally think it reasonable since it's our votes that created the taxes that helped buy the preserve land.

Essentially the question is, should virgin desert be built upon further to attract more people to the preserve, with a desert museum type of structure to teach them about the preserve, the desert, nature, etc? Or, should the virgin desert be left just that way?

So now we have another litmus test for local candidates along with building heights and downtown development.

Personally speaking I'm not opposed to more museum-type structures in general, the Tucson Desert Museum is lovely for example, but I definitely see the viewpoint of those asking why it must be built, or cannot be built just outside of the preserve boundaries.

Once you raze the desert to put in a building and parking lot, you can't get it back, and it probably could be a slippery slope toward further developments encroaching.

Here is a lengthy article about it: http://www.scottsdaleindependent.com/news/community-scottsdale-enthralled-desert-discovery-center-concerns/

Thoughts?

[soleri]

phxsunsfan, sometimes I think you're the Baghdad Bob of the booster cabal. No one has ever said that downtown (and Scottsdale and Tempe) don't have nightclubs. Where else would ageist Millenials pretend to be sophisticates? The problem is that you have to drive miles to get from one to the other, and that once you're there, walk through a moonscape of parking lots to the front door. This points out why so many Millenials love Portland: you can live here without a car. Ditto for Seattle, San Francisco/Oakland, Chicago, Boston, Washington, NYC, Philly, Miami. This is also true around the world. Nothing is less appealing to them than forced car ownership or the absence of walkable neighborhoods, of which Portland has dozens. Phoenix has maybe one half.

Again, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. I used to like driving myself but I realized I was part of the problem I wanted to solve. Even when I took light rail and walked (weather permitting), I could only arrive at a destination that itself was unmoored to any recognizable urban context.

The larger problem, as Rogue is always informing us, is the Big Sort how it reinforces existing social realities. Phoenix attracts people who prefer driving to mass transit and walking. It's completely understandable and rational given the suburban-style layout of the city. For myself with my foreshortened time horizon, the choice was clear: either move or never experience what ought to be the deeper pleasures of communal experience: other people. Their cars, not so much.

[Cal Lash]

Mark IN Snottsdale.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell".
Ed Abbey or Cactus ED.
and
Charles Bowden in a NY Times Interview when he made the publisher remove the word environmentalism from the cover of a Bowden book.
“Environmentalism is an upper middle class, white movement aimed at absolution and preserving a life style with a Volvo”.

IMHO they can leave the desert alone. How about they blade south of Indian School a couple of blocks along Scottsdale Road and build a desert Botanical museum there,
Almost every time I go there the Kim Kardashian Junk jewelry and art shops are closed or empty of patrons. But the bars are loaded with enough drunks to keep an entire police force busy.

[Cal Lash]

Steele Indian School Park is a giant mess. As of lately there are attempts at gardening.
U would think the HOHOKAMS left a message.
Eventually the Real Estate developers that helped make Jon's decision to leave will build a bunch of High rent apartments there. Surrounded by coffee shops and terrible cafes.

PHxsunfan's optimism kinda reminds me of another quote by Bowden.

"I am always an optimist. The pessimists are the liars who refuse to admit what is happening".
Said in reference to and the rest of the quote".
"And I'll give you three things we could do this instant to help Mexico: legalize drugs, renegotiate NAFTA so that it pays a living wage, protects unions and protects the environment and stop Plan Merida which gives $500 million a year to the Mexican army, the largest single criminal organization in Mexico".

[phxSUNSfan]

I know pessimism reigns supreme here, but it's definitely not infectious. Nightlife is more than nightclubs but to those who stereotype, I can see why that would be your first go to argument. NYC can't be touched with its offerings, Seattle and Phoenix aren't even on the same planet. Much less a homogenous Portland that's 80% vanilla.

[phxSUNSfan]

There is a growing population in Central Phoenix living car free. Now if you live in Chandler and North Scottsdale, then no, you don't use and hopefully you don't prefer mass transit. However, we aren't really talking about that when we mention the Center City and other places. When we talk about Settle or L.A. we aren't talking about Enumclaw or Riverside. As the dirt lots fill up along Roosevelt (I count 3 lots remaining) the sense of place grows ever stronger. The tie to downtown is occurring in the neighborhood as well along 2nd and 3rd Street. Central Ave still, for now, leaves room for the imagination.

[phxSUNSfan]

Cal, the gardens on the east side of Central as extremely bohemian and amature. The gardens on the west side of Central are professional and well down. I like both. There is a bar in Roosevelt called the Milk Bar that uses fresh ingredients from its backyard and from the gardens around the Central City. They make amazing and unique cocktails.

[phxSUNSfan]

Cal, last week they held a "silent" book reading event in the lobby and 2nd floor of the Hilton Garden Inn (the Professional Building). I think it's something you would have enjoyed. A great crowd that got a little too big later in the evening. My friends and I ended up sneaking cocktails up to the other floors and explored he historic building. I wish Phoenix had more of these buildings.

[Peter Corbett]

This is fascinating stuff. Such a shame more wasn't protected. It makes sense now to move the National Guard to a different site. And the ballfields could be moved elsewhere as well.

[Cal Lash]

Peter are U the Arizona Journalist or the Professional Photographer or both?

[Cal Lash]

And are U reelated to former Senator Hiram Corbett and to the Corbett baseball field.

[phxSUNSfan]

Reading over my last posts, I can see how it comes off as boosterism. I do know the economic struggles Phoenix faces and the uphill battle against the State and County, particularly the Arpaio issue. Not to give up on my positivity, I do think this will be Arpiao's last stand.

[phxSUNSfan]

More niceities: Arizona turning blue? http://www.abc15.com/news/state/poll-hillary-clinton-takes-lead-in-arizona

[Cal Lash]

AZ Red or Blue is in the hands of the LDS votes and those that I know and talked to as recently as yesterday just can't get to where a woman and a "liberal" woman at that is in charge of the USA or the temple.

[soleri]

phxSUNSfan, I know we've tussled about this over the years, but I'll repeat what I've said above: I'm not here to rain on your parade. Still, you're smart enough to love Phoenix without whitewashing it. Boosterism is okay if it makes people more enthusiastic about living downtown, using transit, opposing more freeways, and cultivating a greater sense of place in neigbhorhoods. It's less effective when it simply paints with a broad brush as if there are no problems. Some of the conservatives on this site do that, and it tends to result in a blinkered view of reality and possibility.

Portland for all its great transit and urban neighborhoods is still a car-dependent city. On the other hand, it's also the most bicycling city in North America despite the wet climate. I'm never sure if it's a work in progress or simply an escape for Californians - and Zonies - who are looking for a place where they feel less crushed by autocentric civilization. That to me is the struggle for all urbanophiles, to makes their cities work better for people rather than their cars.

Phoenix has certain advantages in terms of a dry climate, topography, and affordability. It has disadvantages when it comes to its low-density, wide streets, and building stock. It also needs a cachet as something other than a place where right-wing ignoramuses stifle progress and higher taxes. I think Phoenix is getting better! It wasn't fast enough for me because I'm not going to live to be 120. For someone like you (and others like Ben Bethel, Wayne Rainey, Kimber Lanning, et al) your time horizons allow for commitment to realizable goals.

It doesn't matter to me personally if a city is "sophisticated" or "edgy". I don't much care for hipsters on a personal level although I value them as urban pioneers and visionaries. What good cities do well is make you glad to be alive. You could be an old fart like me and appreciate the good fortune of living in a place that's attractive and practical. I'll always love Phoenix and root for its best outcomes. I spent most of my life doing just that. But I've earned the right to live in a place where I don't have to hope so hard.

[Cal Lash]

Following is a mountain lion in a Park golf course, doing what we would get arrested for. The person posting such does not identify the 2015 video. It slightly resembles the golf course at the Point at South Mountain but the brush seems heavy for that area.
Also I have listed the South Mountain and Estrella Mountain parks below to the heavy volume of use in South Mountain the city has introduced “Silent Sunday’s”. U can read about such below. I list Estrella Park here also as there is little left of a corridor between the two mountain ranges and the coming ADOT crime of yet another freeway will significantly impact the wildlife travels. Currently residents and farmers near 32nd Street and North of Baseline road are sighting Bobcats and also a lot of Wiley Coyotee feeding on the rabbits that inhabit the golf courses and farms.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mountain+lion+sightings+in+phoenix+south+mountain+park&qpvt=mountain+lion+sightings+in+phoenix+south+mountain+park&view=detail&mid=ED9BA40D8C9C41F949E4ED9BA40D8C9C41F949E4&FORM=VRDGAR
https://www.phoenix.gov/parks/trails/locations/south-mountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Estrella

[Cal Lash]

Over on fat of the Nation, Koreyel has identified you treasonous traitors.

[Dawgzy]

This just in.... http://www.theonion.com/article/new-study-finds-most-earths-landmass-will-be-phoen-54107f

[Dawgzy]

Sorry, bad link. Apparently a Syracuse U. Study shows that most of Earth's land mass will be a Phoenix suburb.

[Rogue Columnist]

The Onion story is on Arizona's Continuing Crisis (see above middle-left).

[Ramjet]

I too, like Soleri, Rogue, and others, long for the old Phoenix of my youth. My fsther's family came to Phoenix in 1920. They bought a house at 726 E Portland. I came along in 1937. We lived there until 1950 and moved to 17th Ave and Elm. (19th Ave and Camelback) I could shoot a limit of Doves in the backyard every day after school.

I could tell stories forever of the Phoenix of my youth. They are mostly apocrphyal (sp?) and would serve nor purpose to this discussion.

The important points are:
"The times they are a-changing" - Bob Dylan.

A famous American Philosopher - Satchel Paige: Once said. " Don't Look back, something might be catching you."

It is time to flush it and move on

[B. Franklin]

Since we're quoting folks, how about William Faulkner:

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

However, since we can't go back, the salient question is "what is the best way to move on?"

What do we want Phoenix to be? How do we get there? What are we willing to sacrifice? What are we willing to pay for?

[Rogue Columnist]

Having lived in a half dozen major cities, I speak with this perspective: What's striking about Phoenix is the enormity of the loss and damage, in exchange for...not much.

At the Republic, I used to be condescendingly told how "every place changes." Sure. For example, Denver has changed vastly, but largely for the better (in the city). The same is true in Seattle, for all the whining of the mossbacks.

Another difference, which Soleri has pointed out, is the few people who genuinely know and love Phoenix. This is very different from any other city in which I've lived, especially Cincinnati, Denver and Seattle. And it shows.

[Cal Lash]

Well U all can quote me as a "lying pessimist". The Valley of the Sun is finished. As is most anyplace that the developers can figure out how to drop a building on it. Everywhere I go they are building. Today I was in Suprise and EL Mirage AZ and the houses and strip malls shortly will be on the runway at Luke. Soon I will be forced to move further into the desert. What's left of it.
Ajo and Why AZ look better everyday.

[cal lash]

Here you go long commute to work,http://www.theonion.com/article/new-study-finds-most-earths-landmass-will-be-phoen-54107

[cal lash]

Just think what he could have accomplished if he wasn't BLACK?
From the front pages:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/8-years-in-obamas-america.html

[Bradley Dranka]

It seems to me that Phoenix, and its surrounding environs, have been guided, since at least the 1950's, by the singular call of money.

Anything that impedes or detracts from that pursuit is seen as superfluous and unnecessary.

Beauty is defined as the size of your bank account. The environment, arts, architecture, and anything intellectual are deemed to be irrelevant--and seen in a suspicious light as potentially undermining the "established order."
Dullness and conformity are the hallmarks of the landscape, social order, and the cultural deficit that results.

What you see is what you get. Nothing more and nothing less. Take it or leave it.

While the eventual "browning" of America may give conservatives fits,
I rather doubt a lively "melting pot" of riotous intertwining cultures will result.

Phoenix is NOT the geographic or societal crossroads necessary for that to bloom.

[Elena Underhill]

May I ask where you sourced your photos?
Specifically "Riders on horseback in 1930, the year Washington delisted the Papago Saguaro National Monument."

[Allan Starr]

For years, (late '50s, early '60s) I attended U.S. Army Reserve meetings at what is referred to in your article as "Camp Papago Park." Our activities were in the barracks that once housed imprisoned Japanese-Americans during the panic after the Pearl Harbor attack.