Some Phoenix then and now

If you're a Phoenician of a certain age, you've seen tremendous change to the cityscape. Here are a few thanks to the McCulloch Bros. Collection in the ASU Archives and Brad Hall's collection. Click on the photo for a larger image.

McDowell and Central:

1940.

1959 with the Phoenix Civic Center.

2020 with infill, light rail, the Phoenix Art Museum, and Midtown skyscrapers.

 

Indian School and Central:

Circa 1950 with the Hotel Westward Ho in the distance.

The same view in 1973. You can barely make out the Westward Ho, while the state's tallest building, Valley Center (Chase Tower) is visible center left.

Camelback Mountain:

In the 1930s.

With orchards in the early 1960s.

From Thomas Mall in the mid-1960s. The mall is now gone.

Camelback and 16th Street:

Top in the 1940s. Bottom in 2016 (Brad Hall collection).

Central and Washington:

Looking north in 1955 with the urban fabric in place.

In the 1960s with the revolving neon Valley National Bank sign atop the Professional Building.

Central and Van Buren:

Downtown Phoenix:

An overhead in the 1970s (Patricia Matus Collection).

Circa 2010s, looking north from Washington with a light-rail train on Central.

Hanny's then and now:

The top image shows the department store's new building in 1949, the first major downtown construction after World War II. Below is Hanny's restored as a restaurant in 2017 (Brad Hall collection).

The Deuce and its aftermath:

Third Street and Washington in 1966.

Near the same location in the mid-1970s with the brutalist Phoenix Symphony Hall and convention center of the Phoenix Civic Plaza.

Second Street, heart of the old Deuce, with the new Phoenix Convention Center, 2010s.

Van Buren and Seventh Street:

Phoenix Union High School at lunchtime in 1941 (Russell Lee/Library of Congress)

The PUHS administration building in the 1960s.

Montgomery Stadium on the northeast corner.

The Phoenix Biomedical Campus today. One PUHS building was preserved for the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Roosevelt Row:

Birch's Drugs and the Snappy Grill were in a commercial block facing Roosevelt at Fifth Street. 

Roosevelt and Second Street in 1950.

Modified Arts, one of the galleries in saved commercial buildings that slowly turned a sketchy area into a coveted arts district.

Roosevelt Row looking south in 2020.

From offices to university campus:

Central and Van Buren looking north in the 1930s and 1960s.

Central and Fillmore in 1960.

Here and below, the ASU Downtown Campus.

The Federal block:

This shady block at Van Buren Street and First Avenue contained the Federal Building, the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, and YMCA in the 1920s.

Here's another view of the YMCA in 1929.

And another angle (McCulloch Collection/ASU Archives).

It was demolished in 1960 for this arid Federal Building. After the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse was opened in 2000, this was repurposed as the federal bankruptcy courthouse and other uses.

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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

[Marilyn Belzner]

I remember so much of it. I grew up at Central and missouri and my grandparents were citrus grows at Central and Northern. I was born in 1936 in the old Good Sam.

[Cal Lash]

And the award for best photo goes to Camelback Mountain 1930.

[Anthony]

I love these pieces. Thank you so much.

[Mariam Cheshire]

Wonderful fun to compare all the memorable spots. Let's do these same photos in ten years and show the 19 story buildings overshadowing Camelback Mountain. And then again in another ten (?) years when the buildings sit empty and crumbling because we have no water. Thanks for a nice posting. Mariam

[100 Octane]

The "Indian Trader" shops I have always found intriguing, that there was such a large market for such things. Part of that could be my upbringing in a area lacking in native culture.

Also the picture of Van Buren and Central, the very large Union 76 Station. Across from that is a service center of some kind, which I am aware later was later Coulter Cadillac.

Cars, trucks and gas stations abound in these old pictures, leaves me with the feeling this city always belonged to the automobile.

[Cal Lash]

100 octane. Instead of a dam,
T.R. should have approved one
Road thru Arizona to the coasts.
The rest a Roadless Wilderness.
Even though i am again on the edge of some remaing empty desert, developers are rapidly filling it with ugly structures.
Dune is currently available for viewings.
Your pal Duncan Idaho.

[Ramjet]

I must, once again state that where Arizona needs a "fence" is not on the southern border but the other three.
II do enjoy the pictures. I have seen many of the changes during my 84 years here. I spent the first 12 years of my life at 7th St and Portland. We moved to the country in 49 at 19th Ave & Camelback. I shot doves in my backyard for three years until the friendly neighborhood sheriff made me quit. We were not in the city until 55 or 56.

[Cal Lash]

Ramjet, you back home from the hospital?
In the 50's where Central Avenue ends at North Mountain and Shaw Butte Mountain there were still, Mountain Lions, Deer, Javelinas, Desert Tortoises, Chuckwallas and Horn Toads. And plenty of catchable scorpions for Doctor Herbert Stahnke's venom program at ASC
And a number of Tubercular folks breathing in the dry air and enjoying a cold beer at the Do Drop Inn. Its still in business.
Prior to 1950 I had the opportunity with my relatives to see these gas pumps in action.

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[Cal Lash]

I imagine Mariam Cheshire, (see above)
who is 94
actually filled up her car and airplane with gravity feed gas operations.

[100 Octane]

"Prior to 1950 I had the opportunity with my relatives to see these gas pumps in action..."

Now people pay thousands of dollars to look at them.

The Do Drop Inn has a NAPA next door with knowledgeable parts people. That area has always been interesting.

[Cal Lash]

The Wabash Trailer Park was on the west side of 7th street across from the bar.
It got moved moved east about 5 blocks for new development.
At 10 i sold doughnuts to the old whezzers living there. My biggest sellers were the new doughnut holes.
Of course i was in the Slope as i was a young wheezer from the midwest. It was good to not have to be in the hospital every summer from the ragweed.
The cop legend in that day was MCSO deputy Bill Brown and his shotgun.
He closed the bar at closing time by racking a shell into the chamber. You had to be pretty drunk to not identify that noise.
Bil was a good cop and good to me in my youthful escapades. I think he went onto become a probation officer.

[Cal Lash]

There is a lot of history in the Slope.
The Sunnyslope Historical Society is a good place to visit. Most of the online history favors the positive good stuff. Of course 3rd street and Dunlap behind Brookshires restaurant was where the Hot Rodding Emergency Medic John Talton got to experience the real world. Before he left for the santuary of intellectual professorship.
But as Octane pointed out there has always been some diversity.
In the 50's you could score Heroin from a local Italian dude. It was Mexican smack.
And if course juvenile thievery was an issue. There were a lot of poor families.
Over the years there were infiltrations by The Dirty Dozen Motorcycle club. The Texas Bandito Club, ran by Johnnie Gamble.
A Vietnamese Gang and also, Sonny Barger of the Hell Angels who opened a motorcycle shop on Cave creek Road north of Hatcher Road.

[Cal Lash]

I-11
And thus the Assfault god ordered the murder of more desert.
But will come the day when the mesquite will grow through the outrageous pavement of men.
Dune is currently showing.
Paul

[Cal Lash]

Phoenix, Later.

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