How do you remember Phoenix? Stories from long time residents... (tubing, sports)

[DanicaAtPinkHouseBoutique]

Roosevelt, Do you have any pics of the Glen Theatre that used to be in Historic Glendale? I have a customer who is looking for a pic and we can't find one anywhere. He used to be a projectionist there in the 1950's and he met his wife there, she was a ticket girl at the time. Any help would be appreciated!

[Westside Willie]

Originally Posted by DanicaAtPinkHouseBoutique

Willie do you have any pics of the Glenn (Glen?) Theatre that used to be in Historic Glendale? I have a customer who is looking for a pic and we can't find one anywhere. He used to be a projectionist there in the 1950's and he met his wife there, she was a ticket girl at the time. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,
D

I too have been looking for a pic of the Glenn, but have found nothing yet.
I suppose the Glendale Historic Preservation office may have something. Glendale, AZ - Historic Preservation
I remember seeing A Hard Days Night at the Glenn -the line went around the entire block twice.
Heres all I have.

Glenn Theater
7028 N 57th Drive
1935-1973
390 seats
Owners:
1940-1962 Nace Theatres
1962-1964 Fox West Coast
1964-1973 Nace Theatres

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by drumsyeah

The flumes as I remember were out in Waddell, just north of Luke AFB......it was just a series of open concrete ditches where the water was running pretty fast, but only a couple of feet deep......

I don't remember if this has been posted before, but here's a Super 8 film made of the Slide and Flumes in the summer of 1974.


1974 The slide and flumes Phoenix AZ. - YouTube

The original poster of this on YouTube, cmanone1, noted: "This was taken by my friend Mike Arnaud on a super 8 camera, summer of 74. A different time in the world, a great time to be a teenager! Where could you have this kind of fun for free in todays world...The guy behind that old Super 8 was my friend Mike Arnaud. He put this together for a Montebello Grade School / Alhambra High School reunion party we had in Oct. of 2011. Mike handed me a DVD and said this a gift for you. We went into the house and and put it on, what a beautiful surprise it was. A few of the people in the video were at the party, so that was really cool! Thanks for the memories Mike!"

Another poster said, "...this crossed the Agua Fria River Bottom just south of lake pleasant. If I remember right it was off Union Hills."

[Arizona Mike]

A couple of people have posted about memorable dust storms they saw in the Valley. (There seems to be a prejudice amongst locals against calling them "haboobs." I don't mind, as "haboob" is a fun word to say. Haboob! Haboob!

Anyway, here is a YouTube video of a dust storm ripping through Pinnacle Peak Patio in 1993.


Arizona Dust Storm - YouTube

The poster, Andrew Patrick Ralston, has posted a bunch of home movies he made as kid in the early 1980s around the valley if you want to check them out

[Arizona Mike]

Odd bit of historic Phoenix Trivia: My kids started watching the British sci-fi cult classic television series "Dr. Who" on streaming Netflix, which is about to have its 50th anniversary. I remember watching it on KPHO (CBS/Channel 5) on Saturday afternoons and Saturday mornings somewhere in the 1973 - 1974 time frame, and found that some (very obsessional) fans have a website detailing every channel around the world that has ever showed the series, including the air dates if known. The site has a section for Arizona, and notes that Phoenix and Tucson were the westernmost cities in the United States to first show "Dr. Who", about two years before it ever aired in Los Angeles:

23 September 1972: Doctor Who makes its Arizona debut (potentially also its first western-most airing): The Jon Pertwee stories (13 stories / 72 episodes package) begin, Saturday afternoons at 5:30.

20 January 1973: After just 18 weeks, Doctor Who goes off the air for twenty months.

14 September 1974: The series returns, now Saturdays at 7am.

23 August 1975: Doctor Who ends.

With the broken airings, and no story titles in the TV listings, it is not known whether KPHO aired all 13 stories.

The had the same air dates down in Tucson. They include a section from the Arizona Daily Sun for 9/23/1972 showing it on right before "Hee-Haw"

[trillcatz]

Originally Posted by Arizona Mike

I don't remember if this has been posted before, but here's a Super 8 film made of the Slide and Flumes in the summer of 1974.


1974 The slide and flumes Phoenix AZ. - YouTube

The original poster of this on YouTube, cmanone1, noted: "This was taken by my friend Mike Arnaud on a super 8 camera, summer of 74. A different time in the world, a great time to be a teenager! Where could you have this kind of fun for free in todays world...The guy behind that old Super 8 was my friend Mike Arnaud. He put this together for a Montebello Grade School / Alhambra High School reunion party we had in Oct. of 2011. Mike handed me a DVD and said this a gift for you. We went into the house and and put it on, what a beautiful surprise it was. A few of the people in the video were at the party, so that was really cool! Thanks for the memories Mike!"

Another poster said, "...this crossed the Agua Fria River Bottom just south of lake pleasant. If I remember right it was off Union Hills."

Great video! I was 20 the summer of '74 and remember days like this clearly...whether it was Lake Pleasant or Saguaro or tubing the Verde or Salt...you can almost feel the heat of a hot summer day and the cool of the water. Fun times, great memories. Thank you for posting this.

[Arizona Mike]

I was looking for a photo I thought I remembered being posted somewhere on the hundreds of posts on this site (never found it, found it on another site) but saw a lot of older threads I wanted to comment on - I hope no one minds if I resurrect some old posts...

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by David Wendell

I remember the Food Bazaar. My wife worked at the Hallcraft Showcase of Homes nearby. We would eat there whenever we could on my days off.

Thomas Mall had the birds and also aquariums. One aquarium had Piranha. I always wanted to see them feed them and what they fed them. Wasn’t there also some small water areas along the sides of the mall in several places? I saw a small child fall into one but it may have been someplace else.

Some photos of the interior of Thomas Mall, where I spent a lot of time. You can see the Piranha Tank, the bird cage in the center, and some of the funky "modern art" sculptures they had in shallow little ponds up and down the mall, and the "dancing fountain" they had next to the interior entrance to Dillards (on the left). Also a photo I took in 1993 as they tore down Dillards and the attached restaurant.

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by travel gal 35

Dad worked for SRP---we went to the Pera Club every year for summer picnics and Christmas parties, until they moved the parties to Legend City. Between mom at Moto and dad at SRP and uncle at Air Research, us kids got all the holiday perks of large corporations... huge fun parties with lots of food and presents and all of it free or close to it. I have no idea what the Pera Club turned into... was at the end of Roosevelt east of 68th St. Anyone know?

The PERA (Project Employees Recreation Association) Club is still there and operating at 1 E. Continental Drive. I taught a class there last year, the old buildings still look like they did when I went to a party there in the 1970s (one of my classmate's dads was an SRP employee and set it up). Outside groups can rent it out for meetings and parties and weddings and receptions and such. Its website (Papago Salado Association - Listing - Listing Detail) says "The 83-acre club houses a social center, employee store, fitness center, swimming pool, game courts, and fields and offers children’s programs, fitness classes, business meetings, sports leagues, and parties. Interns work in Recreation (i.e., Special Events, Food/Beverage, Aquatics [summer only], and the Employee Store), where they plan social activities, supervise part-time employees, and host special events."

It's probably one of the few sites in the Valley that still looks like it used to...

[Arizona Mike]

Originally Posted by Dave Bob

Unless my brain has started totally inventing memories, as a kid I watched an episode of the old Candid Camera TV show in the 1960s with a couple gags set at (then new) Thomas Mall.

Outside the north entrance by Diamonds, where there were some cacti, they put a guy in a fake saguaro who would startle unsuspecting shoppers by moving and talking. Yeah, a real side-splitter.

The other prank was set in the camera shop (was it a Wilson's??). I've totally forgotten what they were doing; the memorable thing was that one of the customers who walked in was none other than Barry Goldwater.

I absolutely remember that episode, Dave Bob! I even remember a local news story about the saguaro prank - they said a local man had bought the rubber saguaro suit for a Halloween costume after the episode was aired.

I hadn't thought about that in decades!