How do you remember Phoenix? Stories from long time residents... (Scottsdale: bike, phone number)

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Nelson's Swimming Pool was at 1843 West Turney Ave. If you would really like to call them their phone number is AMhurst 5-7062 in the twilight zone.

lol...I had an applegate prefix..loved listening in on the party line...but then who was listening to me on the phone?

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by Westside Willie

Can someone tell me exactly where The Glenn was located. ??

I remember going there most Saturdays and once waiting in line (wrapped around the block) for 3 hours to see "A Hard Days Night".You could bring your own snack sin with you. Our mom would make popcorn and gives us each a big bag with the butter soaking through the bottom. This was in the 60's and I think it cost 50 cents admission.

My friends and I saw Hard Day's Night at the Fox Theatre..I was hoping my sister could score some posters or cardboard cut-outs but someone else took them.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by Ralph Score

I was the 1st winner of the "KRIZ plays less commercials" contest ($1,443,71).

I remember turning the dial back & forth between KRIZ & KRUX to hear the latest Beatle songs...one of the stations hosted the grand opening some strip mall on the west side & the guy who sang Rockin Robin performed along with others.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by Arizona Mike

Guggy's (G-o-o-o-gie's!) Coffeeshops! The one at Tower Plaza was a populat hang out for my crowd in high school:

Loved Guggy's went to school with Mark Guggisberg(sp) who's family owned the restaurants;we always ate at the Park Central location...they opened one at 43 Ave N. of Thomas but it didn't last long. also had my first Whataburger at the 43 Ave location...friend worked there so we ate for free all too often..followed by Winchell's donut runs.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by azdr0710

is the Mickey D's still there in the same spot?....if so, remodeled probably....thanks.....which corner of Ind Sch - N or S?......

We cruised from the library north to Indian School & back we would buy a bag of hotdogs from Der Weinerschnitzel for fortification...hit the McDonalds many a time after a night of partying in the early 70's...also had a Taco Bell on Central for quite a few years...all gone now.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by azdr0710

well, I'm going to "cruise" down Central tomorrow or Friday when I'm in that area....will check out the spots, gone or not, that have just been mentioned here.....

roosevelt et al: I know Durant's....what other unchanged buildings should I look for?....N of downtown and, say, S of Glendale....I know the Murphy Bridal Path (is more north, I know), Brophy, Park Central (a bit altered), Uptown Plaza....can't think of some other stuff I do know about just now....

what should I look for?.....thanks a lot

Macayo's is still there with that just plain ugly facade..& spaghetti Factory..most everything else is gone or somthing else.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Yes, Phoenix did cool off at night which is why people slept in screened in porches, or like my friend who would sleep in his back yard which was on a corner with no fence. One night he woke up and saw a rumbling monster with bright lights coming at him. Half asleep he ran to the back door and knocked himself out on a post. Turned out it was a street sweeper.

Lots of orchards and not much paving made Phoenix cooler at nights.

yes it cooled down I remember sleeping in ours & friends back yards all thru elementary school and actually needing blankets around dawn........thank god mosquitos weren't a huge problem then.

[kathy butler]

Originally Posted by kanhawk

I asked this on another forum about another city, but to those old enough to remember, do you recall how bad the homeless problem was in Phoenix 40 to 50 years ago? Were there lots of transients or drifters then? Do you recall seeing any on city streets or parks?

don't recall seeing any homeless people in Phoenix growing up..do remember hobos coming thru town in Iowa in the 50s...

[arizonamildman]

I remember when there was nothing North of North Mountain on Seventh Street. Sunnyslope was it's own city and Shea Blvd. was a dirt road on the way to the river, and Drinkwater's Liquor Store was the only store out there. Bob's Big Boy had actualy car hops (central and thomas) and at Central and Indian School you could go to McDonalds and get a hamburger for 14 cents and a cheesburger for 19 cents. Across the street from there was Der Weinershnitzel and the Carnation parking lot was always full of cars at night. Carnation had a restaurant and the guys next door were Bekins and next to that was the BJ Bayless Store. Godber's Gifts in Christown sold Apache Tears or Turquoise in a little paper sack (about a handful) for 49 cents each. When I was little my mom would go downtown to Newberry's and I could eat at the soda fountain. Later when Town and Country opened the food baazar it was the only food court in town. Green Gables at 24th Street and Thomas had the knight in armor with a lance on a huge white horse showing people to their parking spaces and Neptunes Table was the best seafood in town. The China Doll was the place we went for chinese food and Encanto Park had kiddie land and the bandshell with the stepped ridges on the hill so you could sit and have a picnic with your family. Papago Park was a big deal because we would go up to hole in the rock with a tarp and have a picnic and on the fourth of july SRP had a fireworks display that you could see from there. I can remember more restaurants and things we don't have anymore and I used to be one of the kids who wanted to get a car when I got older so I could "cruise central" There was no internet, before pagers, no cell phones, there were drive in movie theaters and one of our neighbors's famliy used to come to our house on some nights to watch TV. My dad used to kill rattlesnakes and gophers in our backyard and most of the valley was full of citrus groves and vacant lots. My mom could take us to the Sunnyslope high school pool and get ten of us in for a dollar and then feed a whole station wagon load at Teds Tastyburger ten burgers for a dollar. There were riding stables where you could rent a horse and ride into the dessert on a trail, Wallace and Ladmo were something even high school kids watched, Pat McMahon and the Mike Condello Combo formed a spoof band called Hubcap and the Wheels and they weren't half bad. You could listen to people like Waylon Jennings at local clubs and Porter Wagoner and the Wagoneers had the audacity to tell Dolly Pardner that if things didn't work out well for her, she was welcome to come back and his show was canceled. Legend City was the big deal and there were places for a long while that had trampolines in the ground. The big talk for a while there was how many time Winnie Ruth Judd escaped from custody at the state hospital five times. Channel Five was KPHO and we used to watch at night the wrestling at Madison Square Gardens sith Tito Montez and The Mad Mongol and the JC rodeo parade was a huge event. I remember when the West ward Ho Hotel was the tallest buliding in town until the United Bank Building was built. I think it was later called the GB building for Guarantee Bank. We all listened to AM radio and there were only 4 tv stations. Anybody could buy cigarettes out of a machine and they were 25 cents a pack. And back then, everyone had work. You could do anything, mow lawns, trim trees, do handyman repairs, irrigate yards, clean pools, work construction, load trucks, wash dishes, cook, and most all of the main businesses in town had room for expansion so everyone stayed employed. There were no shortcuts, work meant work. Everyone did manual labor back then and then later I even saw most of the people who sold flowers were men. You could rent an apartment for about 200 dollars a month. If you lost your job you went out the next day and got another one. No one was afraid to hire you without experience, we all were learning at the same time. If you wanted an executive job you went to college for a couple years, picked out a company and kept bugging them until you got a job there. You started at the bottom and worked your way up. They didn't have food stamps. For people who couldn't work there was commodity foods. People cared about each other more back then and there wasn't the kind of crime that you have now. I remember leaving an expensive hat in a restaurant and came back the next day and it was still hanging on the wall where I had left it. People didn't try to steal your lawn furniture and your tools, I remember guys leaving their saws and handtools in the bed of their truck outside in the driveway and no one even looked at them. I pumped gas at the economy gas station on seventh street and virginia for 29 cents a gallon and we sold bulk oil for ten cents a quart. Life was a lot simpler then.

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by kathy butler

Macayo's is still there with that just plain ugly facade..& spaghetti Factory..most everything else is gone or somthing else.

The Macayo's remodel idea was to have hanging gardens, and they did for a time but the tiers of planters leaked so bad they took all the plants out and of course it looks weird today.