How do you remember Phoenix? Stories from long time residents... (Tempe: renting, pine)

[observer53]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

My building was just up the street and I only went there a few times; I heard stories about people that started to go down but panicked and wanted out!

My favorite place to eat at the time was Betty Crocker's Tree House on Scottsdale Road. Great bakery and the dining room looked like the Tiki room at Disneyland.

It was not for claustrophobics!

Thanks for reminding me about the Tree House. It did look like the Tiki Room!

[LocoAZnative]

Originally Posted by desertratz

I remember the Safeway store in Mesa on south Country Club Drive between Main street and the railroad underpass. When I was 5 in 1956 my mom went shopping there and drove over a parking bumper and put a hole in the oil pan of our 55 Pontiac. Boy was my dad pissed! After Safeway moved on, that building was used for office furniture storage then KDKB radio moved there through their heydays in the 1970's and beyond. It's now a cold storage facility.

I remember as a kid we watch the ice storage place burn down. I was a pretty impressive fire.

[roosevelt]

For those of you who remember Encanto Park as a nice place to have a picnic, or listen to Liberace at the shell (yes, he appeared in person about 1951) or went swimming, here is the club house after it was painted white. It was originally brick, and restored back to brick again. The swan reminds me of the newspaper picture back about 1970 that showed a poor swan swimming around with an arrow through its neck.

[desertratz]

Originally Posted by LocoAZnative

I remember as a kid we watch the ice storage place burn down. I was a pretty impressive fire.

Yeah, I remember that fire and it was big one for a good reason. The walls of the the icehouse were a couple of feet thick and packed full of sawdust for insulation. I remember seeing that when a car or something hit the building once and poked a hole on the wall.

[jack swilling]

Yes, I remember Encanto Park when it was like that. I moved and I have not seen the park since the 1980s. Maybe someone would tell me what it is like these days.
I began to go to the park with my grandpa in the 1940s. We were big on feeding ducks with bread we bought from a market down the street. Gramp would take me out on the lagoon--it seemed huge to a little boy born and raised in a desert--in one of the motor boats they rented alongside the canoes at what we called the "boathouse." The truth is that he and I were afraid of canoes. Yes, they had motor boats into the early fifties. They said they stopped offering motor boats because "seaweed" became entangled in the devices.
I was addicted to birdwatching and I saw my first Red-winged Blackbird and Canada Goose at the park.
Down 15th there was a small restaurant where we got a great breakfast or sandwich and a limeaide from fresh limes. Later, there was archery or horseshoes. If there was time, in later years, we hit the Palms for a movie, then walked up the street to the Golden Drumstick. I have never been so happy. I am not at all certain that there is an afterlife, but if there is, and if I somehow avoid the theological place of eternal punishment, 1940s and 1950s Phoenix will be the site of my heaven.
We children manufactured all kinds of fantasies in connection with the island in the Encanto Park lagoon, and its pampas grass intrigued all of us for some reason. Maybe that small island with the pampas grass had a secret door that opened to a staircase down into some people's heaven. Maybe Rod Serling set up the whole thing.
Encanto Park was a good place to collect pine cones, but Coronado Park had the best, the biggest, and the greatest number of them.

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by jack swilling

Yes, I remember Encanto Park when it was like that. I moved and I have not seen the park since the 1980s. Maybe someone would tell me what it is like these days.
I began to go to the park with my grandpa in the 1940s. We were big on feeding ducks with bread we bought from a market down the street. Gramp would take me out on the lagoon--it seemed huge to a little boy born and raised in a desert--in one of the motor boats they rented alongside the canoes at what we called the "boathouse." The truth is that he and I were afraid of canoes. Yes, they had motor boats into the early fifties. They said they stopped offering motor boats because "seaweed" became entangled in the devices.
I was addicted to birdwatching and I saw my first Red-winged Blackbird and Canada Goose at the park.
Down 15th there was a small restaurant where we got a great breakfast or sandwich and a limeaide from fresh limes. Later, there was archery or horseshoes. If there was time, in later years, we hit the Palms for a movie, then walked up the street to the Golden Drumstick. I have never been so happy. I am not at all certain that there is an afterlife, but if there is, and if I somehow avoid the theological place of eternal punishment, 1940s and 1950s Phoenix will be the site of my heaven.
We children manufactured all kinds of fantasies in connection with the island in the Encanto Park lagoon, and its pampas grass intrigued all of us for some reason. Maybe that small island with the pampas grass had a secret door that opened to a staircase down into some people's heaven. Maybe Rod Serling set up the whole thing.
Encanto Park was a good place to collect pine cones, but Coronado Park had the best, the biggest, and the greatest number of them.

I had a friend who worked at the boat house in the early 50's. He had a zillion holes in his Levi's because of the battery acid from the electric boats. Duck Island was very mysterious all right. I think that is where all the ducks and swans nested at night.

Here is your Golden Drumstick. I never ate inside but used to drive up to the take out door on the right and get Shrimp Louie salad for my mom.

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

I had a friend who worked at the boat house in the early 50's. He had a zillion holes in his Levi's because of the battery acid from the electric boats. Duck Island was very mysterious all right. I think that is where all the ducks and swans nested at night.

Here is your Golden Drumstick. I never ate inside but used to drive up to the take out door on the right and get Shrimp Louie salad for my mom.
Attachment 65726

Found a real photo postcard of Encanto showing the boat house and duck island, early photo maybe late 1930's before the island looked like a jungle.

[Desertspiritsteve]

Nice memories and pictures. I sat in the back of a canoe with my sister and her friend sitting ahead of me, paddling. My sister slung duck poo all over me with her oar. That pretty much characterizes the relationship I had with my sister. To Jack Swilling.....you had one cool grandfather! Do I remember some kind of boats that could be peddled?

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by Desertspiritsteve

Nice memories and pictures. I sat in the back of a canoe with my sister and her friend sitting ahead of me, paddling. My sister slung duck poo all over me with her oar. That pretty much characterizes the relationship I had with my sister. To Jack Swilling.....you had one cool grandfather! Do I remember some kind of boats that could be peddled?

Let's not forget those awful paddle boats. Talk about sweating! Other kids would crash into you just for fun. A friend of mine in grammar school would make a softball sized ball of damp bread, refrigerate it, and then go fishing in the canals using pieces of bread for bait. I went swimming at Coronado a lot but the Encanto pool was much larger and the water was really cold even in the summer.

[EdEKit]

I really should, I lived on a ranch that provided some of the horses for Central Dairy, Central Avenue and Thomas. Now Park Central. Yes folks that was a dairy, complete with cows, and horse drawn delivery wagons. Otis delivered our milk, and eventually became the director of transportation for the Carnation Dairy that was north on Central Avenue. The "Ranch" was at 19th St and Roosevelt. There is a sidewalk along Van Buren Street that was built by the WPA, and Between VanBuren and Roosevelt you may still find concrete residential streets built by WPA.

Riverside Park and Ballroom on Central at the Salt River hold memories for a lot of old timers. The swimming Pool had a sand bottom, and the walls were river rock. The slide was about 30 feet tall, and the water was really cold.

The ballroom was a gathering place on weekends and the venue for traveling bands and orchestras. The Municipal Ball Park was all wood and Good Samaritan and Saint Joseph's hospitals were both on Van Buren Street and NEITHER had any kind of air conditioning except for fresh air and evaporative coolers. Someone mentioned that I 17 ended at Bell road. The Black Canyon Highway, predates I 17, and it went from paved to DIRT at Northern it was the "back road" to Prescott and Sedona. The paved route went through Wickenburg, and Yarnell, entering Prescott at the Southwest end of Montezuma, and then to Sedona, and eventually to Flagstaff through Oak Creek Canyon. The First Television Came to Phoenix, with a tower and antenna on the Westward Ho Hotel. KPHO TV, the home of Wallace and Ladmo occupied studios west of the hotel on first Avenue. The Car Dealers were On Central Avenue, and VanBuren Street, If I recall correctly Central Pawn was the home of the DeSoto Dealer, and the now gone, Circles Records Store was Cadillac, but I may be wrong about the brand names. Rolls Royce and Jaguar along with Mercedes Benz were sold on Central Avenue between Roosevelt and VanBuren. The Spaghetti company is not the ONLY central Avenue Mansion that has been converted to other use, Gregg College moved out of one of those buildings in 1960. I put a pretty big dent in a fender moving that place to Central and Roosevelt, the KOY building. It was the home of Arizona's first radio station...but KTAR will argue with that fact. I do not know the particulars, but I think that KTAR came on the air at 620, and KOY moved to 550. But that is just rumor as far as I know.

I don't go back far enough to remember a grass runway at Sky Harbor, but I do remember the day a DC 3 landed on the playground of Wilson School. That site is now part of the Airport Complex. The Tower at the time was a wooden structure, and on the North Side of the runway. The Terminal Building was either adobe, or a faux adobe created with stucco. Standing at the fence on a summer night and feeling the wash from the propellers of departing airliners was a family treat. We went from there to Grosso's Ice Cream Grotto on VanBuren.

It seems that VanBuren was main street Phoenix Arizona. Probably because it was. US Highways 60-70-80-89-93 all converged and then diverged from VanBuren. There may have been more, I am sure that Arizona 93 was in that mix as well. Grand Avenue was then, and is now, US highway 60 and 89 and 93. US 85 was in that mix, you probably know it as Buckeye Road, and it went to Mexico at Why and Lukeville. US 70 went to SanDiego. The first time My family went to there, we drove alongside the old plank highway that crossed the sand dunes in the Colorado River Valley. Interstate 8 has replaced those roads. US 85 is now Arizona 85 and Old Arizona 85.

There are some fascinating places on US highway 60 from Wickenburg to Interstate 10, including Salome, "Where she Danced." If you take 93 to Las Vegas, Burro Creek has the old highway bridge below the new one. Nowhere, Arizona was moved from that old bridge site to it's present location.

One of the more interesting Historic Neighborhoods is the Garfield Area, centered at about 12th street and Roosevelt. Old Homes, and a thriving Art community. Then over near 15th Avenue and Thomas the Encanto Park community still shows off well kept mansions that date to the 1920's. 7th Street and Osborne is the Southwest corner of the Country Club residential area, and an anomaly that I believe still exists. When the City of Phoenix Annexed the area north of Thomas Barry Goldwater hammered out an agreement that left the Phoenix Country Club out of the City. It was, and I think still is, a county island.

Tenth Street was a trolley route, one of the cars is on display at the downtown Valley Metro terminal. First Ave and VanBuren.