How do you remember Phoenix? Stories from long time residents... (Scottsdale: boundary, shore)

[dgsaz1950]

Originally Posted by FLIP66

I no longer live in the valley..I was hoping someone had a pic of Art Brock they could share

No photos of Art Brock. However, his name came up over the week of Thanksgiving. I was on Kauai and met the son of Don Arnold, a wrestler from the old glory days of Madison Square Gardens.

Art Brock often announced the matches and was abused more than once with a folding chair by that nasty old Don "The Bulldog" Kent. Where was Tito Montez when we needed him?

dgsaz

[desertskies]

Originally Posted by readitnweep

Thanks so much for posting that! We live near Cactus/32nd St and have been looking for info on the area from before 1970.

It answers questions that Cactus was a separate community back then as there are a lot of homes built right in this area circa 1945-early 1950s and we always wondered why they were built so far from Phoenix then.

Anyone else familiar with the history of 32nd/Cactus or Shea? Attend the old Desert Cove when it was new?

I can't speak chapter and verse to the history of 32nd/Cactus or Shea, I do have some memories of the area when growing up in North Scottsdale. My dad came close to purchasing a two level home on Shea in 1964. The house is still there. When driving by it from time to time, I wonder what would life would have been had he bought it, instead of the one near Pima and Shea. There was an AJ Bayless market at Shea and 32nd Street, the only grocery store (not counting Circle K, Seven-Eleven, U-Tote-Em...) and a TG&Y within driving distance. My Mom would shop there or make a drive to the AJ Bayless at Camelback and Scottsdale Rd's. There was a hill that was cut into two portions, that Shea Blvd would run through. Earlier aerial shots (1949) show Shea Blvd as a dirt road with respective lanes going around the hill. Us kids would go to the Circle K on weekends and talk the clerk into selling us beer. We'd sit on that hilltop, drink beer and watch the cars drive by. The hilltop eventually was taken out for the SR-51. The 51 nb ramp from wb Shea runs approximately where the hill was. The Circle K met the same fate.
I miss the openness of the time and the smell of the desert after a summer rain.

[readitnweep]

DesertSkies:

WOW! Thank you so much for posting the photos! I moved to the area in 1980 - Hayden & Shea. Later, my parents bought a townhouse at 92nd/Shea, so I smiled when I saw you were from Pima/Shea. I learned to drive in the then blank streets that had been paved, east of Pima Road and Shea, in 1981, but there was only one commercial building in existence there then - and I think that was too new to be occupied.

I do recall desert parties off 124th Street/Shea when I was at Chaparral HS at an area called "the ruins" which were the remains of a stone house off into the desert, north of Shea.

It is interesting to wonder how things could have been different. Not sure if the house your dad nearly bought is still there as they've taken out so much right in that area as they've built the shopping center where Steinmart is after the 101 went through.

The AJ Bayless at 32nd St/Shea you referenced... I can't recall if that was still there in 1980. I was in the 32nd St/Shea area a lot as my brother lived there then and I had a lot of friends who went to Shadow Mtn (my kids go there now), but I do recall an Ollie's at that center (this would have been prior to Home Depot days). I think the old AJ Bayless is now A Second Look second-hand shop. I was amazed to see the Bashas center across 32nd Street did not even exist in 1969, thanks to your photo. Amazing how open the area was then! Thanks also for the reference point to the hill you sat on.

I think homes had been put in just north of your hill - I had a friend whose house was part of the subdivision behind Bashas that was torn down in the welcome of the 51. What an amazing area this must have been then! Thanks again!

[AZBradley]

Same here! Hayden & Shea, also went to Chaparral!
Know anything about the large cocaine ring at Chaparral during the mid 80's?
Nik Richie + Dirty Army intel, opinions, gossip, satire, and celebrities | Chaparral High School In Scottsdale, AZ

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by AZBradley

Same here! Hayden & Shea, also went to Chaparral!
Know anything about the large cocaine ring at Chaparral during the mid 80's?
Nik Richie + Dirty Army intel, opinions, gossip, satire, and celebrities | Chaparral High School In Scottsdale, AZ

I remember, was it the pizza place across the street from the school that was selling?

[roosevelt]

Who knows where this popular place was. Photo is 1980.

[roosevelt]

For those of you old enough to remember. What's the newest car you can spot?

Keep clicking on image, it gets larger.

[1937Gal]

Originally Posted by ekaresky

I was looking at older comments and noticed some about Alzona Park. I remember living there in the early 1950's. My father was an an army veteran who had war injuries and for about two years we lived in Alzona Park while he slowly recovered. I started grade school at J.B. Sutton School. I remember getting Polio shots at the school during the nationwide vaccination period of the early fifties. I remember walking to the Aero Theatre several times to see movies. I also remember Aero Bowl(ing alley) and recall going there with my father several times. A story told in my family is when my mother, who was very pregnant with my younger brother Ray who was born in 1949, wanted to go to the mvies. No one wanted to go. Finally my Uncle Sid, her brother, took her. The was a drawing being held at the theater for a free washing machine and my mother held the winning ticket. They sold the machine and everyone had food to eat for a while. I remember crawling under those "apartment buildings." We would always get yelled at from adults for doing so. A lot of people who later prospered in Phoenix lived in those buildings. Years later I saw some of the old building on Indian reservations where they had evidently been hauled.

Right down my 1950s alley ...!!! I lived at 25th Ave and Jefferson, went to Murphy School, and I think I saw every movie ever shown at The Aero Theater. Across the street was a skating rink, and just east of the theater was a small ice cream store. I had several friends living in Alzona Park, even into our high school years at West Phoenix High School.
Thanks for the memories....!

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by 1937Gal

Right down my 1950s alley ...!!! I lived at 25th Ave and Jefferson, went to Murphy School, and I think I saw every movie ever shown at The Aero Theater. Across the street was a skating rink, and just east of the theater was a small ice cream store. I had several friends living in Alzona Park, even into our high school years at West Phoenix High School.
Thanks for the memories....!

There was a blurb in the newspaper the year the Aero opened, mostly about the airplane wing that was vertically stuck in the ground next to the entrance. My uncle had just come back from the war and said the newspaper identified the wing wrong, and then he told me what airplane it really came off of. I'll rack your memories even more; who remembers the other theater north of Van Buren on 35th Avenue? I was there only a couple of years. I think it was called the Arizona Theater.

[readitnweep]

Originally Posted by AZBradley

Same here! Hayden & Shea, also went to Chaparral!
Know anything about the large cocaine ring at Chaparral during the mid 80's?
Nik Richie + Dirty Army intel, opinions, gossip, satire, and celebrities | Chaparral High School In Scottsdale, AZ

I remember that cartoon with the not-very-flattering rendition of Mrs. Caskey there. I was at NAU at the time it all went down, but yes, I remember hearing about it. I think that happened the year after I graduated ('84).

Roosevelt, I can't help you with the 1980 photo, though it looks like a couple of buildings I remember being near the Scottsdale civic center before they drastically changed it (back when Scottsdale HS still existed). In fact, I think the above-mentioned Mrs. Caskey was previously principal at Scottsdale before she moved over to Chaparral when Colonel Tom Smith moved on.

No, the pizza place wasn't selling - the students were. And making huge bucks doing it. I think there was some suspicion over a 16-year-old buying a Porsche though not as much as you'd have thought.