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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2012, 3:43 PM
Don B. Don B. is offline
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Mad Men of Midtown...nice essay on central Phoenix.

http://phoenixmag.com/lifestyle/hist...ull-version/1/

HOME TO THE VALLEY’S FIRST HIGH-RISE RESIDENCES AND THE LATE, GREAT PHOENIX PLAYBOY CLUB, MIDTOWN WAS THE MOST SWINGING NEIGHBORHOOD IN PHOENIX BACK IN THE SLEEK ’60S. TODAY, NEW GENERATIONS ARE DISCOVERING THE JOYS OF OUR MOST URBAN ENCLAVE.

Martinis, Muscle Cars & Murder

Stretching from the base of South Mountain until it fades into the foothills of the North Mountain Preserve, Central Avenue has always been Phoenix’s signature streetscape. And in the swinging 1960s, no section of this mighty thoroughfare sizzled like midtown. Back then, teenagers cruised Central Avenue and parked their souped-up cars at the world’s first McDonald’s franchise, which opened on the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Indian School Road in 1953, and sipped milkshakes beneath the restaurant empire’s first iconic, golden neon arches.

Their parents, meanwhile, were dining and drinking inside the dozens of smoke-fogged watering holes and sumptuous supper clubs studding both sides of midtown’s Central Corridor. Dressed to the nines and driving cars the size of aircraft carriers, the Valley’s movers and shakers descended upon hotspots such as Durant’s, the iconic steakhouse that’s resided on the northeast corner of Central and Virginia avenues since 1950.

“Everyone was at Durant’s,” says Josephine Alcazar, a midtown native and co-owner of the Russo and Steele car auction. “You’d have the mayor sitting right next to the biggest crook in town.”

Crooks such as John Henry Adamson, who held court at another longtime midtown hangout, the Ivanhoe Cocktail Lounge, until he was convicted of planting the car bomb that killed The Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles in the parking lot of the Hotel Clarendon (now the Clarendon Hotel) in 1976. And then there was midtown’s most infamous hotspot, the Phoenix Playboy Club, which jet-setted into midtown in the early 1960s for a two-decade run.

“Midtown really was a little like Mad Men back then, only on McDowell Road versus Madison Avenue,” says Beau Lane, who runs the midtown-based EB Lane advertising agency, referring to the popular AMC TV show based in 1960s New York City’s advertising world, with its hard-drinking, chain-smoking, immaculately-dressed title characters.

Now, following decades of decline as developers and wealthy residents fled to the city’s desert outskirts, midtown Phoenix has again become one of the Valley’s most attractive addresses...


Historical note:

Phoenix's growth in area and population during the times mentioned in this article:

1950: 106,000 in 17 square miles. 6,235 ppsm
1960: 439,000 in 187 square miles. 2,347 ppsm
1970: 581,000 in 248 square miles. 2,342 ppsm
1980: 789,000 in 325 square miles. 2,427 ppsm
1990: 983,000 in 424 square miles. 2,318 ppsm
2000: 1,321,000 in 477 square miles. 2,769 ppsm
2010: 1,445,000 in 519 square miles. 2,784 ppsm

Pics (my aerial shots of Central Avenue/Uptown and Midtown, which are the subject of this article):







--don

Last edited by Don B.; Aug 23, 2012 at 3:59 PM.
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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2012, 4:05 PM
Robertpuant Robertpuant is offline
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It looks like a city of 500 000 without historic buildings..
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2012, 1:53 AM
SunDevil SunDevil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertpuant View Post
It looks like a city of 500 000 without historic buildings..
Yeah, midtown Phoenix does look like that.
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  #4  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2012, 2:44 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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Midtown's surprisingly hopping, that's for damn sure.

Unfortunately, I didn't really discover that until, after living in Phoenix for years, started working at Park Central in 2008...
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  #5  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2012, 2:45 PM
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Cool article... sounds like Midtown was (and is becoming again) a great place to be.
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  #6  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2012, 3:19 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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It looks like it has a good mix of office, housing, probably hotel, retail, etc. How cohesive and walkable is it, or is it growing toward?
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  #7  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2012, 3:23 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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I'd say growing toward, but the past four years certainly haven't been Phoenix's best.
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  #8  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2012, 3:51 AM
Private Dick Private Dick is offline
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This is where I'd live if I moved to Phoenix for some reason. A friend of mine has a really cool, older bungalow right off of Central -- when I've visited, I liked the area.
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  #9  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2012, 3:53 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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What was the cross street?
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  #10  
Old Posted Aug 25, 2012, 5:39 AM
Private Dick Private Dick is offline
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^ Granada
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  #11  
Old Posted Aug 26, 2012, 1:11 AM
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atlantaguy atlantaguy is offline
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It is a pretty cool area, from Camelback to Downtown imo. Lot's of great older neighborhoods on the side streets, and the light rail runs right down Central.

Like Private Dick, I would favor this area if I ever lived in the Valley. As Don's great aerial views clearly show, there is great tree coverage here for a desert city.
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  #12  
Old Posted Aug 30, 2012, 4:58 PM
Don B. Don B. is offline
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Most of central Phoenix is pretty walkable...

Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
It looks like it has a good mix of office, housing, probably hotel, retail, etc. How cohesive and walkable is it, or is it growing toward?
I live on the northeastern edge of central Phoenix (16th Street and Glendale, about 6 miles northeast of downtown Phoenix, and about 4 miles from most of midtown described in this article), and my area's walkscore is 75, "Very Walkable" according to www.walkscore.com. Once the Sprouts Grocery Store opens up in the old Basha's space across the street, this walkscore should improve even more, as the nearest grocery store now is just under one mile away. By contrast, my old neighborhood in Scottsdale near 136th Street and Shea, 25 miles northeast of downtown, had a walkscore of only 22, "Car Dependent."

Other samplings:

Central and Indian School (center of Midtown/Uptown): 69, "Somewhat Walkable."

Central and McDowell (one mile north of downtown): 91, "Walker's Paradise."

Central and Van Buren (downtown Phoenix): 89, "Very Walkable."

From my culling of the statistical data of central Phoenix, we have about 650,000 people living in about 120 square miles. Of that population, about 8.7% are gay or lesbian, although I suspect these numbers are under-reported, especially since many of the condos and townhomes like my complex are 30-50% gay in central Phoenix. The median age is about 35, slightly younger and wealthier than the metro area as a whole. It is about 70% Democrat and 30% Republican, which is about opposite of the metro area as a whole. In short, we are a large blue island in a massive red sea.

In a nutshell, if you enjoy urbanity, central Phoenix is the place to be in Arizona.

--don
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  #13  
Old Posted Aug 30, 2012, 8:15 PM
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plinko plinko is offline
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Anybody got a map of the 1960 city limits? I have a diagram in a book I have, but it doesn't have streets or landmarks to pick out distances.
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  #14  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2012, 2:35 AM
Omaharocks Omaharocks is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Don B. View Post
In a nutshell, if you enjoy urbanity, central Phoenix is the place to be in Arizona.

--don
Yeah, I always liked Central Phoenix, that area has done a great turnaround in vibrancy in recent years, too.

What many people don't realize about Arizona, though, is that it has some of the best small cities and towns in the United States.

Bisbee, Flagstaff, Jerome, etc - they are certainly up there in terms of combination historic core and topography/scenery.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2020, 6:42 AM
Nathaniel Davis Nathaniel Davis is offline
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The amazing city of central Phoenix. I was there once. I remember this place well. I even wrote an essay about it because it was amazing. But since I'm not very cool at writing essays, I tried to edit grammatical errors using app.grammarly.com, but it didn't help. So I turned to the service https://papersowl.com/rewrite-my-essay with a request to rewrite my essay. They did everything quickly and efficiently. I really like this essay.
If anyone is really interested in this, I can share this essay with you, because it very coolly describes all the beauty of central Phoenix.

Last edited by Nathaniel Davis; Jun 8, 2020 at 7:17 PM.
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