From the Arizona Room
From the Arizona Room | 60 Locations in One Handy Map
Posted on 5/11/11 by Si Robins » No Comments
From the Arizona Room is a weekly column examining the historic, reuse and infill structures in Downtown Phoenix. The inspiration for this column stems from the ever-expanding resources in Burton Barr Central Library’s Arizona Room (located on the second floor). For further information on this and other historic structures in the area, visit the Arizona Room during normal library hours.
A Google map created by Jim McPherson offers easy clickability through the entire blog series.
When “From the Arizona Room” began its weekly postings in early 2010, I couldn’t have imagined it would span a year-plus and 60 posts. In fact, I was so wrapped up in finding credible, authentic and interesting information in the Arizona Room that I completely missed several notable milestones: the one-year anniversary post, the 25th post, the 50th post and so on.
It’s interesting, going into the Arizona Room. You can’t help but get sucked back in time, lost in the lingo of historic architectural studies and early neighborhood surveys. You learn of the generations that made their mark on Phoenix back then, just as so many in our generation are doing today.
Around the 50th-post mark, DPJ wiki co-creator Jim McPherson took the time — unsolicited, as is usually the case — to map out each post in a Google map. For map geeks like us, it’s eye candy, sure, but it also presents the entire blog archive right in front of the casual reader, marking the places that would otherwise blend into the map or whirl by on the side of the road.
The map presents a lot of findings over the lifespan of this blog series, including:
- A look at many of Heritage Square’s wonderfully preserved historic buildings;
- the Garfield patch between Roosevelt and Van Buren streets and 9th and 10th streets offered a glimpse of the streetcar lifestyle once prevalent in that neighborhood;
- several chunks of Evans Churchill still include beautiful, early century architecture;
- a commercial strip of 1st Street between Roosevelt and McKinley streets showed great architectural diversity through the first half of the 1900s;
- the south end of the Roosevelt neighborhood has some terrific historical finds;
- the central core of the city, between Van Buren Street, Jefferson Street, Central Avenue and 7th Avenue, includes perhaps the widest scope of architectural styles in the entire city (also some of the most ornate structures around);
- the neighborhoods around Lower Grand Avenue west to I-17 are sprinkled with hidden gems — some of the most stately single-family architecture in the city; and,
- the Alvarado neighborhood, the furthest northeast that the blog’s coverage traveled, is the best neighborhood for unique mansions on tree-lined streets in Central Phoenix.
Though this blog series is ending, the pursuit of interesting, well-maintained architecture in Phoenix is only continuing to spark interest. I urge you to consult this map when exploring neighborhoods or architectural styles in the central corridor. These 60 posts should give insight into Phoenix’s storied past. Let’s keep spreading these stories to our neighbors.
A special thank you goes out to Jim McPherson for creating (and helping to maintain!) this map!
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From the Arizona Room in a larger map
From the Arizona Room | 410-412 E. Garfield St. — Harry S. Bennett Apartments
Posted on 5/04/11 by Si Robins » 1 Comment
From the Arizona Room is a weekly column examining the historic, reuse and infill structures in Downtown Phoenix. The inspiration for this column stems from the ever-expanding resources in Burton Barr Central Library’s Arizona Room (located on the second floor). For further information on this and other historic structures in the area, visit the Arizona Room during normal library hours.
410-412 E. Garfield St. in Evans Churchill (light rail at Roosevelt Station)
These days, the Harry S. Bennett Apartments are probably best known as a convenient stoop to hang around on First Fridays. The building on Garfield Street between 4th and 5th streets is in serious need of some TLC, which it was set to receive more than a year ago when it was slated to become Matt Carter’s El Rey restaurant, a cantina that would have featured rooftop flamenco dancing and an extensive tacos and tequila-based menu.
The renovation never happened, of course, and the indigenous apartment building has continued to be slathered in alternating coats of graffiti and extensive mural work.
Though this is not a case of an uninteresting building that has lost all hope. It needs a good gutting, yes, but it’s an architecturally interesting multifamily building nonetheless.
Constructed in 1926, Bennett, an engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad, built the apartments to house himself and three other tenants. It was a packed house upon build-out.
At two stories, it still features original brickwork positioned atop its poured concrete foundation. A diamond panel on the fascia above the porch stands out as a relic of an earlier era, a classy touch amid the spray-painted brick seen today.
The flat-top roof probably needs some work to make it into any envisioned nightlife spot, but the first-floor porches are in surprisingly solid shape. Replacing any remaining windows is a must.
The second-floor balconies were altered mid-century when A/C units were installed, but otherwise, little esthetic work has been done to the place. A future tenant will find that it is a rather spacious building that can make a mean bar, restaurant or venue when the time (and capital) arrives.
Source: City of Phoenix Historical/Architectural Resource Survey of the Evans Churchill Area, April 1988
Is there a historic property in Downtown Phoenix you’d like to see in From the Arizona Room? Email me at si@dphxj.com with the address and a brief description.
From the Arizona Room | 901 N. 4th St. — A.A. Lyall House
Posted on 4/27/11 by Si Robins » No Comments
From the Arizona Room is a weekly column examining the historic, reuse and infill structures in Downtown Phoenix. The inspiration for this column stems from the ever-expanding resources in Burton Barr Central Library’s Arizona Room (located on the second floor). For further information on this and other historic structures in the area, visit the Arizona Room during normal library hours.
901 N. 4th St. in Evans Churchill (light rail at Roosevelt Station)
ReBAR bustles nightly and on sunny weekend afternoons, but the tiny bungalow on 4th and Garfield streets was never intended as a drink-slinging hangout.
No, until recently, the c.1917 building was a quiet, single-family home, built by A.A. Lyall. Its serious present-day alteration, courtesy of a 2009 makeover by landlord Norm Fox, clad the building in COR-10 (Bare Naked) steel, leaving the shell of the building intact, but making it virtually unrecognizable from its original appearance.
A weathered façade of rustic, desert-grade steel is complemented by new windows and treatments inside, including shiny, lacquered floors and the bar build-out topped with a one-of-a-kind steel accent piece overhead.
The original home was a one-and-a-half-story brick building standing on a concrete foundation with fired brick sheathing. It featured a gabled roof — still in place today, albeit esthetically much different — with asphalt shingles. The makeover kept the exposed rafters under the hood in place.
The old widows, centered on arched brick lintels, are now departed in favor of pseudo-industrial replacements with steel slats, which are admittedly a neat visual accent, but a far cry from their historic predecessor.
Perhaps interestingly, the recessed, off-center front entrance remains in its original spot, tucked in a dark alcove beneath a front veranda porch supported by four columns. The initial paneled wood door is of course long gone in favor of a now matching steel and glass number, which serves as the pass-through point from bar to patio.
To revisit the history of next-door restaurant Bliss, click here.
Source: City of Phoenix Historical/Architectural Resource Survey of the Evans Churchill Area, April 1988
Is there a historic property in Downtown Phoenix you’d like to see in From the Arizona Room? Email me at si@dphxj.com with the address and a brief description.
From the Arizona Room | 821 N. 3rd St. — Holgas
Posted on 4/20/11 by Si Robins » 2 Comments
From the Arizona Room is a weekly column examining the historic, reuse and infill structures in Downtown Phoenix. The inspiration for this column stems from the ever-expanding resources in Burton Barr Central Library’s Arizona Room (located on the second floor). For further information on this and other historic structures in the area, visit the Arizona Room during normal library hours.
821 N. 3rd St. in Evans Churchill (light rail at Roosevelt Station)
Seemingly everyone in Downtown Phoenix has an Holgas story (or two, or three… ). The modest apartment complex has been on 3rd and Garfield streets for five decades, and it shows its battle scars — wear and tear from frequent tenant turnover, evidence of the tough love of countless arts projects and layers of cover-up.
In recent years, the two-story structure has been know Downtown-wide as a prominent low-rent stop for struggling artists looking for consistent and convenient First Friday showcasing.
Cautious art-walkers enter the studios — doubling as living spaces and galleries — to view art in a rather intimate, hands-on manner. During the mid-2000s, Holgas was the spot to check out up-and-coming bands each month in rather informal front-yard showcases. Music is less frequent here these days, but the artsy vibe is still very much alive, and encouraged.
Modern in style, the 1960 commercial building meshes well with the remaining low-rise commercial rows on 3rd and 4th streets. Architecturally, it might seem rather unremarkable — painted concrete block, check; flat roof, indeed. The history here is less in the changes and the structural upkeep of the building itself and more in the stories of the unique times shared within its walls and around its walk-up front entrance.
Each studio unit has an exterior entryway, with stairs at the north façade leading to a second story. The two commercial offices that face 3rd Street — one currently houses Phoenicia Association’s retail space — have presented a revolving door of tenants and purposes, but appear no worse for the wear.
Note: The former street number of the building was 819. It was changed to 821 some time after build-out.
Source: City of Phoenix Historical/Architectural Resource Survey of the Evans Churchill Area, April 1988
Is there a historic property in Downtown Phoenix you’d like to see in From the Arizona Room? Email me at si@dphxj.com with the address and a brief description.
From the Arizona Room | 803 N. 3rd St. — Marsh Arnott House
Posted on 4/13/11 by Si Robins » No Comments
From the Arizona Room is a weekly column examining the historic, reuse and infill structures in Downtown Phoenix. The inspiration for this column stems from the ever-expanding resources in Burton Barr Central Library’s Arizona Room (located on the second floor). For further information on this and other historic structures in the area, visit the Arizona Room during normal library hours.
803 N. 3rd St. in Evans Churchill (light rail at Roosevelt Station)
On 3rd Street opposite the Alfred R. Wilson House and Howard Cassidy House is a 1909 Western Colonial/Modern building with a long list of residential and commercial tenants. Present-day curb appeal makes it look more like a ’50s or ’60s build, with a thick layer of earthy stuccoing greeting the street.
The historic name is the Marsh Arnott House, honoring the original resident of the home on the northeast corner of 3rd and McKinley streets. Multiple alterations have dramatically changed its appearance and compromised possible historic designation, yet these fixes have fueled the change of tenants over the years — it has served as the William T. Keane Law offices, an arts space, a storage “shed” and more.
The list of changes is historic itself: Front and rear façade alterations, exchanged windows, stucco sheathing, layers (upon layers) of paint jobs gone by, a post-build porch overhang, a garage outbuilding and a concrete ramp and rails all came after 1909 — many well after that build-out.
Under the newer façades, the home-office is indeed brick, standing on a poured concrete foundation. The flared hip roof, asphalt shingles and overhanging soffit are all qualities typical of the Western Colonial style in this neck of the woods.
It is the present-day home of Art Wise, a day service dedicated to fine arts, and a mini-hub for activity on First Fridays.
Source: City of Phoenix Historical/Architectural Resource Survey of the Evans Churchill Area, April 1988
Is there a historic property in Downtown Phoenix you’d like to see in From the Arizona Room? Email me at si@dphxj.com with the address and a brief description.
