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In the 1920s, Van Buren Street became a national thoroughfare, and over the next few decades, a number of motels and mini-resorts cropped up catering to highway travelers. With colorful lodging options featuring fanciful names, lush landscaping, kitschy themes and huge neon signs, it became one of the nation's most dazzling roadside strips. Click here for more info.
Completed in 1940 to connect South Phoenix and downtown, the Central Avenue underpass has evolved into one of the city’s most notable wormholes. Click here for more info.
Hanny's restaurant is an outstanding example of a classic terrazzo entryway, built in 1947. Click here for more info.
Father Emmett McLoughlin championed affordable housing, equal access to healthcare and urban renewal for Phoenix's marginalized Black and Latino communities. Click here for more info.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nearly every community had a local band stand and Phoenix was no different. In the early 1900s, people would gather around Phoenix's first band stand at Library Park near the Capitol for regular concerts and live entertainment. As the city grew, larger and more elaborate band shells and band stands were constructed in the downtown area. Click here for more info.
Phoenix’s skyline—and its history—would seem incomplete without the towering presence of the Westward Ho. Click here for more info.
In Phoenix's early years, the High School Pharmacy was a popular hangout for youngsters. Here's a brief history of its owners, employees, and some of the locals it served. Click here for more info.
Light rail wasn’t Phoenix’s first use of the tracks for mass transit. And those old tracks periodically are rediscovered in some areas of that original system. Mule-drawn trolley cars in... continue reading. Click here for more info.
Shortly after the completion of Phoenix’s first skyscraper, an excited, death-defying feat took place atop the Heard Building. Click here for more info.
Some of the buildings may be gone, but the memories will last a lifetime. Take a journey through Downtown Phoenix's colorful, queer history with the Valley's own Hip Historian, Marshall Shore. Click here for more info.