Rescuing historic photos of Phoenix from the dumpster


I like old photos of Phoenix. I like to scan them in, ponder them, and wonder about what life was like back "in the day". It appeals to my childish imagination to "time-travel". And I get a lot of enjoyment out of sharing what I find.

I'm not writing a book, I'm not teaching a history class, I'm not connected with any historical museums, I'm just having fun "dumpster diving". Because really all I'm doing is trying to rescue photos from being thrown away.

Now waitaminute, calm down, it's not a conspiracy, man. People aren't sitting around right now, laughing manically about destroying Phoenix history by throwing stuff away. It's just a question of logistics. And luckily, all I need to do is to scan in the photo, save it on my computer, and share it on the internet. I don't have to sit in committees deciding what to do, and select what can and can't be kept. I can do it myself.

I know that it's a race against time. I know that even as I write this, boxes of precious photos are being tossed because there wasn't room somewhere, or houses are sold and old smelly photos aren't the most appealing thing to new owners. But I have a secret weapon - the digital world. I can save photos without taking up any space at all. And I can share them on the internet where there's plenty of room.

Today I will be meeting with a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) who rescued some photos of Territorial Phoenix, and has been wondering what to do with them in order for them to be seen. And yes, they were on the their way to dumpster many years ago, and now they're just sitting in a box. I'm anxious to see them.
Support Arizona history by becoming a patron on Patreon

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring blog posts are shared there daily, also there's "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, and super high-resolution photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona
My collection of old photos of Phoenix started with dumpster-diving. Well, I didn't actually dive into a dumpster, I just kept a bunch of old publicity photos of Valley Bank from being tossed in 1992 when they were becoming Bank One. They sat in my garage for years and years until I finally decided that it was time to scan them. Originally I posted them on web pages, and then as social media came around I posted them on Google+ and now they're on Facebook. I have thousands of images, but they're digital. If they weren't I wouldn't have room for my car in my garage!

There are a lot of people like me out there. We see stuff we like, we scan it in, and we share it. Some people sell stuff, but I don't have any interest in turning my hobby into a commercial venture. I do this for fun, and because I enjoy learning, and talking to people who share my interest in Phoenix history. I'm not above being invited to lunch (I celebrate my birthday several times a year!), or having people throw in a few bucks on Patreon, which shows their appreciation, but I'm not selling anything here. I'm just having fun. If you understand, I appreciate it. Please share.

Image at the top of this post: Valley Center (now called Chase Tower) under construction in 1972, Central Avenue and Monroe, Phoenix, Arizona. From a Valley National Bank publicity photo, rescued from the dumpster.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more