The natural beauty of Sunnyslope, Arizona


When I moved back to Phoenix, in 1989, I spent a lot of time driving around, just looking at stuff. I did find a job, and looking back it doesn't seem like it took that long, but at the time it seemed like all I was doing was waiting. So I noodled around town, looking at stuff, and was particularly fascinated by the Sunnyslope area. It had a natural beauty that made me think.

If you're familiar with Sunnyslope, if you've known it all of your life, you may be wondering if I'm kidding here about its natural beauty. But I had just moved from California, and I was seeing it through a Californian's eyes. I'll see if I can explain.

Natural beauty, whether it's a view of the ocean, or a mountain view, is at a premium where I lived in California. I remember looking at an apartment complex and the one (1) apartment in the complex that had even the tiniest view from the patio was rented at a premium. And you had to go out onto the patio and lean out, and look past other buildings. But sure enough, you could see the ocean from there. The same thing applied to being able to see mountains. Mostly in that crowded mass of buildings and freeways called Southern California, an average person like me would never be able to afford a "view". And I thought that was a shame, as there is so much potential for enjoying the natural beauty of that place.

So when I moved to Phoenix, I got an apartment with a view on a golf course. I was pretty much living for golf in those days, and I was just tickled. I couldn't afford that in Los Angeles! And as I noodled around town I was amazed at the mountain views. The nicest area that I saw was called Arcadia, with wonderful views of the mountain, and the city. Being from Los Angeles, I knew that was where the rich people lived, up where they could look down on the city. The rich people lived on the slopes, and the poor people (like me) lived in the valleys.

But Sunnyslope surprised me. The rich people didn't live there, far from it. Those mountain views didn't bring up the property values, or increase the rent. Sunnyslope has brightened up a lot since I first drove around in it in 1989, but it's still not a place to brag about. When I first saw it, people were telling me not to stop at the Circle K.

Sunnyslope is on the southern edge of the western edge of the Phoenix Mountains, which begins just east of 19th Avenue and ends with Camelback Mountain to the east. It's all one continuous range, and if you have more energy that I do you can now hike just about all of the way from west to east. That is, from the Sunnyslope area to the Arcadia area.

Yes, in the meantime I've learned more about how one sunny slope of the Phoenix Mountains became Sunnyslope, while the other became Arcadia, but in 1989 all I saw were mountain views. Look at the mountains when you drive around, and you can see them, too.

Image at the top of this post: Sunnyslope, Arizona in the 1960s. You're looking north towards the Phoenix Mountains on Central Avenue.
Become a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) with Brad today on Patreon!

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

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