What Glendale, Arizona looked like before the modern buildings were built


As someone who collects old photos, people often ask if I have a photo of a particular location before the modern buildings were built. It's a reasonable request, to see what a familiar area looked like before the condos were built there, but I really have very few of those pictures. And that's because it's just kinda strange to take a picture of, well, just about nothing. So I did that this morning, because, maybe some day it will be interesting to see what the area looked like before the condos were built.

Of course it's nothing but some dirt, a plowed field, and some buildings way in the distance. When the condos go in, there will be streets built, and probably a big grassy area, a playground, that sort of thing. And possibly in the future people will wonder what the area looked like before the condos were built, and maybe they'll find the photo I took this morning, and like it.

I was out adventuring today, and after I stopped at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at 51st Avenue and Olive to get some salted-in-the-shell peanuts, I wandered over to see the property from the south. There was a big sign up there explaining what would be built, but I didn't pay much attention to it, it said something about "multi-family" or something, and I just figured condos. Maybe it will be homes, or apartments. I really don't know, but I'm sure that the next time I go there I'll see them.

I often hear people say that they wish that an area always looked the way it looked in old photos. And while I understand what they're saying, part of me just wishes that they could really understand what they're asking to see. What they want to see is farmland, or open desert, and there's no lack of that. I could take them on a tour of those things that would go on so long that they would probably get bored from seeing so much.

Or maybe they would enjoy seeing it, I know that I do. I never tire of the wide-open spaces in and around Phoenix, of the beautiful views of Arizona highways. But Phoenix is a city, and cities are places where people live, and they need buildings. I'm glad that there's plenty of both for me to see.

Image at the top of this post: Looking north from Barbara Avenue towards Olive between 53rd Avenue and 51st Avenue in November of 2019, Glendale, Arizona.

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