Waiting for the bus in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1960s


My first thought when I stumbled onto this picture on the Duke University site was that it would be a terrible place to wait for the bus. It's Phoenix, Arizona in the 1960s, specifically 19th Avenue at Cinnabar, in the Sunnyslope area. If you've never been there I'm glad for you, because it really is a terrible place to be. I'll see if I can explain, and if you'd rather just look away, I'll understand.

Like most of the people I've ever known, I've been lucky. I've never been rich or famous (not that I ever wanted to be), but life has been kind to me. I managed to escape things that often draw people into desperate situations, including, but not limited to, addiction, and I always had a car. I may have ridden the bus in Phoenix, but only to get back home after dropping off my car for repairs, minor stuff.


I never lived in Sunnyslope, but I drove through there quite often back in the '90s to visit my girlfriend who lived just beyond it, in the foothills that lead up to the Pointe at Tapatio Cliffs. I usually drove along Hatcher, which is where this photo is looking, where the canal is (you can see the trees along the canal). 

Since I had recently moved from California I often wondered why an area with such beautiful mountain views was so dismal. And the more I learned, the more I understood. Sunnyslope is a place for people who aren't welcomed elsewhere.

Even in the 1960s, this was kinda "out in the middle of nowhere". Sunnyslope had begun as a place for people who had tuberculosis to go to, just to breathe desert air. It wasn't a luxury health resort area, it was a place of tents, and people just desperate to live. And over the years it became a place where the ragged people go, a place of halfway houses, a place where people try, and often fail, to start their lives over. Yes, it's a place of saints and sinners, who are all the same.

I first discovered places like this in Los Angeles, with the contrast of people huddling, and cars driving by with their windows rolled up and doors locked. I have walked among these people, and have breathed the dust and exhaust fumes. I've seen cars stop and hand people dollars, treating people like animals, "feeding the bears", and maybe trying to assuage some guilt. I know that many were saying, "There but for the grace of God go I."

But I've also seen some genuine happiness there in these terrible places. I've seen people who have tried to pull themselves up with their own bootstraps, wishing that they would be treated with dignity. I learned a long time ago to say, "No, thank you" to anyone who panhandles, but I still talk to them.


Cause I have prayed
I just behave
Cause saints and sinners
Are quite the same
Cause it's my temple
The whole wide world
That's why I think I am I am
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Comments

  1. kirkdooleyJanuary 25, 2022 at 10:02 AM

    When I moved to Phoenix in 1978, I lived in Sunnyslope for two+ years (14th Street and Hatcher). It was a nice place then, but sadly has deteriorated since then. Gangs and the like.

    ReplyDelete

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