I volunteer at a tiny art gallery every once in a while.  Because my schedule is insane, I only ever make it there about once a month, but I keep it on my schedule because why not.  The gallery is on the first floor of City Hall, almost completely unknown to the public, which is fine by me, because I just sit and read for a couple of hours in almost completely uninterrupted silence.

I was interrupted this morning by a quiet, somewhat grizzled older guy in all black and a feathered hat who came in to ask me about prints of the pieces, all recent shots of architectural landmarks around Phoenix.  He pointed to the Valley National Bank on Camelback and 44th st, saying, "That's my building."  Maybe I've just had too many downtown kooks up in my face recently, because I just smiled and nodded to the guy, thinking, yeah buddy, it's my building too, we all like it.

I asked him for his contact information to follow up about the prints and watched as he printed his name in exacting block letters, then spent the next 10 seconds squinting blindly into space, my mind desperately trying to remember and fact check without the internet.  As soon as he started to leave, I concluded: he designed the Valley National Bank building, the "mushroom bank," in 1968.

IT IS HIS BUILDING.

I didn't call after him to tell him that I had finally figured out who he was, because really.  His demeanor was interesting, very quiet, almost awkward, although I usually find introverted, subdued people to be interesting. 

Anyway, he is cool.  About the building.

HP HBIC

It's the 1895 Charles Pugh House.

Queen Anne style.  I have read on the internets that it was a "bordello," but have yet to find any real corroboration for that.  (Every old house/hotel/anything was allegedly once a speakeasy or a brothel and I just feel like, make with the sources or GTFO)  It was a rooming house from the 1930s to the 1970s, and in the 1990s it was a restaurant, or a series of restaurants.  That was its last iteration, and I think it has been vacant for at least 10 years, probably more.  My grandmother just told me that my great-grandmother, a real estate agent, sold this house to one of the restauranteurs about 25 years ago.  wtf mate.

Gossip indicates that it's owned by two very old sisters who think it is worth $$$$$$, which may be why they're still holding onto it.  If they thought it was worth so much, you'd think they'd maintain it.  It might actually be, then.  They probably just mean the land, of course.  Bitches.

Well, I'm glad to know the basics.  It's one of like, two? or three Queen Annes remaining in the city and is foremost among the most endangered historic properties we have. 

I didn't prowl around it today because I was running late, however I will definitely be skulking in the future, and I have the remaining survivor Victorians on my list as well. 

Knipe House Update

December 2011

Front

Back

Oh, remember?  There was a fire.

Today:

Front. No more second floor.

Back. Phone camera doesn't zoom. Click on it.

The latter pictures are kind of gigantic, so closeups can be had.

Here's an article from April about the house.  Not much info, but it's the most recent I have seen.  Excerpt from a 2010 article:

"I’ve often thought that preservationists have a 'sixth sense' about buildings and sites.  They’re able to see the incredible 'after' in looking at the dirty, drab, and dilapidated 'before.' (DUH! -AUTHOR) Yes, the Knipe House is looking forlorn, but I remember Barbara Stocklin, our city’s historic preservation officer, saying that it is structurally sound but does need a new roof."

I think the press from this restoration will make Knipe much more well-known in Phoenix.  I'm seeing his name here and there in my researching of other stuff.  He drew the plans for ASU's old Industrial Arts building, and I think the 3 remaining PUHSD buildings on Monroe, around 6th.  See post-renovation photos at the bottom of their Wikipedia entry.  A delightful woman I know from the museum world got to go into those buildings 5+ years ago before they were renovated, and would only describe the interior with sounds.  "Peh! Ew! Uh uh!"  I wish I could have seen inside them!  Why do I only like moldering, fucked up stuff?  Picture of me.

Anyway, the same architect (Norman Marsh) designed all the PUHSD buildings, the Industrial Arts building, and the Monroe School, which is the subject of my research, so I am trying to find out if Knipe worked on it as well. 

OOOOOOOOH! Fun.

Dear World,

You are cruel.  Andrew Eldritch was right to say so. 

For only in a horrible place does this happen, in a desert so sadly deficient in historical properties of interest:

 

Do you notice the scalloped siding?  It is pink and purple.

The front yard is all concretey, and there is a very primitive and ugly add-on to the back that looks like a kitchen.  I'm thinking this was a rooming house, or some kind of commercial property, once.  I was going to explore the front area some more, but a guy was asleep behind the planter, so, maybe later.  You can see his knee in the shot. 

The sadder thing about finding a loner like this, so strange yet partially invisible between parking lots and modernity, is that it was once simply part of a neighborhood.  Rows and rows of pretty little Victorian houses once stood on the site where I routinely lose my car in a confusing garage. 

Old photos of the R*ss*n House (someone local found this blog while searching for the house recently and it alarararmed me because I don't want some 75 year old docent who thinks I'm a nice young lady to be reading this blog!  What good is a life unless you can bitch about it free of ramifications!  Double life.  Anyway, a picture of "that other Victorian house in Phoenix" from the 19-teens showed streets of similarly-outfitted two-story Victorians behind it, heading down what I guess was 6th Street from Monroe. 

Some piece of shit (generations of them) systematically knocked down every one of those to put up something commonplace, ugly, and unnecessary.  The Mercado is now part of ASU Downtown, but what about the other twenty-five years it sat empty and worthless?  Glad we lost irreplaceable pieces of history for that.  (I realize those houses were probably knocked down like 3 decades before the Mercado was built but that is not the POINT.)  I would make a comment about how these practices only drag the city down, but no one in this town one cares anyway.  They love their strip malls; they prefer them! 

Anyway, this house is on 2nd Ave, south of Fillmore.  Or, next to hipster travesty the Crescent Ballroom.

It's probably full of unpleasantness in the form of arachnids and/or crack users, but I would so like to go inside.  Actually, it looks pretty well sealed up.  Later on I'll research the address and see what it was.

ETA: It was a restaurant in the 90s.

Spring Break 2012 was so crazy

The sash cord in the double-hung windows at the Rosson House offices broke yesterday, creating a terrific crash inside the wall.  I didn't know double-hung windows functioned by way of counterweights inside the sills.  The maintenance guy came and removed the panel, revealing four hanging lead weights covered in the furry dust of almost a century.

A director, docent and myself watched the whole thing with great interest. I don't think this guy is used to ripping panels off of windows to a room full of women saying, "Ooooh!"