Even as we creep toward the most challenging part of the year, weather-wise, the evenings and early mornings are still great for exploring what’s around. If it gets too hot, I usually escape to a coffee shop for some light reading. Here are some ideas for both…

Local First Indie Week. We celebrate Indie Week every year to support local businesses and keep investing in our community. If you own a local independent business, you can sign up for Indie Week here. From June 24th to July 4th, and featuring the distinct Local Business Bingo Card, Independents Week encourages Arizonans to “go local” by supporting as many locally-owned businesses as possible. Each year, traditionally over the first week of July, first-timers and returning customers across the state discover new and fun ways to support Arizona’s small, independent businesses! Official Hashtags: #IndieWeekAZ #LocalFirstAZ

Creative Saturday at the Phoenix Art Museum. June 10th, 2023 at 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Kick-off your summer with art-making activities, performances, and hands-on experiences for the entire family! Check out fashion-design exhibition MOVE: The Modern Art of Geoffrey Beene and create wearable fashion accessories with Phoenix-based artist Kyllan Maney. Discover the mixed reality artwork, Reynier Leyva Novo: Methuselah and investigate a monarch’s life cycle, migration journey, and wing patterns with biologist and Phoenix College professor Jon Douglas. Explore Juan Francisco Elso: Por América through music. Don’t miss live performances by Bolivian pianist Masaru Sakuma featuring selections from Cuba and across Latin America. Included with general admission.

Let Voters Decide the Transportation Future. The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), made up of cities, mayors and council members of all political stripes, is asking the Arizona Legislature to approve a ballot measure that will go to the public to approve a continuation of an existing sales tax to support all manner of public transportation, from roads to mass transit. It is a feature of how things work in AZ that the legislature has to approve the language of the ballot measure before it goes to the ballot. Unfortunately, this means that some of the more radical, cuckoo-banana-pants legislators at the capitol are trying to hijack the process to exclude almost anything to do with light rail, busses, etc. That’s right, as we all know an increasingly dense area like Maricopa County needs more multi-modal options, rather than just more expensive and polluting freeways. So, please follow this link and sign on to the petition calling for the legislature to approve the language recommended by MAG.

Interpermeatte at the Bently Gallery. June 10th, 2023 at 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM. In Jake Fischer’s paintings, the word interpermeate represents the idea that light and dark are equally and mutually pervasive in defining space just as the physical environment and our mental processes are equally and mutually pervasive in defining experience. Free admission.

$6M Appropriated for Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund. On Friday, May 12, 2023, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs announced that she signed an $17.8 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year that features heavy investments in education, transportation, and tax rebates. The budget also includes $6 million for the State Parks Heritage Fund and $500,000 for the Arizona Trail. View the State Parks Heritage Fund projects funded in the past two fiscal years in the map above.

The Foam Zone. The Children’s Museum of Phoenix is hosting this event seven days a week from, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM. With three floors of play experiences inside and the Foam Zone outside, a cool day of play is guaranteed! Museum admission is $17 per person. I wanna go! Do I need to be a kid?

Investment – Jobs? Who knew? If you like to see how the Infrastructure and Jobs Act (IIJA), as well as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been attracting investment to Arizona, have a look at the Investing in America website for an interactive tracking of what we’ve gained. For instance, on this page you can see how the $4B invested from the IIJA has resulted in a $57B multiplier effect of new investments in Arizona. As Heather Cox Richardson points out in her Substack article on the issue, the flood of investment shows that decades of tax-cutting, deregulatory, infrastructure-draining dogma from the GOP is not what inspires investment from private industry. “…it appears that Biden’s policy of public investment to encourage private investment has, in fact, worked. So far, during his term, private companies have announced $479 billion in investments under the new system…”

Insurance Migrant from California? You may have heard that two major insurance companies have pulled out of California and won’t offer insurance to homeowners, in large part to increased risks from climate change. Think about that. If you have or want a mortgage, you must have insurance. So, unless you purchase all cash (imagine that in California), you can’t get a home. Here’s an interesting discussion of the issue and whether that could happen in Arizona. I’m thinking that, at least in the short term, we could see even more people moving to Arizona from California.

Prepare for Father’s Day at the Japanese Friendship Garden. Make this Father’s Day one-of-a-kind with a crafting workshop for the whole family! Spend quality time with your family in the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix making adorable creatures using natural garden materials. General admission, plus $5 workshop fee.

Protecting Gas Stoves is anti-Woke? Here’s a great opinion piece on how the GOP has folded protecting gas stoves in to their “anti-woke” agenda. What’s crazy, of course, is that some of the most conservative areas of the country (the deep south) have the least penetration of methane gas service in the country, anyway. So, what are they protecting? Not people. Homes with gas stoves are more dangerous than homes without and electrified homes are less expensive to build.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Trivia Night. If you know where the Rose Room is at Valley Bar, you know. If you know about Always Sunny, you know. What else can be said? Hosted by Corey G & Carolyn.

Donna Reiner has written many articles over the years for the Arizona Republic and others about Phoenix history and memorials.  She is a regular contributor to our newsletter. This month Donna tells us about Margaret T. Hance Park, over the last mile of I-10 to be built, and the final connecting point between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via that freeway.

When plans began for the design of the last mile of Interstate 10, no one could have imagined that it would first take so long to come to fruition. And even more so, once the plans were finalized, and construction began, that costs, budget constraints, and many of the usual things that are associated with a large project, would ultimately change much of the proposed landscape.

            In 1972, grand plans for the “Central Avenue Park” were approved with the proposed heliocoils of the new Papago Freeway to tower over it. The lushly landscaped park would include bike paths, a living museum operated by the Central Arizona Historical Society and located at the Shackelford House, numerous recreational facilities, and a visitor center.  On paper, this would be a park where Phoenicians and visitors would gather for fun, recreation, and festivals.  However, a dark cloud hovered over this proposal in the form of the failure for the freeway design to be approved.  Of course, the land had been purchased and cleared of houses leaving what looked like a dead zone right through the middle of residential Phoenix.  

            Back to the drawing board until 1984 with a new plan for a park which would be on top of an underground portion of the freeway.  While the park would be depressed below street level, the design concept intended that what was once a dead zone would now be a “major unifying element” for the surrounding neighborhoods and central Phoenix.  The plans once again proposed recreation and open space, but this time the new and improved version included an exhibit area for arts and crafts, a sculpture garden, water features, tree bosque, amphitheatre, and even an active recreation area that might have a racketball court. The idea was to re-establish a cohesive community that had been ripped apart by the removal of hundreds of homes.

            The city created an advisory committee in 1985 to move the project forward.  This committee presented a draft master plan to city council in March 1986. Despite city approval, unresolved land use issues caused some problems which were resolved that fall.  In the mean time, staff suggested that an arts district be integrated into the park. Neighbors were cautious, but generally supportive.  A freeway underground was a far better option than one towering above.  And the park with the proposed amenities would be a nice addition.

            The deck park concept still had more hoops to jump through before finally opening. Much larger than similar parks in Seattle and Washington, DC, it was being billed as the “playground of Phoenix.” A Japanese Tea Garden and then an Irish farmhouse to celebrate two of Phoenix’s sister cities were suggested to be included.  The city even proposed placing the new central main library in the park. Ideas continued to swirl around all while the actual construction of the underground portion of I-10 finally began in the fall of 1988. Newspaper articles announced that the proposed opening of the tunnel and the park would be in early 1990.

            Of course, things don’t always go according to schedule, costs, and plans. Work on the park finally started in January 1991. But budget constraints reduced the amenities. So the fountains and amphitheatre were not built and construction of the Irish farmhouse and the Japanese Tea Garden were postponed. The three original sections of this grand park: cultural, urban plaza (around Central Avenue) and neighborhood (west side) are not something most visitors or Phoenicians could even grasp today. While the library was constructed on the edge of the deck, by the urban plaza section, the other sections are distinct by contour of the land. The Japanese Tea Garden is cultural, but it is on the west end of the park and the Irish Cultural Center is on the southern side of what was to the urban plaza. The Phoenix Center for the Arts, a marvelous cultural center, is a bookend on the east end of the park.      

            So after twenty years, the Margaret T. Hance Park was dedicated on Saturday, April 25, 1992.