Current Events & News | This Could Be Phoenix
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Current Events & News

24 Apr

This week marks one month since the demolition of 222 E. Roosevelt, a former bar and lounge and local art gallery, and home to what were murals by famed Arizona painter Ted DeGrazia. The building had been slated for demolition for months, despite community outcry — there was an internet petition with more than 1,600 signatures to save the building and murals, and a Superbowl-weekend mock funeral for the neighborhood. There were plans to preserve the building by moving it to a new location, and then there weren't. And on March 20, bulldozers moved in. It was a sad story to watch unfold, but not all of Phoenix's preservation struggles end in a heap of paint dust and broken brick. Over the past decades, historic preservationists and Downtown advocates have had many successful moments in saving pieces of Phoenix history. Check out a few of the biggest ones below.
05:00 / Current Events & News
23 Mar

Editor's note: This is a post from Yael Arbel, who is part of the Indigo Cultural Center, a member of The Alliance for Family, Friend and Neighbor Child Care. They aim to promote healthy childhood development and are hosting an event this week where our co-founder, Ryan Tempest, will be speaking at. Here at This Could Be PHX, we see a direct connection between a healthy childhood and healthy families that make up the larger community. As Downtown Phoenix continues to grow, we hope more and more families choose to live and raise their children in the area. Our goal has always been to help Phoenix become a great city right now and in the future. We hope in that envisioned future, our kids can not only live here, but thrive.  I wanted to know what people in our community were thinking about the importance of the healthy development of kids so I hit the streets to get opinions. I’ve been involved in many conversations with people in the early childhood field but had never had the opportunity to talk about these topics with the young, vibrant, and growing Downtown Phoenix population. I used my phone to record my interactions with people on a busy Friday around downtown, from those eating and working at Food Truck Friday at the Phoenix Public Market to the afternoon coffee crowd on Roosevelt Row. Here are the top 5 things that I learned.
08:00 / Current Events & News
02 Feb

This is a post from Steve Weiss, head organizer of the No Festival Required Independent Film Festival and the upcoming FILMS FOR THINKERS series. This series will be screened in Downtown Phoenix and we are proud to be a sponsor of this great event, helping to encourage community building and thoughtful discussions in our core. If you'd like to be entered to win 2 tickets to the first screening of "Electric Signs" on Wednesday, February 4th, send us a photo capturing an electric sign in your neighborhood that exemplifies light and movement in the city. When I first began No Festival Required, it was to do several things for the Valley. Bring unseen films, screen them in a way that complements the film and pays the filmmakers, and find works that aren't easily forgettable. There is a ton of "polemic" preachy films designed to tell you how to think, but I don't like to show them. Instead, I prefer a strong documentary that starts with a simple premise and elaborates on that premise with arguments and solutions.
13:24 / Current Events & News
08 Dec

Where is Phoenix, Arizona? If I asked you to drive me to Phoenix, where would I end up? Deer Valley? Ahwatukee? Somewhere west of Anthem? I could drive on the I-17 with no traffic for an hour and still be in Phoenix! I find it odd that, "Where is Chicago" sits as an easier question for me to answer accurately, and I've never been to Illinois. Predicting the Tipping Point for Downtown Phoenix IdentityUndoubtedly, the question of "Where is Phoenix?" was much easier to answer when the city was a single-road neighborhood in 1867, forty-five years before Arizona was a state. Forty-five years! Can you imagine the mental state of someone who was willing to come settle out here when there was nothing? You'd have to assume some degree of insanity.
08:45 / Current Events & News