Relics of the Past, or Harbingers of the Future?

The development of a new home for the Phoenix Trolley Museum makes sense in so many ways

By Bob Graham

Near downtown Phoenix, two streetcars wait in a nondescript corrugated metal warehouse. They last rolled on tracks in city streets in 1948, just seven decades past. That’s really not all that long ago. If you are in your 80s or 90s and lived in Phoenix then, you probably remember them. If you are younger, your parents or grandparents may have ridden on them to get to school or work. They were an integral part of the fabric of the city for sixty years.

So how come you see no evidence of them as you drive around town today? Are streetcars even relevant anymore? Why should anyone care?

I grew up in Phoenix in the 1970s. By then the city, and more specifically downtown, had already been largely transformed into a modern metropolis, lacking focus and enabled by the dominance of automobiles. Many seemingly small individual decisions had eroded away the city of yesteryear; even the trolley system, once a critical part of our urban infrastructure, had been completely forgotten in the span of twenty or thirty years. The disappearance of historic Phoenix also meant that recent immigrants from around the country, who have always outnumbered natives, had no idea that Phoenix didn’t always look like it did then, or that anything of value might have been lost.

But much of value has been lost. The small town that became a city was, before World War II, a place that was close-knit, friendly, efficient, and human. A place where you worked and played within walking distance of where you lived. A place where the community banded together to build prominent, well designed civic buildings, as a statement of who we were. Sidewalks downtown bustled with people. All of this was embodied in the urban form itself, which was made possible by streetcars.

In the 21st Century, there is a growing awareness that the city of the past might have been a better place to live than what it has become: anonymous, disjointed, inconvenient, and ugly – inhuman rather than human. But what can be done? How can some of that past quality of life be recovered when so few recognize its benefits? When each day brings busloads of new residents from somewhere else, oblivious to the history of the place they have come to, or that it could be any different?

By 1969, much of downtown Phoenix had been converted to parking lots.

History education is key. Much has been written about the historically-ignorant being doomed to repeat their mistakes; that the lessons of the past can inform our decisions about the future. Unfortunately, historical institutions have taken some serious hits in Phoenix since the recession of 2008. With the closure of the Phoenix Museum of History, Phoenix is the only US city in the top 20 that does not have a museum dedicated to its history. And the Phoenix Trolley Museum (PTM) lost its home of 40 years in 2016, forcing its major assets into indefinite storage.

Since losing their lease, PTM, owner of the two cars in question, has been busily working to re-establish their streetcar museum on historic Grand Avenue, locus of one of Phoenix’s earliest streetcar lines. In the span of three years, the group has relocated its assets, developed a basic indoor museum exhibit, collected one additional unrestored streetcar, and most recently, purchased the property. This last accomplishment is a landmark for PTM: for the first time, they own their property and can’t be evicted, giving them a permanent home and a solid financial base of equity. But their work has just begun. The new site does not have the facilities to store, protect, and exhibit the fragile museum pieces that are at the core of its collection. For that, they need to develop a “real” museum facility, and all that goes with it both physically and organizationally.

What the New Phoenix Trolley Museum would bring to Phoenix

Connect people with the Phoenix streetcar story and its relationship to the history and development of Phoenix. This is, of course, the core mission of the museum, but the benefits of his particular piece of historical education are manifest. For the reasons set out above, PTM could tie together issues of urban growth and development, walkability, sustainability, transportation planning, and the physical layout of historic Phoenix in a single appealing narrative.
Create a new tourism and entertainment cultural destination for the city. Museums and similar venues have positive economic effects on their communities that far outweigh their costs. Streetcar and rail buffs make a point of visiting rail museums in each place they visit, and often plan trips around them; likewise for historical fans. These visitors spend money locally on food, lodging, and shopping.
Promote the revitalization of historic Grand Avenue and the west end of the central city. Grand Avenue was in deep decline between 1970 and 1990, after its use as a state highway was bypassed. This decline was worsened by the location of homeless services on the west side of downtown. More recently the area has been colonized by artists and small local businesses and is now an up-and-coming neighborhood. PTM’s location on Grand helps to solidify this progress, and if it can eventually get tracks back in the street, can help tie the area together as a people-mover with heritage streetcar service.
Serve as a bridge to a future downtown circulator, likely a streetcar loop. It’s a little-known fact that the transportation bond passed several years ago to expand the light rail system also included funding for construction and operation of a “downtown circulator,” which most likely would be a streetcar loop around downtown. The planning and construction of such a loop has not been made a high priority, so the idea remains unrealized. A trolley museum would re-familiarize people as to the difference between streetcars and light rail vehicles and their differing purposes, and with the people-mover described above, would give people a taste of how that could work, building community support and demand to build that system.

What you can do to help make this happen

Become a museum member. This is not about money. Or at least, not about YOUR money. The political strength of the museum is measured by its membership. How many people are considered constituents? How many people feel strongly enough to plunk down $20 a year, today a nominal amount? If the museum has 500 members, it will be treated completely differently by our city government and by grant sources than a museum of 50 members.
Donate. OK, in this case it’s about the money. Because the “real” museum has not yet been built, PTM’s only source of unrestricted income comes from donations, sponsorships, and membership dues. PTM owns its site, but land ownership continues to have a cost (there is a small mortgage) and they need to keep the wheels on while the bigger plans come to fruition.
Volunteer. PTM has no paid staff. All the museum has accomplished has been through the hard work of volunteers on their own time; most of them have families and jobs also clamoring for their attention. While people with certain talents are more urgently needed, anyone with a spare hour or two a week can help out. There are a lot of side benefits to volunteering, including gaining museum experience, expanding networks, fellowship with like-minded Phoenicians, and the satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment of helping create the new PTM.
Serve on the Board of Directors. Board members are also volunteers, but with more responsibilities and authority. Each Board member is expected to help ensure the financial success of the museum (in one of various ways) and participate in committee work. But this is where you can make the most impact. There are several openings, and PTM is looking to expand its diversity in terms of age, gender, race, and knowledge.

Building this trolley museum will bring richness to our quality of life in Phoenix in so many ways. If you agree, and really want to see this vision realized, I hope you’ll be able to help in one of the ways outlined here. Together, we can make it happen.

Visit the Trolley Museum website at https://www.phxtrolley.org/.

Another Museum in Trouble

Can we keep the Phoenix Trolley Museum from going the way of the Phoenix History Museum?

By Bob Graham, Motley Design Group

We may soon find out whether Phoenix has the capacity to save its home-grown cultural institutions for itself, or if it will allow yet another unique opportunity to enrich its quality of life to fall away.

The Arizona Street Railway Museum, which has been using the name Phoenix Trolley Museum (PTM) to avoid confusion with another museum, has been going for 40 years in its Central Avenue location on the north edge of Hance Park. Like a lot of small museums, it hit the doldrums a few years back, and today few people seem to be aware that it’s there.

PTM has one unique asset that speaks volumes about the history of Phoenix: Car 116, an original Phoenix streetcar that survived the “great car-barn fire” of 1947. It’s a beautiful machine, restored for the most part. They even had it running a few years back, rolling out of its shed on a couple hundred feet of track and then back in. Maybe not much of a ride, but it moved, and was a living, breathing example of another era that recent transplants to our auto-centric valley find incredible: Phoenix had streetcars?

PTM Car Barn — Old Car 116, tucked away snugly in its barn

This is an important facet of our history, because it says so much about Phoenix and how ended up the way it did. Here are the Cliff’s Notes: Greedy land barons come in to develop in a new desert town. They invest in lots of urban infrastructure, like utilities and streets, and also a streetcar system. The new streetcar lines drive development patterns for fifty years. Autos are invented, and sprawl results as middle-class and better people stop taking streetcars in order to buy a house in the ‘burbs. The streetcar system is not properly maintained, and most of the rolling stock is consumed in a “suspicious” car barn fire. City fathers abandon streetcars in favor of more-flexible busses. The overhead wires and tracks in the streets are incrementally removed and paved over until little trace remains. (Tracks are revealed as cracks in certain streets, if you know where to look.)

The streetcar story touches on dozens of other important and interesting themes in Phoenix history. How did Winnie Ruth Judd get to the train station with her bloody suitcase? Why are there old grocery buildings in the middle of neighborhoods, away from the main streets? Why did the state fairgrounds get its own trolley line, and why is Grand Avenue at that angle?

Historic streetcars are under attack once again, this time being pushed aside for redevelopment of Hance Park. The museum was not included in the Hance Park Master Plan, because it was deemed insufficiently “active” to anchor the important node where Central Avenue crosses over the park. As of January, 2016, the museum has been told by city officials (who hold the land lease) to start making plans to clear out. They suggested September 2017 as being a good date to plan for.

So the Trolley Museum must move. While this puts PTM in peril, it is also an opportunity to make something great for downtown Phoenix. The Trolley Museum and Car 116 is an incredible untapped asset. With an overhaul of the electric motors, the trolley car can run again. We just have to find the right place to put the museum and some tracks, and raise the money to do it.

In response to the city pressure, PTM has adopted a three-year relocation plan. No word yet from the city as to whether they will be given the additional two years. There is a path to salvation, although rutted and potholed. But the process is beyond what the museum of today can achieve without help.

You see, PTM has never really been organizationally functional since the departure of its founder, Larry Fleming, some years ago. The long-time members of the Board of Directors are mostly retirees, as are most of the 30-person general membership. They have little experience in, or energy for, actually running a small museum and in all that should come with it – organizing regular activities, volunteer docents, fundraising, publicity, etc.

What is really needed now is a groundswell of support. The residents and proponents of downtown Phoenix should adopt the Trolley Museum. It needs to be their museum. It needs to have a broader spectrum of members, young to old, united by their excitement in bringing a working historic trolley car to their streets, and in creating a new vision for a museum that celebrates the history of Phoenix and its streetcar system.

The Phoenix Trolley Museum is just kicking off the relocation effort. The first steps are to increase their membership, involve the downtown community in the plan, and reinvigorate the Board of Directors. This will start with the election of new Directors at their annual meeting on March 5. (Interested parties should contact the museum.)

In March and April, the Museum plans a series of public planning workshops to envision what, and where, the new museum can be. Participation of the community will be crucial to breaking out of a 40-year-old shell and emerging as a fledgling, but active, part of the downtown scene.

The author is a Board Member of the Phoenix Trolley Museum and the Grand Avenue Rail Project.

Resurrect the Arizona Museum

Does Phoenix really hate history? Of the top dozen US Cities, Phoenix is the only one without its own historical museum. It’s time to do something about it

By Bob Graham, Motley Design Group

I’m concerned that Phoenix is in danger of losing its sense of history.
Here are the largest cities in the US in order of population: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Austin, Jacksonville, and San Francisco.

What makes Phoenix stand out in this list? It’s the only one that does not have an institution dedicated to its own history. In fact, of the top 25 cities, it appears that only Phoenix, Indianapolis, and Nashville don’t have their own city historical museums – and Indy and Nashville host their state historical museums. (In Arizona, that honor goes to Tucson, with the local branch being in Tempe.) Wait, you say – what about the Phoenix Museum of History? We passed a bond for that back in ’88 and built them a multi-million-dollar building – at the Heritage and Science Park.

Unfortunately, the Arizona Museum, the group that ran the Phoenix Museum of History, was dissolved in 2011. The organization found itself unable to make ends meet after the City of Phoenix halted annual support payments. Their collections of records and artifacts became the property of the neighboring Arizona Science Center, with the understanding that they would keep a certain amount of historical exhibit space in operation, and allowing them to take over the historical museum’s facilities to expand their own mission. However only a portion of the collections were retained, with the remainder cast to the four winds.

The former home of the Phoenix History Museum lies literally in the shadow of the Arizona Science Center.

The takeover was controversial. Talking with some of the principals, there was definitely some bad blood created by the way it happened. Certainly, the museum’s Board was ultimately responsible, but it seems to me that the City set them up for failure by promising $50,000 per year in support and then pulling the rug out from under them at the worst possible time. And the Science Center’s actions appear to be nothing short of predatory.

The Arizona Museum was itself a piece of Phoenix history. Started in 1923 by members of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the museum was born when there were still pioneers around who lived through the creation of the capital of the State of Arizona, from its canals-and-mud-huts roots through the time it started looking and acting like a real city. In 1927, using true old-fashioned small-town, grassroots fundraising, they built an adobe museum building designed by noted local architects Fitzhugh & Byron on a site in University Park leased from the City of Phoenix. The

AZ Museum post Card — The Arizona Museum, depicted in a 1940s postcard

building still stands on the corner of Van Buren Street and 10th Avenue, essentially unaltered except for a coat of stucco added in the 1930s. And there the museum existed, in slow decline, until they moved away in 1996 to occupy the slick, modern building across from the Rosson House. (Thanks to Donna Reiner for her nice article “How Community Built the Arizona Museum,” in the Arizona Republic.)

Of course, there are a number of other historical museums in Phoenix. However, specialty museums such as the Hall of Flame or the Police Museum, and prehistoric museums such as Pueblo Grande, don’t do justice with the story of Phoenix itself, only small segments of that history.

It is an absolute embarrassment that the sixth largest city in the United States can’t marshal enough interest in its history to support an historical museum to remember and celebrate its roots. It is equally embarrassing that our city government not only failed to help save the history museum but in fact contributed to its demise.

So it’s time for all of us historical wonks to get together and form the kind of coalition that it will take to resurrect the Arizona Museum. And it’s time for the City of Phoenix to help fix the mess that they caused during the recession. And it needs to be done before there is any further loss of our historical patrimony.

If it were up to me, I’d recreate the institution in the place it first started – at its historical home in University Park. When the museum moved out, the neighborhood was at rock bottom and the museum was starved of visitors due to the perception of blight that pervaded west Van Buren. Today, the area is once again in ascendance, due to the efforts of the Capitol Mall Association, GAMA, and the recent re-colonization of the surrounding historic neighborhoods by young hipsters. The building stands waiting for the return of its original purpose. Perhaps it would make sense to partner a resurrected Phoenix History Museum with the Phoenix Trolley Museum – who will be losing their home soon due to the redevelopment of Hance Park; it seems like a natural enough partnership, and there is strength in numbers.

This may be one of those situations where need meets opportunity. We need an institution whose purpose it is to safeguard the records and artifacts of Phoenix’s history, and to educate the public and the coming generations about how we came to live in the desert. Those lessons are relevent as we reexamine the sustainability of our lifestyles and re-engineer Phoenix’s urban form. The opportunity is created by an improving economy, rising public interest in history and the growth of the number of constituents choosing to live in our historic core. There is a potential home that is tied to Phoenix history, not a glass and steel piece of moderrn architecture; and there are partnerships that can be created that could strengthen the revitalization of our west-side neighborhoods and other struggling institutions. Let’s take advantage of this convergence and reestablish the Arizona Museum at University Park.

View a print-friendly version of this article here.