Hy-View Subdivision

Another really cool neighborhood in Phoenix Metro is the Hy-View Subdivision. Located north of Papago Park and just a tad west of Scottsdale, the area boasts interesting architecture, a beautiful urban mountain park, and even an amazing piece of Arizona history.





Developed into a neighborhood in the early 60's, the neighborhood was designed to blend into the desert a little better than other Phoenix neighborhoods from that time of unbelievable growth in the Valley. And good thing for that, nestled close to the beautiful 'rugged' Papago Park, that decision was very wise planning for those years.

South of the neighborhood is Papago Park with it's beautiful red rock formations, a feast for the eyes.


Crowing Papago Park is the fantastic Hole in the Rock with a view south toward the busy Sky-Harbor Airport.




In addition to the rugged landscape, the area hosts the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Gardens. If you ride your mountain bike south-east from the Hy-View neighborhood toward Hunt's Tomb, you might be able to catch some of the rare Arabian Oryx grazing up on the Red Rocks. No entrance fee, tell then Kotkas sent you :) .

It is hard to think when zooming your bike through this lovely desert bordered neighborhood that you are just minutes away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Phoenix.

I also mentioned history. During World War II the Papago Park area hosted a Allied camp built to hold Axis prisoners. The POW camp was the home of a famous escape plot still talked about by old-timers. Indeed, the Elks Lodge that borders the Hy-View subdivision has some of the few remaining pieces of the old POW camp.

Another of my favorite Valley neighborhoods. I will blog about these and more, but please share some of your favorites.

Cheers, nca

Sunnyslope

Now that I am the last of the 'Kotkas' siblings living in the Phoenix metro area, I wanted to highlight some things I really like about the area. A lot of people think of the Stucco Cardboard box houses in the suburbs when they think of housing in Arizona. Lots of ranch style homes with little personality.

But trust me when I say that there are many charming neighborhoods in the Phoenix metro area.

One area I drove through recently was Sunnyslope. Sunnyslope is in the northern part of traditional Phoenix, designated roughly between 19th street and 16th street west and east, and Cactus and Northern for north and south.

The area is not cookie cutter by any means. Even when I was a kid I enjoyed biking and later driving through the houses near Central Avenue and Northern. They seemed opulent (yet classy) in comparison to the little dinky tract home of my youth.


Lined with mature trees and irrigated expansive lawns. Nice size lots, and a variety of architecture types. Xeriscape was not even a term when these houses were built. Not that I have an issue with that urban philosophy, but the trees and the rolling lawns do seem to give this neighborhood a life.


North of the neighborhood, and easy bike ride away, are rugged mountains excellent for hiking and mountain biking.

Many of the lots in this area are a tad bigger than other Phoenix urban neighborhoods, and it is not uncommon in some areas to see the house sitting slight angled to the street instead of straight forward.

Truly, a neighborhood worth visiting.

Cheers, nca

Home is Where Your Heart Is

My youngest brother and his family are moving to Colorado this summer. That makes me the last of my siblings to live here in the Valley of the Sun. sure, there is a nephew, a niece,  and some distant grand nieces/nephews, along with my daughters and grand-kids....but I alone represent the 'great' Adler clan that was a fixture here since the early '50s.

 What did the Valley and Arizona mean to the Adler clan?

Where do I start?

Little League Baseball on summer evenings, Madison Pool splashes, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Bell's Restaurant, Mining Camp, Papago Park and Legend City. Town and Country Shopping Mall, Thrifty Ice Cream, pretending to be mannequins. Finding junk in the alley, the Indian Trading post, Bayless Groceries and museum.

St. Thomas, altar boys, Catholic girls, nuns and swimming pools. Playing ditch'em, British bulldog, and kill the guy with the ball on the football field. Camelback Spartans, Brophy Broncos, and CCD.

Phoenix Giants, Dodger Broadcasts, Phoenix Suns and Gorilla. TGIF, Ramone's and La Placita. Wallace and Ladmo, Lew King Rangers, Gerald, Romper Room, and Dewey Hopper fan club.

Long bike rides all over the Valley, knowing where all the good drinking fountains were hidden. Pink Sidewalk and the reservoir, Squaw Peak (Piestewa), North Mountain, South Mountain, Estrella and the San Tans...not to forget Coon Bluff, Superstitions, Mingas, and the Bradshaws. Bapchule, Ditch Day, 7th Grade Dance, 8th Grade Dance. Ice Cream Socials, Big Surf, Cinema Capri and Chris-town Mall.

I'm sure I can go on an on.  The Valley has so many memories for my siblings and me. I don't want to be the old man/keeper of memories. But the memories stack up in my mind like vintage hub caps at a junk yard. I don't want to throw them away in case one or two of them are actually valuable to someone.

It is strange to think that I am the one that stayed. In my youth I was sort of the one that hitch-hiked around the country and seemed relatively unstable, like a tumbleweed. Yet, 55 years into the Valley I am the last of us 8 siblings still here. With daughters and grands, I am not going anywhere.

This is a good home, a very good home. And home is where the heart is.

Cheers, nca

Irreverant Earth

If I knew then what I knew now. How often have us quasi-adults thought that same thought. But not just what we now know, but the tools we now have at our fingertips. I've talked about apps on this blog before. But my goodness,  what havoc some of today's apps would have done to my character if they were let loose upon my formulating childhood!

I was born chock full of mischief. Staying after school writing lines was a regular occurrence in my elementary days. I somehow always sought that which was most mischievous and embraced it with a vigor. But if I had some of the technological tools available now back in my day, oh the trials I could have put the nuns at my school through.

Google Earth comes to my mind today. It amazes me that I can type in an address anywhere in the world and pull up satellite or street images with a few key strokes. What an amazing bit of technology that is. And oh so useful.

I remember as an elementary youth trying to sneak through the oleanders down by the baseball field to get a peak at the swimming pool on the convent property. Yes, those sassy nuns had their own swimming pool, and by golly my youthful imagination wanted to know just what went on back there while we were out sweating on the sports fields.

Were the nuns doing Busby Berkley synchronized patterns out in the pool?

Were they secretly dressing in sleek bikinis with their habits amiss?

Was Father D#^&* throwing ribald raucous swimming parties like a pious Hugh Hefner behind our very backs?

We just had to know. It was one of the playgrounds greatest mysteries and we, like countless classes of boys before and after us just were dying to know. What went on back behind the oleanders at the convent swimming pool?

But low and behold, a few clicks on Google Earth, and there it is, as plain as day.

         

I can now view, with mystery deflated like a thrice punctured bicycle tire, from my lofty perch from a satellite orbiting earth....exactly what was going on in the convent swimming pool. Absolutely flipping nothing.

Maybe some mysteries are better left...without an app.   :)

Cheers, nca


p.s. (editors note) ... This is the second Kotkas posting involving a risque picture of a nun. Hmmm. What's Freudian drivel could that be ? :)