Photos by Downtown Devil staff
During the 2010-2011 school year, students at ASU’s Downtown campus witnessed changes to downtown Phoenix’s businesses, art festivals and even the city’s skyline.
ASU students were visited by Joe Arpaio, Lady Gaga, dozens of Lady Gaga look-alikes, David Muir and Diane Sawyer, but were forced to say goodbye to restaurants, people and a crumbling pink motel.
The downtown community changed a lot in the past year, physically and culturally. In August, vendors were banned from the First Fridays art walk in downtown’s Roosevelt Row. In November, downtown residents and students fought for a dog park across from Taylor Place, in what would eventually become a parking lot.
CityScape, a 1.8 million-square-foot multi-purpose downtown commercial center, opened in the fall. Since then several stores and restaurants have populated the complex to mixed fanfare. Meanwhile, the Arizona Center found a new owner after months of being shopped around on the market.
Downtown restaurant closures made headlines, as did a neo-Nazi rally that turned violent when police used tear gas to force protesters to move out of the way. Students living in Taylor Place found high prices at the convenience store and poor nutrition at the dining hall to be expected, but were surprised to learn bedbugs were also on the menu.
Elections were once again a hot topic on the Downtown campus. On election night in November, ABC News came to the Walter Cronkite School with correspondent David Muir in tow to broadcast town-hall election coverage on national television. After a challenging year, ASASUD offered students another interesting election, disqualifying, re-qualifying and finally electing Joseph Grossman and David Bakardjiev president and vice president.
The year ended like most do, however, with downtown Phoenix saying goodbye to friends both new and old. Last week, urbanism advocate Yuri Artibise moved to Canada after coordinating Jane’s Walk, Park(ing) Day and CenPhoCamp in Phoenix, and the Cronkite School said farewell to the Humphrey Fellows, a group of visiting journalists from Asia and Eastern Europe who attended the school for 10 months. University Vice President Debra Friedman, the most senior administrator on the Downtown campus, is also leaving soon to take a job at University of Washington Tacoma.
As the page turns on the spring 2011 semester, we at the Downtown Devil want to say thank you to all of our readers, but we won’t say goodbye just yet. We’ll be back full-time in the fall, and for the first time we’ll be publishing on a weekly basis this summer starting in June and as news demands.
Stay tuned.
