Come on, guys, it's a Z

My neighbor first caught the new spelling. Like me, he did not think to record a picture of one of the signs with the correct -- or at least previous -- spelling, A-Z-T-E-C, referring to the indigenous people of Mexico City.

By the time I had a chance to take pictures, the mistake had been compounded. No evidence left that the little one and a half block long alley street had ever been known by a different name. Except on city maps, of course, and in the county real estate/tax records.

OK, I thought, I'll give the city roads department one more chance to get off the hook. Maybe, if I check The Google, I'll discover that there's an alternative spelling that's recently come into vogue. I found that there's Astec Models (radio-controlled racing boats) ... Advanced Science and Technology Education Charter schools ... Astec Inc, manufacturer of hot-mix asphalt ... Astec Industries who design/engineer/manufacture components for road building. No, we simply have a case of misspelling a street name, plain and simple. Maybe they'll correct it one of these days.

City streets

Good question: why would anyone want to stand in the middle of the street, point a camera toward the vanishing point and take not one, but four different pictures of different street views? I suppose the answer is simply because it can be done. And maybe the results might be interesting. Whatever. For the record, the top picture is Goodwin Street looking west (and catching part of Thumb Butte in the process). The image below looks east past the public library; it's difficult to tell where the road ends because of the rise. Time: mid-afternoon, giving very blue skies to the east, and nearly white sunlit skies to the west. Both pictures were taken in front of the downtown post office.

Cortez, on the other hand, is a street with a definite beginning and definite end. Looking north (into a blue sky), it arrives at the old Santa Fe depot and that's it. The view south from the depot winds up in the hills only a few blocks from the Square.

Yes, I am aware that Gurley and Montezuma deserve the same treatment, but I wasn't on the right street corner at the right time and don't know when I will be any time soon. There you have it.

Lively Streets 1: Signs

As one who walks, I find the liveliness of the street is an essential part of life in a city, even a small one. I'm a partisan of a lady named Jane Jacobs, who wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities way back in the late 60s. She was the scourge of grand urban redevelopment schemes, planners, many architects, and most city officials. Her point of view was that:

The city is like a living being that is born, grows, matures, decays and can revive. The elements of the city, "the people, streets, parks, neighborhoods, the government, the economy," cannot exist without one another and are, like the organs of the human body, connected with each other.

In this evolutionary approach streets play an important role: they are the lifeblood where urban dwellers meet each other and where trade and commercial activities take place. The street is the scene a "sidewalk ballet," according to Jacobs, which determines the security, social cohesion and economic development of cities. From this perspective, even taking out the garbage or having a talk with a passer-by is a deed of dramatic expression. These every day acts make a city into a vital city.


Frankly, she wouldn't have had any truck with city officials who get uptight about signs hung on light poles, looking for lost cats & dogs or announcing the discovery of same. Or promoting a rock concert. Or a civic meeting. Or a book. Whatever.


I love these signs. I read them. I wonder if the cat was ever found. I am tempted to visit the yard sale or the open house. Buy the book. The signs announce that Things Are Happening in the neighborhood, that it isn't dead yet.


Similarly, street signs in front of businesses (usually on tourist weekends only) give you a taste of what you might find inside -- without having to make a commitment.

(Sometimes they even match the yellow SUV parked in front! I'm having a great run of colorful vehicles, as you may have noticed.)



I certainly agree that signs on the streets are neither tidy nor orderly. That's the point, according to Jacobs, who says you can't plan a wonderful street-scape, but must let it grow. Let's face it -- we're damned lucky here in Prescott to have a downtown -- though we have to thank the tourists and merchants, not the developers.

(I suspect she would have questioned the wisdom of banning smoking in bars in a tourist town, by the way. I wonder if those local folk who voted for the ban were secret tidiers voting to destroy downtown -- they certainly aren't out in their numbers to patronize Whiskey Row saloons. Anybody out there got current numbers?)


Yes, things tend to be a little messy in a proper city. But then uptight tidy and orderly is for cemeteries.

Note: the comments about Jane Jacobs were from an article by Gert-Jan Hospers at the Preservenet site.