Our Street: Meet the people working to revitalize Sunnyslope's Hatcher Road
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The Show's series, Our Street, is taking a closer look at neighborhoods around metro Phoenix — and what makes them tick.
From bustling urban cores to up-and-coming developments, The Show wants to find out about the most interesting parts of the Valley.
Hatcher Road is the main street that runs through a classic Phoenix neighborhood: Sunnyslope.
Sunnyslope runs — officially — from Northern Avenue to North Mountain, 19th Avenue on the west to 16th Street on the east. The first subdivisions were built there in the early 1900s, when people came in search of the health benefits of living in the dry, desert climate. And they were often poor people — they built tent houses or little cottages amid the cactus and sagebrush.
The neighborhood boomed in the late 1940s post-World War II, and since then, it’s gone through various stages of growth and redevelopment.
Today, it’s a mix of the wealthy and the working class — and has a reputation for its tight-knit, diverse community and artistic bend. And it’s been experiencing a surge of redevelopment of late.
But as with everything, the pandemic threw a wrench into a lot of that.
To find out where things are now, The Show spoke with Caroline Lobo, president of Hatcher Urban Businesses, known as HUB. HUB has been working for years now to revitalize Sunnyslope, and its main drag, Hatcher Road.
