Seven Fridays in South Phoenix
Observations, Reflections, and
Photographs by Matthew Alan Lord
Anticipation is looking for something rather than
at something.
-Hugh Prather
South Phoenix by
Bus
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“I first became acquainted with “El
Nuevo Mundo” of Latino Los Angeles while traveling east along
boulevards… and north-south along Central Avenue.” Thus did the
artist Camilo José Vergara introduce his photographic tour of Latino
Los Angeles entitled “El Nuevo Mundo: The Landscape of Latino
Los Angeles.” This is essentially how I first encountered South
Phoenix, making the occasional trek to South Mountain Park or
visiting the junk yards along Broadway hunting for car parts. I
have continued to view South Phoenix largely from the street,
primarily in passing through it on my way to Laveen.
Thinking about this and Dr.
Koptiuch’s suggestion that we consider a photographic essay for one
of our projects led me to come up with the product you see before
you: a photographic study of South Phoenix done by riding every
public bus route in the area south of I-17 and west of I-10. This
extends beyond the borders of South Phoenix used in the class (a few
routes touch the northeastern part of Laveen, and this is north of
the Salt River), but the nature of the routes and considerations
made these borders seem more appropriate for this study.
Unlike Vergara, I took to riding
the bus not “searching for something ‘different’,” or to “discover”
South Phoenix in the way that his critics charged him with doing in
LA. I have been quite struck by how much my classmates this
semester view on South Phoenix as a place apart, how much they
accentuate what is (to them) unusual about this place when, in fact,
much of the landscape, many of the people, and what transpires here
is so mundane as to be banal. If anything, neither South Phoenix
nor mass transit are quite so alien, exotic, or dangerous spaces as
most suburbanites imagine.
Although there are significant
differences between riding mass transit and commuting by car, they
are strikingly alike in one respect: boredom dominates the ride.
This is why so many seek a diversion by listening to the radio or
squawk on mobile phones are popular pastimes. Bus riders have the
added option of reading, a widely-observed choice. Bus riders do
have infinitely greater opportunity for personal interactions with
strangers, but most people keep to themselves. As for conversation,
however, buses are quiet most of the time. The driver answering
questions of those boarding, followed by mobile phone calls, and,
most dramatically, groups who board together, disrupt the calm most
often. The occasional cacophony such parties bring is a welcome
interruption of the otherwise uneventful ride, distracting one from
thinking about how much longer this takes than driving a car does.
Among the groups observed during this project were a gregarious
cluster of teenagers just out of school, three older Hispanic
gentlemen animatedly gesticulating and sharing inside jokes in
Spanish, and a couple of drunks mumbling amongst themselves after
they stumbled on in the wee hours of the morning, Although the
passengers usually keep their silence, the ride is sufficiently
noisy. The grinding of the gears, the hissing of the brakes, and the
ringing tone that signals a deboarding request dominate what one
hears.
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