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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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