Arts district
Roosevelt Row
Murals, galleries, and First Fridays — one of the country’s largest self-guided art walks.
Read the block01 — The story
From Hohokam canals to skyline cranes
Downtown Phoenix is not a postcard dropped on a grid. It is a desert city that kept the idea of water, then built a walkable core where a Victorian house sits near a ballpark.
Whether you are here for a First Friday crawl, a Diamondbacks game, or a pizza that people plan trips around, the core is compact enough to do on foot and by rail. The name phxdwntwn.com is the short version of that invitation.
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Long before 1867
Hohokam canal builders irrigated this desert. The city still sits on the ancestral lands of the O’Odham and Piipaash peoples.
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1867–1881
Jack Swilling followed those old waterways. The townsite was chosen in 1870. Phoenix incorporated in 1881. Darrell Duppa’s name stuck: a place meant to rise again.
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1894–1895
Rosson House, a Queen Anne landmark, and the Adams Hotel, the city’s first luxury stay.
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1928–1929
Hotel San Carlos opens with early high-rise air conditioning. The Orpheum debuts. The Heard Museum is founded.
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1919–1930s
Heard Building, Luhrs Tower, and the Professional Building — the last later used in Hitchcock’s Psycho.
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Now
Machine shops become dining rooms. Residential towers change the skyline. The light rail makes the core walkable in a way the summer heat demands.
