Roy Place office then

Roy Place office now

Recognize these photos? It was the location of the former Walgreen’s downtown which closed sometime after 2001, but the facade has now been restored, and the building rented to the University of Arizona as a center for “urban design, planning and policy classes” for graduate students. The College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture will be the new tenant, and Pima County is the lessor/owner. Read more in Arizona Daily star article:

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/college/article_623b03b1-baae-51db-85ba-8043e142cbfd.html.

Or in UA News (click here).

It was the office of local architect Roy Place, who also built the Pioneer Hotel, Roskruge Elementary and Mansfeld Middle Schools, the St. Benedictine Monastery.

The dedication for this building will be on Thursday, Dec. 16 at 2 p.m. with UA President Robert Shelton and Fred DuVal, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents. The dedication ceremony will be on the NW corner of N. Stone and E. Pennington Street at Jacome Plaza, although this Roy Place building is at that same intersection on the SE corner, 44 N. Stone Avenue.

I used to shop in there at Walgreen’s when I worked downtown on Pennington Street at the Domestic Violence Commission (now defunct). But it’s wonderful to see the original facade restored, especially as it was Roy Place’s architect office, which looked out upon the lovely Pima County Courthouse, which he built in 1929. It is perhaps his most famous building in Tucson.

For website of Pima County Consolidated Justice Courts/Courthouse, click here.

Incidentally I have held court (Small Claims) in that historic courthouse building for the Pima County Consolidated Justice Courts, although our courtroom is now in the La Placita Village down south on Church Avenue.

St. Benedictine monastery, Tucson

The Benedictine Sisters arrived in Tucson, Arizona from Missouri in August, 1935 (when the population here was only 39,000) and have been praying and worshiping for 75 years since then. Bishop Gerald Kicanas officiated over their celebratory Mass today at their chapel at 800 N. Country Club. Concelebrants were Rev. Pat Crino and Rev. Miguel Mariano. (see correction below in comments)

Bishop Kicanas spoke of St. Benedict‘s teachings saying that he believed that “God is present in every human being, that every person is a gift of God”. He also preached that “community is important, all can be a family/household in Christ.” The Bishop emphasized that Benedict taught that we need to “seek God above all”, as these Benedictine sisters have done for 75 years in Tucson.

St. Benedict, from wikpedia

What I found particularly moving in today’s Mass was hearing the sweet, lovely voices of the Sisters’ Choir, especially singing the communion song’s lyrics “worthy are the ones who believe to receive the goodness of God.”

“The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration are a contemporary monastic community with a distinctive dedication to the Eucharist.” Their information card states that they “serve the Church through our contemplative prayer, and witness to God’s presence in our world through community life, hospitality and a ministry of the Word”…

The monastery was build in 1940 by local architect Roy Place, who is perhaps best known for his 1928 Pima County Courthouse downtown. This monastery has also been called “The Pink Rose of the Desert”.

The St. Benedictine chapel is open every day, all day. Learn more about them at www.tucsonmonastery.com, phone 520-325-6401, email: osbtucson@benedictinesisters.org. They have very nice items for sale in their gift shop, which is also open every day.

I wrote about them last November, 2009 when they hosted the Tucson Boys Choir concert there (click here).

Alvina later single handedly homesteaded with her 4 daughters after she was divorced in 1927. In 1934 or 1935 Mrs. Himmel Edmondson sold part of her large homestead to the City of Tucson (for $3500), with the proviso that the land become a park named for her father Adolph Himmel and mother Harriette Himmel. Her father was a well-known silversmith in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This was an amazing pioneer woman and was obviously one of the first residents of what later became Sam Hughes Neighborhood.

At that time her closest neighbors were 2 miles away, and in a May 21, 1942 article (found in the Tucson Citizen archives), she relayed to the reporter that “coyotes, rattlesnakes and Indians caused her great uneasiness.” A photo of Alvina and her original redwood home accompanied the article. (I was unable to locate the original photo itself in the Tucson Citizen or Arizona Daily Star archives, or at the Arizona Historical Society (AHS). I made copies of the article/photo which are now in files at both Himmel library and the AHS.)

The neighborhood grew in that central area after the building of the elementary school (built in 1927 by famous local architect Roy Place), which was named for Sam Hughes, a businessman and politician. Hughes came to Tucson in 1858 and later married a local Mexican woman Atanacia Santa Cruz, and had 15 children (5 died in infancy) here in Tucson. Sam Hughes died in 1917 after Arizona became the 48th state in 1912. The Sam Hughes Elementary School is at 700 N. Wilson Avenue.

Alvina Himmel Edmondson died at age 78 on January 11, 1948, exactly 62 years ago, in the original redwood home (located at 2625 E. 1st Street — no longer there in Sam Hughes Neighborhood) on the land she had homesteaded on. Her daughter Catherine Edmondson continued to live in that house till the early 1970′s. From the address, that original homesite is now a parking lot of Catalina United Methodist Church, 2700 E. Speedway Blvd.

That’s the origin of Himmel Park, which was later expanded with more land purchases in 1944, and then the Himmel Park branch library was built in the northeast area of the park in 1961. The library is almost a historic building being nearly 50 years old, but the entire Sam Hughes neighborhood is already designated a National Historic District. This neighborhood’s boundaries are Speedway to Country Club to Broadway to Campbell Avenue, east of the University of Arizona.

Himmel Park branch library

For more information about Himmel Park branch library, log into their website, and for the Sam Hughes Neighborhood Association, see their website at www.samhughes.org.