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.

One night only (March 31), “Sizzle“, advertised as a global warming comedy will be at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway at 7 p.m., with writer/director Randy Olson in person. Dr. Olson is a Harvard educated Ph.D. in marine biology, who has turned into a filmmaker, whose previous film was the 2006 “A Flock of Dodos.”

“Sizzle” is a “unique hybrid of three genres — mockumentary, documentary and reality — that Variety called, “an exceedingly clever vehicle for making science engaging to a general audience.” It is the only U.S. movie that presents both sides of the global warming issue, and is more timely than ever given the rocky waters the global warming movement has recently hit.”

Copies of Dr. Randy Olson‘s new book, “Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style,” will also be available for sale and signing at this event.

UA faculty and Dr. Olson will do a Q & A after the film. He will be joined by UA climate scientists Julia Cole and Diana Liverman, biologist Lisa Graumlich, and journalism professor Jacqueline Sharkey.

Presented by UA School of Earth & Environmental Sciences. For more info:Gabriela Guglielmo at 520-621-2027, gbg@email.arizona.edu or log onto UA News at : http://uanews.org/node/30295

movie poster

What’s there to do under the hot Tucson Sun? Tucson is a large Southwest desert city with lots to do, being as it lies in Pima County, Arizona with now a population of over 1 million residents.

Here’s a partial list of publications some of which have print editions and/or online event calendars for community happenings. Locate the website online and click on “calendar” or “events”.

Arizona Daily Star, www.azstarnet.com

Tucson Weekly, www.tucsonweekly.com

Arizona Daily Wildcat, www.wildcat.arizona.edu

www.uanews.org (University of Arizona)

Explorer News, www.explorernews.com

Green Valley News & Sun, www.gvnews.com

Inside Tucson Business, www.azbiz.com

Tucson Lifestyle, www.tucsonlifestyle.com

Tucson Green Times, www.tucsongreentimes.com (UpDATE Nov. 2010, now The New Southwest, www.TheNewSouthwest.com)

Desert Leaf, www.desertleaf.com

www.dotucson.com

www.tucsonstyle.com

Downtown Tucsonan, www.downtowntucson.com

Zocalo, www.zocalotucson.com

Bear Essential News (for Kids), www.bearessentialnews.com

Tucson Peace Calendar, www.peacecalendar.org

Never Too Late, www.pcoa.org (Pima Council on Aging)

Vermilion Flycatcher (Tucson Audubon Society), www.tucsonaudubon.org

www.wingspan.org (Wingspan-LGBT)

There’s lots to do here in the Old Pueblo and surrounding Pima County areas –you only have to look in some of these community resources to find an activity! Please share your other event/calendar listings in the comments below.