11 March 2016

DYK: Did You Know? Mesa Entertainment District Started A Long Time Ago

Dear readers - and thank you very much for the over 23,000 hits on this MesaZona blog !!! - if you keep your eyes open walking around The New Urban DTMesa there's a series of small bronze plaques mounted all over the place that don't jump out and catch your eyes immediately.
Some are way below eye-level on the ground, some are affixed to the fronts of original historic properties, and some are located in out-of-the-places on the inside of the shade-providing colonnades on the streetscapes of the central heart of this city.
The information about history is here if you look for it.
One of the initiatives in regenerating the new urban DTMesa is the promotion of downtown as an Entertainment District.
If truth be told it's not a new development at all - you can see as early as 1900 as noted in the plaque to the right, on the inside of a colorful column at the intersection of South MacDonald Street and the alley behind 101 West Main Street about Mesa's First Opera House.
The building was part of Mesa's early downtown entertainment district which included Barnett's Hall, Pomeroy Hall and the Zeno Co-Op.
The World Famous Nile Theater is the only one of the entertainment venues in close proximity go this original district that is still providing entertainment and has been doing that for decades, while the others are either vacant and empty or "re-purposed"

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