You are right that downtown PHX was a mess by 2005. Some of it (I think the area with the vacant lots you pictured, if that is the area south of the below grade IH10 below the museum and library), was leveled in the late 1990s. It was mostly early 20th century houses and small business structures at the time of demolition. It was in rough shape, but it had a certain strange charm. Anyway, there was not much life in downtown when I briefly lived in PHX in 1994-95. I couldn't handle the heat, but that is another story. Yes, my grandmother made a full recovery. My grandparents were very big on road trips and starting in the 1920s they would take long trips, accompanied by my mother, uncle, and some of their cousins to places all over the western US. My mother used to have amazing scrap books filled with pictures of these land voyages. I don't think she realized how remarkable those trips really were.
Here's a link with lots of pics of PHX downtown and midtown in the 1960s.
https://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/r...e-sixties.html
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