Tough Row To Ho

"But with the concentrated effort, instead of the once-a-year media events [of the past], there's been a huge change."

Before, it wasn't unusual to see 50 girls a night along the street, he says. "Now it's not unusual to see only one or two.

A woman is arrested for soliciting sex on Van Buren.

Prostitutes are arrested and then processed in a mobile command post off East Van Buren's beaten track.

Details

Photography by Jackie Mercandetti

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"I'm not discouraged by the fact that there's still prostitution," Hesselbrock says. "Whether it's beating you or you are beating it is the issue."

And if the cops just keep beating it until the light-rail line is up and running and the area is developed over the next several years, he and McIntosh say, Van Buren could once again become Phoenix's Great White Way.

E-mail susy.buchanan@newtimes.com, or call 602-229-8440.