Surreal Estate

Image: Underground Ball Pit Opens for Halloween

Underground Ball Pit Opens for Halloween

Image: 19th-Century Clinton Campbell House Slated for Demo

19th-Century Clinton Campbell House Slated for Demo

The Legend of Tempe's Legend City Amusement Park Lives On

By Robrt L. Pela
Nov 10, 2015

The art of looking back will never leave us. Witness the Tempe History Museum’s new exhibit, a year-long tribute to the long-dead amusement park Legend City. The exhibition opened last Friday, and features pieces of some of the park’s best-remembered rides, old ticket stubs and flyers, even an employee uniform...
Robrt Pela Tours Gilbert's New Mormon Temple

By Robrt L. Pela
Feb 19, 2014

I visited the new Mormon temple in Gilbert. The big, beautiful art glass windows were worth the trip. The wall-to-wall interior limestone was stunning; the crystal chandeliers were magnificent. The building's castle-like, three-story neoclassic façade, layered with concrete and white quartz and topped by a 195-foot spire, is straight off...
Dan Harkins on Camelview 5's Impending Closure in Scottsdale

By Robrt L. Pela
Jan 30, 2014

The single-screen cinema, with its balconies and ushers and double features, has joined vaudeville and silent pictures in our hazy American memory. And yet those of us intent on sanctimonious navel-gazing must whine, occasionally, about the good old days, when one saw two carefully paired feature-length films and a couple...
Holiday Lights Decorating in Phoenix Is the Super Store of Christmas Decor

By Robrt L. Pela
Dec 17, 2013

There used to be an appliance store way down at the end of South Central Avenue -- past Buckeye Road, and across from the police station -- called Camp Appliances. And one December, about a decade ago, it briefly became a vintage Christmas decorations store. Piled on and around the...
Changes at Bragg's Pie Factory Include Smaller Gallery Spaces and (Finally) Pie

By Robrt L. Pela
May 20, 2013

At long last, there's pie again at Bragg's Pie Factory. A new vegan cafe, Bragg's Factory Diner, has opened in the very spot out of which the Bragg family originally sold cakes and pies in the '40s and '50s. See also: - Lunch Under $10 at Bragg's Factory Diner Now...