Although I sometimes characterize Hooterville as a soulless hellhole, that only a crazy person would live in, there are many spots in the city that are not Wonder Bread blah. This is the 4th Avenue underpass, which opened a week or so ago. It connects North 4th Avenue with downtown. The underpass was built to accommodate cars, bikes, pedestrians and the Old Pueblo Trolley. The City of Hooterville spent about twice what they planned for the underpass, but all the city big shots gathered to congratulate themselves on the project anyhow. The operative phrase they chose for the project was "Connecting the University of Arizona and Downtown." The fact that the old 4th Avenue underpass, which was demolished as part of the project, had been connecting the two areas since the 1920's was conveniently overlooked. Fourth Avenue is a business district of small restaurants, coffee shops, bars, bookstores and shops specializing in handcrafted products. Or as your average Hootervillian would describe it, "A goddamn bunch of hippies, panhandlers and drug addicts." This building in the middle of the Fourth Avenue district, has generally housed thrift stores of one sort or another over the years. It was prominently featured in the movie Tin Cup. This interesting stencil is on the front of a bar. Sort of a mermaid meets the Aztecs. I don't know if you would call this a gargoyle or not, but it guards the door to a shop. The owners of a bar called The Hut hauled this Tiki fellow across town from his previous at a miniature golf course which closed up. He is now the entrance to the bar on North 4th. I have more pictures of Fourth Avenue which I will post tomorrow in part II. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky