A festive all-day concert held behind Long Wong's on Mill Avenue will mark the heartbreaking end of a magical era in Tempe that has been crumbling brick by brick for years.
It ain't pretty or fancy - it's cramped, and the faint smell of an unfixable sewage problem brought on by the construction of the neighboring building hits your nose when you walk in the door. But on April 3, a number of local bands that got their start at this friendly neighborhood watering hole are all clamoring to get the chance to play there one last time.
The show will take place just a few weeks before the monument that started out as a residence 80 years ago is scheduled to become a pile of ashes which will be resurrected as a large two-story money-making machine. The new building, which should nicely complement the steely Orwellian facelift Mill Avenue has been receiving lately, will be designed by Stuart Siefer. Siefer's architectural firm occupied the building until it became Long Wong's on New Year's Eve 15 years ago.
Places like Long Wong's that have been mainstays in Tempe for a long time are what give Tempe it's ever-fading cultural and old world appeal that the rest of the Valley simply doesn't have. Generation after generation of Tempeans have worked, laughed and loved within the walls of Long Wong's.
The owners, Scott Magill and Shirree Magill met there 14 years ago when Shirree went there to celebrate a friend's birthday, and a strapping young Scott had recently purchased the place.
But now there are no plans to reopen Long Wong's once construction on the new building is finished. The owners are waiting to see the new lease, but even if they decided to come back, it would most likely be reincarnated as a Teakwood's Tavern. The Magill's currently own two of these pubs in the Valley.
The losses of Tempe's historic buildings touch me, in particular, because I have been unable to retain a lot of my own personal history. Envision your home, your town and all the familiar sights and sounds associated with it. Now imagine if roughly once a month there was a building or a place that you absolutely loved that was torn down, and within the sacred walls of this place were harbored memories of childhood and of relatives that have since passed on. Now imagine that building replaced by a big, fat, unfriendly, cheesy-looking P.F. Chang's, or Starbucks. Sound depressing? Well, that is Tempe life in a nutshell. It's hard to hang on to anything, but the friendly, charming Tempe that I grew up with makes it equally difficult to let go.
This citywide transformation has been occurring because of the rapid influx of people who discovered Arizona on the map about 30 years ago and chose to come here and make it their very own neon dream.
At one time, not long ago, Mill Avenue was an eclectic assortment of privately owned pubs and shops like Rundle's Liquors, 6 East, Spaghetti Company, and Ethel's Attic. Zia Records and Casey Moore's were even on Mill Avenue before they relocated down the street. Shirree Magill even has vague memories of a bowling alley. One by one these shops have come under the wrecking ball, or at the very least, new corporate ownership. They are now billowing edifices of concrete and glass that hide the blue sky, shun the less affluent college crowd and have nothing to do with Tempe.
When I asked Shirree Magill if she was sad to see Long Wong's go, she replied that she was, but that Tempe wasn't the same anymore, and perhaps Long Wong's didn't have a place on Mill Avenue any longer.
Sadly, I resign myself to the fact that she is right, and I must adjust myself to the new Mill Avenue. I want to leave here soon, as many long-time residents already have. It's funny to see how the large corporations that now own our country have an effect in places you would have never expected, to make you want to leave your home, or perhaps simply make your home leave you.
Nicole Girard is a journalism graduate student. Reach her at nicole.girard@asu.edu.
