When I started the North Phoenix Blog in 2008, I was following the trend (or arguably, late to the game) as “the blogosphere” was taking off. While I did not imagine being the next Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Mashable, Gizmodo, or BuzzFeed, I was hoping to ride their coattails to some kind of success. This was an era when it seemed like everyone had a blog, and that independent writers were upending the world of traditional news and journalism.
As a self-appointed blogger/wannabe-journalist, I wrote to an audience that I felt was underrepresented in the news. I created North Phoenix Blog to focus on news and events in the rapidly-growing Deer Valley and Norterra regions of Phoenix. As it turned out, I picked a topic that was WAY too specialized and an audience that was too small to be sustainable. The Great Recession brought all new construction to a halt, and it was years before anything significant happened in the region.
Undeterred, I continued writing and eventually explored more historical topics, even writing some long-form pieces that I am still very proud of. The site maintenance began to increase: deleting spam comments, fixing broken links, and updating older posts with new information.
Around 2010-2012, the blogosphere lost its influence as social media platforms grew. For me, blogging felt less like a fun side project and more like a job I wasn’t getting paid for.
I wrote for North Phoenix Blog for 15 years, publishing more than 230 articles for the site. Some of them did well, especially the nostalgia posts. While I made a trickle of revenue from AdSense, the commercial success I hoped for never came.
By 2021, I had run out of steam for the site. I have only published occasionally since then, and I have not added to the site since 2023. The North Phoenix Blog is on hiatus.
With that, I leave you with a curated selection of the site’s Greatest Hits, for any new readers who happen upon the site.
Greatest Hits
- You Grew Up In The 80s In Phoenix If You...
- You Lived in Phoenix in the 60s, 70s, and 80s If...
- Failed Dreams: A Look Back at Defunct Businesses of Phoenix
- 101 Things to Do in Phoenix
- Top 10 Arizona Myths Busted
- 11 Historic Houses in Arizona
- 15 Historic Hotels in Arizona
- Great Bridges of Arizona
- Top 15 Hipster Hangouts in Phoenix
History
- The History of Metrocenter Mall
- Exploring the Ruins of Phoenix's Cloud Nine Restaurant
- The History of Lake Pleasant
- History of the Cine Capri Theatre in Phoenix
- History of Veterans Memorial Coliseum
- Remembering the El Cid Castle in Sunnyslope
- Remembering the Sundome in Sun City West
- Remembering Lenny Monti's Restaurant
- Duppa Homestead: The Oldest House in Phoenix
- 7 Historic Phoenix Businesses That Are Still Open Today
- ValTrans: An Idea Ahead of Its Time
- The Gold Spot: Phoenix's Underground Bowling Alley
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