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Talk of Arizona
Fall 2014
The essay included the assessment of Tucson Mayor James Corbett that Speedway was the ugliest street in America.
The opening photo in the eight-page package showed Speedway facing east near Country Club Road as a barrage of business signs, billboards and bumper-to-bumper traffic.
People in Tucson at the time claimed the photo was doctored, although no one who drove that stretch in 1970s or 1980s would deny the boulevard was an advertising assault on the eyes.
A little aside: The text of accompanying the photos was written by longtime Life staffer Loudon Wainwright Jr., whose son is the somewhat well-known musician/ songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. The younger Wainwright would release his one hit a couple years later, an ode not to roadside blight but to roadkill, “Dead Skunk.”
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