| All rights reserved. |
| MORE ARIZONA LINKS! |
| DANCE AT THE RIVERSIDE BALLROOM 1908 Riverside Park Ballroom, where thousands danced to Bob Fite and his Western Playboys. It was a place where the teenagers of a once small town Phoenix came to listen to big bands, slow dance, and, sometimes, fall in love. The Riverside Ballroom was once the center of social events for young adults in Phoenix when the likes of Fats Domino was on stage. There was always a band playing at Phoenix 's fanciest restaurants and finest hotels, but Phoenix 's all-time favorite dance hall had to have been Riverside Ballroom. Riverside was home of the name bands, and all of America 's best played there. To get to the Ballroom, you went South on Central Avenue, out past the edge of town, almost to the Salt River . Riverside 's open-air dance pavilion was built around 1914. After a flood washed it away, a round, wooden Ballroom was built in its place. There wasn't any air conditioning back then, but if the dance floor got a little too steamy, the sides of the place could open to keep the place cool. There was something for everyone at Riverside Ballroom. Thursday nights were devoted to Phoenix's black community, and some of the nation's finest entertainers like Fats Domino, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington performed there. On Fridays, it was collegiate night. The bar served soft drinks, and the place was overrun with kids from high schools and junior college. But Saturday at Riverside was a slightly different story. Lou Ella Kleinz: "Saturday night was kind of a night that you stayed away. That was kind of a -- well, I remember the Russians from Glendale used to come there on a Saturday night, and they would fight with the local boys. And it used to be Saturday night was fight night. Friday night was collegiate night." On Sundays the Mexican people, the Hispanics, it was their night. They had a place to go, and they went there every Sunday. It was like a big family, like everybody knew everybody else, and it was just mucho gusto to be there. It would be packed, 2,000 people or more. The honeymoon ended early one morning in 1957 when Bob Fite got a disturbing call. Bob Fite: "Man, the phone rang, and the sheriff's office called me. He said, "Riverside's on fire." And that was it. The time I got there, I guess there was a couple of thousand people out there. And, uh... It was some sight." The Ballroom was a total loss. But within a year, the Fite's opened a smaller, more modern dance hall on the same site, and while Riverside lived on well into the '80s, presenting every kind of music, we remember the big-band sound and a full dance floor on a hot Saturday night. |
| PHOTO RESTORATION BY STEELCACTUS |
| CLICK PHOTO TWICE FOR AMAZING DETAIL! |
| RIVERSIDE BALLROOM |