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Spenard is a neighborhood in the
The Fly By Night Club's history of Spenard
{{coord, 61, 11, 19, N, 149, 54, 23, W, type:city_region:US-AK, display=title Neighborhoods in Anchorage, Alaska
Spenard is a neighborhood in the Municipality of Anchorage
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...
, Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
, United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and was historically a separate city from Anchorage. The road that bears its name, Spenard Road, begins at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a major airport in the U.S. state of Alaska, located southwest of downtown Anchorage. The airport is named for Ted Stevens, who served as a senator of Alaska from 1968 to 2009. It is included in ...
at its southern end, and continues north toward downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...
before ending at Westchester Lagoon, where it turns and becomes part of I Street.
History
Before unification of the City of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough in 1975, Spenard was an unincorporated suburban community of Anchorage. It is arguably older than Anchorage itself, although records are not clear. Anchorage was founded on Ship Creek during construction of theAlaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad that operates freight and passenger trains in the state of Alaska. The railroad's mainline runs between Seward, Alaska, Seward on the southern coast and Fairbanks, Alaska, Fairbanks, near the center of ...
. Spenard began as a lumber camp. The road from the lumber camp to the tent city on Ship Creek was subsequently named "Spenard Road" for Joe Spenard, an owner of the lumber camp
A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...
. Joe Spenard built a dance hall/resort on the shores of Spenard Lake, which burned down after a brief period of great success.
For years, Spenard contained one of many "red light districts" in the region (other red light districts were found in downtown Anchorage on Fourth Avenue, in Fairview, and in the nearby neighborhood of Mountain View). During construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...
, the City of Anchorage successfully cleaned up Fourth Avenue by literally bulldozing dozens of buildings. However, the proximity of Spenard to Anchorage International Airport resulted in unprecedented growth of bars, nightclubs, prostitution outlets, gambling clubs, and other disreputable businesses, which catered to pipeline workers laden with money after long stints in isolated construction camps. Today, Spenard still features a large number of bars and a somewhat higher rate of drunken crime than the rest of Anchorage, despite extensive efforts during the post-Pipeline era to "clean up" the community.
Transportation
There is much redevelopment (in the form of mixed-use,transit-oriented development
In urban planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) is a type of Real estate development, urban development that maximizes the amount of Residential area, residential, business and leisure space within Pedestrian, walking distance of public t ...
) planned for the Spenard Road corridor, especially in the vicinity of 36th Avenue & Spenard Road. In order to support this development, the neighborhood was placed on the People Mover
A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of small-scale automated guideway transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks ...
's "frequent network", with the #40 bus operating every 15 minutes down Spenard Road on weekdays (weekend service operates every 30 minutes). There is also the #65 (once per hour), which takes neighborhood residents to/from the Dimond Center Mall via Jewel Lake Road.
See also
* History of Anchorage, Alaska * Mr. WhitekeysReferences
External links
The Fly By Night Club's history of Spenard
{{coord, 61, 11, 19, N, 149, 54, 23, W, type:city_region:US-AK, display=title Neighborhoods in Anchorage, Alaska