09/20/2026
Broadway Village, c. 1940’s.
“Built in 1939 by Helen and John Murphey at the southwest corner of Broadway and Country Club, Broadway Village remains the most successful and enduring commercial building designed by Tucson’s prolific mid‐century architect, Swiss‐born Josias Joesler, according to the 1994 booklet entitled Joesler & Murphey: An Architectural Legacy for Tucson, published with funding from the National Park Service.
The booklet’s contributors, including local expert R. Brooks Jeffery, Coordinator of Preservation Studies at the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona, suggest the Murphey’s found inspiration for Broadway Village on a visit to Pátzcuaro, a quaint village in Central Mexico. With Joesler’s help, they recreated the village square at Broadway and Country Club, then on the outskirts of Tucson. Using Spanish Colonial Mission Revival forms, low‐pitched clay tile roofs, arched openings, carved niches, arcades, stairways, mortar‐washed brick, and colored ceramic tile, they crafted “a romantic sense of place” for locals and visitors alike to admire and enjoy.
Although cherished for its iconic Mission Revival architecture, historians claim that Broadway Village was also a pioneering retail concept in 1939. Situated far from the downtown shopping district, its plaza‐style site plan was innovative, featuring parking in the rear. Its sculpted outdoor spaces were exposed to the streetscape of Broadway, inviting neighbors to shop and socialize throughout the scenic plaza.
In the evolution of retailing, Broadway Village was also a forerunner as one of the first grocery, drug, and hardware anchored shopping centers in the United States.
Its original anchor tenant, Broadway Village Market, is still fondly remembered by longtime Tucsonans for its freshly butchered meats and fish. An adjacent drug store with a soda fountain was known for serving Green Rivers and Cowboy Burgers. These establishments closed their doors in the 1970’s in the midst of Tucson’s mass suburbanization.”
From BBVNA
What caught my eye: This photo likely dates to the late 1940s or early 1950s, based on the 1946–1948 Ford Super Deluxe visible in the foreground. While postwar Fords reused much of the 1941 body style, subtle updates like the horizontal taillights and added chrome details help place it in that late-’40s window.
Broadmoor-Broadway Village Neighborhood Association. History. Broadmoor-Broadway Village Neighborhood Association, n.d.
