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James GrahamJames Graham owns and cooks at Grill, a 24-hour restaurant on Congress Street. He's been instrumental in creating housing and studio space for artists downtown, with the Shane House and Toole Shed studios. Currently he's working to found a Museum of Contemporary Art on Congress Street between Scott and Stone avenues.Best Thing About Living in Tucson What I love about this town is that it exists in an hallucinatory dream state where everything is possible--there's no place else in the world where I could have used student loans and credit cards to start up a business. In Seattle and San Francisco, it would just be too expensive. But here everyone is so bored that they're willing to help out just for the hell of it. I had the neon out front rebuilt in exchange for a milkshake. You can just do anything you want here. You can start your own business; you can keep pet ducks in your yard. Best Season In the summer, the climate encourages a 24-hour lifestyle. People are up at all hours to avoid the heat. At five in the morning I go outside, and always, all over, there's somebody up and going about his business like it's high noon. Downtown has a real vampire culture--our busiest time at Grill is between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Best Forgotten Architecture I love all the little secrets downtown has--the Fox Theater, the detective agency on Church Avenue; there are all these secret, hidden gems no one ever notices because they're all painted beige--like the U.S. West building on Pennington and Toole. It's a really cool deco storefront, but no one ever sees it. Best Cheap Thrills Downtown has everything you need to have a good time at three in the morning. You can start by watching Dave Lewis weld at Toole Shed, then you can zip over to Pleasure World and have sex for under $12--anything you want! Then you can walk down the tracks to the Congress Hotel and buy a fresh newspaper and a pack of cigarettes from Al Perry, then stop off at the Grill and have a milkshake with Captain Crunch in it. After, you can go skateboarding in one of the parking garages down here and see the most incredible views from the top, and for a finale, you can go see the man who invented the motorcycle gang, Pancho Villa, in August 12 Park. On a hot night when the sprinklers are on it's really great to sit on his horse, because the bronze conducts cold. Best Downtown Art Feeling Bero and Raw galleries give me faith there could be a flourishing downtown art scene. Best Thing The best thing is surplus. In the desert, nothing rusts or corrodes--you can still find WWII bombers, Jericurls and bellbottoms, hippies, anything beige. Best Plan for Downtown
The best plan for the Arts District is to have the arts here,
especially a museum for the arts. No one wants a cineplex or a
stadium down here except for the guy who sells bags of concrete.
According to the U.S. census, Tucson has more artists per capita
than any place on earth, except Bali. An arts district needs to
support the arts.
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