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Spenard is a neighborhood in the Municipality of Anchorage,
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...
,
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
and was historically a separate city from Anchorage. Spenard maintains the flavor of a separate community today, with "Spenardi Gras" being its primary community celebration that encourages a sense of solidarity and separation from the rest of Anchorage. Spenard is a central focus of bohemian lifestyle practitioners and artists and writers, and is well known for its numerous poetry jams, bicycle parties, and other similar events. 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, a U.S. senator from Alaska in office from 1968 to 2009. It is include ...
at its southern end, and continues north toward
downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers 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 distric ...
before ending at
Westchester Lagoon The Westchester Lagoon is a combination of two artificial lakes which form a coastal lagoon near Downtown Anchorage, Alaska. On the lagoons western end, a raised, earthen levee offers right of way for the Alaska Railroad. The levee separates the ...
, 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 a city in its own right. It is arguably older than Anchorage itself, although records are not clear. Anchorage was founded on Ship Creek during construction of the
Alaska Railroad Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
. 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 Joseph A. Spenard (1879–1934) was an early settler of Anchorage, Alaska. Lake Spenard, Spenard Road, and the city of Spenard, Alaska (now incorporated into the Municipality of Anchorage) bear his name. Biography Joseph A. Spenard was born in ...
, 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 town 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, 11 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 urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship betw ...
) 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. Whitekeys Mr. Whitekeys, also known as W. Keys, is a musician, recording artist, entrepreneur, writer, media personality and ornithologist in the U.S. state of Alaska. He was the owner and operator of a nightclub called the Fly By Night Club, located in th ...


References


External links


The Fly By Night Club's history of Spenard
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