(TOM) This week on Arizona Illustrated, Remembering Leruas Fine Mexican Food.

(Mikey) Here it's like Grandma's home.

You come in and you respect the ladies and they show you how to make tamales.

And I knew I had a passion for food, but I never knew how much until I started spending more time here.

(Tom) Restoring the native flora with Spadefoot nursery.

(Jared) A lot of nurseries, they want everything to be consistent and everything looks the same.

Or we're sort of the opposite of that.

What we really want people to do is to think of their backyards as a piece of a whole ecology.

(Tom) A look at the Broadway widening project from 1987.

(Peggy) They say it's a 20 year plan that could well take that long to implement.

One major reason is that they have no idea where the money will come from.

And local band Golden Boots plays in front of Golden Pin Lanes before it was demolished.

(trippy music) Hello, I'm Tom McNamara.

Welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

We're coming you today with a series of stories from Broadway Boulevard.

This area known as the Sunshine Mile between Euclid and Country Club.

As you're well aware, it was under construction for a number of years, but it's reopened.

And to begin, let's take a look at how this Broadway got its name.

(David) The street we now call Broadway Boulevard was originally called Camp Street.

It was named in the early 1870s.

And it was named for Camp Lowell.

Fred Ronstadt, the patriarch of the rather large Ronstadt family in Tucson, had a wagon shop and hardware store located on present day Scott Avenue and the old Camp Street.

A hardware salesman who came in from New York City came to Tucson to sell Fred Ronstadt some hardware supplies.

Tucson, of course, at that point was all dirt roads.

It was mostly Adobe, and they're looking at this little sunbaked town.

And the New York salesperson told Fred Ronstadt ‘What you need here is some of the hustle and bustle of New York City Now, a few months later, that same salesman returned with a borrowed sign, as they say.

Mr. Ronstadt thought it was a great idea, and he posted it on his wagon shop.

And by about the early 1900s, people started calling it Broadway.

So it is actually named for the Broadway Boulevard in New York City based on a sign that was “borrowed ” from New York City.

Now, a mainstay of Broadway Boulevard, Laruas Fine Mexican Food sat on this very spot where I'm standing for 97 years.

When it came time to widen the road.

Leruas was forced to close for good.

(relaxed guitar music) - [Mike] We're never gonna replicate this.

That's what happens when you demolish buildings that have history.

I can bring the artwork, but it's still not gonna be the brick that kids have run their hands on and people have spilled the hot sauce all over and they're like trying to wipe it off before the server sees it.

The windows, the chandeliers, the beams that everyone thinks are about to cave in that are actually hollow, you can't replicate that everyone.

(relaxed guitar music) Lerua's, we are open 'til eight o'clock.

- [Server] Is this hot, Mikey?

- Yeah.

- Lerua's was started in 1922 by the Lerua family.

Tony Lerua was a banker, Elisa was his wife and can make some mean tamales and they started down on fourth avenue and then in 1939 he bought a piece of property where we're at now and built at and we've been open since '41.

Hopefully selling the same great food.

(relaxed guitar music) Tamales have always been the mainstay of Lerua's you know Christmas time and Easter and just because you like 'em.

We've known for our green corn tamales, their beef are good I like 'em a little spicier but we can't kill the masses with spice.

Lerua's came into our family in 1961.

My dad was an attorney and I remember I was six years old and at the dinner table and my mom announced to my father that she had bought Lerua's from uncle Tony Lerua and we went we're not related but especially everyone was related back then and all I remember as a six year old child is you did what?

(laughs) - She bought this place out of the fact that she was bored at home I mean she was a chemist from the U of A and then she just decided to be a house mom for a little bit and she bought it when she was like okay I'm not gonna stay in this home anymore.

- I remember I came here for the first time and I was afraid to touch anything 'cause I didn't know what ownership meant I didn't know that it was ours and I was gonna be working here for the rest of my life.

- All my dad's friends from high school would come in and be like hey Ms. Hultquist can I sweep the floor for a burrito and she was very open hearted with people in her business so she kind of made it easy for people to want to be here.

She would cook at home Italian food because my great grand father was from Italy so a lot of the food here has influences from an Italian heritage but also her side of the family was from Lima so it's like you got a lot of the Sonoran flare.

That's why when people are like it's different I'm like well the roots started differently.

The food wasn't we're gonna make it how everybody else does it it's like we're gonna make it like we do at home.

- I tried not to be in the family business but I got sucked back in and I was trying to be a pro golfer and didn't do very well but had the best year of my life, it was a lot of fun but my parents started becoming ill and this is a hard business on your health so I jumped in and was working more and from about 21 on I've been running Lerua's.

- Here it's like grandma's home, you come in and you respect the ladies and they'd show you how to make tamales and I knew I had a passion for food but I never knew how much until I started spending more time here.

- My son, Mike started working and he started cooking a little bit but he decided he wanted to go to culinary arts school and he did really well.

- Running restaurants in San Diego, working for different chefs in San Diego had no light, you learn a lot but there's so many egos and there's so many of me's trying to get a job to just work a line.

I came back here because one it's my dad and family, but two it was a blank slate.

- My side of the business is making sure that the lights are on and everyone gets paid and paying my taxes and pay everything else and keep it going.

His side is cooking, prep, prepare and he's got some pretty wild dishes come out that were just absolutely famous.

All his sauces are amazing.

We make everything here.

- France and Italy and from Mexico.

- Ritha Reyes has been with us since '71.

She was a young girl and she buys all the corn.

She's been with us 47 years.

And Rosie's been with us 26 years and if you take 'em all and add 'em up I have a 26 year term of employment average.

And the only thing I could say is that we take good care of them, and they take good care of us.

- How about Machaca with avocado or do you want to do carne secca?

- [Customer] Carne secca.

- Most of my customers are also my friends they all know where to find me.

- Carne secca's awesome.

- So I had a gentleman had not been to Tucson for 35 years, big guy came in the door this is about a year ago.

He comes in sits in the corner and I go I know you and he goes know you don't I go yeah I remember you, you get two bean and cheese burros and an horchata every time, he goes make it three.

Haven't been here in 35 years.

I heard about Broadway widening in 1983.

- [Announcer] Driven across town on Broadway lately?

Did you find the experience frustrating, you're not alone.

That's hwy the city's transportation-- - I bought the little house next door and I was told there was gonna be some road widening.

But I bought it anyway knowing that we needed the space and the parking and we were getting busier and busier.

1987 came by and they announced that they were going to knock us down to widen the road.

Big to do and nothing happened, more talk just started happening in '97 and nothing happened, 2007 came big to do nothing happened, 2017 things did finally start happening so it was 35 years of hope and hurry and wait and now we have closure.

- Well they say they want to demolish it June 1st.

Part of me wants to get a keg with all my customers and sit across the street and just have a great old time.

My staff wants to shackle their bodies to the building, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to look at it and swallow it.

It's gonna be part of my past.

- My analogy is that they're paying us for our used car, understandably we've been here a long time but I have to go buy a new car and you're making me go buy a new car unless I go out of business.

I just thought Broadway property in the city of Tucson would be worth more than what they paid me.

(bell rings) - So now it's time for me to say okay well what makes sense for the business?

What makes sense for me, you know I want my dad to retire you know but even though if I say dad I'll give you money to retire he'd probably still show up and sweep and bus tables and talk to customers that's just who he is.

In the last two weeks I've seen more emotions from my customers, people just crying.

This building means a lot to them.

So I mean I've got people like my car just automatically drives to you guys.

I mean that's pretty funny I mean not bad for 97 years a little 15 table taco shop that sells lobster tacos when the lobster's cheap enough to get it.

We shine in our own light.

I don't know what's next.

There's a lot of people who are freaking out that we're not gonna do something but it's easier to say we don't have anything lined up or we may not reopen because when I do reopen, if I reopen it's gonna spark another frenzy.

(Tom) If you're missing the Hultquist family behind Leruas Mikey and Company are still cooking up their fine Mexican food at El Torero on 26th Street.

And in 2020, Rio Nuevo announced that Leruas would return to this stretch of Broadway.

But those plans are still taking shape.

While some businesses like Leruas lost their locations because of construction, others like Spadefoot Nursery, just had to deal with it.

This plant nursery is a community hub here in Tucson.

For those interested in the local ecology and in growing native plants that support wildlife and use less water.

- Tonight's class is going to be sort of a beginner's class.

I want to ask you, do you still dress like this?

So why do people plant gardens like this?

This is an old way of thinking.

It's forcing plans to behave like furniture and plants are not furniture.

Plants are living things.

And this is all about making living things thrive in your backyard.

One of the things that dawned on me when we started the nursery is that we were giving people something they can actually do.

Because the problems out there are really big.

They're a lot bigger than us.

And one thing you have a large impact with is your own yard.

There are bees that don't have much bigger of an area their whole life than your yard.

- [Katy] We focus on native plants.

Specifically the Southwest US and Northern Mexico.

There's a lot of really cool plants that you can grow from say Australia and Africa.

And really amazing, cool stuff.

But it doesn't do anything to support the wildlife here.

My dad sells plants at the Bisbee farmer's market.

We were just thinking, "He's got cool plants."

"He should be selling them in Tucson."

And then it kind of snowballed.

And we decided we needed a retail space.

- [Petey] Katie's my youngest daughter.

And she says, "I want to come out and see you."

"And I want to, do you mind if I bring my boyfriend?"

And "Oh well, oh yeah!

We want to meet your boyfriend."

And Jared walks in the door.

I mean, I'd known him back, we'd done some horticulture conferences.

He was a speaker.

I was a speaker.

They started talking about doing the nursery.

I said, "Well, you're welcome to have this name."

I said, "Listen, this is the best part of this nursery, is the name and the slogan."

"So take it and run."

I like that name "Spade foot" of this this little creature that hides and comes out in a monsoon.

You know?

If I were to start a new nursery, I think I'd go with "Box Turtle" or something like that.

You know, something like that.

I'd go "Box Turtle Nursery".

You know?

- [Katy] We try and get out into nature as much as we can.

We're always excited to find new plants, and try and figure out how we can cultivate them if we can.

- [Jared] Because our nursery is informed a lot more by ecology than it is agriculture.

Our local ecology has influenced what we sell.

This is a plant we grow.

The Erythrina flabelliformis, or the Coral Bean.

And you find it in Arizona grown out of rock crevices.

They're one of the last things that come out of dormancy.

It's a tough sell sometimes, if you don't know what it is because it's dormant until like June or May.

And the blooms come first, and you get these sprays of the long red tubular flowers, which is the big selling point for this plant.

We don't just expect these plants to sell themselves.

We let people know, like, "This plant is a larval host for this butterfly", or "This plant has seeds that the finches love to eat", or "This plan actually improves the soil."

What we really want people to do is to think of their backyards as a piece of a whole ecology.

- [Buyer] I'm a design consultant.

Landscape design, I've been doing this for 30 years.

But I've learned more here in one year than I've learned all the school that I've gone to.

- [Buyer] Actually, I work at Roma Imports, and they come in and get lunch a lot.

And so I was like, "Wow, I should go check them out."

- [Buyer] I ordered some globemallow, some penstemon, for a more pollinator friendly space.

- [Katy] It definitely feels like it could be non-profit work where there's a lot of education.

I feel like that's the way that word's going to get out, is you start with one person and then they educate someone else.

I mean, we have what we call repeat offenders.

Where people are buying plants at least once a week.

And we're starting to worry if we need to, like, cut them off, or like start a group to help people slow down.

But we're in the same boat.

You know, we still, we own a nursery and we still go to plant sales and buy new plants.

- [Jared] We grow a lot of stuff from seed.

A lot of the plants that we're growing are not in cultivation.

But I also prefer to grow from seed for the genetic diversity.

We really look at what we're doing as a form of restoration.

And genetic diversity is a huge part of trying to restore the flora.

A lot of nurseries, they want everything to be consistent, and everything looks the same.

And we're sort of the opposite of that.

We want that diversity.

Rather than having some weird colonialist idea of a yard, I really want people to stop being so human centric and think about that there's all these other organisms that are responsible for our ability to be here.

The more people pay attention to their own backyard and it becomes a trend, the more impact we can have.

Because as these creatures are often migrating through our yards, they find that safe space.

They know how to find it.

We could learn a lot from them if we were just a little quieter and let them have some space.

We're giving you a look today at the fresh, newly reopened Broadway Boulevard flowing again after years of construction.

You know, that project took a long, long time.

How long?

Well, here's a story about it from 1987.

(Peggy) Driven across town on Broadway lately?

Did you find the experience frustrating?

You're not alone.

That's why the city's Transportation Department spent the last year and a half looking for ways to improve the traffic flow.

(City planner) Well, it is the major east west arterial.

It does connect downtown.

So Broadway is going to increase as a magnet street.

(Peggy) Planners say that after listening to the public, they've come up with nine alternatives.

Plans that are both technically feasible and publicly acceptable.

The plans range all the way from doing nothing to minimal improvements, including an expanded bus system, modified access and improvements to intersections to making fifth/sixth street one way westbound from 7 to 9 a.m. and eastbound from 4 to 6 p.m..

The alternatives include widening intersections, widening Broadway, grade separations at seven major intersections, high occupancy vehicle lanes for cars with more than two occupants, vans, busses and so on.

A light rail system or an elevated transit system.

They say it's a 20 year plan that could well take that long to implement.

One major reason is that they have no idea where the money will come from.

(City Planner) There are some possibilities for funding potentially to the federal level, potentially through local level, potentially through some private sector initiatives.

It's hard to say right now, but we have to look at the total spectrum of of where funds can come from.

(Peggy) Other considerations are air quality time and accident reduction and the adjacent neighborhoods.

Whether or not the nine alternatives or any combination of them become reality on Broadway remains a big question mark.

The fact that the voters in Tucson recently turned down a half cent sales tax increase to pay for transportation improvements does have the planners concerned.

(City Planner) Without additional funding, we probably wouldn't do anything.

(Peggy) So what happens to all your work and all your plans in the nine alternatives now?

We put them on the shelf.

It's really about what happens to them unless we can identify some money.

Or some funding, they end up on the shelf.

This stretch of Broadway is home to some of the best examples of Tucson's early to mid-century architecture.

The public art that was unveiled as the road reopened is homage to that history.

Designed by artist Dirk J. Arnold.

50 Breezeblock suns line the streets light poles The desert colors are meant to evoke sunrises and sunsets.

You can also find 16 oversized breezeblocks along the route and a salvaged breezeblock wall.

The artist says he hopes this artwork will contribute to the dynamic future of this historically significant district (vibey music) (Tom) In Tucson, like a lot of places, the only constant is change.

Now, when word broke that the iconic Golden Pin lanes on Miracle Mile was closing, the local band Golden Boots asked us to record them performing in front of the building.

We were happy to oblige and they took this video in 2019, but it already feels nostalgic (Traffic noise and a slow drone) (guitar with reverb) Golden Pin Lanes closed for good back in June of 2019.

But the band Golden Boots is going strong.

In fact, they're on a European tour right now.

Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a story we're working on.

(Brewery owner) This is the first microbrewery in Arizona.

When we bought this brewery, it was out here in San Jose.

And yes, there are more neighborhoods than Old Bisbee in Bisbee.

San Jose is one of the larger ones.

We're about three miles from Old Bisbee itself.

You know, the beers that we make here are primarily English ales and they're traditional English ales You know, we don't make sour beers.

It's not because I can't do that.

It's because I don't want to.

I'm a traditionalist in so many ways.

And when it comes to beer, beer is malt hops, water and yeast.

Nothing else.

Thank you for joining us here on Broadway and the new Sunshine Mile.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you next week.