The Tempe Town Lake Monster gone for good?

As we all know by now: there is none. No monster.

For some time since the creation—flooding, filling, fish-stocking, et al.—of the Town Lake there’s been wild and delirious rumors of various critters thriving beneath the opalescent waves. Some of them described like the otter (or beaver) which frolicked there for a while in the early 2000s, although they described a creature almost ten times larger than any ordinary otter. Sleek and splashing through the waves, tossing fish, harassing boats. Then there’s the Loch Ness Monster sightings from the lake’s shores that coincided with nights after curfew and sometimes full moons. Loops of a large, reptilian creature that would surface momentarily like a submarine and peer around. Finally, I’ve read tales about a suspiciously tentacled creature, the giant lake squid or octopus that crawled in the depths during the day, attacking fishers’ bobbers, or thumping the bottoms of boats.

Now, with the lake drained, sadly we can see that none of these creatures has made their appearance.

We could speculate further.

Perhaps the lake monster is the reason why the dam burst. The official story a carefully designed cover up talking about sunlight and heat affecting the rubber until it gave way. No, this has been an escape.

The monster—by whatever phylogeny it might possess—must have grown weary of devouring the stocks of fish and decided to flee downriver. Perhaps it also has a mode of locomotion that permits it to stride overland without too much difficulty. This could certainly explain how it arrived at the lake originally. Either that or it might have come down from Hoover dam when the lake originally filled, sneaking in under the watchful eyes of the civil engineers who flooded the riverbed to create the lake.

Needless to say: our Tempe Town Lake Monster has vanished with the waters. Leaving behind only the strange legacy of its memory.

Tempe Town Lake drainage and the culture of nothing

So, there’s been a little bit of discussion about the Tempe Town Lake dam breakage over at Mill Avenue Vexations. And it’s certainly something that affects Mill Ave, both community and culture. Especially those expensive condominiums that sold billed as “water front property” due to the construction of the fake lake. I still recall the days that the fake lake got added, filled in, and became the glistening stretch is now—er, or was until a few days ago.

The project struck a lot of us who live at street level as a poor grab at celebrity for a town that already has a grassroots fame for being a historic venue, and a recently gained fame for being a music and artistic venue next to a college. At least that’s the outcome of the 90s bohemian “revival” effect. Which seemed to do the economy a lot of good, brought in a lot of people—like me—and made the place a lot more livable. I can’t speak much for the culture of the place before the 90s (because that’s before I arrived) but stories seemed to reflect that it was pretty dull.

A proper history of will reflect that before the 90s the artistic revolution did not represent Mill Ave; but those that try to use this to say that an artistic history for Mill Ave is improper are deliberately ignoring the impact that having one had. Especially in the fact of the 2000s being an era where every interested party in Mill Ave went out of their way to stomp and kill off that culture…while claiming it as a foundation. The Tempe Town Lake certainly handles a legacy of this sort of behavior and with their latest snafu they haven’t gained a lot of credibility.

The Lake failed to deliver what it suggested it would. Except perhaps cheap celebrity. The condos and business buildings there cost way to much, people don’t visit Mill Ave to visit the lake. People certainly won’t, and for the most part cannot, move into the condos due to their egregious pricing, and the failure of the dam only tends to illuminate this misfortune.

Now as for the mystique of the lake. I think I’ll talk about that in a separate post. I have some ideas to play with.

Anyone have an experience with the Tempe Town Lake they’d like to share?