By the early 1980s, enough of historic Phoenix had disappeared that residents and preservationists began documenting what remained.
Roosevelt was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and in 1986 it became Phoenix’s first locally designated historic neighborhood.
Historic designation did not mean the neighborhood stopped changing.
Older homes remain beside new construction. Larger developments have altered nearby blocks. Vacant parcels have been filled with new housing.
Preservation is not the absence of change. It is the decision that some evidence of what came before should remain while the city continues to evolve.
That tension between preservation and development is still visible throughout Roosevelt.