Arizona Street / Sráid Arizona
Arizona Street / Sráid Arizona
The 1918 Belfast / Ulster Street Directory lists several addresses for Arizona Street with the left hand being more developed. According to elderly local residents, Arizona Street was built in several stages beginning in the first half of the 20th Century by a Belfast man who had moved to Arizona in the southwest of the USA where he had become financially successful. When he returned back to Belfast he decided to build some houses a few miles outside the town centre. Appropriately, he named the street after his promised land of opportunity and wealth: Arizona Street. These first few houses were (and still are) quite grand. One or two were three-storey. Others were two-storey but substantial. In the early years of the street’s development it housed mainly Protestant people, who came to the area to work on the nearby farms. The 1920s Troubles brought a period of upheaval with its residents being forced to move out due to the threat of violence. Consequently, the street and the area around it saw the arrival of more and more Catholic residents as the years went on. In the 1950s and beyond, the street grew in size although the houses did the opposite. Arizona Street a cul-de-sac was made up of terraced houses topped and tailed by the bigger houses built earlier in the century at one end and a row of what had been labourers’ cottages at the other. The entry above is thanks to writer Jim Deeds.