Ralph Haver designed at least two branch banks in the Valley, both of which were Arizona Bank branches, and both of which are closed.

The first of these five photos is the 1964 Arizona Bank branch at 6015 North 16th Street, directly north of Texaz Grill (for you locals), the same year that Haver designed the Cine Capri. It is still half-way-identified as a bank and has a working Bank of America ATM but appears to be closed to the public, so it's likely a training facility or a hatching chamber for embryo loan officers or something like that.

Yes, there are things about the stained-glass strips and the pattern of the exterior brick walls under the roof that are relatively cool and elegant etc. But this is one of those places, like the bus facility in Scottsdale and the Al Beadle branch bank out on 51st Avenue, that's more satisfying and interesting from the air than from ground level.

Check out the overhead view here. It's set diagonally to the street perhaps for better sun orientation. And the roof is punctuated for some reason we don't know. The current result of that punctuation is a great display of state-of-the-art pigeon-proofing techniques.

And these other six photos are from the 1961 former Arizona Bank branch at 4231 East Thomas, most recently an inexpensive Chinese-food restaurant, now as of April 2008 closed and looking vulnerable. Although simple, the closer you look at this, the better it gets.

The main attraction, I think, is the roof. The year 1961 was one year after Haver's Coronado High School with its distinctive folded-plate (waffle) roof. Waffle roofs were stylish but they were also functional cousins to concrete shells, like the ones Wendell Rossman was producing in the same years.

You can see related roof-thinking here.

This is a coffered concrete roof with lots of overhang and a jaunty patterened cornice, a suggested frieze, and second lowered roofline with the same cornice that turns the corner from the front (north) facade to cover the drive-through on the east side. The two cornice lines are well-proportioned. Below the roof, just a simple brick box.

And those colors, too, man.

If that cornice patterning idea seems vaguely Wrightian, you can look to the 1954 Usonian house in the Cincinnati suburbs, the Tonkens House. It has a similar cornice line and the same sort of coffered concrete ceiling -- dictated, of course, by the nature of the concrete block system.

Here in Phoenix you can see the same design tactic on other structures of the period, like Ed Varney's 1951 Administration A Building at ASU (below)...

...and this unattributed medical building hidden in the Scottsdale club district:

...and other buildings, you just have to keep your eyes peeled.