STREET TALK

The city council voted May 25 to spend an additional $18,000 for motorized window shades for the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center’s three-story-tall windows. Ironically, the late arts activist Betty Marcus long ago questioned the wisdom of having the hall’s windows face Texas’s relentless summer sun. She suggested turning the building 180 degrees so that the windows would be on the shaded side. But that bit of pragmatism was nixed by headstrong I.M. Pei, the center’s architect, who not only refused but insisted that the city agree not to plant tall trees under the windows to block the view or the sun.. .



At the May City Plan Commission hearing on park zoning, member Betty Culbreath more than once vented her views about the park board’s alleged insensitivity toward the folks living outside of the North Dallas area. In supporting a proposal that would give the plan commission zoning jurisdiction over the city’s parks, Culbreath posed this question: “If a tiger gets out of his cage at the zoo he’s going to eat the first neighbor he sees. He’s not going to come all the way down to city hall and eat one of the park board members, now is he?”



At the May hearing for the lawsuit filed by the Dallas Gay Alliance against Parkland Hospital alleging that the AIDS clinic is inadequate. Parkland attorney Tom Cox claimed that Parkland shouldn’t be the lone defendant in the lawsuit, but that the U.T. Southwestern Medical School should also be a party to the suit. (The medical school supplies the doctors to Park-land.) Bill Nelson, attorney for the Gay Alliance, jumped to his feet, grinning, and said that he would certainly have no problem with that. Judge John McClelland Marshall just rolled his eyes…