Herd on the Street

Whoa! What’s that coming over the hill, near the Dallas Convention Center? Steers? Horses and riders?

Yup. The Dallas Parks Foundation is spearheading a fund-raising effort to raise $4.2 million bucks to build “Pioneer Plaza” smack-dab in front of the convention center. Heading up the project are real estate magnate Trammell Crow and co-chair Diane Scovell. The bovine sculptures, designed to simulate an 1850s cattle drive, are slated to be complete when the new convention center opens in 1994. So what’s the beef?

Well, it’s an idea that was floated as a way to rustle up some donor dollars. For $50,000, a company can have its logo branded on the backside of one of the cows; for a lot more, one’s very own image could be cast in bronze as one of the cowboys. Picture Mary Kay Ash ridin’ sidesaddle, and you’ve got it.

Public Art Committee member Gail Sachson said that the scheme was “tacky.” Parks Foundation veep Tom Pritchett resigned in disgust over the project. “I’m getting tired of rich people cramming this down our throats,” he says. “If they want to do a monument to themselves, why don’t they buy their own block of land, instead of taking revenue-producing money from the city?”