If that is the secret, Dallas discovered it long ago. Dallas has always had less to work with, which means we always have to do more than anyone else. In the last few months, we’ve enjoyed an unprecedented wave of good press: Newsweek, Nation’s Business, Southern Living, and the Wall Street Journal – to name only a handful -have written admiringly about our healthy economy, strong civic leadership and zestful spirit.
To show these folks that Dallas doesn’t mean to waste any time patting itself on the back, D has compiled a scattershot sampling of bright ideas for improving our city. As we’ve learned from our Yankee cousins, cities must continually rejuvenate and grow, add new dimensions, and weed out the old and obsolete. Some of our suggestions are familiar, some new, some borrowed: all are feasible. They cover the gamut – from an in-depth plan to redevelop Fair Park to an offhand suggestion for eliminating needless traffic lights to a complete guide for protecting and renewing your neighborhood.
What makes Dallas different is its talent. Across this city men and women are devoting time and energy to implementing these ideas, fashioning better ones, and fine-tuning old notions and plans. Alone, that’s enough to make Dallas an exciting place to be.
So, go to it, Dallas! As the following pages show, we have a lot to do. When we’re finished, there are a lot more ideas where these came from.
1
How to Make Fair Park into a Fair Park
James Pratt
This article is an argument. There are several different tacks I could have taken. Recently, when discussing Fair Park with a civic-minded businessman, I used my Cold Hard Economic Facts argument, which holds simply that (a) as a city we have already invested some $90 million in Fair Park, (b) it can’t be moved, (c) it would cost $200 million to start all over, and (d) Fair Park’s non-profit operations alone generate $5 million yearly. Developing the park as a year-round attraction could easily gross another $4. 5 million, part of which could be used for further development of the park.
Or I could have simply used the What Is the Purpose of a Museum pitch I employed recently on a self-styled cultural baron who was making noises about how the museum should be moved from Fair Park. “What’s your real function in the community?” I shot back. “If it’s anything more than a private precinct for Beautiful People, and you want to justify the fact that a third of a million from the public trough goes into it each year, you’d better keep it in the middle of the county where everyone can get to it. That museum is not an inch further from Akard and Commerce than the Metropolitan is from 42nd Street in New York … “
But both of those arguments, while central to my belief that Fair Park can and must be rejuvenated, are a bit beside the real point: No one wants to go there. When people argue this and complain that the place is cold and ugly, I don’t disagree. I’ve been saying that for most of my professional life.
Where I differ with the Fair Park doomsayers – and this is the real argument – is on the matter of the future. After 14 years of arguing about, criticizing, studying, defending and love-hating Fair Park, I still believe it is economically and geographically feasible to transform it into an active, diversified, attractive park, a place where folk of all ages and income levels can find recreation and relief.
As it stands today, Fair Park’s setting is meager (it can barely be called a “park” at all), and mistakes still are being made. Its plans still lack any cogent design and, more importantly, a vision large enough for the future. Ninety years ago, when the Fair began on this site, there was an enormous vision; again in the ’30’s, the Fair’s future was conceived in the largest of terms.
My own vision is based on a belief in a more urbane future -one based on lots of choices for lots of tastes.
A 70-year-old friend remembers the Fair as a “tent city” around 1911, with only a few trees, near the John Deere open pavillion. It grew twice and changed radically between her memory and mine: The Fair and the park I was introduced to as a child was grand, beautiful, full of life, and in a fresh setting that spoke to that day.
It was 1936, and I was nine years old. The entire town was in a hubbub over something called the Centennial, the celebration of Texas independence. On opening day I recall being overwhelmed by the huge, imposing block buildings, relieved by massive sculptures and frescoes of stiff superbeings. In its size alone, the Exposition seemed to express our collective will, our bigmindedness, our determination to build amid the ruin of the Depression.
My children met Fair Park in a wholly different way. At ages three and four, their first venture outside home was to pre-school at Fair Park. Under the Health and Science Museum program, the park is the classroom: Vivid biology with all those models, the universe through the Planetarium, the tropics at the Garden Center, all the museums and the fair.
Now where else in the world could this kind of rich educational experience be achieved, all within a five minute walk, except in a location where needed facilities are luckily juxtaposed?
But apart from this fine legacy of the Exposition of 40 years ago, few, if any, hints of the Centennial and its spirit remain. Even more depressing, are the tawdry substitutions patched in over the intervening years.
Since I was first asked to ponder Fair Park professionally 14 years ago, my vision of it has evolved largely from experiences in other cities. Fair Park, I’m reminded every time I visit New York or San Francisco, could be our Central or Golden Gate park. It could be one key to the revitalization of our inner city. Like so many institutions and men and ideas, it instead has become a neglected monument, no longer satisfying to a city in a very big hurry. Yet the possibilities are there; they should not be overlooked.
When I am feeling evangelical, I sometimes play a game with Fair Park detractors on the cocktail circuit. When someone spouts that they don’t want to “go way down there in the jungle, ” I jump in with: “But suppose you and your wife and another couple meet us at the Music Hall for drinks and dinner -you have tickets for the musicals anyway. At 6: 30 traffic is light, parking is easy, and we dine gracefully. ” Then I depart into my vision. “We eat on a terrace, not overlooking 1st Avenue traffic, but along the grass, looking out to a soothing view of a long garden full of activities spread out and reflected in a ribbon of water. It’s the one time of day when it is magical to be out of doors in Texas -under a violet sky or one full of great piled up cotton batting turned orange.
“This all replaces the Auto Building. There are mostly gentle amusements, restaurants, maybe a maze with good whimsey (those ladies in Italian gardens who surprise you by spouting water at you from their breasts will amuse some of us). The lights are fun. There is something for all ages.
“Our companions can either hop a tram to go to their museum opening, or they have a path along the new waterway to stroll toward the lagoon. You go in to the musicals; we walk across to a beer garden to meet a client. The skyride can take the teenagers down to their thrill rides behind the aquarium, or with the new waterway, they can paddle a boat down through the lagoon and on to the thrill rides. The water is no longer a puddle. It offers a new fun way to get back to your car from a Sunday afternoon ball game. And for the idle hour on Wednesday night when you want to get out of yourself, you can listen to a little music in our new amphitheater here while you eat your Swensen’s ice cream cone. “
Almost no one harbors ideas to make the “fair grounds” vital on a more year-round basis. The snide remarks about the place are a cover for a deep embarrassment and fear about the core of our community. Race is part of it, usually based on prejudices about unfamiliar classes. Until Fair Park is filled more times of the year with appealing activities and the bodies to support them, it will not be considered a safe place for recreation.
The ease with which we are able to negotiate this complex city is the key to luring us out into it. Fair Park can become a place where anyone can enjoy a myriad of activities within a single setting. Many activities are already present at the park. The problem is, they are fragmented into isolated islands – museums here, theaters there, trade shows here, the Midway over there. No cohesive element binds these various activities. Indeed, Fair Park has become like a poorly conceived shopping center where you drive in, park, visit the shop you had in mind, and quickly leave.
A great urban park is a place to go, not because you have a specific reason to go, but rather because the park itself attracts you with its limitless choices of activities: shopping, museum-hopping, dining, grabbing a beer, gambling penny ante, watching acrobats or grand opera or Shakespeare, finding a horse show or hockey match you didn’t know about, or simply watching everyone else doing everything else.
Fair Park today is a long way from that kind of park. Its island-like activities need to be merged. Besides waterways – the lagoon through the mid-sections of the park – it needs more trees and benches, and less asphalt; it needs a minimum of vehicular traffic and an intra-park transit system; it needs a larger variety of year-round activities appealing to wider interests -restaurants, bars, concerts, competitive events; it needs a more attractive, accessible entrance from the highway; it needs an updated State Fair; it needs more land, more park land; it needs a connection with the central business district.
Despite the seeming enormity of all that Fair Park needs, it remains -will always remain -the only site for our city’s dream park. Its State Fairs have for generations epitomized the guts and spirit of Dallas and have provided our impetus toward progress. Revived, Fair Park can become again a focal point of the community, a constant catalyst of our urban chemistry and a constant relief from the strains of modern city life.
The difficulties with Fair Park are nothing new. Since its inception as a location for the State Fair, both the park and the Fair have survived only because of the outright stubbornness of a handful of civic leaders. In 1886, after thirty years of sporadic county fairs, a group of these leaders organized and produced “The Dallas State Fair and Exposition” on the grounds of the present Fair Park. Immediately, political problems cropped up with the selection of the site (ninety years later they haven’t subsided). Another group protested the location and held a competitive fair near the present site of North Dallas High School. As the competing effort fizzled, the directors of the “successful” fair faced a crisis destined to become a recurring ritual: raising enough money. They had pulled together $13, 000 from the sale of stock, but the amount was insufficient to purchase the 80 acres they wanted. The day was saved by Captain W. H. Gaston, a prominent banker of the time, who personally paid $16, 000 for the land, then turned around and sold it to the Fair for $14, 000 in stock, donating the difference of $2, 000. Since the stock was worthless, Gaston wound up donating the entire amount.
That year, the money problems continued. After spending $177, 000 preparing the grounds, the Fair only produced $48, 000 -requiring the directors to carry a total debt of $101, 000 at the banks. It lost another $16, 000 the second year, again carried by the banks. The men behind the Fair were not only undaunted, they were positively fearless. In spite of the enormous debt, they proceeded to expand, purchasing another 37 acres of land. Once again, Gaston stepped forward with the cash.
But the problems these hearty men encountered were not only financial. In 1890, the principal exposition building burned to the ground. In 1891, just as the new exposition building was constructed, the racing stable burned down. In 1892, it rained every day of the Fair. The directors’ faith was finally justified in 1893, when the Fair recorded a “profit” of $16, 000. However, that reserve was wiped out in 1900 when, during a performance by the Chicago Fire Company, the seats in the grandstand collapsed, resulting in a barrage of damage suits. Two years later, in 1902, the last straw: Racing was outlawed in Texas. It had underpinned the Fair’s annual revenues.
By then, it had become apparent that the Fair could not be maintained totally as a private corporation. The directors decided to sell the land to the City of Dallas; in 1904, a city election overwhelmingly approved the area as a public park, overseen by the Park Board. The private organization became the State Fair of Texas, and Fair Park was born. For the next seventy years, it would have two parents -the State Fair and the Park Board -and it was not always a happy marriage.
In the old days, the agrarian State Fair was our link with the outside world, the major communicating medium and educational experience of its day. Contour plowing, pasture improvement and hybrid corn were first introduced at the Fair. In 1886 only one bull was registered in all of North Texas. One of the biggest attractions in 1887 was a churn that made butter in 10 minutes. In 1891, electric lights were the latest marvel.
Perhaps the key to making the Fair an early success was its commitment to sporting events. After racing was outlawed, intersectional football games began in 1904 with the first Texas-Oklahoma game. A wooden stadium was constructed in 1921 and replaced nine years later by the present structure, which grew gradually to 75, 000 seats by 1948. The first Cotton Bowl game was played in 1937.
The Fair had a certain flair in those days which has been diluted over the years. It hosted William Jennings Bryan, Carrie Nation, Buffalo Bill, John L. Sullivan, and John Philip Sousa. As the Fair gained stature, presidential visits became common, the first being William Howard Taft in 1909. In 1911, the Fair paid $4, 000 to a barnstorming pilot to prove to Texans that airplanes could actually fly.
Despite its continuing financial problems and nagging bad luck, the Fair quickly became a passionate concern of civic leaders. Names attached to the Fair over the years read like a recitation from a Dallas street map: Gaston, Sanger, Armstrong, Marsalis, Keller, Moroney, Cockrell, Craddock, Field, Exall, Bowser, Belo, Holland, Zang, Kahn, Cabell, Padgett and Wilson were members of eight to thirteen member boards that constantly donated, loaned, refinanced, rebuilt and reorganized under five different charters to keep the Fair alive. Even today, the Fair’s Board is among the most prestigious in town, sprinkled with such names as Cullum, Dealey, Thornton, Tatum, Stemmons, Aston, Carpenter, Bowles, Moroney and Seay.
When Dallas civic chieftains visited the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, they were so struck by its design that they invited its planner, George Kessler, to draw up the first major master plan to upgrade the fairgrounds. I’ve been unable to locate a copy of Kessler’s plan, but a photograph of the front gate, circa 1905, clearly shows improvements based on the St. Louis fair. A new coliseum (now housing Peter Wolfs scene studio) was erected in 1909. The Fair continued to expand; the city purchased land between 1st and Second Avenues to build in 1925 a cavernous auditorium, which has been recently renovated as the Music Hall. Part of the State Fair’s bargain was to maintain the new hall, a chore it handled no better in those days than it did in the 40’s and 50’s.
1935 was the watershed year for the Fair. Through relentless salesmanship and monumental political muscle, Dallas talked the state legislature into designating Fair Park as the site for the Centennial Exposition. The legislature, moving with the same swiftness and certainty for which it is renowned today, delayed until some 15 months prior to the celebration to give Dallas the final go-ahead. Civic leaders, with the irrepressible R. L. Thornton, Sr. pushing and cussing, charged full speed ahead. In June, the City exercised eminent domain on some 110 properties in the area, netting an additional 26. 5 acres for the park. In August, bids were taken on the complicated design of the Hall of State. Ten architectural firms joined hands to complete the Hall’s design, a show of cooperation never before or since equalled among the jealous rivals of my profession. The motif was grandeur: Every time Paul Cret, the aesthetic advisor, arrived from Philadelphia to critique the progress, he would exhort architects to build “higher, higher. “
Meanwhile, the City was rushing to construct a lagoon and six new museums on its newly acquired property. Cret was unsuccessful in convincing the Park Board that the museums be as grand as the Centennial buildings. To this day, the difference in size and quality between the sets of buildings remains a symbol of the differing amounts of support and the division of responsibilities between these two boards.
An esplanade was laid to impress visitors entering through the main gate; new agriculture, food and swine buildings were erected. A major exhibit building was raised where the Automobile Building now stands. A replica of the Globe Theater was built, where I was taken to absorb culture via Shakespearean comedies. Underground wiring was installed for the first time throughout the park.
Some of the dreams didn’t materialize. The planned 200 foot tower wasn’t built, and the monorail touted in the Dallas News of 1935 couldn’t be found. A dream of “total air-conditioning” was prohibitively expensive. Still, the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the fairground in little over a year was a tremendous leap in the evolution of the park. Almost overnight, Fair Park became unique among the fairgrounds in the United States, and still is.
The years since have been a long denouement. As if completely spent by the Centennial, Dallas rested for ten years afterward, ignoring the deterioration of the park. The Globe Theater fell derelict and was torn down. Fire took its toll on a huge building along the Esplanade. The State Fair itself was postponed for four years during the war; half the exhibit halls were commandeered to quarter military personnel and supplies.
In 1946, civic leaders, in a burst of second wind, decided they weren’t going to put up with the lethargy any longer. They set about a host of new additions to the park, some innovative in their own rights, but shortsighted in terms of the overall development of the park.
The result is the Fair Park we know today. Thornton and others encouraged Lone Star Gas to take over the Centennial Hall of Religion, talked Dallas Power & Light into assuming the temporary Federal Building, created Big Tex as the Fair’s symbol in 1951, supported the beginning of the prestigious Pan American Livestock Exposition, constructed a Women’s Building, and, in 1959, erected a 7, 000 seat coliseum. Dallasites who attended the Fair during those years would probably have agreed with George Bernard Shaw’s comment when asked how he liked London: He replied, “I’d probably love the damned thing, if they’d ever finish it. “
A wholesale redevelopment of Fair Park has to begin where the park began: with the State Fair. Our State Fair today remains successful and popular because -like the park I envision -it offers a little something for everyone. The gentlemen ranchers are there with prize beef and good horse flesh. The kids bolt for the Midway and the thrill rides. The inquisitive wander through the special exhibits, perhaps visiting a space capsule, a bonzai exhibit, a show at the planetarium. This year the art museum appeased popular tastes by displaying a Rembrandt. The rodeo, which returned last year after a sorely missed absence, gives us born Texans a nostalgic tie to our roots.
Participation is one of the healthiest aspects of the big event. Bands compete; Future Farmers and animal lovers curry and display their premium ribbons; my daughters are not satisfied if they don’t bring home $10 for a craft premium. The Fair hosts flower shows and cooking contests. Hospitality tents shelter out-of-town groups. There are luncheons and big barbeques at nearby show ranches. Until the Art Museum became too snobbish-, it held an annual show for competing artists. Horseshow riders spit and polish – the list is endless.
The Fair, with its Parks and Wildlife exhibits, circus, horse shows and rodeo, aquarium displays and Natural History Museum programs, also provides city dwellers with a much-needed opportunity to reacquaint themselves with animals. As a sidelight, The Fair also offers the serious shopper an incredible pearls-among-the-junk search: One year my wife and I discovered genuine 17th century Indian miniature paintings, which were of higher quality than those we saw in Delhi two years later. This year there were good Navajo rugs and excellent Pakistani embroidery pieces. (One trader from New Mexico told me he had sold 50 items worth over $500, which indicates a better-heeled consumer market at the Fair than one might normally suppose.)
Still, amid the activity and life of the Fair, there is a nagging predictability. As early as 1931, the Dallas News voiced this complaint: “Two things we need to do, ” the paper editorialized, “Rid ourselves of the thought that it’s the same old thing and get that idea out of the public’s mind. “
The Fair is a recurring ritual, and that cannot be changed. But within the framework of that annual ritual a healthy dose of spontaneity should be infused. Perhaps the operative word here is “fair. ” What Dallas needs in the 70’s and 80’s is not merely a fair, but a festival, an enormous community celebration. The cosmetics required are simple enough on their face: Temporary settings need to shift. Big Tex needs to move, stand on his head, turn cartwheels. The Auto Show ought to be tried in different settings, with different themes. The public must be lured back to the Fair year after year with the expectation of experiencing something radically new and different. Forty years of the same offerings must now change.
Few people, unfortunately, realize the importance of food to recreation. When our firm was drawing up the initial plans for the Quadrangle, Stanley Marcus advised me to lace the shopping center heavily with restaurants. The Fair would do well to take the same advice. As it is, this vital amenity is missing. Most of the food presently served is calculated to gouge visitors with inadequate products in inadequate settings. In the early 60’s a sputter in the right direction began with a “French” restaurant serving one or two Old Warsaw-prepared dishes and wine on the Esplanade. A new Mexican food concession opened, and older concessions, like Nevin’s, were forced to upgrade their standards. Orange Julius came in, and Bierzelt was added. Youngblood’s went to considerable trouble to restore the Centennial “Old Mill, ” which was later taken over by El Chico. Just when things were beginning to look up, however, the spurt of restaurant activity dwindled, and the quality returned to the mediocrity of old.
The Fair Corporation has to compensate restauranteurs well to mount a two week effort capable of handling gluts of people one day and none the next (the second Tuesday is a tomb, and it often rains that week). But even small stands generate a couple of thousand net to the Corporation. With its financial return practically guaranteed, the Fair is in a strong position to demand quality for food. From full meals to ice cream cones, strict standards should be established, and patrons should be made accustomed to receiving the best on their visits to the Fair.
The Midway presents another challenge. From 1955 to 1962 family business dwindled, a small children’s ride slid almost 300 per cent in gross take. Profits overall were off some 25 per cent between 1952 and 1964. While the Midway can still be fun, it smacks of a shopworn county fair, unable to compete successfully with Six Flags, an enterprise more attuned to the desires of an urban market.
The ultimate answer to the Midway’s woes is not to reconstruct it as a theme park for teenagers in open competition with Six Flags. Rather supply a two hour spontaneous diversion instead of an all day major event. It should be re-conceived as an integral part of not just the two-week annual Fair, but the entire park. By re-thinking its rides, games and food concessions in these terms, the Midway could become an enjoyable diversion year-round for all ages. The exciting potential lies in the juxtaposed diversity of amusements and “culture. “
If the Fair seemed a bit old to the Dallas News in 1931, in 1975 it should be abundantly clear that its successful survival rests on updating its traditional 19th century agrarian motif to an urban festival. As Robert Cullum, the Fair’s president, points out, in the old days ranchers came to the Fair to watch livestock shows because they regarded it as a vital part of their businesses; today, they come because ranching and livestock-raising are among the most popular hobbies in the area. This fundamental shift is symbolic of the need for a radical change in the Fair’s orientation.
Fair Park began as a step child of the State Fair, and many of its inadequacies today stem from the fact that until recently it remained in that subordination. The park was originally bought and expanded to serve simply as a location for that all-important two-week Fair. Which was fine in those days.
But in the metropolitan Dallas of the 1970’s and beyond, the Fair’s and park’s parent-child relationship must literally reverse: The park -still including the Fair as its major annual event -must become of uppermost importance if Dallas is to survive as some semblance of a city and not a loosely-connected conglomeration of suburbs. It is an essential geographical factor in the complex equation of restoring our inner city. The central business district will not survive as an island; Fair Park can be one necessary key to redevelopment on the east side of the business core.
We can build that great urban park by recapturing the same vision and determination that motivated W. H. Gas-ton and R. L. Thornton in earlier times. The present caution of the State Fair Board, while understandable in light of the troubles it experienced in the 60’s, is not likely to transform Fair Park. Nor is the piecemeal approach of the Park Board.
A wholehearted commitment to the total redevelopment of Fair Park is the only realistic and farsighted answer. What still scares a lot of people is the economics of the undertaking. Let’s take a look at them:
The State Fair is a non-profit, private corporation which ploughs all revenue back into activities benefiting the public.
In 1974 the estimated $974, 187 received from concessions alone by the State Fair amounted to 33% of its total operating income. That figure represents the 17 1/2% the Fair levies against the revenues of its concessions. Today, about 83% of the concession revenues are produced in the two weeks of the State Fair; the remaining 17% wanders in during the other 50 weeks.
As early as 1961, Jack Ray, the consulting amusements expert of the Fair, predicted that a properly designed park could reverse that ratio, substantially increasing the total concessions income. The income would be even higher if the Fair were to undertake operation of all concessions and major devices, as it has done recently with the Sky-ride and Carousel. (This would enable the Fair to reduce the gate charges to the park and the Midway, thus producing larger crowds for year-round enjoyment of the amusements facilities). The 11% it usually gains needs to be 15% just to maintain its buildings. Extrapolating from today’s figures, these changes would gross an additional $4. 5 million during non-fair time, and net the Fair $700, 000 compared to some $70, 000 projected for 1974. It would be much more if the Fair owned the concessions. My figures are based on two assumptions: (1) That the average patron would spend $3. 00 per visit, and (2) that 1. 5 million visitors would attend (even five years ago, the Park Board made an estimate of 9 million attendance for the park). Thus, a year-round park would produce more than sufficient revenues to pay operating costs, as well as to finance the principal and interest on the long-term debt required to undertake a first $7 million renovation.
Recently – when the Fair’s spending needs amounted to an alarming $600, 000 – James Aston, as president of the Hoblitzelle Foundation (he’s also Fair treasurer), stepped forward in the spirit of W. H. Gaston with an offer to guarantee $325, 000 in loans to the Fair each year for seven years. By producing a $500, 000 profit on its own in 1974, the Fair solved the problem without the foundation’s help, but Aston’s willingness demonstrates the kind of public-spirited commitment Fair Park will need to become a great urban park.
To comprehend what Fair Park has to become, it is important to understand the purpose of a great urban park. At its most primal level, an urban park is where we plant our fantasies: We seek and love great parks because they offer some radical relief from the concrete-and-glass humdrum of daily city life. The only difference between a park and a forest is design. Through design, we distill and interpret our favorite elements of nature for occasional use within a man-made environment.
Parks bring the basic elements of nature into a confined setting: Foliage, like the grand Eucalyptus trees of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and water, like the marvelous waterfall in New York’s tiny Paley Park, are essentials. Birds and animals, like the black swans and coots in St. James Park in London, provide another important dimension.
The proper setting is fundamental to creating a great urban park, but it is not nearly as important as activity. A park can’t be just pretty, it must provide its casual patron with an endless variety of things to see and do – restaurants, bars, exhibits, music, drama, art, sporting events, games -in short, “amusements.”
What often surprises people is the number of such activities already happening at Fair Park. The problem is, these amusement facilities have been so separated by the park’s design that one has trouble sensing them as a part of a diverse whole. The amusements facilities already in existence, and those that need to be added, must be merged first by landscaping changes.
The first and most basic step in this process is to extend the present lagoon with little fingers which lace in different directions through the park: one tributary reaching up into the Midway around the Cotton Bowl, the other up and into the Grand Plaza across from the Music Hall. These waterways will merge the now isolated Midway, museums and Music Hall areas. At the end of the Grand Plaza, tear down the old Coliseum and replace it with a new Science Museum, bringing new life to that presently desolate section of the Esplanade.
At the same time, the park must be pushed beyond its present boundary on Parry Avenue, giving the new museum some breathing room.
Other major orders of business: The asphalt driveways and parking lots which now cut through the park, isolating various activity segments into islands, must be ripped up and replaced with creative landscaping. The present amphitheater must be reconstructed nearer the center of action. With it removed, the Garden Center could be more closely tied to the lagoon and encouraged to extend some of its wonders outside in appropriate seasons. Likewise, by extending the park south across Second Avenue, the museums will be more organically incorporated into the park. By ripping up most of 1st Avenue, which now separates the museums from the rest of the park, and by extending the land at their rear, thereby creating greater access and circulation, we can successfully blend culture and amusements, high art and popular diversion, education and fun.
A new vehicular circulation system is necessary. Such a system should be based on three circulation zones, starting within the park proper and moving out to its perimeter.
The first zone is a rough figure 8 within the inner park, designed for pedestrian traffic and battery-powered intra-park vehicles. The next ring is a city transit circuit, which weaves around the park, connecting major points of activity. This artery also serves as a route for lazy Sunday drives around and through the park. The third ring involves connecting perimeter parking areas with the park’s core. A great park’s prime means of locomotion – walking and bike riding -should be accommodated, of course, by ample paths and trails throughout the inner park.
The finishing touches involve parking areas designed and situated appropriately at points along the two outer rings of the circulation system. Enliven the green spaces around the present lagoon and its waterways with rare plant collections, large walk-through aviaries and small, open-air restaurants. Large trees should overhang the lagoon and surrounding park land.
Connect various buildings and activity centers by large tree-lined campus walks, like Versailles, instead of the proposed four-laned curbed 1st Avenue, so that we can stroll amiably from the Music Hall to the amusements area in a green and serene world without dodging cars.
Do nothing that is imprudent financially, but push a balance of profit and non-profit enterprises. Build the core of the amusements area where the Automobile Building now squats, perhaps installing a water garden (better, we hope, than Ft. Worth’s) between it and the old Federal Building’s plaza leading to the Midway.
In the amusements area, establish pantomime theater, open-air art galleries, interesting adult games. Indeed, nothing prevents us from going all out to enlist major creative talents to devise totally unique constructions, radical in design but popular in appeal and based on good business sense. Three years ago, I talked with Georgy Kepes about the lack of originality in today’s amusement devices. He believes that genuine artists could bring back some fantasy to these mechanisms in new and startling ways. Let Kepes himself, for example, produce a smashing kind of light palace as a grandchild of the out-dated mirror house. Oldenberg or Rauschenberg could be commissioned as art directors. Bjorn Wiinbald told me recently such an undertaking would fascinate him. Can you imagine, say, what he could do with a tunnel of love, seductively lighted and winding through a sumptuous water garden?
All of this can be accomplished by expanding the park over the next generation from its present 275 acres to almost 700 acres, making room for further additions in designing parking, green space, woodlands, livestock areas, and the possible construction of additional sports facilities. The park began with only 80 acres to reach its present size, and there is no reason to regard its growth as over. Visionary planning requires consideration of the needs of the future – before the future becomes the present, and the opportunity is lost.
Beyond the limits of new roads surrounding the park, the City of Dallas needs to get tough in commitment to comprehensive land uses. Otherwise, the “island in the slum” syndrome is just pushed two blocks further out to the aggravation of the neighborhoods and park patrons alike. We need creative planning at the interface to prevent another Second Avenue.
The final step is a mind-boggier, but essential nonetheless: We must fulfill George Kessler’s 1910 dream of connecting downtown to Fair Park with a huge and handsome parkway. Seventy years after its birth, the idea has finally made its way to the blueprint stage. Make no mistake about it: The undertaking is every bit as complicated as it sounds. For example, an estimated 1, 000 property owners have parcels of land inside the stretch separating Fair Park from the central business district. Those are a lot of compromises, feathers to smooth, and suits to fight in court.
The redevelopment of Fair Park has been hampered over the last 10 years by a series of severe psychological blows; only recently have the Fair’s Board, the Park Board, and individual citizens seemed to regain any sense of confidence in its destiny as a great urban park.
The nadir came in the mid 60’s when racial tensions, exacerbated by a soaring crime rate, emphasized the park’s isolation from white, middle class Dallas. R. L. Thornton, Sr. had already recognized the problem, and as early as 1961 pushed for a major revamp of the park to reverse the trend. Architects were hired to develop a comprehensive plan for the park. Economics Research Associates of Los Angeles tested the economic feasibility of the plan and defined the Fair’s funding capability as $16 million. By that time, Bob Cullum had taken over the Fair’s presidency, and he proceeded with the game plan to the extent of selling the City on placing Fair Park on the 1967 bond program, with the understanding that “funds provided for this program would be coupled with an even larger sum to be provided by the State Fair. ” The bond program included acquisition of land for use as parking space, renovations of the Cotton Bowl, a total reconstruction of the Music Hall, airconditioning of the Livestock Coliseum, and major landscaping and lighting for the Park.
While these improvements were supposed to be underway, a major flap broke out between civic leaders and Clint Murchison, who wanted a better location for his winning Cowboys to play. The skirmish quickly escalated into open warfare, with Cullum scrambling between the opponents in a vain attempt to maintain the peace. When the dust settled, Fair Park was the loser. Murchison rejected Cullum’s offer to build a more spacious and modernized Cotton Bowl near the fairgrounds and began looking for a new site. With the loss of the Cowboys and attendant revenues (the Cowboys’ last two years, 1969 and 1970, brought the Fair $325, 000 and $363, 000, respectively), hopes for a major overhaul of Fair Park apparently dwindled. Without the inspirational and visionary leadership of R. L. Thornton, the Fair Board came to regard its role as one of maintenance, rather than as one of innovation.
Planning on a new amusement park, which was to be the major revenue-producing portion of the redevelopment, was halted. The report of the Economic Research Associates, which had been formally adopted by the assembled Board, was quietly dropped. Save projects specifically approved in the bond program, the only portion of the redevelopment to move forward was a request to the Texas Highway Department to relocate State Highway 352 out from Second Avenue, so that the City could purchase land southwest of the grounds.
The Fair failed to provide the funds promised in its commitment to the City prior to the bond election. Nor did it move to accomplish any of the goals outlined in the master plan. In fact, aside from supervising the annual two-week State Fair, the Fair’s Board did little or nothing to inject new funding or enthusiasm into the park. On the question of financing, Cullum backed off from the economic proposals approved by the Board because he didn’t trust its revenue projections, and he wasn’t willing to risk funds on the basis of the forecasts. But during the past six years $19. 8 million has been spent or committed by the City for capital improvements and land acquisition. An additional $2. 6 million has been committed by the State for relocation of Highway 352.
While the Fair’s Board retreated, the Park Board picked up the ball. Insisting on quality, Park Board President William Dean pressed for a $6. 6 million renovation of the Music Hall, rather than the $500, 000 facelifting that might have otherwise taken place. In 1969, the Park Board created its own plan for Fair Park, without the participation of State Fair management. In the 1972 bond issue approved by voters, the Park Board allocated some $4 million to acquire those 30 acres southwest of the park. Another $2 million was earmarked for improving 50 acres to the rear and to upgrading stock facilities. The 1969 Park Board plan, in addition to adding land to the civic center, proposed dividing the park in two by running 1st Avenue (the street in front of the Music Hall) behind the Aquarium, through the present Midway and out the rear of the grounds to Fitzhugh. A site for the new Health & Science Museum was selected, hidden at the rear of the grounds behind the Garden Center.
The difficiencies of the new plan result from its role as a collection of Band-Aid measures. It fails to tie the park directly to Thornton Freeway, a psychological essential for a metropolitan park. The visitor who takes the Fair Park exit off Thornton is met immediately by dilapidated buildings, ugly parking spaces and assorted eyesores instead of open green spaces that should “welcome” him to the park. This lack of attention to the environment surrounding the park contributes to the public image of Fair Park as a fortress surrounded by urban slum.
The failure to extend the Park’s green spaces is only one example of the plan’s lack of comprehensiveness. The extension of 1st Avenue only slices the Park in two, when its most urgent need is to be tied together. No provision is made for an in-grounds transit system. No strategy is proposed for the future growth of Fair facilities. No parking is provided for the World Exhibits Building. No room for growth is allowed the train museum.
Most importantly, the plan fails to hit at the guts of the matter, developing the revenue-producing portions of the park and transforming it into a self-sufficient and ongoing enterprise. Instead, the plan restricts the planned amusements area, shuttling it off to the side where it will undoubtedly flounder along as the Midway does presently.
Yet, at the minimum, the Park Board and its plan demonstrated a confidence in Fair Park at a time when hopes for its redevelopment were fading. The question remains: Are current measures enough to recapture and captivate the urban market Fair Park must attract to attain the status of Dallas’ foremost park?
Fair Park can attract that market. Attendance at the Dallas Summer Musicals is growing: 174, 000 last sum mer, up from 136, 000 the year before. Despite dire warn ings, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra draws as well at the Music Hall as it did in University Park’s psychologically comfortable McFarlin Auditorium. This fall the Museum of Fine Arts drew a record-breaking crowd of 1, 400 for one of its openings. Bob Glenn’s Shakespeare Festival attracted approximately 20, 000 to the band shell during August.
Bob Cullum says, in spite of all the problems he’s experienced with the Park, he’s still committed to it “because it just wouldn’t die. ” Fair Park won’t die because it’s needed; it will continue to grow in popularity as that need grows. And 20 years from today, the need for a great urban park closely tied to Town Lake and the central business district may be this city’s highest emergency priority.
Fair Park represents too great an investment to this city to be regarded by anyone as a bastard child. The so-called “risks” of redevelopment must be weighed against what will happen to our inner city and to all of Dallas if we don’t do more. Sooner or later, we must enlarge the vision and put the pieces together. Fair Park is, by any measure, the most identifiable starting point.
As Goals for Dallas stated in 1966, we must “redevelopFair Park as a great regional entertainment, recreationaland cultural center for year-round use. ” As a city, we havedelayed too long in pushing for fulfillment of that goal.Cautious men do not build cities, and this city still has alot of building to do. When Dallas sets its mind on a goal,that goal has a way of being accomplished. It is timeDallas set its mind on Fair Park.
2
Mall Main Street That two-way traffic route between Commerce and Elm is always crowded with cars, trucks, buses and people. It should be converted into a vehicular-free mall, from Harwood on the east to Griffin on the west. (Main Street business leaders and city experts have their heads together on this already. ) And what better place to revive trolley cars than Main Street? Electric trolleys plying the middle of Main Street Mall would lend an old-timey flavor to the city. Their historical value is important to Dallas, they could provide revenue to help pay for the mall and quick transportation from east to west and back again. Merchants would realize a profit instead of a loss from such a development. In fact, it would stimulate the street, as well as add a very important aesthetic quality that is lacking in the Central Business District. Also, the trolleys could be the replacement of the Dallas Transit System’s defunct shopper special.
3
Give it a sporting try. At long last, we have at least tentative plans for a downtown sports arena. The biggest obstacle apparently was site selection; after much haggling, a five-acre site in the southwest corner of the downtown business district has been settled upon. Sports Arena Committee Chairman Alex Cochrane assures us that financing the proposed 20, 000 seat structure will be an easy hurdle compared to the site selection. He estimates about a $35 to $40 million price tag, “cheap in comparison to similar type facilities in other cities. It will be purely a practical facility with no frills, ” he says.
If all goes well, Cochrane says, the arena could be completed by 1978, which may sound like forever to anxious sports fans. It may seem like forever, too, to pro basketball and hockey franchises known to be waiting at Dallas’ doorstep for a chance to play. A suggestion along these lines: Pursue the possibility of securing those franchises before 1978, temporarily housing them at Moody Coliseum, State Fair Coliseum or Memorial Auditorium while the arena is being completed. That way, with a year or two to build team quality and fan interest, the teams could move into their new quarters in style. And Dallas sports fans would have something to cheer at other than their television sets during January, February and March.
4
Bringing Warehouses to life. New life for downtown Dallas, perhaps the city’s single most crying need, is still a lot of talk (there are over 30 authorized committees currently studying various aspects of the problem) but very little real action. One of the more interesting possibilities involves the entire west end of the Central Business District, an area bounded by Houston St. on the west, Young St. on the south, Lamar St. on the east, and the Woodall Rodgers extension on the north. The Dallas Historical Landmark Preservation Committee is exploring the possibility of declaring the area an historical district and establishing stringent guidelines with regard to limitations of future construction; protection and restoration of existing structures within its boundaries. The district would actually be subdivided into two areas: the County Courthouse District south of Elm Street and the Warehouse District north of Elm. The southern district is significant for its historical and architectural highlights. The northern district is ripe for careful development in two ways key to the revitalization process. As an entertainment area, it could provide a concentrated stimulus for people to visit at night; as proof of its potential, witness the success of The Old Spaghetti Warehouse there on Market St. As inner city housing -many believe that unless a core of downtown residents, a mixed mass of economic types, is established to make consistent use of downtown facilities, revitalization can never happen -there are several old buildings with potential for apartments, loft-type housing, or even combination office/housing. (The future of the west end will be the subject of an upcoming story in D. )
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Metro (yawn) government. Okay, it’s not the most scintillating subject in the world. It’s also one of the most misunderstood, feared concepts in modern political science. It is also one of the most inevitable.
Metropolitan government need not smack of Orwellian hocus-pocus or Government 601. Rendered simply, it is the consolidation of often overlapping and repetitive government functions in large metropolitan areas. Its object is efficiency: for example, improving law enforcement by combining the major city police department with the sheriffs department and all the suburban police forces.
Metro government’s useful place in the Dallas metropolitan or the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan areas is not completely clear. For one thing, Dallas has a tradition of clean, efficient government and city planning thus far, and history tells us metro has tended to be a last ditch shot for quagmired urban governments. History also tells us metro government has had a better track record in urban areas with a very few independent governmental entities. Most of the metro consolidations during the fifties and sixties involved the combining of 4 to 10 governmental entities, with the notable exception of Dade County, where 27 were united under a metropolitan governmental umbrella.
In what we roughly call the Dallas metropolitan area there are some 27 individual incorporated governmental entities, as well as county government, school districts, a hospital district, etc. If you begin to include the mid-cities and/or Fort Worth, you’re probably talking about twice that number.
Another negative factor, perhaps, is that metro governments have tended to be only successfully implemented in areas where there is a history of intergovernmental cooperation. Age-old conflicts between city and county governments in Dallas, and between Dallas and Fort Worth (the regional airport notwithstanding), seem to make that prerequisite untenable.
Perhaps most important is the Dallas-Texas-Southern philosophical aversion to super-governments. States rights and agrarian populism still largely color our politics here, and it’s difficult to see the body politics of even the smallest suburban cities willing to hand over their sovereignties, even in the name of efficiency.
Most political scientists, however, seem to agree that some elements of metropolitan governmental consolidation are inevitable in Dallas. Already, there is a Byzantine maze of inter-governmental contracts between the City of Dallas and satellite suburban cities, which collectively amount to a sort of organic merging of governmental functions. Some 14 area cities already depend on Dallas for their water supplies; even more purchase sewage services. Many suburbs also use Dallas police and fire personnel as back up for emergencies.
As Southern Methodist University political scientist Tom Mikulecky says, “It’s conceivable that in many areas like water sewage, law enforcement and so on, total metro consolidation will virtually become just the next logical step… “
For the present, it seems two tenets of metropolitan government seem valuable to Dallas: a metropolitan area land-use plan and a metropolitan transit authority.
Minneapolis-St. Paul, perhaps the most advanced metro specie in the country, has had great success with a metro land-use plan. To avert wholesale civil war among municipalities at the outset, the plan could be made voluntary, an informal agreement to adhere to the plan between each city in the metro area and the metro planning council. The North Central Texas Council of Governments is an existing quasi-governmental structure which could be used as a basis for such a council.
The point of such a council is to insure that the respective chauvinistic spirits of the numerous governmental entities in the metropolitan area do not injure the quality of life in the entire area. For example, if the City of Dallas decided to zone much of North LBJ heavy industrial, the folks in Richardson would be affected by the smoke, noise and traffic. But without a super-zoning council to appeal to, they would have little official recourse.
Once such a metro land-use council has proved its worth on an informal basis, perhaps its powers could be formalized: some metro governments have instituted systems where individual cities retain the right to zone property higher, but only the metro land-use council can approve lower zoning.
A second area which seems to need a policy-making super-structure is transportation, or more specifically, rapid transit. An overall metro transit authority (probably including Fort Worth because rapid transit to and from the airport is key) would provide a) a new and separate tax base specifically for mass transit, b) a governing body which could look at the “big picture” and c) a body which could deal directly with the Legislature.
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Cliffhanging. Let’s get rid of those cliffs that serve as curbs in the CBD. There are some real ledges, notably at Main and Akard. The city has replaced some curbs and gutters in the CBD, lowering the level of the sidewalks to almost pavement grade. The lay of the land prevents a really big reduction in height for many curbs, since sloping them would give pedestrians something akin to a ski jump. However, gentle grading could reduce them considerably.
Mrs. Margaret Dyerly, who is 70 years old, has been a major mover in the drive to educate the public and local governments to the need for lower curbs for the handicapped. Mrs. Dyerly and her colleagues have been successful in getting curbs lowered in the CBD, D/FW Airport, Fair Park, the Music Hall and other places.
7
Grand ballroom. The grand waiting room in the Union Terminal should be put to some kind of public use, instead of being left to collect dust. There is a plan, involving the Reunion development to make that room a transition point from the past to the future via a connecting shopping mall to the new Hyatt Regency Hotel complex. That’s a good idea, but it involves commercializing a grand old hall that should belong to all of us. It could be used for official city functions such as welcoming of dignitaries, town meetings and official cocktail-dinner-luncheon functions. It could also be used for art shows, concerts and other demonstrations from which all the public could benefit. Plays could be performed there, musicals staged and once a week it could be turned into a big dance hall with catered buffets and “Big Band” sounds.
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Trinity River and Town Lake. Once and for all, let’s do something about the Trinity River. It has to be the greatest blight upon our landscape. The sewage that pours into the river from the West Fork and Fort Worth has reduced the oxygen level to a point that the river will not support fish and plant life. There’s also the matter of high fecal content, especially during the summer. The Trinity River Authority is currently planning to spend $70 million to improve their sewage treatment plants and procedures. The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth and the North Texas Municipal Water District, as well as the TRA, dump in the Trinity. These agencies need to follow the TRA example.
Now, here is the Joker in this hand – the long sought, highly desired Town Lake project can never be realized unless the Trinity River is improved. The river simply will not support it. We cannot just throw up dams at Continental Street on the north and Corinth Street on the south. Instead of a beautiful lake with sailboats, shorefront condominiums and apartments, retail and office buildings, parks, green spaces and all the amenities this could bring, we would have a giant cesspool with an acrid, nose-wrinkling odor far worse than it is now.
Technology is possible, maybe even available. But it is going to cost money – hundreds of millions of dollars. So, if we want a clean river and Town Lake, we must be willing to spend.
9
Symphony needs a leader. Though the Dallas Symphony has been given another lease on life, the resurrection is short term and shaky at best. It seems that what is needed most for long term life is a guiding light, a single figure of great magnitude and magnetism whom musicians, moneymen and music-goers alike could all rally around. He would have to fill many roles. As conductor and artistic director he would have to understand clearly and cater to the tastes of the Dallas audience and its known inclination towards the grand and romantic stylists (Beethoven, et al) and at the same time show a mastery of current trends in order to attract the best young musicians available. He would have to have a solid and commanding business sense in dealing with the Symphony Association and the core of large civic donors. And he would have to have the charisma to stir the interest of the general public. Does such a rare being exist? A couple of names have been mentioned along these lines: Alain Lombard, formerly conductor of the Miami Philharmonic, has the dynamic charm, though some have questioned the furthest reaches of his technical abilities; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor of the Buffalo Symphony and former assistant with the Boston Symphony, is perhaps less charismatic but a highly acclaimed artist and technician. And there just may be that perfect diamond in the rough lurking somewhere in the ranks of young and rising conductors. Whoever and wherever, he will have to be diligently searched for, carefully wooed, substantially compensated, and given absolute authority and a free hand in building his Symphony. A far-fetched hope, perhaps. But the late Larry Kelly proved with the Dallas Civic Opera that it can be done and that it can be done here.
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Ticketron. For years, the Preston Ticket Agency has been the one and only place in Dallas to handle tickets for the bulk of the various cultural and recreational events in the city. And, considering the burden, they’ve done a pretty good job. But as the matrix of entertainment in Dallas continues to expand, both geographically and numerically, that one little location on Preston can hardly be expected to keep this entire city and surrounding suburbs supplied with tickets.
In conjunction with the Sears stores, record stores, and various box offices, all of whom have tickets to some things but not to others, it can be a confusing scramble (and often a long drive) to find the right tickets to the right seats in the right price range on the right day at the right time. It’s probable that many Dallas-ites miss out on events they might otherwise attend simply because they don’t want to take the time and bother to track down tickets. Fortunately, modern technology, bless its heart, has a cure for the problems of multiple confusion – the good old computer.
In several major cities lives a beast known as Ticketron, a centralized computer which keeps a constant update on all tickets to all events, which are distributed through its many neighborhood offices, all plugged into the one system. Thus, at your own nearby neighborhood outlet, the best seats available at that given moment, for almost any event you might be interested in, are yours at the punch of a few keys.
To install such a system here would obviously be an expensive project in terms of computer costs, but considering the man hours and busy work to be saved, well worth it. The attractive side effect of such convenience would be increased participation and thus increased support for the cultural arts, sports teams, university programs, and other “worthy causes. “
11
Mini-post offices. Small mail handling facilities, scattered throughout the city’s neighborhoods, would be a major convenience to citizens. They need not be full facilities, just stamps, mail drops, parcel handling.
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Public restrooms in the downtown area.
13
Downtown Dixie. Downtown needs a top-notch Dixieland night spot, and what better place than the Belo Mansion, former home of Confederate Col. A. H. Belo? Put on your white linen suit, walk up the mansion’s rolling lawn through its big white columns and inside to the sounds of “The Dixieland Onestep. ” Sit back, sip a hurricane and mellow with “Just a Closer Walk With Thee. ” Top off the evening with a round of the “Liebestraum Stomp. ” Colonel Belo would have loved it.
14
Street parties. Another key to the process of “downtown revitalization” is to put people in the habit of going downtown at times other than the weekday 8-5 routine. Like on weekends. One way to do it would be to pick a spring Sunday when the weather would likely be nice, block off one of the major downtown streets (Main St. might be a good one) and stage a one-day bazaar. Anybody and everybody who wanted to could set up booths to sell arts and crafts, plants, jewelry, old books, antiques, whatever. Vendors could peddle hot dogs, tacos, sandwiches, pizza, beer, cider, whatever. Musicians could stroll or stake out a corner and entertain. Artists could set up sidewalk studios for portraits. A stage could be erected for pre-arranged performances and concerts. Various social action groups could promote their causes from their booths.
It’s certainly not an impossible proposition – Philadelphia did it last fall and attracted 300, 000 people. If it worked here it might even be considered on an annual or quarterly or even bi-monthly basis. And it would prove that downtown Dallas can actually be enjoyed.
15
Libraries are for people. The downtown Public Library is splitting at the seams. The overcrowded and outdated facility has no room for expansion or space for housing such needed technological advancements as data banks. They’ve been forced to open an annex down the street to hold their operational departments and have had to cancel their film programs for lack of space. But extensive planning is nearly completed for a new library on a site in the southwest section of downtown, bounded by Ervay, Young, Browder, and Wood Streets. Outside of its academic functions, a city library’s most important role is that of a gathering spot, a public melting pot. The front steps of the New York City Public Library on a sunny day offer a more diverse collection of people than most any place in Manhattan. Hopefully, the new Library can do that for Dallas. As Head Librarian Lillian Bradshaw puts it, “If properly designed and developed, the new facility can be a kind of downtown oasis -to read in; to visit in; to attend film programs, art showings, book reviews; or even just to rest in. ” The sooner the better.
16
Tube boob. Last fall, as the Rangers continued their amazing struggle to win a pennant, their fans were forced either to huddle around the radio or wait for the morning papers to find out how their heroes were doing on the road. Last season, Channel 5, not anticipating the Rangers’ success (you can hardly blame them), scheduled 22 telecasts of road games. This season, having learned their lesson, Channel 5 has scheduled a grand total of 23 telecasts. Hard to believe, especially knowing that last year the Rangers’ tube appearances gave Channel 5 some of its highest ratings, even against national network shows on other channels. At least they could broadcast all weekend games and late night (West Coast) games, which wouldn’t interfere with regular national programming. Is that too much to ask? If so, let Channel 11 do it.
17
Give ’era a break. One other recommendation made by the Council Inner City Committee and by CCA mayoral candidate John Schoellkopf is to work toward amending Texas tax law to allow cities to offer private developers tax abatements for developing in so-called “high risk” areas like downtown. A typical tax abatement system would work something like this: The City Plan Commission and Council recognize that the downtown area needs a performing arts theater. The stately old Majestic is available. Someone is interested, but is worried about the incredible risk for his upfront dollar. The city says, fine, we understand, and says we’ll hold a moratorium on your ad valorem taxes for five years to make certain you get started off right.
Sounds a bit crass, but it’s a sure fire way to get developers – the key to downtown revitalization – interested.
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Vouching for education. The voucher system is one of those chic educational concepts that looks great on paper, but has yet to prove its efficacy under fire. There are a number of variations on the basic theme, but essentially the voucher system would have the government award taxpaying parents vouchers, stipends to be used as payment for their child’s education at the school of their choice -public, private, parochial or other.
The idea is to maximize parental freedom of choice in educating their children, and to create healthy competition among schools.
Federally funded studies of the notion have been in progress for some time, but the first real test of the system was a program in Alum Rock, a depressed school district in San Jose, California. Administrators, teachers, parents and students alike apparently swear by the results, although the experiment dealt only with public schools.
For the moment, all eyes – including those in Dallas – are on New Hampshire where a broader experiment, including possibly seven school districts, as well as private schools, is now underway. Project results are tagged for the fall of 1976.
Pending the outcome of the Dallas desegregation case, it might be worthwhile for the Dallas Independent School District and other smaller districts to undertake an in-depth study of the voucher system’s possibilities in the area.
19
144, 000 angels. Land has been acquired for the building of a center for the performing arts (Like Lincoln Center in New York City), but it may take 10 years to build such a center. To speed up the process, developer Jim Coker recommended dividing the land into one square foot plots and selling it at $100 per to raise money. The acquired land, located adjacent to the new City Hall-Convention Center complex at Young and Griffin, totals 144,000 square feet. That’s $14,400,000 that could be used as start-up funds, or better yet, an endowment that would provide the center with an annual income. Once the land is sold, then the owners would deed it back to the center and their names would be inscribed on the walls of the building. What Broadway impresario wouldn’t love 144,000 “angels”?
20
Majestic Majestic. Deep in the heart of Elm Street, a treasure from the past sits in darkness collecting dust. The Majestic Theater, built in 1922 by Karl Hoblitzelle and designed by the renowned architect John Eberson, is a masterpiece of its genre. Styled in the 18th Century baroque of a European opera house, the Majestic is still a dazzling piece of architecture. With its 2400 seats (“not a bad one in the house”) and its splendid acoustics, it would be a perfect home for the performing arts.
This is by no means a new idea. For the past five years, various such proposals for possible use of the Majestic have been submitted to the Hoblitzelle Foundation, which owns the building. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has shown interest in making it their home. The City of Dallas itself is now giving it the eye. Though a downtown site has been selected for a new Performing Arts Center, the gigantic project will not be completed for some ten years, according to Garry Weber, chairman of the overseeing committee. Thus, Weber’s committee has gone on record in support of the City securing the Majestic as an interim facility.
More recently, a very intriguing proposal was suggested by Stockton Briggle, a former Dallas resident and now an East Coast stage producer, who has a success story to go with his plan. Last summer, Briggle opened the Miami Star Theater in Gusman Hall, a renovated 1916 theater in downtown Miami, much like the Majestic. His first “season” consisted of two productions, “Man of La Mancha” and “Anything Goes, ” the 1930’s Cole Porter musical. Though both received critical acclaim, public response was slow at first. But during the last few days of the first production, the lines were stretching out into the street and down the block, “a sight not seen in downtown Miami in many years, ” says Briggle. “It was beautiful. ” He foresees the same for Dallas. “It wouldn’t have to be in the Majestic, but I’d love to do it there, both because of the beauty of the place and its heart-of-downtown location. ” The Dallas Star Theater would operate in conjunction with the Miami Star, productions travelling from one to the other, thus expanding the possibilities for both.
It is interesting, too, that the Miami Star shares Gusman Hall with the Miami Philharmonic, meaning that the Majestic could still be a home to other cultural arts, including the Dallas Symphony. Such multiple use of the facility would allow for year-round activity, giving it a chance of being at least a self-supporting venture. The attractive side effect, hopefully, would be a snowballing stimulation of downtown nightlife, carrying over to restaurants, clubs, maybe even other theaters.
Unfortunately there is a serious hitch to all this. The Majestic building, including the theater and the office space above, is currently under lease to ABC Interstate Theaters, Inc. until 1979. Since the decline and fall of downtown movies, ABC Interstate has used the Majestic only sporadically. It was booked for a short while for rock concerts and more recently as the film set for Phantom of the Paradise. It has since been closed down, the electricity turned off, because “it just isn’t profitable to keep it open anymore, ” according to Interstate management. “We have no plans for it. ” The building has in fact become something of a millstone around the neck of Interstate, who would probably love to shed themselves of the lease and the $70,000-a-year bill from the Hoblitzelle Foundation. But the Hoblitzelle people are also in a bind. Indications are that they would be willing to give the Majestic to the City (the City is not interested in buying the building; they want it as a gift) but because of tax complications regarding other recent land and building donations, the Foundation claims that it cannot realistically make a gift of the Majestic before 1979 anyway.
So the Majestic will likely remain cold and dark until 1979. Unless: a) Someone chooses to buy the Majestic (at enormous cost considering the land value) and risks making a profitable go of it as a multiple use (ballet, symphony, theater, road shows, rock concerts) facility. Very unlikely -it’s just too expensive. b) A group of civic-minded money men join together to buy it, put it to multiple arts use, and operate it as a non-profit organization. (It was just such a group, the Downtown Development Authority of Miami, who backed the Star Theater project. ) c) The Hoblitzelle Foundation (with its known soft spot for the Majestic, longtime flagship of Karl Hoblitzelle’s fleet) takes it back under its wing now and finances the renovation, probably $2-3 million if done right, and makes formative plans for its use. (“No” is the response at Hoblitzelle at this point. “We’re a small staff and we’re in the investment business now, not show business. “) But someone, like a Stockton Briggle, could be appointed (hired) to direct these operations under the auspices of the Hoblitzelle Foundation. That way, when 1979 rolled around (or even earlier with a bit of tax juggling expertise – where there’s a will there’s a way), the whole package could be given to the City, christened Hoblitzelle Hall, and be ready for immediate activity.
If none of the above happen, the chronology will see the City receive the Majestic in late 1979, begin renovation in 1980, secure a year round arts program by 1981 or 82, and perhaps begin real operations by 1983. If all goes well, that is -remember “the City” is politics and does not move swiftly. Another year and the new Performing Arts Center would be completed, so what’s the point?
Hopefully, at least, the Hoblitzelle Foundation will not allow the Majestic to suffer the fate of the Palace Theater. The Palace, another Elm Street monument of lavish beauty, was also under lease to Interstate until 1970. As it too became unprofitable as a movie house, the Palace was sold by its ownership, the J. B. Wilson estate, to the National Bank of Commerce and was promptly demolished.
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Culture power. The City needs a cultural commission with strong advisory and budgetary power to influence the goals and direction of the city’s cultural community. The commission should include at least one politico, preferably one with clout; representatives from art, music, theater, motion pictures; someone from the advertising sector; a couple of plain old citizens and maybe an architect for balance. Then get them all together and have them elect one of their own to serve as commissioner of cultural affairs. Keep them unsala-ried, but pay the routine expenses of the commissioner. Utilize the commission for providing the city with a sensitivity toward our cultural deficiencies as well as our sufficiencies. Get the commission to work up suggestions for improving art and theater in Dallas. Then, establish community theater groups throughout the city that would be open to public participation. The budding Neil Simons, Arthur Millers, Jason Robards, etc. should be encouraged to submit plays and audition for parts. Stage the productions free for the public and without pay for the participants. Maybe some of our more well-heeled corporations and businessmen could donate the funds to pay for buying scenery and limited costumes. The commission should be given authority over all city monies currently earmarked for the arts.
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Tennis, anyone? The city should purchase some property around the northern and eastern edges of the downtown area and level it off for tennis courts. Adequate lighting, security and a little encouragement might see a greater number of people staying downtown after nightfall.
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Super-jail. Build a regional jail facility to serve all of Dallas County and other counties, if possible. Police Chief Donald Byrd said he feels it will help the efficiency of the criminal justice system. It will end duplication of jail facilities at the city and county level, saving considerable amounts on food, personnel and upkeep. It should be staffed by a regional or perhaps state corrections force. Also, it should be a rehabilitative center, and not just a place of confinement. Many men and women who go to jail are not criminals. They’re lawbreakers, and there is a difference.
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How to widen Mockingbird Lane and keep Highland Park happy. The solution is not complicated, but it does require that everyone keep calm. You understand, of course, that the best compromises are often those that offend all parties equally.
Highland Park’s case against the widening has always been: (1) it would cause increased traffic, (2) increased traffic would endanger schoolchildren, and (3) the whole thing would be, well, inconvenient. The first argument is probably correct. However, the flow of traffic would be so much smoother that actual traffic would appear less. The second argument is not correct, since we can provide for schoolchildren in our planning. The third argument is self-injurious: Highland Park citizens are the ones most inconvenienced by the present traffic bog.
If Highland Park were a little country town in East Texas, it probably wouldn’t need to widen Mockingbird. It isn’t, so it does. But it shouldn’t be required to pay for it. After all, it’s not HP’s fault all those Dallas County motorists choose to drive through their town.
We say Dallas County motorists for a very good reason: The City of Dallas can’t be held totally responsible, either. If Mockingbird were widened it would become a useful east-west corridor through the county. Besides, when two municipalities are involved in an undertaking of this sort, the County ought to participate. Therefore, because our project involves all three, we propose that the County, the City and HP each finance separate segments. Here goes:
First, HP must exercise the right of eminent domain on all homes on the north side of Mockingbird. These homes turn over at a rate three to four times faster than is normal in HP.
Second, the County would negotiate and provide purchase prices for these homes, as well as finance and supervise demolition. Yes, demolition.
Third, the City of Dallas would undertake the actual widening. From the Tollway to Douglas, the boulevard would allow for retaining the present wall, with space left over (because of the narrow street between the wall and demolished houses) for green space. The boulevard would either narrow at Douglas, where HP has purchased ten feet to create a turn lane, or additional land would have to be purchased, requiring minor design changes in the HP Shopping Village parking lot. After Preston, the boulevard would run into some minor problems, namely Mobil Oil Company, Sewell Village Cadillac, and the Dallas Country Club. The Mobil station at the intersection of Mockingbird and Preston would probably have to go. The Sewell parking garage, which is unobtrusively designed, could remain, if five to ten feet were taken on the south side from the country club. But the country club will also have to forfeit a small portion of the north side of the street of its golf course and some well-placed tennis courts. After that hurdle, the boulevard could run smoothly to Hillcrest. Unfortunately, our plan requires the demolition of the beautifully landscaped Lambert house on the corner of Fairfield. That’s progress.
Once the widening is completed, HP is in charge of design, as well as building a pedestrian walkway over the boulevard at Douglas, for the benefit of Bradfield Elementary students.
Except for one or two annoying lawsuits, the plan is absolutely sound. Now, citizens of Highland Park, now that you’ve stopped laughing, won’t you at least think it over?
Good neighbor policy
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If Dallas is to flourish, then the name of the game is save downtown and save the neighborhoods. Now there’s just not much average folk can do about saving downtown – that’s up to the city’s heavyweights. But save your neighborhood? There’s plenty you can do.
Let’s face it. The old game of building a neighborhood, using it twenty years and throwing it away like a disposable diaper won’t work anymore. Practically out of raw land, Dallas has got to make it with the neighborhoods we have. That means fighting to keep your neighborhood attractive. It means doing battle with developers who might like to turn part of your neighborhood into gawdy storefronts or apartment city.
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Get together. To preserve your neighborhood, first form a neighborhood association – an association of residents who aim to make sure their neighborhood stays attractive. An attractive neighborhood equals high property values. That’s money in the bank for you.
The time to form your neighborhood association is now, before the crisis arises. Granted it’s easier to get people together when the trouble has already begun, but playing catch up when the plan commission is considering approving a 200-unit apartment complex for your neighborhood is risky business. The best bet is to rally around something positive, like Swiss Avenue residents did when they got their area declared a historical district.
Once you’ve got a neighborhood association organized, you’ll need to make it more than just another disorganized organization. Here are some tips from the most successful organizations in Dallas right now.
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Zero in. Find a focal point for your efforts. The best way to find out what’s in store for your neighborhood is to telephone the City Plan Department (744-4371) which has divided the city into 34 communities. Each of those communities has been subdivided into several neighborhoods, and plans already exist for every neighborhood in Dallas except Lisbon and South Dallas. Susan Murphy or Ron Morris will be glad to tell you about the plans for your neighborhood. They will furnish speakers and slide presentations and help you with planning.
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Find a chief. Find well-known individuals within your organization to take leadership spots. People will feel more comfortable about joining your association if you do this, and your organization will also gain credibility with officialdom. (A good example of this is former Congressional candidate John Sartain, an economist currently heading a drive to overturn a Turtle Creek zoning decision.)
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Landlords. Another area you’ll need to contend with is absentee landlords. Since they own rent homes in your neighborhood, but don’t live in them, you may need to devote special attention to landlords. Generally the best kept neighborhoods are occupied by homeowners, so ultimately you want to create a neighborhood so nice that people will want to buy into it. As an intermediate step, pressure landlords to maintain their rent houses as nicely as your own home. Eventually you want to convince them to sell, but a word of caution here. Don’t make this move until you are certain a market exists for homes in your neighborhood. Maintaining your neighborhood will create this market.
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Zoning. The last touchy area is zoning. Older neighborhoods often fall prey to intrusion from commercial developments and apartment complexes. Chaotic zoning will gut your neighborhood. Some tips in controlling zoning:
You will know if a zoning change has been requested because the city will notify nearby affected residents, asking for their comments. Make sure everyone sends back comments, even if it means going door-to-door to collect them. This is the point where developers first sense their opposition. If you have a solid neighborhood association you’re in the driver’s seat.
If the zoning change appears unfavorable but inevitable, pressure the plan commission and City Council to gain important concessions. There’s nothing wrong with an apartment complex in your neighborhood (so long as it doesn’t overcrowd your school), but make it an attractive one. Force the developer to build a low-rise building, with plenty of landscaping and open space, and parking in the rear. Like nature, neighborhoods need a balance of land use, and too many apartments or commercial developments is bad.
While the zoning case is being examined by the city plan staff, use your contacts and mailing list to influence the plan staffs recommendations. When the case reaches the plan commission and later the City Council, organize neighbors to appear en masse. There is absolutely no sight more impressive to elected or appointed city officials than a room full of angry residents who care enough to fight for their neighborhood.
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Educate. When your goals are defined, begin a broad-based educational campaign to swing people around to your point of view. Be patient -this may take months. Don’t overlook any chance to speak to individuals who can help you. Identify every person in city government who has a hand in dealing with your neighborhood. Make appointments to see neighborhood bankers and merchants-extremely important elements in your success.
Once organized, move quickly to make your neighborhood an attractive place to live. Make it so attractive that people will be willing to fix up old homes or tear them down and build new ones. That’s the secret to Highland Park’s and University Park’s successes. A few tips:
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Garbage. Push for regular sanitation pickup. Garbage laying around ruins property values. Telephone city sanitation 421-5521.
If you notice garbage cans dumped over constantly, telephone the city’s animal control, 943-2471.
If neighbors persist in leaving trash around the city can help you here too. Telephone litter control, 428-8347.
A neighborhood without landscaping is a sore sight. Plant trees and shrubs. The most attractive landscaping trees are elms and oaks.
Encourage neighbors to paint their homes different colors from nearby homes. A neighborhood with a variety of house colors and facades will enjoy high property values.
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Neighborhood Associations. Quite a few neighborhood associations already exist independently in Dallas and exercise considerable clout when it comes to fighting zoning intrusions. But imagine if the neighborhood associations affiliated into area councils.
If the Oak Cliff associations agreed to support each other in zoning battles, the impact could be tremendous. With single-member City Council districts in the works, what city councilman would want to vote against the combined wishes of four or five neighborhood associations comprising his district?
Here’s a current list of existing neighborhood associations and a person to contact in your neighborhood:
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It pays to advertise. Once you’ve got a neighborhood worth crowing about, consider the most original, yet unoriginal scheme any neighborhood has tried lately. Original because ordinary folks have never before mounted a campaign advertising their neighborhood. Unoriginal because anybody knows if you want to promote something you’ve got to advertise.
A group of East Dallas residents realized realtors weren’t going to promote East Dallas so they decided to do it themselves. They did, and the result has been stabilization of the area’s property values and an influx of young homeowners.
The campaign was launched with the help of the Historic Preservation League, a local, non-profit organization which lends expertise to neighborhood associations. Bankers and realtors donated $8, 200, which paid for newspaper advertising, touting the benefits of living in East Dallas. The campaign worked so well they published a handsome booklet entitled “Buying a Home in Historic Old East Dallas. ” The booklet is distributed by Dallas Power & Light, the Chamber of Commerce, and area banks and merchants. Soon it may be distributed in grocery stores.
Requests for the booklet come from all over the country, including a recent one from Anchorage, Alaska. The Historic League is glad to help any neighborhood organization. (Telephone 827-5800 or write P. O. Box 9765, Dallas 75214. ) Your imagination should be the limit in promoting any neighborhood, but remember, it pays to advertise.
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Hike and bike. The Park Board says it’s laying a trail for hikers and cyclists along a two-mile stretch from Reverchon Park to Blackburn. However, several years ago in Designs for Dallas, the Dallas Chapter of American Institute of Architects proposed a longer, more comprehensive trail (shown here). The proposed trail runs north through Highland Park and south through the industrial district, for a total distance of six miles. As the AIA reported, the trail would be “… eight feet wide, paved with caliche or light asphalt. Bridges would provide access through the underpasses. Along the way, refreshment stands, eating places and gaming areas could be placed to make the trip even more pleasant and relaxing. “
In a city so passionate about jogging and cycling, two miles isn’t even respectable. We recommend the Park Board go back to the drawing board, even if it means having to lower itself to speaking to the Town of Highland Park.
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Finish the Village. The second oldest shopping center in the nation, Highland Park Shopping Village, also ranks high among the most charming. A few finishing touches could add to the gentility and graciousness the Village already exudes. First, extend the present underground parking facilities as far as possible. For overloads and peak periods, construct a multi-story parking garage across Mockingbird on the site of the present one. Second, when these new parking facilities have been completed, tear up the existing parking lots and streets. Third, turn all that asphalt into landscaped plazas with broad walkways, grassy areas, fountains and old-fashioned street lamps. Four, require all merchants and shopowners to hang standardized, wooden signs, with sizes varying according to the amount of space leased. Five, induce one restaurant of very high quality to relocate in the center portion, requiring that it provide sidewalk cafe service during luncheon hours. Six, encourage and/or hire mariachi bands, small art exhibits and other activities at night.
The present owner of the Village is the Howard Corporation, a subsidiary of Republic National Bank.
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Lobby bar. Take the wonderful lobby of the Stoneleigh Hotel, restore it, and turn it into a sipping and chatting bar, a la the Algonquin in New York.
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Top drawer. Turn the top floor of the Stoneleigh Hotel into a posh, haute cuisine restaurant, with a bar-with-a-view. Location perfect.
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Downtown museum. Another way to increase downtown pedestrian traffic would be to install a Dallas Museum of Fine Arts storefront gallery on a major downtown street. This idea has been batted around before, but never has been pursued seriously. The “mini-museum” could exhibit its own special collections, and even include an outlet of the wonderful DMFA shop.
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Pay the mayor. We recommend the mayor of Dallas be paid one dollar more than the governor of Texas: $63,001 annually.
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Improvise. If some of the foundations which normally give to existing arts organizations would get a little innovative, a Second City-style improvisatory theater would be a nice addition to the Dallas arts scene. Not only would it provide entertainment, but it would offer young acting talent in the city a place to grow.
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Street vendors. In order to encourage parks, green spaces and public use of them, the city should ease its ordinance restricting food vendors and permit the sale of packaged edibles and soft drinks from miniature catering vans. These vans, similar to the pickup truck variety, would be restricted to the periphery of parks and green spaces (and sidewalks) to avoid commercial clutter. Pull up a bench: have chicken salad and a Dr Pepper in the sunshine.
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Old Jefferson. Wonderful Jefferson Avenue in Oak Cliff has worn down over the years. But with a little imagination by the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce, which offices on the the street, and a little cooperation from the City, Jefferson could be restored into an authentic representation of the early Dallas of the 1910’s and 20’s. Such a project would stimulate business, as well as attract tourists from North Dallas. We’d love to see a trolley car carrying patrons up and down the avenue, and we bet the merchants would too.
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Light up downtown. One of the reasons the downtown area is so uninviting after dark is that it’s so dark. Most major downtown thoroughfares are at best, minimally lit; some not at all. It would require little money and effort to light all major streets adequately with attractive street lights. Perhaps major businesses along these thoroughfares could pitch in.
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Double-decking Central. The State Highway Department has plans to double-deck Central Expressway by 1990. But, more highway is needed right away. Getting the state bureaucracy moving is not the easiest thing in the world, so we suggest the City make a cause celebre of the Central situation and get that 1990 target date moved up -say, about 10 years.
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Downtown creek. Purchase the necessary right-of-way and bring Turtle Creek into the downtown area via a concrete channel and a series of pools and locks. (Look what the river did for downtown San Antonio!) This would bring water – a foreign substance-into the concrete canyons of the CBD and would add character, more green space and pedestrian promenades. It might also help the retail and restaurant business downtown.
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Beer garden. There’s a nice try at this at Chelsea Square (at the dead end of Routh past Carlisle), but we’d like to see someone build a real beer hall and garden. An old warehouse would do as a shell structure. Create a huge, high-ceiling hall (capacity 500 or so) with simple hardwood floors and beat up old chairs and tables. Sell nothing but beer and wine. Throw in a little German music after dark. Outside, more simple tables and chairs and a little landscaping are all you’d need. With the climate we have here, it seems like someone could make a mint.
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Shape up or ship out. Either figure out a way to make those expensive computerized traffic lights on Central Expressway entranceways work, or junk them. As it now stands, the lights are more hinderance than help to entering vehicles during peak traffic hours.
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One hotdog, a Coke, and a raincheck, please … Area baseball fans came to believe last summer that the Rangers were for real. Unfortunately, the concessionaires at Arlington Stadium didn’t. Too many fans experienced that sinking feeling of hearing the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and the stomping of delighted feet on the stands above while stuck in line -waiting for a hot dog. It was not unusual to miss an entire inning while waiting down under. In one undocumented case, a fan claims to have missed all six runs of a 4-2 ballgame while getting his goodies. The problem isn’t one of lack of facilities, which are plentiful, but of enough manpower to keep them all open. Granted, Ranger fever probably wasn’t anticipated during preseason staff budgeting. But no excuses this year- the Rangers will be contenders and the fans will be back. Our suggestion: Hire plenty and put most of them in the stands as vendors so that nobody, including the workers, will miss any of the action.
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L. B. Houston ZOO. Why not take the beautiful 500-acre L. B. Houston Park (a stone’s throw from Texas Stadium) and turn some portion of it into a San Diego-style walkthrough-ride-through zoo? Displaying animals in natural settings is all the rage, and the spacious, well-endowed L. B. Houston Park is a perfect setting. San Diego’s setup is fairly simple: Animals are displayed in a very real facsimile of the “wild, ” roaming free, separated from viewers only by moats or fences. No cages. Special settings are attempted, in some cases displaying predator (lions) and prey (antelopes) in contiguous areas. Viewers take in the zoo via slow-moving trolleys, or in some cases, on foot, sans unsightly and inhumane cages, popcorn stands and balloon salesmen.
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Sorting out the maze. “Rethink” the sign requirements at D/FW Airport. We know one man who spent more than an hour on the airport accessways searching unsuccessfully for the freight terminal of a major airline. Perhaps small maps could be handed out at the entrance gates.
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A lovely field. One of the most aesthetically deprived parts of Dallas has to be the Love Field area, a neighborhood choked by traffic, flashing signs and airplanes. Sitting right in the middle is a bald tract of land owned by Love Field, about the size of six football fields. The land is right across from the Coca-Cola plant at Lemmon and Mockingbird.
The Love Field neighborhood desperately needs some open space and landscaping. Here is the place. Because of the high cost of extending water lines under streets to reach the “island, ” the project may have to be privately financed. We suggest that area merchants donate money for the water lines, and the city’s garden clubs plant flowers and trees. It would be a floral sight for sore eyes.
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Pedestrian ways. The Ponte-Travers plan for downtown calls for a number of underground pedestrian ways to be completed by 1980. At present, none of these has been finished. There may be a tendency to be preoccupied with underground paths, and Dallas could, like Dr. Strange-love and his “mine-gap race, ” burrow too deep. John DeShazo, director of the City of Dallas traffic control division, suggests pedestrian ways at all levels – underground, at-grade, and elevated. City planners say underground tunnels will happen on a broad scale in the future. Good, but don’t overlook the elevated and at-grade ones. After all, if the CBD is beautified, who’s going to see it if everyone is underground?
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No Sweat. It’s time to call a halt to the most ludicrous part of the Dallas summer scene – the necktie. Thousands stroll through the downtown Dutch oven wearing this sartorial torture device, never asking why. The reason we put ourselves through this annual suffering is because everybody else does.
Well now is the time to douse our glowering infernos with some common sense. First, the City Council should adopt a resolution calling for all persons to abandon the necktie from June 1 to October 1. The huge employers like banks, insurance companies, retail merchants and the federal government should issue decrees decrying the necktie as a hazard to our health. Then all of the smaller employers will fall in line, and we can pat ourselves on the back for discovering the open collar.
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Mini-zoos. One way to increase public enjoyment of zoo facilities is to develop a number of small, specialized zoos in various locations around town. The main facility would remain in Oak Cliff, but Reverchon Park could house a Bird Zoo, Caruth Park in North Dallas a Big Cat Zoo, an area of Turtle Creek a petting zoo, etc.
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Put downtown on the bench. The City and the County should install more benches in existing downtown green spaces-Kennedy Plaza, Ferris Plaza, the new County Courthouse mall, the convention center and the new City Hall esplanades. Encourage people to sit in the open air and sunshine. It does wonders for the psyche
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In the vest pocket More vest pocket parks need development such as the one at Wood and Harwood, in front of the Lone Star Gas Co. Tranquil parks encourage the use of downtown. The City should study numerous small side streets that run only a few blocks. If it, can be determined that their closing would not greatly inconvenience anyone, then close them and make them into malls or preferably parks. They could be leased as terraced, open-air restaurants, or with imagination and creativity, they could become mini-amphitheaters for open-air plays in summer.
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Keep On truckin’. Situate truck terminals on the perimeter of the CBD and unload freight there instead of across the sidewalks and off the curbs. Then, shift cargoes to special trams for delivery. The trams can also be used to pick up outbound cargoes and provide services such as trash collection. Merchants could pay for the tram system via surcharges on city taxes, and it would only apply to those in the CBD.
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Special zoning. One recommendation made by the City Council’s Inner City Committee bears endorsement: A special zoning designation for Community Development Projects. This kind of zoning could “protect” certain areas so that artists’ colonies, specialized entertainment areas and such could grow unimpeded by somebody’s friend’s bank.
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Up your alley. The zoning politics would be hairy, and the price tag high, but a super shopping and entertainment area could be developed somewhere in town along three or four blocks of an alley. Take a good stretch of alley running parallel to a high traffic street (McKinney, Greenville, Cole, etc. ), cobblestone it, put in gas lamps, and develop shops, bars, restaurants, even office space, on two stories facing the alley. This would virtually force pedestrian travel through the area.
Parking could be solved by knocking out a few buildings facing the street along the alley and making lots out of them.
In any event, the area should be allowed to grow organically. Everything in this town doesn’t have to be a shopping center. One developer can initiate the basic “feel” of the area, and then merchants can join in at will.
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Staff the mayor. The Booz, Allen, Hamilton study made a worthy recommendation in its report on city government in Dallas: Additional staff support for the mayor and the council. Currently the mayor has an administrative assistant with a small staff, but many feel that’s not enough. The City Manager’s office can provide only so much staff support to the mayor and council. If the mayor and council are to perform professionally-and that means not voting unknowingly for a retroactive utility rate hike like they did last year -they need adequate research and briefing staffs.
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Streetscaping. No, this is not another City drive to tear up the streets. Just the opposite. The recent development of Akard Street Mall, which is really a pedestrian way – not a true mall – shows the restrained use of greenery. There are trees in planter boxes, benches and lighting. This example should be the blueprint for future greening of downtown streets. Trees and shrubbery could be taken from the greenbelt areas of the Trinity River’s upper Elm Fork, thus serving a dual purpose – providing the ingredients for streetscaping and thinning out these areas so their recreational potential can be developed.
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Volunteers… your time, not your money. The Dallas Independent School District has an excellent on-going School Volunteer Program, but they need more people. People with time to give to a school child. It’s that simple.
These volunteers provide supplementary manpower to the schools in many areas; for example, helping a student on a one-to-one basis with reading. In this area alone, the program has seen concrete, positive results from volunteer efforts.
Recently, the Greater Dallas Council of Churches worked with the program to help pair church groups looking for civic projects with schools where help is most needed. Some businesses and corporations are getting involved by giving employees time off during the workday to help out in the schools. But the project needs more people who care about the education of Dallas children, people who are willing to do something more than complain about it. Call the Volunteer Office, 824-1620, extension 348.
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Intensive care beds for newborns.There are probably more intensive care beds for newborns in Denver, Colorado, or Phoenix, Arizona than in all of Texas.
This means that a newborn in Dallas requiring the continuously available care of neonatologists, pediatric surgeons and cardiologists -minute to minute medical and nursing care – may not get that care. At Parkland Hospital, for instance, there are only six newborn intensive care beds. The recommended minimum is 24 plus an additional 24 intermediate care beds -and remember, those are minimums. The space exists, but funds are needed for equipment and personnel.
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Diabetes and hypertension Screening.
Regular hypertension and diabetes screening should be available to senior citizens. This could be performed at senior centers, churches, mobile units or neighborhood schools by volunteer doctors and nurses.
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Do it yourself. Merchants in areas which have grown organically into extremely pleasant pedestrian shopping and entertainment areas (Fairmount from the Quadrangle to McKinney, McKinney from Bowen north to Lemmon, Oak Lawn from Holland south to Cedar Springs, lower Greenville), should look toward creating merchants’ cooperatives, which could, by pooling resources, aid the entire area with increased protection, acquisition of amenities such as gas lamps, and serve as a vocal buffer against negligent decisions by the City Plan Commission and Council.
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Peri-natal mortality rates in Dallas.For many years, the population receiving care at Parkland Hospital had a peri-natal mortality rate around 42 per thousand. That’s high. In 1961, a program was started to make peri-natal care available and accessible to women by upgrading some existing community clinics. Today ten of these Community Women’s Clinics are in operation.
In another wise and far-sighted move a maternal “high-risk” unit was established for women who need hospital care prior to delivery.
One important result of these efforts is that the peri-natal rate in this high risk population has dropped from 42 per thousand to 28 per thousand in 1974.
But there are still needs. More beds for the high risk unit. Funding for the clinics for personnel -clerical, nurses and physicians -and more flexibility in personnel assignment.
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Dental Care. Many senior citizens and children in low income groups do not have access to good dental care. The existing clinics are badly overcrowded with long waits for appointments.
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Public art. A concentrated effort should be made by the City to place a major piece of sculpture by a nationally renowned artist in a prominent public area downtown, perhaps in conjunction with the new City Hall. Funding could come either from a National Endowment for The Arts grant or from a commitment by private donors. Or even better, a campaign might be waged to solicit small contributions from the public at large, so that the piece would, in a sense, really belong to the people of Dallas.
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Nostalgic tube. Channel 11 has definitely provided Dallas with some fun alternative television. But after awhile, The Beverly Hillbillies and Dick Van Dyke can get a little stale, especially the third time around. It was great to see the return of Mickey Mouse Club. How about a few more of the golden oldies? A few possibilities: Dobie Gillis (who can ever forget such classic characters as Maynard G. Krebs and Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. ), You Bet Your Life (some think this was Groucho at his finest), The Jack Benny Show (“Rochester… “) or Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows (possibly TV’s finest hour).
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Take-home art. The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts could provide a valuable service to Dallas art educators and, more importantly, to Dallas schoolchildren by establishing a circulation library in which prints, posters, photographs, etc. could be checked out for study at home and in the classrooms. The core for such a project is already there in the present DMFA library, which now limits its materials to in-library use only.
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Pro tennis. Larry King, Commissioner of World Team Tennis (and also Billie Jean’s husband), said on a recent visit to Dallas that he would love to put a franchise in Dallas “if anyone would step forward and show some interest” (i. e. money). Even though the league struggled through its first season and has a questionable future, Dallas is a tennis hotbed, probably the hottest in the country. So maybe somebody ought to take him up on that offer. The original asking price for a franchise was $50, 000 when World Team Tennis was born, but Dallas would probably be a shot in the arm for King’s whole league. So there just might be a bargain lurking there.
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Back to the streets. Put more policemen on the street by reducing the number of sworn officers working in administrative jobs. Hire qualified civilians to replace them in non-stress positions, but not in communications and traffic. It still takes a cop to think like another cop.
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DA shuffling. Consolidate the personnel of the Dallas County District Attorney’s office. At present, the DA has to lease offices in Stemmons Towers to house some of his prosecutors. This means they have to expend time and gasoline to drive down to the courthouse to try their cases. Move some of the county offices not concerned with physically supporting the courts (let the commissioners decide who) into the old red courthouse, and move the DAs back downtown. Some of the civil courts could be moved, says DA Henry Wade.
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Circuit court. Establish a special court for “visiting judges” who come to town like circuit riding magistrates of the past, to sit and hear some of the cases in the criminal courts’ backlog. Wade also wants to increase the number of felony courts up from the present nine. He cites Philadelphia as a similar sized city-county situation where there are 54 felony courts. Increasing the number of courts would result in DAs having to plead fewer cases in order to get them off the docket. At present, 80 to 85 per cent of the 12, 000 indictments handed down yearly end up being pled in court instead of being tried. If more were tried then punishment would be more uniform.
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Public defender. Establish a public defender system that will guarantee a solid corps of professional defense attorneys. Presently it costs the county about $1 million per year to appoint defense attorneys for indigent persons. In Los Angeles the public defender’s office has a staff of more than 100 and costs only two-thirds what it costs to fund the district attorney’s staff. The quality of defense and the speed of trials will be enhanced by such a system.
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Courts. Municipal traffic courts need to be consolidated with county justice of the peace and county courts at law into one comprehensive level of lower lower courts. City-county income from tickets and other fines could still be divided up fairly.
At the district court level, the separation between “criminal district courts” and “civil district courts” should be abolished, and district judges should be required to deal with both kinds of cases. Present criminal judges are woefully overloaded, and too often, civil judges have time to spare.
Thirdly, all JP’s and county judges should be required to be attorneys.
Fourth, the federally-funded court coordinator system should be included in the appropriate county budget when the Fed money runs out. Judges ate significantly larger hunks out of their backlogs this past year, most feel as a direct result of the court coordinators, who increased efficiency in time-consuming docketing, attorney appointments, and various pre-trial processes.
Fifth, the indictment waiver program, which offers arrested suspects the opportunity to plead guilty and be sentenced by a judge on the spot – bypassing the time-consuming grand jury process -should be pursued by judges with more determination and zeal. It’s a good idea, one which could speed the tortoise-like judicial process.
78
Technocops. The City police department needs two technological advancements: in-car computer terminals and an automatic vehicle monitoring system. They’re available, so let’s give them what they need. Dallas is fortunate to have a relatively corruption-free police force. We do have an enormous crime rate -up 18 per cent last year. We also have a police department that doesn’t doctor the figures to make the rate look better than it is. They should be rewarded with these two systems; the public will benefit. The in-car terminals will permit effortless communication between the street cop and the computer, where information on criminals and crime is stored. Police will spend less time checking on citizens they stop; they will get crime data that can actually put them into a crime situation before it occurs; and coupled with a procedure of crime prediction which the police call “realtime TAC”, the results can go a long way to knocking that crime increase back down. The automatic vehicle monitoring system involves the use of a radio transmitting device mounted in every police car. The signals are plotted on a computerized grid map in the police communications office, and like radar, will show the police car’s position to within 50 feet. It will make it easier for police to send the nearest policeman where he is needed, and it will greatly increase the officers’ safety.
79
Another kind Of Volunteering. A San Antonio project that might be workable here is called Saturday Morning Discovery- a joint project involving the San Antonio School District and the Southwest Craft Center.
Students and teachers meet on Saturday mornings and have a chance to work together in crafts -outside the classroom in an informal environment. The school district provides supplies in the beginning and the craft center provides space and instructors. In learning together, the teachers and students establish communication valuable to the learning process back in the classroom.
80
De-lighting Dallas. We aren’t aware of any specific studies on the matter, but our best educated guess is that Dallas and the Park Cities may have more traffic lights per square foot of asphalt than any other city in the world.
If you don’t understand what we mean, drive Hillcrest from Mockingbird north to Lovers, Lovers west to Inwood, Inwood south to Lemmon, Lemmon east to Oak Lawn, Oak Lawn north to Herschel. It may sound like a nice Sunday drive, but our bet is you’ll wind up with a charley horse in the lower portion of your brake leg and a set of frazzled nerves.
The traffic departments in question report they are constantly re-evaluating types and locations of traffic lights and changing them if necessary. However, it seems to us something a little more comprehensive is in order.
For example, there simply is no need for full red-yellow-green traffic lights at every little intersection along Mockingbird through Highland Park. Flashing yellows would suffice; or nothing at all. All side streets could be stop-signed. The only major lights you’d need would be at Hillcrest and Preston. Much of Lovers could be dealt with the same way.
The stretch of Hillcrest from Mockingbird to Lovers has five -count ’em -five full red-yellow-green lights, presumably for the protection of crossing students at SMU. However, pedestrians can be protected without forcing vehicles to stop and wait out a red light (even when there are zero pedestrians) every block.
One easy solution would be to make the lights all flashing yellow 24 hours a day, with push button pedestrian red light activators at every cross walk. When an individual or a group wanted to cross the busy thoroughfare, a red light could be accomplished simply by pushing a button. Otherwise, traffic would be allowed to flow smoothly.
81
Artists’colony. Sounds a bit harebrained on its face. But: All it would take is a developer who is willing to see past his nose, a cooperative City Plan Commission and City Council, and a lot of elbow grease. Jim Coker’s Olla Podrida is three quarters there. Take an Olla Podrida kind of development, allow for cheap living quarters for the painters, musicians, sculptors, etc. and you’re on your way. One, the City Council would likely have to specially zone such an area. Two, one or several foundations would likely have to be enticed to get involved to subsidize the thing. The artists would do their respective things, sell their wares as best they could and the cultural maturation of the city would benefit immeasurably.
82
Blackmailing the suburbs. Since a majority of area suburban towns depend on the City of Dallas for water and sewage, we recommend the City use that as leverage the next time a suburban upstart begins to feel its oats. Next time, for example, Highland Park says no to widening Mockingbird through that fair town, the City of Dallas should simply say, “Okay, fine. No water for six months. Then we’ll see if you’re ready to talk. ” It is called offering them a deal they can’t resist.
83
Nightlife. The Baker and Adolphus Hotels seem to be perfect places to begin generating some sorely needed downtown nightlife. Both grand old hotels are well-located, architecturally splendid and equipped with existing food and beverage facilities. The King’s Club at the Adolphus is a lovely bar; the only problem is, it remains a private club. Were it made a public bar, more businessmen might hang around downtown for after-work drinks and talk. Restaurants, ranging from low funk to high elegance, could be developed on the hotel’s lobby levels. The hotel could develop them itself, or lease the space.
84
Creative play parks-like Caruth Park-added to the excellent Dallas park system in neighborhoods with high percentages of young children.
85
Parks are for people. Post haste, any existing bans on liquor in public parks should be abolished. These are particularly prevalent in Oak Lawn area parks -a hangover from the Big Lee Park Bust a few years back -and they, frankly, stifle natural, healthy human activity in our city parks. One has only to think back to the marvelous happenings on Saturdays and Sundays at pre-bust Lee Park: Elderly folks walking dogs, young folks tossing frisbees, all kinds of folks sitting around watching other folks. There is simply no excuse for literally making parks a sobering experience.
86
Fabulous fiesta felicity. What this city needs is a good fiesta. Dallas is prim and proper, and every now and then you’ve just got to let your hair down. Fortnight isn’t the place, and the Texas-O.U. drunkfest is for liquor dealers and out-of-town rubes.
How about a fiesta, where you can see neighbors and everyone else celebrating and dancing, while drinking beer, eating some home-cooked ta-males, tacos, sopapillas and corn on the cob? The time: Cinco de Mayo (the Mexican fifth of May celebration when the weather’s just right); the place: Reverchon Park -a beautiful spot right in the heart of Dallas’ chicano community.
87
Sore legs sixty. Boston has its Marathon but who among us wants to run 26 miles? Especially since somebody invented the wheel. We propose the annual Dallas Sore Legs Sixty, a yearly bicycle race around LBJ Freeway. Start at LBJ and Interstate 35 North, peddle east around North Dallas, Garland, Mesquite, Pleasant Grove and South Oak Cliff to 35 South. Then straight north through downtown (with confetti) up Stem-mons Freeway and back to LBJ Freeway. Total distance: 61.865 miles.
88
Required parent training courses in high school. Parent training should be a required course for all high school students to help them understand more about family life. A publication from the Office of Early Childhood Development says “the number of teen-agers marrying in Texas increased 45 percent between 1968 and 1972, compared to 11 percent for all Texans. The implications of marrying in adolescence and starting a family are significant, considering that most Texas high school students have received more training in how to drive a car than in how to rear children. Studies have shown that teenage parents are emotionally immature and have unrealistic expectations of how children develop. “
89
Punt, pass, and paint. An oft-repeated Dallas scenario goes something like this:
Dallas resident (to Dallas visitor as they drive into town from D/FW Airport): “… and on your left is Texas Stadium, home of the Cowboys. “
Visitor: “Ah yes… uh, when’s it supposed to be finished?”
It’s true. Texas Stadium looks like it’s still under construction. In many major cities the big new stadium is a landmark -Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati to name a few. Texas Stadium, unfortunately, borders on being an eyesore. It doesn’t have to be -simply painting all that dull grey concrete would work wonders.
Visitor: “And what are all those little red and blue poles in the parking lot?”
Dallas Resident: “Uh . . . well, the parking lot is also a drive-in theater. “
Visitor: “You’re kidding. “
Not only are those little poles an aesthetic insult, they’re downright dangerous. Many a fender has been dented in the post-game parking lot scramble. There’s often more sport in threading that maze than there is inside the stadium. A few big trees and some grassy spots would be so much nicer (and safer).
The semi-dome structure itself has some now notorious problems. The incredible afternoon shadows have boggled TV cameramen and punt returners alike. The half-roof serves to stifle ventilation (making hot days hotter) and it manages to shield the sun (making cold days colder). As for the original purpose of keeping the fans dry, what’s the point of dry spectators watching wet players slosh out a sloppy game on the soggy field? Fortunately, all problems could be easily cured with one sure remedy. Cover it completely. According to the architect, A. Warren Morey, filling the hole would be a less difficult feat of engineering than creating the hole was in the first place. And the cost would not be prohibitive; somewhere around three-quarters of a million to a million dollars, Morey estimates. However, it would also require about another $10-20 million to air condition the thing. But with as much money as has been spent on the stadium already, it would seem that it’s worth doing right. Either that or take the roof off. Or move back to the Cotton Bowl.
90
Naughty but nice. Assuming that prostitution, ” the world’s oldest profession, ” and pornography, “the world’s fastest growing art form, ” are here to stay, it seems a futile waste of energy to continue piecemeal policing and on-again-off-again morality campaigns against them. It would make much more sense to consolidate all of these entrepreneurs-of-iniquity within one chosen district and make an “arrangement. ” If those businesses maintain certain standards of general upkeep and hygiene and confine all activities within the district boundaries, they would be free to carry on. Any such activities that found their way outside of the boundaries would immediately be clamped down upon with severe penalties and large fines. There is certainly worthy precedent for the idea of clean-and-concentrated sin. The red light district of Amsterdam, though now fallen on hard times, was for a long time one of the most fashionable and distinctive neighborhoods in the city. Pigalle, the strip strip of Paris, is still one of that city’s most lively and popular tourist attractions.
91
Foosball machines instead of candy machines in the schools.92
A new kind of staying after school. The rapidly growing numbers of working mothers in Dallas need formalized after-school care for their children -at school. Ideally, a program like this would include supervised recreation and offer children a chance to read or do homework. Volunteer help could be utilized.
One program that attempts to meet these after-school needs is in operation at a Dallas elementary school. The idea should be supported and studied, and if it proves feasible, extended to other schools where after school care is needed.
93
Open up the gyms. Repre sentative Jim Mattox is planning a proposal for more efficient use of gymnasiums in the Dallas Independent School District. The idea is to alleviate overcrowded public recreational facilities, especially in inner city areas where children have no place to play afternoons, evenings and week ends because facilities are inadequate.
94
Remember Robt. E. Lee. The Daughters of the Confederacy are falling down on the job. They allowed Lee’s Birthday (Jan. 19) to be merged with Jefferson Davis’ Birthday (odd, they disliked each other) to create Confederate Heroes’ Day -all slyly accomplished by the Legislature to make room for Lyndon B. Johnson’s Birthday (Aug. 27).
Stepping into the breach, we believe General Lee deserves to be honored. As newcomers continue to flood into Dallas, we’re in danger of losing the vital connection to our past which preserves our sense of roots amid the transiency of modern urban life. Just because mementoes of the Confederacy have fallen into disrepute lately, due to alleged overtones of racism, is no reason to discontinue the tradition of demonstrating our respect to a man whose courage, ability, and sense of honor and responsibility embody the virtues of citizenship.
With that established, we run headlong into some minor problems. For one thing, the natural place to honor General Lee is at Lee Park – if it weren’t likely to be sleeting outside on January 19th. Also, the middle of winter is not the best time to sip mint juleps.
Perhaps next year (for the Bicentennial Celebration) the Dallas Symphony and the North Texas Choir could combine to present a program of Southern and Civil War songs commemorating the titantic struggle between our greatgrandfathers on both sides. A multi-media slide show could be presented along with the choral renditions. Just to show, dammit, that we haven’t forgotten yet.
95
One big happy park. Dallas architect James Pratt, who elsewhere in this magazine has described in detail how to redevelop Fair Park (see page 36), has an even bolder and larger notion about green space in Dallas. He says Dallas’ major green space areas – Fair Park, Turtle Creek, White Rock Lake, the Trinity River – are too isolated.
Pratt proposes that the city think seriously about interconnecting these four primary green space areas by belts of park land. Though developing belts of pure public park land between these areas would be ideal he says, a more realistic approach would be to loosely intersperse park land with private land along designated strips connecting the major green space areas.
Conceptually, Pratt’s notion would look something like a wheel, with Fair Park at the center and spokes of quasi-park land reaching out to Turtle Creek, lower White Rock Lake, the Trinity and of course, downtown and Town Lake.
The point, of course, is that Sunday drivers, bikeriders and hikers would be able to move comfortably amongst the city’s most comely areas, instead of having to jump from island to island.
96
On the silver dollar screen. A year or so ago, an East Side Manhattan movie house announced that they were going to begin showing only second run features and that admission for all showings would be only $1. The response was block-long lines and packed houses. There are now four such theaters in Manhattan alone, all thriving. In some of the small town suburbs of Chicago, the town theaters, unable to compete on a first run basis with the biggies in the city, have gone to the second run/$l format. It’s kept them alive. In these days of pinched pennies, a $3. 50 movie borders on being a luxury item. Dallas could use a $1 movie house and would surely be able to support at least one.
A major film in second run, generally 4-6 months after first release, is hardly outdated. Many who missed it the first time around for various reasons could hardly resist for a mere dollar. Then too, there would be the repeaters who saw it the first time out but want to see it again (and for a dollar, why not?). Two Dallas theaters, the Lakewood and the Village, come to mind as good possibilities for two reasons: They are centrally located and their first-run glory days are over or in decline. They’ve really nothing to lose (if it fizzled, they could always return to full price) and a lot to gain. By doubling or tripling their current audience, which isn’t unlikely with a quality product at by far the most competitive rate in town, the increased concession sales alone would boost their profits. Seems worth a try.
97
Sidewalks. There are still no firm requirements concerning the sidewalks developers must put in their projects. Hence: Some areas have virtually no sidewalks, others have pedestrianways so narrow you can’t even stroll two abreast. The City – and developers – should begin paying closer attention to sidewalking, determining the widths of sidewalks according to the development. Dallas is a vehicular city by nature, but people do like to walk every now and then.
98
Getting around. Mass transit in Dallas is long overdue, but it isn’t because we don’t have any concrete plans on the books. A grand -and practical-mass transportation plan was initiated under Erik Jonsson, and now awaits mere implementation.
The plan deals with all elements of the transportation picture: inner city pedestrian transit, suburb to inner city transit, high speed rail transit from downtown to the airport.
Plans for downtown (see page 60) include the deployment of underground passageways linking major buildings and civic facilities. On the ground level, plans are for expanded use of buses, AirTrans-type rail “people movers” and a minimum of private vehicles.
Getting from the suburbs to downtown will be easier once the Woodall-Rodgers Freeway -a link between Central Expressway and IH-35 on the north -is completed. It is projected this freeway will reduce the through-city traffic to less than 10 per cent of today’s total. Main Street, as is recommended elsewhere, should be devoid of vehicular traffic, and made into a pedestrian mall or a rail transit “spine” for the inner city.
No bus system, however well deployed, will be able to carry the full burden of mass transit once the CBD and the surrounding business core have reached maximum density. Enter rail transit, a practical concept linking downtown Dallas with the entire metro area. The basic system already exists: the Rock Island Railroad, which connects Dallas and Fort Worth; the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, which runs from Union Terminal through Garland; the Texas & Pacific, which runs from marshaling yards on Gaston Avenue to Fair Park and beyond, and the Santa Fe, offering a rail route to Oak Cliff and other areas south of the Trinity River. All of these rail lines could converge and be funneled straight through downtown Dallas by means of a subway, running under Elm Street, connecting Union Terminal on the west and the Gaston yards on the east. Thus, easy transit, say from Fort Worth to Union Terminal by train, subway to Gaston, and rail to Fair Park, the Cotton Bowl or Shreveport.
In addition, spurs could be added on the Dallas-Fort Worth run to connect D/FW to the two cities, to be used by a high-speed rail system.
Love Field would continue as a commuter airline base, ultimately part of a ring of smaller airports around the city designed to “feed” D/FW or as shorthaul facilities directly connecting Dallas with other cities in the state and region.
99
Flower Market. A wide-ranging plant and flower market would be a nice addition to the Farmer’s Market downtown. Thing is, any more additions to the existing market might overcrowd it. We suggest some thought be given to relocating the Farmer’s Market within the downtown area. The soon-to-be-developed Union Terminal area seems feasible, as does some site along the planned thoroughfare between Fair Park and downtown.
100
Lemmon-aid. Lemmon Avenue, even the stretch between Inwood and Oak Lawn, does have some solid, respectable, long-standing property owners, among them Mutual of New York, Friendly Chevrolet, Executive Secretarial School, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas (can you get more respectable?) and several small, well-designed shopping centers. We suggest that these property owners form a selective association, with the aim of slowly but surely eliminating the blight which is making their street, second only to Harry Hines, the city’s biggest eyesore. It’s not so much what it is right now -which is the same Americana tacky that is plaguing all cities -but what it will very soon become if it goes unchecked – a quickie franchise ghetto a la Orange County, California or Tucson, Arizona. The Oak Lawn neighborhood has too much heritage to be relegated to such a fate. To begin with, such an association could petition the City for a special zoning designation which would establish certain specifications for new businesses and would require newly constructed buildings to conform to uniform regulations. Also, they could lobby at City Hall to make Lemmon a true boulevard, with larger medians spaced for trees and bushes. They could do a lot more. After all, it is their street.
