Announcing Retro Metro

Retro Metro is the latest online resource for discovering information on urban Oklahoma City, and its past. The group is actually a non profit organization with a mission of educating citizens about the city's urban past, and it has a HUGE library of historic images. These guys are so dedicated that they meet regularly and have been working on this for a year that I know of--last January, Steve showed me the preliminary site and I was floored by it. I would encourage everyone to check it out.

Here is a press release relating to the website launch:


July 14, 2010 – A year-long effort to make Oklahoma City history more accessible goes public Thursday with the unveiling of Retro Metro OKC and the group’s website, www.retrometrookc.org.

Retro Metro OKC is pending 501c3 organization whose goal is to create an online exhibit of thousands of photos and documents relating to our city’s history, culture and heritage. The website debuts with more than 1,200 such materials, and thanks to a cooperative effort with the Oklahoma Historical Society and other area historical organizations, we hope to be adding many more historical Oklahoma City images in the near future.

Retro Metro OKC operates differently from other organizations in that we have no museum, we have no physical collections, and in most instances the materials we display remain in private ownership. In a typical situation our volunteer crews go to a home or business to scan an owner’s collection and the owner participates in the project by sharing information about the photos and documents as they are being scanned. The materials never have to leave an owner’s possession – the owner is simply asked to sign a release that allows for the materials to be displayed online.

The owner of such materials is given a disc of the digitized images and documents – and copies also will be given to the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Metropolitan Library System to ensure they will be preserved for future generations.

Retro Metro OKC’s founding members include historians, authors, planners, a preservation architect, a retired Greater Oklahoma City Chamber executive, a city councilman, a city clerk, business owners, graphic designers and filmmakers. Our common history is Oklahoma City history. Our youngest member is 17; our oldest members are in their 70s.

Over the past year our members have tried to carefully assess the needs and wants of our community. In addition to creating on online display of historic materials, we’re also using our experience, talent and resources to help other history organizations. For us, we check egos at the door. It’s about the history.

Our city’s history is waiting to be revealed and enjoyed. It resides in the photos left to us by our grandparents; it can be found in the postcards, souvenirs and letters gathering dust in the attic, in the stories of our relatives and in the archeology of old places.

Our city’s history can only be truly appreciated and kept intact if it’s found, revealed, shared, enjoyed and passed on to future generations.

Please feel free to visit www.retrometrookc.org and email any comments or questions to info@retrometrookc.org. The site is interactive and allows for visitors to leave comments about photos and documents as they view specific collections. Updates about our activities can be followed via our Twitter account @retrometrookc.

- Steve Lackmeyer, president, Retro Metro OKC

Cityshot XLIII

The Montgomery in the Arts District. Building was empty and then in 2005 converted to high-end apartments (that were much more successful as apartments than condos) and restaurant. I'm going to have to eat at Trattoria il Centro when I'm back.

Still standing: The Gold Dome

I came across an interesting article recently. You can read it here. It has to do with the Gold Dome building which was saved a few years ago from demolition, and has since become a community treasure. It is the home of an Asian community center, law offices, an upscale restaurant and bar called Prohibition Room, and more.

As we know, the Gold Dome is still standing, full of quality local tenants, and adding lots to the culture of Oklahoma City. But in 2002 it was an uphill fight to save this building from demolition. The owners of the building wanted to tear it down and put a Walgreen's on the site instead.

"'They (the building owners) have a building that is functionally obsolete,' said Dennis Box, an attorney representing Walgreen Drug Stores."

Obviously in this guy's infinite wisdom, the Gold Dome was an eyesore and needed to be razed for new development that was not "functionally obsolete."

Maybe "functionally obsolete" is the new "cool."

An idea for Film Row..

An idea occurred to me recently.. What got Bricktown started? What got MidTown started? What got NW 9th started? What got Deep Deuce started (as an active area)? The answer: A single hot restaurant.

NW 9th is now most definitely on the radar, and it all began with Iguana Mexican Grill. The Spaghetti Warehouse ignited the spark that lit Bricktown on fire, although I'm not so sure Steve Lackmeyer will agree with my oversimplification of local history. MidTown became hot with McNellie's, and last time I went there they had an hour and 45 minute wait. Deep Deuce started becoming an active area with the Deep Deuce Bar & Grill, although it's been slower to get busy.

My thoughts on what is probably the "next MidTown" are that Film Row is looking really prime these days. Streetscape, two buildings renovated, some interesting existing business mix, a new art gallery with some new lofts, a fabulous new streetscape underway, lots of affect in the minds of locals as a result of all the construction, proximity to Devon Tower, and a strong group of dedicated fans. This area has all it needs to be big, and overcome any problems (like C2S, homeless, etc).

All it needs is a spark, and the time couldn't be better than now. At this point, by the time you finish scheming, develop a business plan, obtain funding and get architectural plans, get permits, and go through construction--the Film Row streetscape will be finished, and Devon Tower will be rising fast. So, what am I talking about, what is my idea?

What Film Row needs is a restaurant, and it needs to be a big hit..a hotspot, much like McNellie's, Iguana, etc. Just for fun here's my detailed proposal, without having any vested interest in Film Row aside from being a concerned onlooker. Maybe someone with more means will see this, who knows.

What if this building (that currently houses a cool screen printing company), or some other similar building in Film Row, could become a new restaurant with a bar. It would need to stay open until at least 1 am on weekend nights, it would need to capitalize on the area's unique history, and it would need to offer drink and food specials that attract attention, similar to Friday drinks at Iguana or Wednesday burgers at McNellie's (just $3!!). It will need a 2nd level, and it should have a rooftop bar with a skyline backdrop for the "place to be seen" in OKC. For capitalizing on the area history, howabout something like Oklawood's (or some Hollywood-spin nickname), or The Paramount (or something named after a film producer).

For food, it should be unique and stand out in order to be the next hotspot. The most unique restaurant I've ever been in was Antonio's Flying Pizza in Houston, my favorite pizzeria. At Antonio's, hence the name, the cooks were exposed to the rest of the upscale restaurant as you walk in, and they were known for throwing their dough up in the air and putting on a show. Every hour supposedly someone walking in gets hit with a raw pizza dough in the face, and their meal is free. Antonio's has been a Houston tradition since 1970, and I have many fond memories. Hopefully people will have fond memories of somewhere like McNellie's, and this restaurant--and it could be the spark that sets Film Row off.

Thursday means History, Streetwall, and Corporate Campus

March 18th will be the showdown at City Hall over whether SandRidge can turn OKC history into rubble and debris as a part of their newfangled makeover of the SandRidge corporate campus.

So before I make my last post before the vote, let's examine this concept..corporate campus. I think that first we have to identify the nature of SandRidge's project. Is it fair to label it as a corporate campus, and if not, what else could it be? I would argue that if it's not a corporate campus, it should be a dynamic and urban-friendly addition to downtown.

A few more questions are, if the project falls under the category of corporate campus, is that good for downtown? What are the ramifications of that?

Here's a better question, is it fair to look at this in the context of what the ideal development of this site would entail (comparatively opposed to the proposal at hand), or should we be bending over backwards just happy as a peach that someone was willing to occupy KMG Tower immediately after it was vacated?

Needless to say, this will be an objective post. For the most part.

This is an ideal corporate campus. It is that of Chesapeake Energy, who has gobbled up land around NW 63rd and Western Ave to build the corporate campus of Aubrey McClendon's dreams. AMC, the only OKC resident on Forbes' list of billionaires, is quoted in the Gazette saying, "I want to turn 63rd and Western into the second major focal point of this community." The Chesapeake campus continues to grow by leaps and bounds as the company expands, and currently they employ 3,500 people at their OKC headquarters that currently has just under 1 million square feet. The funny thing is that the plan keeps changing and evolving, in the masterplan shown here you see "Chopt Square" or the older, uglier office buildings at the heart of the campus--as I posted earlier, those were recently demolished for a recreational green for CHK employees. The plan has also grown to include a large mixed-use village component across Western. In the mind of AMC, his corporate campus would be completely constructed now if it weren't for the pesky recession (talk about a man with vision).

But at the end of the day, the Chesapeake Energy development is a corporate campus. That is to say the epitome of "dead after 5," and it could just as well go around any major intersection in the metro, whether it be NW 63rd, the NW Expwy, Memorial Rd, May Ave, Edmond, Hefner Rd, Broadway Extn, I-240, SW 119th, Norman, or..well you get the point. You can do a corporate campus anywhere, it's a development genre that is more suited to a suburban corridor than it is a downtown, so therefor it is in essence a type of suburban development.

The strategy behind it is to have a fabulous setting to showcase a corporation's image that dominates the entire environment it is projected onto. Downtowns boost their corporate image in the form of a skyline, and that is it (for the successful downtowns at least), whereas with a corporate campus you can have wide, rangy plazas, useless green spaces, and other elements that act like a picture frame around your corporate headquarters. All of these plaza and landscaping elements don't get in the way of pedestrians or any street life or functional purpose, because it's a corporate campus, and it's functional purpose IS to make the corporation look mighty.

There is nothing wrong with corporate campuses, and the really nifty ones like Chesapeake are planning to add the detached urban village across the street from the corporate confines. They just aren't suitable for a downtown environment in most successful downtowns.

On the other hand, the whole "dead after 5" problem that people talk about with our downtown stems from the fact that from the 60s until recently, the goal was apparently to turn downtown into one large corporate campus. I would actually suggest, aside from the point I'm getting at, that today downtown has degenerated into an executive fantasy land, where on the west side of the tracks you've got the wonderful suburban office park, and on the east side of the tracks you've got the wonderful upscale gated community--all it lacks is the gate with a sign that says, "Maywood Park." And Lower Bricktown, of course, is the suburban strip mall de jour.

Obviously we in OKC are not serious about building a downtown that is designed for people, diversity, density, and PEOPLE! If we were, then we'd be boosting downtown's density, not tearing down buildings. We would be attempting to attract residential development at all different price points, and not doing everything we can to prevent development at reasonable price points (OCURA!!). And most importantly, if we were serious of course about this whole urban thang, our focus would be on the street, and framing the street--not on corporate office towers, and framing them.

For those not familiar, Tom Ward was a co-founder of Chesapeake Energy with AMC--he left on amicable terms, and now AMC is in lone charge of CHK. However, I would use this as proof to venture that Tom Ward is a suburbs man. He's a corporate campus man. He understands the potential impact that Devon Tower will have in terms of projecting Devon's corporate image on downtown, and he knows he has to keep up in terms of the community relations race (it's not enough to have commercials everywhere there's a Devon commercial, billboards everywhere there's a Devon billboard). And believe me, that 850 ft tall tower will be visible everywhere from Edmond to Norman. From Tom Ward's perspective, he's going to go with the suburban model because that's whats most familiar to him--and the whole Devon thing means that it's time to step it up. Keep in retrospect through all of this that Tom Ward didn't go downtown for reasons that he just always liked downtown..it was financially a real deal for him to move into KMG.

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Or is SandRidge Commons a suitable downtown development? Does it contribute to the livability, or 24/7 vitality of downtown? Does it add life downtown, or just more of the same unfortunate sameness of corporate plazas and useless parks? You be the judge.


"Oh, but this will be different. This will be nice pavement and grass." That's what they always say..

Of course, even if you are convinced of how horrible this development will be for downtown, it is still worth considering that SandRidge still has an argument. I don't think that my argument is 100% infallible, I'm not that big-headed. There are still the arguments of property rights, and whether SandRidge should have to take marching orders from the public. That said, I don't think it's too much to ask for quality developments at least in downtown. Also I think there's something to be said for how thankful we are that SandRidge is growing, here in OKC, and that they took over KMG Tower. Should we be bending over backward and let them lay waste to our downtown since they helped us with KMG Tower?

I think it's pretty obvious that this is about developing a corporate campus. This is about taking the hollowed out area of downtown around the old Kerr McGee campus and expanding it all the way to Robinson Ave, hence how SandRidge has boasted that demolishing the KerMac will "improve the sight lines of the tower." Translation: It will inflict the corporate image of SandRidge Tower, once hidden from sight on Robinson by the streetwall.

Streetwall, which I once again brought up earlier, brings me to my last point. I agree, everyone around here has been talking about streetwall lately, and I'm no different, and it's a tired argument. Except for the point that it's true. Great cities and great downtowns are made up out of well-defined space, and private property that comes together and frames the public realm, and also adds its own flavor to it. That indeed does exclude windswept plazas which contribute nothing, but actually detract in terms of possibility cost, as well as lack of definition for the public realm. What we ought to be doing with all of these plazas is start fashioning them into the surface of the moon (how about a plaza made out of cheese?), because that's about how urban they are.

But Thursday's not about streetwall. It's not about history either, even though yes, we do stand to lose significant parts of OKC History when the India Temple and KerMac are turned to rubble. It's not about urban renewal, either. It's about corporate campus, and a combination of all of those things. On Thursday, Downtown Design Review has the opportunity to say "NO" to tearing down OKC history, urban renewal in the year 2010, removing one of OKC's last streetwalls, preventing historic loft conversions, and last and not least, hollowing out more of downtown for a suburban corporate campus.

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I recently discovered a REALLY COOL set of KerMac interior pics on Steve Lackmeyer's okchistory.com website. Apparently the inside of that old building is just full of old murals and paintings commemorating Kerr McGee's storied history in Oklahoma, afterall, the shabby old KerMac building IS the original headquarters for old KMG. If we have to lose the building that temporarily housed the Oklahoma Legislature for 4 years because the building is beyond saving, that's sad but so be it, but let's at least not lose the old KerMac Building that we know investors would like to convert to historic lofts. Imagine it: Kerr McGee Lofts, or better yet, Oiler Lofts.

If you're interested in a cumulative read, and have lots of time, consider reviewing the long series of posts I've written on the SandRidge demolition proposal:

Save the KerMac!
It's baaaaaaack... (Urban Renewal)
Hard to argue
Building demolition rampant
The problem with an otherwise excellent SandRidge proposal

As well as as these Cityshots:

Cityshot XVII
Cityshot XXXVI

Save the KerMac!

As we all know, the KerMac Building, the original headquarters of longtime Oklahoma energy giant Kerr McGee, is slated to be demolished. After they get approval from the Downtown Design Review committee and get the permit from the city, there will be no stopping this particular component of an otherwise excellent and laudable sweeping campus redevelopment scheme being proposed by SandRidge Energy.

So before that happens, let me just pose the question: Was Kerr McGee important to Oklahoma? I would love to hear the explanation from anyone who can say KMG was NOT incredibly important to Oklahoma. The fact is that throughout much of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and especially the 80s, and on until 2005 when KMG was no more--that this was a very important corporation. Look at the people who have come from this corporation, the extremely powerful U.S. Senator Robert S. Kerr; and the godfather of Downtown OKC during Urban Renewal, Dean McGee (they now give out the Dean A. McGee Award to the biggest downtown players in his honor). These two people had an incredibly lasting affect on Oklahoma City, worthy of commemorating alone. These men's dreams to form an energy giant came together in the building SandRidge now wants to tear down.

The impact of Kerr McGee, as a corporation, is also widespread and huge. For a long time, KMG was OKC's largest energy company--up until the recent breakneck ascent of Devon and Chesapeake. It employed thousands and thousands of hard-working Oklahomans and powered the OKC economy. That's the good history. There's also bad history we must not forget, such as the affair with an activist employee at their nuclear facility in Crescent, OK--Karen Silkwood.

SandRidge is new to Oklahoma. I don't want to second-guess their commitment to the community, as it turns out SandRidge's founder, Mitchell Malone, is an OSU alum who recently donated $29 million to OSU. So there's no doubting their commitment to Oklahoma, and that's great. But SandRidge, formerly known as Riata Energy, is not from OKC--it relocated here from Amarillo. They are likely familiar with the Kerr McGee story as anyone in the energy industry probably is, but preserving that history is undoubtedly not a priority for them like it should be for people who are from OKC.

Furthermore, who's to say SandRidge isn't out-right trying to root out the KMG legacy around their headquarters and replace it with SandRidge footprints? I can even see a reasonable debate for and against that, because it's certainly understandable that SandRidge DID thankfully purchase and occupy the tower when KMG left us high and dry. However on the other side, the argument that KMG history is NOT Luke Corbett history has to win at the end of the day. KMG history is OKC history, and it's about the history of the thousands of people that worked for it, people from hard working oil drillers, to people like Karen Silkwood. It's the history of Oklahoma, in a microcosm. SandRidge needs to be respectful of that, and there is no reason for them to mow down the original headquarters of Kerr McGee and replace it with nothing more than a windswept plaza to inflict SandRidge's corporate image on Robinson Avenue.

The old KerMac building also needs to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and this is something that SandRidge can do. If SandRidge doesn't want to do it, then a historical group in OKC can start the nomination process themselves. If the National Park Service finds that the original headquarters of Kerr McGee is significant to the legacy of this former energy giant that shaped much of Oklahoma history, then it will be placed on the Register of Historic Places. This will be a boon for the property, with a plaque out front detailing the building's importance, as well as avenues for special preservation grants that can be used to rehabilitate the building. Many of the grants would not prevent it from being rehabilitated and put back on the market as offices or apartments. There's no reason that a building with its historical importance being rooted in business function can't be commemorated by being functional once again.

It's baaaaaack...

Urban renewal. It's back, and it's in full force. Examine the "main" blunders that OKC made during urban renewal:

-Reconfiguration of the city grid. By removing several streets, making way for superblocks (city blocks that are made up of combined blocks, such as the Cox Center site), and filling them up with single structures we accomplished one thing: We cut off flow from the north side of downtown to the south side of downtown, and as a result, the south side withered away. We cut out large swaths of city and replaced it with dull superblock structures like a convention center, an arena, etc.. and what's even worse, we put them all together. If they were spread around, the edge of the Myriad Gardens would have vitality, the convention center wouldn't be so bad, the Ford Center would be surrounded by retail and restaurants, etc.

-Demolition of existing urban fabric. Here's a shocking concept to most people: A dense city is something that happens naturally, believe it or not. So at the end of the day, after all of these crappy incentives and urban renewal projects, what have we really accomplished? You get more of a downtown that's suited for events and special occasions than for any kind of lifestyle at all, and that's detrimental. Now the incentives are needed because it was unnatural forces that killed most downtowns in the first place (i.e., government subsidizing freeways, roads, cars, white school districts, etc). But when you remove that urban fabric, not only do you remove something that was built specifically for a city to grow into it, but you've severely diminished your ability to bounce back economically.

-Wiping out the architectural and cultural jewels of our city. What's probably the #1 thing that downtown used to be full of that no longer exists in any comparable form or fashion? MOVIES. Vaudeville. Film houses. The only performing arts that exists in downtown anymore are that at the Civic Center Music Hall, which has become a major league performing arts center. The Stage Center hosts a theatrical production once in a blue moon, too, but that's it. There were literally dozens of cultural jewels we have lost. We also lost a lot of our downtown's architectural significance. The result, once you lose all of those things that add intrinsic value to the built environment, is an environment that is not worth caring about to most people.

-Loss of defined space. Believe it or not, well-defined space is another absolutely essential aspect of city development. When people think of the great cities they don't think of one building, but usually it's a street lined with special buildings that build off each other. When people think of these great cities they think of entire environments, not isolated buildings. Defined space, such as a street lined with uniform buildings, also creates natural safety. There is clear definition of the space intended for pedestrians, and you see pedestrians and news stands and more there; there is clear definition of the space intended for cars, and you see cars and bicycles there. When you lose definition you get a downtown environment that behaves more like a stretch of the Northwest Expressway, where there is space for cars, and then the buildings randomly placed, and that's it. You also lose the natural ability to navigate a downtown without a map, which would be possible with a downtown grid that makes SENSE. Today's downtown resembles a space rover trekking through Mars, past unnatural developments like the Century Center and the parking garages along E.K. Gaylord, one-way streets, blocked off streets, streets that dead-end such as Broadway and Harvey and every other street, and so on. It's a nightmare to get around Downtown OKC if you aren't from there!! It just doesn't make sense, there is no defined space, it has not been allowed to develop naturally, and we still don't get that.

-Loss of traditional community uses. Believe it or not the traditional community use of a downtown is not 95% office. Downtowns of olden days were dominated by retail, the thing that is most absent from downtown today! They also had abundant residential units, civic amenities, recreational space, and then there was also a lot of offices. It used to be the beating heart of the city. When we took out the retail districts of downtown, and expected it to relocate to new space that was yet-to-be-built (the planned "Downtown Galleria") we were expecting something unnatural and heavily subsidized to work just as well as the naturally-developing retail district had for decades. That didn't cut it. The result from that blunder was that downtown lost all personal relevance and for a small handful of people that have lived in OKC for a long time, they're still skeptical of going downtown after 5.

So I have gone over some reasons why, specifically, urban renewal was bad. However it obviously doesn't take a rocket scientist or complex explanations for the average pedestrian to tell that urban renewal is bad, all you have to do is experience Downtown OKC today for yourself and you can tell it was not good.

Well looks like we're at it again! And because we have not learned from our own history, we are absolutely doomed to keep repeating the mistakes over and over. Let's go over the main blunders I outlined above, again..



-Reconfiguration of the city grid? Yup, we're definitely at it again. Just look at Core to Shore, particularly the enormous cluster of superblocks beginning at the Cox Center and Myriad Gardens and going all the way down to the new Crosstown. That is a TON of wasted frontage that could be taken up instead by cafes, townhomes, retail storefronts, and other delightful things a downtown SHOULD have. And if the vitality of a city is in the movement of life from one block to another, what is this? There are no blocks here. The Myriad Gardens is an underutilized park surrounded by no significant development that takes advantage of the park front real estate. Likewise, the new Core to Shore park is doomed to the exact same fate, minimized to the point of serving as nothing more than a pretty front yard for the convention center. Instead, why don't we immerse the convention center in the city and surround it on all sides by neighborhoods? It would seem to me that would ensure the success of the park more than anything else!

-Demolition of existing urban fabric? Yeah, we've got tons of that, too! As I wrote the other month in "The problem with an otherwise excellent SandRidge proposal," and in "Building demolition rampant," and countless other posts from before the recent SandRidge proposal, there is a very disturbing trend of tearing down buildings that has come up over the last 5 years. It started with the Brewers who weaseled a demolition proposal through downtown design review mechanisms without anyone ever getting notice of it. Then one day people on their way to work noticed that there was no longer a building standing on East Sheridan, across from the new Hampton Inn. People scratched their heads and wondered, "Wow, how did that happen?" The bottom line is that downtown design review mechanisms have lost any of their effectiveness. The Brewers and others are getting everything from demolition proposals to inflatable dragons in, against "the rules," without ever getting approval from the design review mechanisms intended to prevent that very thing. Sometimes it's because the person filing the permit at City Hall doesn't realize that a signature is missing, other times it's sheer corruption, other times it's sheer incompetence, but most of the time it's a lethal combination of all three things. Today we are witnessing an era in downtown OKC where demolition is championed as "substantial development." How did we get this low?

-Wiping out the architectural and cultural jewels of our city? Yessir, we've got plenty of that going on as well. Just look at the grand historic KerMac building, a solid building with developers clamoring to renovate it into apartments, with unique architectural detail. It's going to be replaced with a windswept plaza, similar to what already exists all the way around the periphery of the SandRidge Tower. We're also looking at buildings disappearing from Bricktown and MidTown and Automobile Alley. We're also fixing to tear down the India Temple, a building covered by a hideous bland EIFS facade, underneath which is a beautifully detailed and intricate structure. In fact the India Temple was also once home to the State Government during the period after the State Government fled Guthrie and was waiting on the new Capitol Building to be built. That's something we're about to recklessly tear down.

-Loss of defined space? Oh yeah. This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the "New Urban Renewal" that OKC has set out on, particularly with tearing down one of the last remaining streetwalls in Oklahoma. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. Downtowns used to be lined uniformly with complimentary buildings. Now all Tulsa has left is Boston Avenue and Main Street. Tulsa's Boston Avenue is by far Oklahoma's greatest street, lined with complimentary highly detailed high-rises as it is, bounded on one end by Oklahoma's tallest skyscraper (for now) and on the other by one of the world's tallest cathedrals, the towering Art-Deco symbol of Tulsa (The Boston Avenue Methodist Church), you could literally drop the unknowing off on Boston Avenue and convince them they are in New York City. OKC really only has three such streetwalls remaining from its once-great downtown: Park Avenue, Harvey Avenue, and Robinson Avenue. Broadway would count too, if its buildings weren't all surrounded by plazas. It is however Robinson Avenue, the least-intact corridor that still resembles some kind of streetwall, that is most endanger due to its proximity to energy giant SandRidge.

Which of these do you like better? Which of the below pictures shows a more defined, urban space? Yeah, tearing down the KerMac bldg will be GREAT for making SandRidge Tower perfectly visible all across downtown--but is that a good thing? Should we be able to look from one block and see straight through to other blocks, and should we HAVE to look at SandRidge Tower everywhere we go in downtown? Those are things worth considering. That's what this is about, is tearing down parts of downtown to make their building more visible. At what cost to the rest of us is that worth it?











-Loss of traditional community uses? Well, you be the judge of that. For what it's worth, we still haven't hardly gotten any meaningful retail going on anywhere in downtown. And all the restaurants are in MidTown or Bricktown. So I would have to say that not only have traditional community uses failed to materialize throughout this "renaissance" of downtown, but in the end we are actually getting ourselves further and further from that ever being realized downtown.

So after all, let me be the first to welcome you to the year 1975. Our mayor is Mick Cornett, our cause is Core to Shore, this message was brought to you by SandRidge Energy, and everywhere else it is the year 2010.

Tulsa Art Deco museum planned

Up in Tulsa, local artist William Franklin and others have planned an official Tulsa Art Deco museum, dubbed Decopolis. For now they've launched a preliminary website at Decopolis.org and a fundraiser event is planned Feb. 27th in the ONEOK Plaza (which by the way, is NOT an Art Deco building). Franklin is the VP of TulsaNow, and posts there and at other sites, including the OkMet forums, as TheArtist.

The beginning goal is to set up a network of people dedicated to the preservation of Tulsa's Art Deco heritage and to do traveling exhibits that can be hosted in buildings throughout downtown Tulsa. Currently they're operating under the umbrella of the Tulsa Arts & Humanities Council until their own 501(c)(3) status is approved. Franklin's eventual goal is to operate Decopolis as a museum featuring an interactive Art Deco streetscape, featuring typical Art Deco merchants like a coffee shop cafe, a martini lounge, a fine arts gallery (perhaps his own), and a town square.


Is it doable? We shall see, will be very interesting to watch. It's exciting to see fellow Internet specimen turn the computer off occasionally and actually do something out in the community. So often we talk about what needs to happen here and there and so on, but few are willing to actually make stuff happen when it's so easy to blog and chat on forums endlessly about our ideas--that's why I like to make a point to attend meetings in OKC when I can and to meet readers in person over coffee. So kudos to William and his group for going out and trying to make a really cool vision happen. At the least, hopefully an increased appreciation for Tulsa's Art Deco heritage can result in no more Deco jewels being lost to the 21st Century architectural wonder known as the parking lot.

Speaking of people we know making a difference in their downtown communities, wouldn't it be cool if we had a group do something awesome to chronicle OKC history as well? There is at least as much historic building heritage in OKC as there is in Tulsa (albeit not so much in the distinctive Deco style), most of which today only exists in the form of pictures sadly. Enormous mountains of historic photos have been donated to the Oklahoma County Historical Society and they just warehouse them. Nobody ever gets to appreciate the vast collections of OKC history that they have. In Tulsa, the Tulsa County Historical Society used to have a vast online library with thousands of historic images, but now they've taken them off and you have to visit the Travis Mansion on Peoria to see them. What if we in OKC could swing a website source for historic OKC knowledge? Just a thought.

For the meantime, some great online resources for history already exist. You'll see the occasional foray into downtown history on here, on ImagiNative America, and OKC Central, but Steve Lackmeyer's other blog, OKC History, and Doug Dawg are history-dominant downtown blogs.

Sad and pathetic

I was on OKC Talk where I was corrected in suggesting that the main boulevard be named after Ralph Ellison, which I still think is in order. But I was not aware that there was already an Ellison Avenue! This caught me by surprise. I'd heard of the streets that surround it before..Douglas, Klein, and then Western, but the Ellison Avenue that already exists was new to me.

Ralph Ellison was a great man, probably Oklahoma's best author, who wrote the most famous work of literature to come out of Oklahoma (and no, it wasn't called the Grapes of Wrath). The man has gone down in history as one of the greatest American authors, and he was an important African American of that period. In my opinion he was more pivotal to OKC's anti-discrimination movement than even Clara Luper, a local legend who is known for her fight for equality, and has statues, NE 23rd, and more named after her memory. Ralph Ellison however has nothing besides this crappy street, and I believe there is also a branch library named for him. Look at it..would you want that street named after you?? How can we treat the legacy of a famous Oklahoman like this! On OKC Talk (no surprise) one poster did not even know who Ralph Ellison was. Unbelievable, and yet, 11th graders across the nation read Invisible Man..maybe everywhere except OKC, apparently.