My Accidental Discovery - the Twelve Hills Nature Center.

   One afternoon while wandering the city, I came across a surprising nature center in the middle of an Oak Cliff neighborhood. After a little research, I learned that the Twelve Hills Nature Center was created by the neighborhood with the help of area businesses on a plot of land that once was the abandoned Twelve Hills Apartment complex. 

   The apartments, as often are the case, started out a safe and friendly place to live. In its final days, the buildings became crime ridden and in disrepair. In 1992, the 500 unit, 20 acre complex was torn down and the city, county and DISD took over the land in lieu of unpaid taxes. A portion of the land was used for the new Rosemont Elementary. Another section was was sold to a developer, who turned over 5 acres to the neighborhood to be used as a nature center.

   The center was completed with $260,000 in donations

  Map to the Twelve Hills Nature Center

   

The entrance plaza to 12 Hills Nature Center

The main trail at the neighborhood nature center

The Modern Homes of the Kessler Woods Neighborhood looks out onto 12 Hills.

One of Oak Cliff's best kept secrets, Kessler Woods, was built next to the nature center

The trails give a glimpse to what came before, bricks and concrete from the old apartment complex peek out

If you enjoy my blog, you might enjoy my new book, The Travis Club

 
      

Main Street Garden - The Undiscovered Gem

   While many have been enamored with the opening of the Deck Park over Woodall Rogers Freeway, it's another downtown park that may end up being the bigger success story.

   Last week I drove past Main Street Garden. I noticed that the University Center of Dallas was doing a major renovation of the old Titche - Goettinger Department Store, adding an impressive set of windows looking over the park.

Windows being added to the wall of the University Center

The University Center before the renovation of the outer wall

The TG Store with sign that covered the 1950 addition. 

   Main Street Garden was once a city block filled by the Gold Ring Parking Garage and a host of other run down buildings. It was surrounded by a variety of once majestic buildings. Sadly, most of them spent the better part of a decade vacant. The fact that someone had the vision to create a park around the massive but empty block long Mercantile Complex, the abandoned Mercantile Commerce Building, the vacant Statler Hotel, the abandoned old Dallas Public Library, the vacated Lone Star Gas Building and the mammoth but empty Titche Department Store is visionary. 

    There literally might have been more vacant office and retail space in one square mile than any place in America. Today, it's quite possibly the most impressive turnaround of any block in downtown Dallas. 

Once the site of a parking garage, the entire block was removed for Main Street Garden

A pleasant surprise, Rusty Taco located in the park

Looking west, toward the Mercantile Center

Looking east across the lawn toward the Dallas Municipal Building, soon to be the home of the new UNT Law School

The old block long vacant Mercantile Center has been adapted for luxury apartments

The Mercantile Pool Deck, overlooking Main Street Garden

The Hotel Indigo - Notice the Hilton sign is still partially visible. This was Conrad Hilton's first hotel

The Mercantile Commerce Building with its distinctive mosiac recently reopened as an apartment complex

The Lone Star Gas Building, now the Lone Star Lofts

Another glamorous downtown pool, this one part of Lone Star Lofts

Enjoy my blog? You might also enjoy my book, The Travis Club

      

The Travis Club - My First Adventure in Fiction

   I have always wondered if, while researching a piece of local history, I stumbled upon some long lost secret that was better left undiscovered.

   Such is the case for Taylor Nichols, a young San Antonio writer who unveils the truth about who is really buried in Davy Crockett's tomb. He learns that some mysteries are better left unsolved. 

   The Travis Club is available now in eBook form for a special introductory price for Kindle, Nook and iPad owners. 

          

The Ruins of the Metroplex - The Dallas Boneyard

   On April 26, 2013, for the first time ever, the city of Dallas allowed a tour of its Architectual Boneyard. Pieces of historically significant buildings that someone thought to save, rest in a city work yard just east of Fair Park. I was allowed to partake on the very first tour.

   It is the hope that some of these saved features may someday be used in Dallas city parks.

Cobb Stadium

   Once known as Dal-Hi Stadium, this Depression era structure lasted until 1985 when it was replaced by the Infomart at Stemmons Freeway and Oak Lawn. Trammel Crow saved these sculptures and donated them to the city

Remnants of the facade of Cobb Stadium, depicting various athletes

Titche's Department Store

The 28 foot cartouche sits on the upper right of the outer wall

   The 28 foot cartouche which depicted the Six Flags of Texas was featured on the 1955 addition of Titche's Department Store in downtown Dallas. Today the building faces the new Main Street Garden and has been renovated into apartments and the UNT Downtown Center. 

   The cartouche has been dismantled and packed away in the Boneyard.

The Titche Store cartouche, packed away

The portion that once depicted the Spanish Flag

The stonework of the French flag

Gold Ring Parking Garage

   Now the site of Main Street Garden, the Gold Ring Parking Garage once housed cars for the Statler Hotel and the Mercantile Building. Need a gold ring? The Boneyard has plenty of them.

Other Boneyard Finds

Remnants of buildings that once occupied Main Street Gardens

Pieces of the 1922 Dallas Architecture Club

Seats from the Cotton Bowl

Found on the Site of Belo Garden. Thought to have been dumped there during the construction of the Old Red Courthouse

A streetpost that some believe may have been hit by Lee Harvey Oswald's mysterious third bullet

If you enjoy my blog, you might enjoy my book, The Travis Club

            

Bishop Arts District - Today and Yesterday

   The Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff is one of my favorite parts of Dallas. The mix of people and commercial ventures make the streets come alive with a sense of community that is often lacking in the 21st Century cookie cutter world of commerce.

  It's obvious that the area was once shops that serviced a early 20th century neighborhood. But I had no idea how far it had fallen before it became the hip and cool area that it is now. Look at this photo of Bishop Street circa 1985 that wad recently published in Advocate Magazine

   The same intersection today:

  

A Visit to the Rock and Roll Barbershop

  Dallas isn't a barber shop town. I don't know where Dallas guys go to get their haircut, but it's not at  a barber shop. I mean real barber shops, where they finish your cut with shaving cream and a razor.

  Since my move from Fort Worth (a real barber shop town) four years ago, I started getting my haircut at the A&A Barber Shop in Casa Linda Shopping Center. But when the shop closed this summer, I was became lost and shaggy.
   I experimented with a variety of so-called barbers, who were really just 'stylists,' a legal designation for someone licensed by the state to cut hair but not use razors.

   I even ventured into a barber shop that catered to an African-American clientele. Though it was probably the best hair cut I've ever received, I could never get the gentleman to realize that he was cutting my hair way to short.

   Today, I finally found a home, The Arcade aka The Rock and Roll Barber of East Dallas. Ray Rowell may own the only Barber Shop / Guitar Swap Shop in the world. Ray has been cutting hair in the Case View Shopping Center for the past 21 years. (located at 2327 Gus Thomasson Rd, just behind the Burger King, as indicated on his business card). Ray not only services your sartorial needs, he also runs a used guitar shop. Looking for an old six string, this would be a place to start.

   The demographics of the neighborhood has changed a lot since Ray started at the Arcade. 21 years ago there were six barbers that charged $14 for a cut. Not it's just Ray and his wife and it only cost $12 for his service. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why here are so few barbers left in Dallas. Ray isn't quite sure how much longer he might survive.
 

  The Arcade Barbershop and the Casa View Shopping Center offer a glimpse of east Dallas past, when this part of town was an up and coming suburb. The architecture now seems dated, but in the 60's and 70's this was a major shopping center with a Sears, a J.C. Penney's and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders original dance studio.

   
   Whenever you choose a new barber, there is a moment of anticipation when the chair is turned toward the mirror. I quickly released a sigh of relief. Not only a great haircut, but Ray left my sideburns long. How Rock and Roll.

 

   

A Sneak Peak inside the New Perot Museum

    For the past year, a futuristic building has been rising just north of downtown's Woodall Rogers Freeway. On December 1st, the public will finally get a chance to step inside the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

   I got a chance to check out the exhibits before the opening date. I was not disappointed. This amazing showplace will quickly become of Dallas' signature attributes.
  This museum starts with a ride to the top of the building offering dramatic views of downtown. Museum goers work their way down 5 1/2 floors of exhibits. Parents be warned,  it may take a couple of trips to see everything the Perot Museum has to offer. Here are my favorite displays

1. Bird Flight Simulator
Make sure you go to the very top of the 4th Floor (Floor 4A) 

                                        2. The Earthquake Simulator

3. The Digital Music Studio

4. The Mini Tornado (you can even get inside it)

5. Race the Dinosaur (or a cheetah)
Don't skip the basement, where you'll find an exhibit called 'Sports". 

6. The Building Itself.
The entire building is an exhibit itself, including the glass escalator

The Glass Escalator as seen from outside the building