I have been reading about a park constructed in the heart of Downtown Dallas, in a spot where an old parking garage had been torn down. Called the Main Street Garden Park, it was designed both as a tiny bit of open green space in the vast expanse of concrete, glass, and steel in downtown, but also as a place to host gatherings and events. It was a block-long open spot lined by various amenities, a stage, and an organic restaurant. I was downtown running around, and decided to take a look at the park.
The grass was brown and in need of some growing, but otherwise it was a nice enough spot. Its main use seemed to be a patch of grass for the residents of the high-rise condo towers to walk their dogs and allow them to do their business. There was a steady stream of mutts and their owners coming and going, and picking up dog shit in plastic bags. I tried to sit for awhile in a nice little covered area but the smell of dog crap from the nearby trash can was overpowering.
I liked the park, though. It seemed like a cool place to hang, as long as the weather wasn’t too bad (I’ll bet it gets really hot in the summer).
The main lawn of the Main Street Garden Park, with the permanent stage at the far end. The signs say, “Please Keep Off The Grass – We Are Growing Our Roots.”
Down at the other end of the park there is a nice little fountain and some rocks to sit on. A nice place for a conversation – maybe the water will cool it off a bit in the summer.
When I first moved to Dallas, over thirty years ago, I lived with some friends in Kessler Park, in Oak Cliff for a while until I saved enough money to get an apartment. I was working downtown and rode the bus to work. Living in the city was a big deal for me and I remember the quiet excitement of the bus ride to work. It came across the Commerce Street Viaduct into the canyons of skyscrapers after passing through the triple underpass and Dealy Plaza. To get to Commerce, the bus would drive up Sylvan Avenue.
In 1981 this was a very distressed area. That was a real shame because this part of “The Cliff” has a lot going for it. It’s close to downtown and is really the only part of the city with any kind of hills at all. It’s an old, beautiful part of the city. But thirty years ago, looking out that bus window, it was obvious that a long walk on those sidewalks might very well be fatal.
At Sylvan and Fort Worth Avenue there was a hotel called the Belmont. It was barely visible from the street because it sat up on top of a steep little rocky hill. It had a cool-looking retro deco office and a string of bungalows snaking across the crest of the hill. I never drove up there, but it was obvious that the place would have the best view of downtown in the city. It was run down and I wasn’t sure if it was even open. At any rate, it would not be a place anyone would want to stop – the neighborhood was frightening.
I remember thinking that it was a shame that little hotel was wasting away in such a state. I would fantasize about how smart and hip a property it could be with a little updating and a strong and visible security force. I was always thinking and talking about trashed out places that I thought should be fixed up. People used to make fun of me when I would talk about stuff like that. Nobody understood the potential I saw in those run down places. I felt like an idiot.
Now as I tumble into oldfartdom I realize I was right all along (the realization comes too late to do any good, of course). Oak Cliff is now the hot place to be in Dallas, and with the impending opening of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge that Renaissance/development/gentrification is only going to gain speed.
At the forefront of this change is that little hotel I used to stare at out of the bus windows. The Belmont has been rebuilt into a cute little boutique hotel and everybody who is anybody stays there. An upscale bar-b-que joint that specializes in local foods, called Smoke, is attached to the hotel and has become one of the most buzzworthy eateries in the city.
I really wanted to see this place.
On Sunday, Candy and I ate lunch in the Bishop Arts District and then driving back we planned on stopping at the Belmont and checking out the Bar Belmont and its view of downtown. The Belmont did not disappoint. They have done a fantastic job of updating the property while maintaining the the Art Deco retro-cool feel about the place.
The bar has a great patio. Part of it is covered and part is outside. It would be a fantastic place to hang out on one of the three or four days of good weather that Dallas gets every year. Today it was too cold, so we went into the comfy indoor part of the bar.
There was a knot of folks in the lower part of the bar unpacking guitars and arranging chairs and benches. While we sat up by the bar the crowd slowly began to grow with more and more musicians showing up and setting up. There were a half-dozen guitars, a few dobros, a banjo, a standup bass, a couple drummers, and a fiddle player. They started playing and singing.
It was fantastic. These people were very, very good. It was the best time – there were maybe ten musicians and about six of us listening. A free concert in an intimate setting with more performers than fans.
During a break, we found out what was going on. This was the Sunday Afternoon Charli’s Jam. Charli Alexander had founded this acoustic jam about thirty years ago. It has moved around from location to location and has now settled into the Bar at the Belmont. It is very well known and people have traveled from all over the world to play with these folks. There is a core of folks but Charli said it really varies from week to week, with different instruments, players, and styles of music. Today it was mostly traditional Texas honkey-tonk, with some folk and pop-folk thrown in (I’d love to hear some blues).
I loved listening to the jam. The core was arranged in a rough square and they would move around the square with each musician in turn choosing what they wanted to perform with the others filling in. During a part of each song they would take turns playing solos, with the original performer calling out the solo players in turn. They were very good, surprisingly tight. It was obvious that most of them were very used to each other and were able to anticipate what was coming next.
The room was filled with portraits of musicians, with David Bowie holding court over the mantle. Willie Nelson was on the opposite wall, a rough, glaring, black and white portrait. Everybody teased one singer (with an amazing bass voice) after he sang “Crazy” – telling him that it took some courage to sing that song with Willie looking on. “He’s happy as long as he gets his royalties,” was the answer.
They talked about a particularly difficult chord on the dobro. “That’s hard on the guitar, but even tougher on this,” the dobro player said. “At least Nancy doesn’t have to deal with that,” he said, referring to the fiddle player. “Yeah, but she has to worry about her own problems, like no frets,” someone else pointed out.
Candy and I had such a good time, we sat there and listened for three hours. Charli said they liked having people come out to listen, “It makes us play a lot better.” She said they are there every Sunday at three o’clock. I guarantee we will be going back.
I think we were the only fans to stay for the whole time. A few people came and went – some friends of the musicians. A few guests came to the Belmont desk to check out and stayed for a drink and a few songs. One scraggly looking guy stood by the desk for a couple of minutes. He looked familiar, but I didn’t pay much attention. When the song ended, he was gone, but the guitar player said, “Hey, that was Kinky Friedman standing there.”
So I think of that run-down old fashioned string of shabby bungalows up on that hill thirty years ago and what it has become today. I think of a young kid excited about riding a bus through a bad neighborhood in a big city. Now, it’s changed, but it’s still the same. Everybody had such a good time – the musicians in the jam, the hotel guests, even the folks working at the hotel. Sometimes it can come back.
The great Dallas bluesman, Mick Tinsley, playing his killer version of a Mark Curry number – “Raining All Over Me”. Recorded at Charli’s Sunday Jam at the Belmont Hotel in Dallas, Texas June 2010
The street entrance to the Bar Belmont
Charli's Sunday Afternoon Acoustic Jam
The front desk entrance to the Art Deco Belmont Hotel, with Smoke in the background.
Playing the Dobro
The view of Downtown Dallas from the Belmont Hotel
I have ridden and written about three of the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority trolley cars – Petunia, Matilda, and Rosie. There was one more that I had never ridden (or at least didn’t remember riding) – The Green Dragon (MATA does have one more car – but it’s used for maintenance. They have several more being restored).
The Green Dragon is an unusual looking car. The driver’s station at each end looks like it was tacked onto a regular car. Its roof is flat and sort of sticks out and even looks like it dangles down a little bit.
It was built in 1913 (it will be a hundred years old next year) and ran in Dallas for 46 years. It ran on McKinney avenue and the SMU students gave it the nickname “Green Dragon” back in the day. She was retired in 1956 and used as a hay barn in North Dallas for a few decades. For a while it was used to display Roger Staubach’s Jersey in a sports museum in Grand Prairie.
I was happy to see the Green Dragon pull up to the Central Expressway Trolley stop. She is a large car and has a very smooth ride. From the inside, you can see the wooden bulkhead that marks the transition from the curved roof of the car to the flat roof of the cab. It doesn’t look as odd inside as it does when the car is clanking down the track.
The Green Dragon is a sweet ride and a great way to get around Uptown.
According to my calculations, this Wednesday, February 15, at 6:13 PM will be this spring’s Dallashenge moment. That is when the setting sun will be aligned with the canyons of Dallas’ downtown streets, which do not run exactly east-west (if they did, Dallashenge would occur on the equinox). Of course, it’s called “henge” in reference to Stonehenge, another man made arrangement of objects aligned with the heavens. Manhattanhenge seems to be a pretty big deal in the Big Apple, but I have not found anyone other than me working out the date for Dallas.
Unless the weather makes this impossible, I plan on heading downtown to take pictures on Wednesday (If you are interested in meeting down there, contact me). I had a couple of questions, though – how hard would it be to grab a photograph while crossing at the light and which street would be the best canyon to photograph.
Test shots were in order.
I was downtown last weekend so I walked across the street grid, taking photographs at each intersection. My first question was easily answered – there is plenty of time during the time the little walking guy appears on the crossing light to dash out into the center of the lane, snap a couple pics, and then dash back before the cars are unleashed.
Looking west from Commerce and St. Paul Streets in downtown Dallas.
Main Street and St. Paul
Elm and Harwood Streets. I like this view. I'm not sure if the pedestrian bridge will ruin the shot. Also, the Lew Sterrett jail is at the end of the street and may block the sun's orb..
Pacific and St. Paul, at the end of LIve Oak. This location has the advantage that it isn't in the street and I can set up a tripod and take photos on my schedule instead of rushing out when the light changes.
Of the four, I like Elm a lot. I tried to get up into that pedestrian bridge, but it is closed to the public. A shot from street level would be cool, especially with the Majestic Theater there to the right.
My favorite is the Pacific shot, though. There is a big advantage there, too. At the end of Live Oak street (Pacific/St. Paul/Live Oak) there is a bit of sidewalk that juts out into the middle of the street. I can set up a tripod there and take photos at my leisure.It has a nice canyon in the middle and they the sky opens with some glass mirrored ‘scrapers sticking up – if there is a nice sunset, it will look cool.
I’ve never done this kind of shooting before… any advice would be appreciated.
So, weather permitting, I plan on taking the DART train downtown and setting up on the sidewalk there at Pacific and St. Paul (I might dash on over to Elm too, I’m not sure how the timing will go) to get some pictures of the sun setting down that man-made canyon.
I’m not an expert on this and I may be reading the ephemeris tables wrong. Friday might actually be a better evening – the sun’s orb will be a little higher up and might make for a better photo. I could go back again, Friday would be easy. Again, if the weather is bad – too much cloud cover – I won’t even bother to go down there.
There are four operating passenger streetcars in the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority‘s fleet of trolley cars. I had ridden (and written about) two of them – Matilda and Rosie. I decided to take a shot at getting on another of them and sat down at the trolley stop next to the Dallas Museum of Art and pulled out my Kindle to read a bit and wait for the car.
I was rewarded when a little streetcar named Petunia pulled up. I had not ridden this one yet.
The old streetcar next to the Art Museum and the glass towers of downtown.
Petunia was built in 1920 and is a “Birney Safety Car” named after her designer, Charles O Birney. Birneys were known for their bouncy ride. Petunia ran in Dallas until 1947. For the next 30 years, she was stripped of her running gear, then equipped with a stove, sink, bed, refrigerator, easy chair, and blue curtains, and used for a residence. She was acquired by MATA and rebuilt – with shock absorbers added to even out the ride.
MATA Photo - Petunia before restoration.
She was packed with shoppers, commuters, and tourists (and me) and off we went across Woodall Rodgers and up McKinney Avenue. I chatted with some folks about child-raising and looked at all the folks eating in the restaurants and walking from bar to bar. Some young tourists kept going up to the streetcar engineer with a map on an iPad and tried to show him where they were trying to get to, but nobody could figure anything out.
The added shocks must work because Petunia has a much sweeter ride than the similarly sized Rosie. It was a fun and comfortable trip uptown.
There is something really cool about a trolley – whether it’s clanking through the crowded streets of Dallas or the misty neutral ground of New Orleans. There are plans for a real expansion of the trolley in Dallas… through the new park nearing construction on across the river into Oak Cliff. I wish they would hurry up – nobody lives forever.
If you don’t live here this won’t make sense. Now, if you’ve been reading my blog you might recognize a few things, but otherwise, nah.
But if you are from Dallas, this is hilarious.
I loved it, even though it didn’t have my favorite Dallas saying. That’s, “Well, you start out driving on Beltline.” Everything (including my house) is right off Beltline Road. I can be on a freeway fifty miles from my house and see a Beltline Exit sign. One weekend I’m going to drive the entire Beltline Road (it is a loop, surprise) – it might take two days.
Others that I hear(or say) that aren’t on the video:
“I get nosebleeds if I go north of George Bush.”
“I remember when the West End was cool.”
“Nobody rides DART to the fair, it’s too crowded.”
“Ugh, the water tastes awful, the lakes must have turned over.”
“Should we take LBJ or George Bush.”
“Should we go Woodall Rogers or the Mixmaster?”
“Central’s all red, better take Greenville.”
“There a wreck on 75, better take Coit.”
“Stay away from 30, the Zipper is busted.”
“I had to bail her out of Lou Sterrett”
I don’t remember if it’s in Rockwall or Rowlett.”
“Pho Pasteur has the best Pho.”
“Bistro B has the best Pho.”
“Pho Bac has the best Pho.”
“Pho Bang has the best Pho.”
“Pho Q has the best Pho.”
“Pho King has the best Pho.”
“He lives in this old house, it’s been there almost twenty years.”
“They live in a Condo in Uptown.”
“Who lives in all these houses?”
“Let me borrow your DART pass.”
“Let me borrow your Toll Tag.”
“You can’t get to Deep Ellum from here.”
“Are we waiting for the Red or the Blue?”
“Whatever you do, don’t jaywalk in downtown”
“A coyote got their cat.”
“Back when Frisco was way out in the country.”
“Back when Southwest had free drinks.”
“I can’t believe you walked there.”
“Is the AC all the way up?”
“They need to hurry the hell up, they’re driving the speed limit.”
“That Mexican food place looks awful, their food must be great.”
At any rate, here it is:
What Dallas sayings do you have that you treasure/are completely sick of? What sayings do you hear every day where you are at?
Sunday I hiked the mile or so from the Corinth DART station down through the Trinity River Bottoms on the new Santa Fe Trestle trail. Underneath the new/old bridge is another feature, the contentious Dallas Wave.
You see, in its constant struggle to become… what?… a real city, Dallas decided as part of its plans for developing the Trinity River Bottoms to put in a whitewater feature.
The Dallas Wave with a DART train going by overhead... and the skyline in the background. (click to enlarge)
Before it gets to the artificial rapids of the Dallas Wave the Trinity is a lazy, calm stretch of flat water.
The whitewater of the Dallas Wave with the lighted ball of Reunion Tower in the background.
The water is very high from recent rains - at least four feet above normal. The Standing Wave is almost completely drowned.
BTW, those of you in remote locales who might be wondering what I’m talking about – there’s a very familiar piece of footage I’m sure you have seen. The first few seconds of this introduction features a flyover of the Trinity River Bottoms.
At any rate, the city went ahead and put in their whitewater – basically sticking a couple of concrete dams and walls into the otherwise calm and lazy Trinity. The results don’t bode too well – the rest of the development is stalled for a decade or so because of Federal Regulations promulgated after Katrina. The Standing Wave was constructed and it ended up costing millions of dollars more than planned.
And now, the thing is closed. It turns out that it is too fast and dangerous for canoes to run. The sport kayakers seem happy with the thing, but other folks seem to think it’s a deathtrap.
Now that I’ve seen it in person, I have no opinion. The river was so high the lower wave was completely submerged and the upper wave mostly so. The water looked to be at least four feet deeper than in most of the photographs I’ve seen. It looked like a bunch of fast but navigable rapids to me.
So we’ll see. The lawsuits will fly, the construction will finish, and the water will keep on flowing. The river will always be the same, although with constantly different water.
A few weeks ago, looking around I found out about a trail that I had barely heard of nearing completion in Dallas. It isn’t very long and it goes nowhere, but it looks pretty cool.
When they built the DART rail line along the Santa Fe rail right-of-way going across the Trinity River into Oak Cliff, they constructed a new rail bridge over the river. They left the old Santa Fe iron trestle next to the new concrete bridge. Right from the first, there was talk of trying to preserve the old trestle, both the iron bridgework and the wooden timbers. It was decided to build a hike/bike trail over the old trestle. The first plans were to simply build the trail where the rails used to be, but the Corps of Engineers wanted to clear away the old wooden timber piers to allow debris to wash through during flood periods. So the design was modified with new big, curving, concrete approaches to the metal bridge over the river itself. Over the last few years construction continued, cleaning up the old bridge and putting the new trail causeways into the river bottoms.
I found notice that the construction was nearing completion and although it wasn’t officially open, but the trail was walkable. Sunday I wasn’t able to get some of the things done I had planned, but as the day went on, I was running out of time, but I guessed I would have time to go down and check out the trail as the sun set.
There is parking at the Corinth DART station and the entrance to the trail is across the street. It’s a short walk through the swampy river bottoms (there was a lot of water, mud, plus flotsam and jetsam from the recent heavy rains) and then the trail begins to rise along a long, curving elevated causeway. They are still working on the landscaping, but otherwise it looks pretty much finished.
The sun was setting as I reached the bridge itself. It was pretty cool – the path is wide and smooth and there are nice benches set along the way. I enjoyed watching the DART trains going by a few feet away and there are great views of the downtown skyline contrasted with the vast open areas of the Trinity River Bottoms.
The entrance to the trail near the Corinth DART station.
A view of the Dallas Skyline from the trail. (click to enlarge)
The trestle trail going over the Trinity River.
A DART train rumbles by with the biking/hiking trail in front. (click to enlarge)
I didn’t stick around very long – this is not the part of town you want to be hanging out in after dark. As I was walking back to my car I heard some chanting in the distance. As I walked it was closer and I realized I was hearing some sort of yelling through a bullhorn. Finally, I could understand what was being yelled:
“Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Columbia Packing has got to go!”
Oh, crap, Columbia Packing. That was the place that became infamous last week when they were busted dumping pig blood into a creek that ran down to the Trinity. I did not realize I was so close to the place. It was only a block or so away and I was walking along a stand of trees that bordered the contaminated creek. There was a demonstration going on trying to shut down the plant.
I want to go back to the trail with a group of bike riders during the day once the park is completely open… it’s a cool place even if it doesn’t connect with anything else (yet) – but still, I was glad to get back to my car and get headed home.
A video of a ride across the bridge from a while back. The construction was a lot further along this weekend, and the water in the river was a lot higher.
Saturday and I still haven’t totally recovered from the nastiest cold that I have had in decades. There is a lot of stuff to do at home, plumbing problems mostly, but Candy and I headed across the river to a couple of Estate Sales in Kessler Park. Both were in beautiful, old brick homes that are so rare in Dallas. Kessler Park has to be the prettiest part of the city with its historic one-of-a-kind homes, steep hills and thick stands of ancient trees. We bought a bunch of crap we never knew we couldn’t live without at the second sale, which was literally across the street from the house I lived in when I first moved to Dallas, thirty years ago.
After our time spent digging through dead people’s stuff we drove down to the Bishop Arts District – my newest favorite spot in Dallas. There are a bunch of places we want to eat at down there, but the other day I had stumbled across a blog entry written about the best Enchiladas in the city and had read about a semi-fast-food place down in Bishop Arts called bee – which stood for Best Enchiladas Ever. It looked like a plan.
It looks like bee is the brainchild of Monica, of Monica’s Aca y Alla – one of the most loved eating spots around. Monica quality enchiladas with fast food speed and prices sounds really good. Now, Oak Cliff is lousy with Tacquerias and other home-style Mexican food – and I’d like to try them all – so I guess a gentrified gringo invader may be politically incorrect… but I don’t care, I just want something good to eat.
Sorry for the poor photographs - I forgot my camera and had to use my phone.
Bee is a bright and clean little place near the corner of Davis and Zang. You get a little card and fill it out before ordering from the counter, like a sandwich place. The guy at the counter recommended the two enchilada special.
Build your own – starting with tortillas.
Choices:
corn,
blue corn,
wheat,
flour,
or cabbage leaf wrap.
Then filling:
chicken tinga,
pork carnitas
beef picadillo,
beef brisket,
tilapia veracruz,
spinach and mushroom,
quinoa and tofu,
vegan special,
cheddar cheese.
Finally, you add a sauce:
sour cream,
con carne,
queso blanco,
poblano crema,
chipotle crema,
oaxaca mole,
ranchera,
tomatillo,
avacado verde (cold).
Folks deciding what to get and filling out their cards.
My order, two enchiladas, rice and black beans
So you mix and match. Pick your sides and then when the food is ready they have a selection of toppings and cheeses. The back side of the little menu card is full of other options… burritos, tacos, salads… but you could spend a year working through the options of the different enchilada combinations.
As promised, the food was fast, reasonable, and very good. I had forgotten my combinations by the time the order came up, but I don’t think you can go wrong with anything I did especially like the poblano crema and the vegan black beans. They have a cooler full of beer and soft drinks and a margarita machine, so I suppose you could pretty well just live there if you wanted.
We finished our lunch and walked on down to Bishop where I picked up a coffee at Espumoso, hung out, and wrote this while I sipped on a coffee. Better than crawling around on the bathroom floor fixing the pipes – though I’ll still have to do that sometime.
A few days ago I read about the phenomenon of Manhattanhenge – the phenomenon that occurs several times a year when the rising or setting sun happens to align perfectly with the canyons of New York City. It is called Manhattanhenge in honor of Stonhenge… which is in putative alignment with its own set of heavenly circuits.
Image from New York Bridge and Tunnel Club
I really never thought about the fact that the streets of Manhattan don’t run perfectly East-West. They are aligned with the long axis of the island itself, about thirty degrees off of the meridian.
I began to think about Dallas, so I pulled up a map. The streets in downtown, the ones that run between the skyscrapers – Commerce, Main, Elm – don’t run perfectly East-West either. I don’t know what the layout is based on… probably where the deer and the antelope used to roam. Looking around the internet, I found suncalc.net, which made it easy to find the directions of sunrise and sunset at different times of the year.
According to suncalc.net in 2012 Downtown Dallas, the Sunset Stonehenge moment will be at 6:13 PM on February 15, and the Sunrise Stonehenge will be 6:53 AM on April 19th. That’s when the sun will rise/set right along the canyons of buildings along the streets downtown. I’m going to try to remember and be there to take some pictures.
One big question is where. I’m going to have to go downtown and walk around and look for good places. Commerce, Main, and Elm all have a lot of tall buildings lining the sidewalks, but it’s hard to tell where the best spot is. One problem is the Lew Sterrett Center sticks up at the west end of Downtown; the jail will block the sun.
Another problem is how to get the picture without getting run over. The streets of downtown are busy at the evening hour and I’ll have to wait for a walk signal, run out into the street, take a snap, and then get the hell out of Dodge. Looking through Google Maps I found this:
Bill Chance 