As I rode up for the All Out Trinity Festival on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge the Yoga classes were in full swing. Restful music spouted from a PA system set up along the edge of the blocked up traffic lanes. The leader was talking into a microphone. Thousands of people were spread out over hundreds of yards of roadway, all stretched out on their mats. It was something to see.
Yoga on the bridge. (click to enlarge)
Yoga on the bridge. (click to enlarge)
Yoga on the bridge. (click to enlarge)
People walking from the yoga event with their mats under their arms. All Out Trinity Festival – Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas (click to enlarge)
When the plans for Santiago Calatrava’s Margaret Hunt Hill bridge were finalized a lot of folks were disappointed that it did not include pedestrian or bicycle lanes. We were promised that a crossing would be provided on the proximate Continental Bridge, which was being converted to a park. There is no other good way to cross the Trinity in that part of town without an internal-combustion engine. The final designs still don’t have the promised through-lanes – but it will open in June, we’ll see how it works out.
Finally, last Saturday, after two years, they had another event planned – the All Out Trinity Festival and I would be able to ride my bike across the bridge. I wanted to get down there right when the ramps opened, but Notting Hill was on TV – so I had to watch the end again.
I packed up my commuter bike and rode down to the Arapaho DART station. As usual, the train was pulling out just as I arrived on the platform, so I had to wait for the next one.
I was later than planned, but the timing worked out as I met a couple of friends riding through Downtown Dallas on the way to the bridge. We fought our way up the steep entry ramps onto the bridge itself.
It was a real thrill to ride on the bridge. Everybody was on the Westbound lanes – across the divider the Eastbound traffic still roared by. The pavement would vibrate like a monstrous guitar string whenever a big truck would rattle past.
There were a lot of events planned and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but a group from Bike Texas gathered together for a ride through West Dallas – that sounded like a plan.
Bike Texas Group on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas (click for larger version on Flickr)
Bike Texas group on the bridge, with the Dallas skyline in the background. (click for full size version on Flickr)
Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas (click for larger version on Flickr)
We headed West on Singleton. After a couple miles we passed Fish Trap Lake on the right – where I had ridden a couple months ago to visit the rainbow-colored pier, Dear Sunset, by Ugo Rondinone. The chromatic jetty was part of the Nasher XChange installation – now that the project has ended I wonder how long the pier will remain. It was good to see it still in place. People were out on the pier, so maybe they have even cleaned the bird shit off the wood.
dear sunset Ugo Rondinone West Dallas, Texas (click to enlarge)
We rode down another mile and turned up to Tipton Park, where there is a new trail and pedestrian bridge.
Bike Texas ride at the Pedestrian Bridge in Tipton Park, West Dallas, Texas (click for full sized version on Flickr)
Pedestrian bridge, Tipton Park, Dallas, Texas (click for full sized version on Flickr)
Pedestrian bridge, Tipton Park, Dallas, Texas (click for full-sized version on Flickr)
Riding back to the bridge, I was struck by the reaction of the people in the neighborhood. They acted like they had never seen a bicycle before – excited and astounded; some laughed, some clapped, some merely stared.
We arrived back in time for beers at Four Corners Brewery. The only thing better than a fresh local brew is one earned. I had an Oatmeal Stout and their IPA – both excellent. While we were standing around chatting, a thick column of smoke appeared to the south. Fire trucks were dispatched and the black soon turned to gray, then disappeared. Today, I found out that the fire was in a new construction across the street from the Belmont Hotel. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
The entertainment continued as we watched the police arrest a belligerent drunken woman that was stumbling down the street. She fought mightily, but in vain as they strapped her in the back of a cruiser and hauled her to the clink.
It was getting late, the sun had set, and until the Continental Bridge opens, Trinity Groves is a tough place from which to reach a DART station. I decided to ride down into the Trinity River bottoms and go a few miles south to the Corinth station, next to the Santa Fe Trestle Trail. This is the same route I took to visit the Dear Sunset Pier.
I certainly don’t recommend riding alone in the river bottoms at night – but it worked out for me. My lights were adequate to find my way in the pitch wilderness, while the multicolored jeweled towers of Downtown Dallas reached skyward off to the east. The day’s route was a fifteen mile bike ride (plus the four miles from my home to the DART station) with a lot of time spent hanging out and around with a lot of cool people – a good day.
It had been warm, on the edge of hot, a good eighty degrees – but as I rode home from the station I felt the wind switch around to the north and the temperature begin to drop. In twelve hours the temperature would be around twenty degrees and the ground covered in a healthy layer of tiny balls of ice. Springtime in Texas.
For only the second time in its short history pedestrians and bicyclists were allowed to walk across the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge – the westbound lanes were closed for the All Out Trinity Festival.
All Out Trinity Festival – Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas (click to enlarge)
I have written below about a presentation I attended concerning a small piece of freeway near Dallas’ Downtown. It was an important and interesting meeting, but what I wrote about it goes on a little long, and I wanted to write a little about what I think is the real crux of the matter.
I’ll write more at length about it later, I need to do some thinking and some research and some more thinking first.
What jumped at me in particular were two slides (13 and 14 in the presentation). The first, printed from a book, was this statement:
In his 1911 book The Prinicples of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor, a pioneer in the efficiency movement, wrote: “The goal of human labor and thought is efficiency. Technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgement, in fact human judgement cannot be trusted because it is pagued by laxity, ambiguity and unnecessary complexity. Subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking…. That which cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value….The affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.”
The bolded part of the quote was underlined, with a handwritten note and arrow that said, “THE BEGINNING OF THE END.”
The bullet at the bottom of the slide emphasized the point, “That which cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value….The affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.”
This is contrasted to the next slide, which is a quote by Thomas Jefferson:
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”
Thomas Jefferson September 28, 1820
The contrast, the frisson between the two ways of looking at the world illuminated by these quotes is an amazing concept. If I learned nothing else, this was worth taking the train downtown after work.
I-345 near downtown Dallas
Dallas has this nasty, falling down 1.4 miles of freeway on the east side of downtown. It’s name is I-345, though nobody knows that. It is an elevated monstrosity that is an ugly barrier between the city center and Deep Ellum.
It also needs replacing. A movement is growing to remove the freeway instead of rebuilding it.
This pissed a lot of people in Dallas off, including me.
So I found out about a meeting at D Magazine (Great write-up about it here) with a presentation on how the modern American Urban High Speed traffic system is killing the city. I sent off for a ticket and rode the train downtown after work. I was more than a little ragged after a tough day at work and felt out of place – but the talk by Ian Lockwood was more than interesting.
They were taping the talk and I think I heard someone say it would be going onto Youtube. I’ll put it on here if I find it, but in the meantime, this one covers most of what he said. I know it’s long, but take the time to watch it if you can, it’s a revelation.
Here’s another photo I took of a typical day on I-345
I feel as if I have been living a lie all my life.
“Daryl wrote it,” John confessed, talking about his other musical half. “It was about a guy who was the heir to a fast food fortune.” We can’t help but feel like everything we know in life is a lie now. “He realized ‘Rich Girl’ sounded a lot better than ‘Rich Guy.’”
As I rode down from the train station all the walkers coming the other way said, “They’re a long ways ahead of you.” All of them, really.
“I’ll catch up, don’t worry,” I replied.
And I did. It was a lot of fun.
Skipping rope at Ye Olden Tymes Vintagey Retro Ride & Picnic. (click to enlarge)
Heavy Hitter beer flight at Luck, in Trinity Groves, Dallas, Texas
From left to right:
Velvet Hammer, from Peticolas Brewing Company – One of my favorites. If you buy, say, a whole growler of this be a little careful. They don’t call it Velvet Hammer for nothing.
The Temptress, from Lakewood Brewing Company – I consider The Temptress to be one of the best things in the world. Not one of the best beers… one of the best things.
Inspiration, from Community Beer Company – Actually, I’m not sure if I remember this one correctly. I do love stuff from Community, especially their Mosaic – my favorite IPA.
Quakertown Stout, from Armadillo Ale Works – I liked this one a lot. You can tell, it’s empty. It’s a new favorite – near the top of the list.
I know the Vickery Meadow area of Dallas very well. When I showed up in Dallas in 1981, unemployed and with twenty-five dollars to my name (Texas was the only place in the country you could find a job in 1981) I stayed with some friends in the Timbercreek Apartments on Melody Lane (they have since been torn out) for a short time. Moving there from the rural plains of Kansas seemed like the height of big city living – and they were pretty cool at the time. We soon moved to Oak Cliff, and then I came back to Lower Greenville when I found a job and saved enough for a deposit.
I loved living down there (especially in the 80’s) but my social life was mostly in Vickery Meadow (and The Village across Northwest Highway). You see, it’s hard to imagine now, but in 1982 interest rates hit sixteen percent. At that rate nobody… and I mean nobody, could afford to buy a house. So all these apartment complexes sprouted up like mushrooms and hordes of young people, and a few not so young people, moved in.
It was a wild social scene. One complex was full of a combination of strippers and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. That was a popular swimming pool on a hot summer afternoon. It was a good time.
But good times never last and this one fell faster than anyone thought possible. When the interest rates came down, many fled the rental complexes for the northern suburbs and the endless expanses of single family homes that were vomiting out across the cotton fields of North Texas. Then, in 1988, the Federal Government started enforcing the Fair Housing Act (making it illegal to exclude families from rental properties) – which doomed the singles apartment complexes that were the lifeblood of the area. That was the death knell. Occupancy rates fell. Rents dropped. And soon the owners couldn’t get enough from their rents to maintain the properties, which fell into disrepair – and the cycle repeated until it fell into a spiral of catastrophe.
Within a few short years the whole area was crack city. Sometimes I would drive through on my way to the Big Main Half-Price Bookstore and I would feel sad – the echoes of such good times gone to bad.
But then Vickery Meadow made a comeback of sort. Not one of wealth – quite the opposite – but one of culture. The area had fallen so far that the only people that would live there were the ones that could not afford to live anywhere else – the immigrant, the tired and poor, the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.
And now Vickery Meadow is a dense package of diverse humanity. It is still dirt poor, but it feels different. It feels like there might be a little hope in the most unlikely of places.
The tenth, and, for me, the last exhibition of the Nasher XChange works was a pop up market called Trans.lation by Rick Lowe. I had missed the first few dates and February 22 was my last chance. As always, I had my commitment to visit all ten sites without using a car. This one was easy. I rode my bike down to the Arapaho and caught the Red Line down to the Park Lane station and fought my way across Greeville Avenue and on into Vickery Meadow.
I was immediately struck by that odd layering of strong old memories with the present that has changed – but not enough that it does not stir ancient echoes. Many of the apartment buildings that contained some of my best friends, places I spent a lot of time, have been torn down and replaced by sprawling school campuses to accommodate the children of the new residents. I rode up to the heart of Vickery Meadow – a complex bustling intersection called “Five Points.”
My memory isn’t as good as it should be and I took the wrong one of the five roads and pedaled out down Park Lane instead of Ridgecrest. By the time I realized my error and looped back up another memory was brought back to me – the streets there can be very steep. I remembered exercising my way up these hills on a road bike back in the day. Unfortunately, I’m not twenty-five years old any more, and I had to wait a bit to catch my breath.
Finally, I picked the right road and found the market. I locked my bike up to a fence and went in – enjoying the arts and crafts for sale… I especially loved the music coming from the stage. There were a lot of people of every age and nationality you could imagine and everyone was having a great time.
That was something I will remember for a long time.
Trans.lation Market: Vickery Meadow
Trans.lation Market: Vickery Meadow
Trans.lation Market: Vickery Meadow
Trans.lation Market: Vickery Meadow
Trans.lation Market: Vickery Meadow – There were three pop up art galleries along the street featuring neighborhood artists and concerns.
“Walked up Ellum an’ I come down Main,
Tryin’ to bum a nickel jes’ to buy cocaine.
Ho, Ho, baby, take a whiff on me”
—- Leadbelly, Take a Whiff on Me
“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas (click to enlarge)
“A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
When you go down on Deep Ellum,
Put your money in your socks
‘Cause them Women on Deep Ellum
Sho’ will throw you on the rocks.
—-Leadbelly, Deep Ellum Blues
Bill Chance 