Trinity River Bank, Fort Worth, Texas
(click to enlarge)
On the Levee
Tag Archives: Fort Worth
Seventh Street Bridge
She’s driving home Sunday morning, with the
heat turned up, the windows rolled down
to the edge.
And yesterday, snowed for the first time.
Now no one’s on the Willis Avenue Bridge.Used to be a hard merge.
—-Willis Avenue Bridge, David Berkeley
On our bike ride in Fort Worth last weekend, we made the point of riding across the new Seventh Street Bridge. It was pretty cool.
Seventh Street Bridge
Fort Worth, Texas
(click to enlarge)
Seventh Street Bridge
Fort Worth, Texas
(click to enlarge)
One really cool thing about the bridge is the bike lane.
Zigzag Moderne Art Deco
Last weekend I went on a bike ride in Fort Worth with some friends (will get a trip report written, I promise). We loaded up our bikes, rode the DART train to downtown Dallas and then took the TRE train to Forth Worth.
Our rail destination was the T&P Station south of downtown Fort Worth. This is a recently restored historic building built in 1931 as a beautiful example of Zigzag Moderne Art Deco (what a cool name!) architecture.
I love Art Deco – and there are some great examples in the Metroplex. The best known are the buildings, murals, and sculptures (here, here, here, and here) of Fair Park in Dallas
But the old ticket lobby of the T&P is a beautiful concentrated example of Art Deco excess and beauty. It’s a big room lost in time, available for wedding rentals, and dripping with history. You can almost feel the millions of travelers moving through on their way to the trains. Today, there were only some guys with their bicycles looking around… but at least it is still there, waiting for the next chapter.
Abstract Art Deco design in the T&P Waiting Room ceiling, modified in Adobe Illustrator.
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T&P Waiting Room, Fort Worth, Texas
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Art Deco ventilation screen, T&P Waiting Room, Fort Worth, Texas
T&P Waiting Room, Fort Worth, Texas
(click to enlarge)
Encore
We drove to Fort Worth to see Chris Isaak this evening at Billy Bob’s Texas. We went early so we could walk around and get something to eat. I have forgotten how much fun the Fort Worth Stockyards are – not to mention the world’s biggest honkey tonk.
Near the end of Chris Isaak’s set I saw something I had never seen before. Back in the day, we all used to hold up lighters at the end of a show – there would be this sea of flame spread out across the concert hall to signify our desire to see and hear a few more songs. At a particularly gnarly show folks would gather trash from the floor of the venue, light it, and hold it aloft – I guess to sort of kick things up a notch.
Nowadays this has morphed into everyone holding up the illuminated screen of their phones – a sea of iPhones glowing in the darkness. I’m afraid I’ve always thought this was pretty lame.
Tonight I some something new. Somebody was holding up a tablet – I don’t think it was an iPad – it looked a little smaller – maybe an Android tablet of some kind. At any rate they held it high, waiting for the encore.
And on the screen was an app that displayed a flickering flame.
Bill Chance 