How does the garden grow?

It was around this time, insiders say, that the city began to threaten condemnation.

Crow and Minzer apparently countered with their own threats--namely, to tie up the property in litigation until 2000 and beyond, producing the one thing the 76-year-old Nasher does not want: interminable delay.

Six months later, Mary Suhm is very low-key about it all. She can't remember when condemnation was last mentioned, though it hasn't been for some time, she says. And anyway, she's confident it won't come to that. Things are moving along smoothly. And as she looks out over the city she loves, she's all optimism.

"I don't think anyone realizes yet what this is going to mean for Dallas," she says. "It will be important long after [the arena] has been forgotten.