Dear City Of Dallas,
I am writing to you on behalf of myself and my neighbors. We reside in the general vicinity of what is currently sort of the Deep Ellum Tunnel and what will in the future be the former site of the Deep Ellum Tunnel and new home of a big freaking DART station. Yes, we're all very excited about it. Foot traffic in Deep Ellum, hurrah and stuff.
What are we not excited about? Jackhammers and bulldozers.
Last week, awakened at an ungodly hour by what sounded like washer-dryer units falling from the sky, I walked out on my balcony to see a dude on a bulldozer beating the shovel-end upside down on the pavement over and over again. This had the effect of making a very loud sound, but there was no visible damage to the pavement. Today, things got rolling even earlier: At 7:10 a.m., somebody got busy with a jackhammer.
City of Dallas, if you have a soul, please listen: We need to sleep at 7:10 in the morning.
We, the residents of the Greater Deep Ellum Tunnel Area, have given Deep Ellum the benefit of the doubt during its sleazy slump by moving in and forking over inflated rent to live in this wheezing entertainment district. Mostly, we like living close to downtown and Uptown and Oak Lawn, because it means we get to sleep until 8 a.m. and make it to work in 15 minutes, unlike the poor bastards from the suburbs who need to get up much, much earlier.
We want to continue our uninterrupted slumber. We know you have no control over the screaming bums and booming stereos that frequently awaken us at all hours of the night, but this, you can control. We know that city code says you are allowed to start crushing concrete with abandon at 7 a.m. But we're just asking you to do a nice thing.
Maybe there's some paperwork that needs filing. You could do that at 7 a.m. Or a doughnut run. Construction workers love doughnuts! Maybe you could pour some gravel. Dig some holes in a nice, soft patch of dirt. Or, hell, sleep. That's what those guys over at One Arts Plaza seem to be doing every time I drive by. Why did we get the hard-working, industrious group? --Andrea Grimes
P.S. I will also accept cash restitution for my troubles.
