Friday afternoon Uncle Barky noted that KXAS-Channel 5’s made a new hire: reporter Ben Russell, fresh off a five-year stint at a CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, PA. His first day’s today. But if reports out of New York today are true, Russell won’t be the last hire made at the…
Last night, during the 10th inning of Game 6, Steve Busby handed the mic to his Rangers broadcast partner — Eric Nadel, Frick Award finalist and a man whose voice has gotten us through countless seasons in hell. Buzz wanted to make sure Eric had the opportunity to call the…
I didn’t sleep a wink last night — kept replaying over and over the myriad mistakes made by Ron Washington and the Texas Rangers last night, twice one strike away from Winning It All. They’re recounted below, blow by painful blow; how Sam gets it up for tonight’s Do-or-Die preview…
Clear Channel owns and operates six radio stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth market: KDGE-FM, KDGE-FM, KEGL-FM, KFXR-AM, KHKS-FM and KZPS-FM. But several times this morning, Friends of Unfair Park have sent this piece from Time Out Chicago that says at any moment, any or all of them could lose their…
A couple of weeks back we noted: The Deep Ellum Community Association is in desperate need of seed money to plant a long-in-the-works urban garden at Canton and Good-Latimer — $25,000, to be precise, for such things as benches, fences, tools and, ya know, plants. Hence their fund-raising efforts via…
Today 36 clergy affixed their names to a paid ad and open letter to the Village Voice, the Observer’s New York sister paper, and the classified ad site Backpage.com. The full page ad was published in the New York Times. The religious coalition demanded that we close down our legal,…
Last night was a bit of a tease. Just after 5:30 p.m., Browder Plaza (outside the Dallas Power and Light Flats on Commerce Street) was packed with pedestrians mingling, snacking on street vendor food and enjoying drinks purchased at a kiosk on the square. City planners transformed the plaza into…
You may have noticed in recent days that Elm Street downtown is missing another one of its old buildings: the 70-year-old-or-so 1600 Elm, which was razed last week as part of the Joule expansion. We knew it was coming down; we just didn’t know when. Also on the chopping block:…
I called Mitchell Rasansky Friday — because, you may remember, I was supposed to. Last month, the former council member and co-owner of the former Whole Foods on Lower Greenville said that come October 21, we should know to whom he was leasing that space — be it a Walmart…
In moments, till 1 this afternoon, you’ll be able to laze across the Cedar Crest Bridge — yet another temporary installation from Team Better Block, in conjunction with the city and others trying to best determine how to turn a seldom-used thoroughfare into A Destination. There’s a schedule of events…
You remember Craig Hall, right? He’s the developer who’s been talking since forever about building something fancy in the Arts District — like, say, that stalled-out tower where presently there sits a parking garage on Ross. Only, remember, he and the city got sideways over unpaid lease monies and TIF-for-tats,…
A rig in ArlingtonThe New York Times ran an interesting story Thursday on the growing reluctance of banks to grant mortgages to owners of properties that have been leased for gas drilling in the northeast. Landowners often aren’t giving banks a heads up before signing on the dotted line, and…
This morning, we received word of a new report released yesterday: the American Express OPEN Independent Retail Index, which was done in conjunction with Austin- and Chicago-based Civic Economics and looked at 15 big cities, Dallas among them, ranking each based upon the number of independent restaurants and retailers in…
As a bulldozer chipped away at the sides of a hideously blighted cinder-block building in South Dallas this morning — forward, reverse, forward, reverse — a crowd of community members and Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity employees and supporters stared ahead with childlike gazes. And then, finally, the ‘dozer delivered…
Perhaps by now you’ve seen Rudy Bush’s item about Frank Luntz, one of two speakers lined up to address the city council at its Arboretum retreat today. Among pols and media folks, Luntz is a pretty well-known guy — after all, he’s the man who, in 2003, told George W…
I was in the KERA studios earlier this week, the guest of station contributor and Friend of Unfair Park Rawlins Gilliland as he bravely plowed through a 10-hour marathon pledge drive on behalf of the station. We did our segments in the KXT studios, where, for the first time, I…
Speaking of Southlake …Huffington Post this afternoon directs our attention to something called the Southlake Journal, which, turns out, is actually the Star-Telegram, which pointed out on Monday that Glenn Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts production company, which employs ’round 100, is eying the former Gateway Church building on Southlake, which…
The Southlake City Council Hall, once packed from floor to gallery with residents for whom gas drilling in town was either a looming menace or a windfall, had only a smattering of attendees a little after 11 last night. Many had already wearied of the debate, which had raged since…
Years ago, when writing about efforts to revitalize a neighborhood near Fair Park, I came across the building you see above: the former Pete’s Sandwich Shop at 4702 Baldwin, sandwiched between Starplex and Julia Frazer Elementary. At the time, Habitat for Humanity was building new homes nearby, on Jamaica, but…
Earlier today, an item appeared on The Poynter Institute’s website in which Mark Medici, vice president of audience for The Dallas Morning News, is quoted as saying that within the next three years, “we won’t have a seven-day paper.” Medici allegedly delivered that shocking bit of news during a conference…
This morning the Dallas Contemporary was closed to the public, but a bunch of reporters were inside taking first looks at the most exorbitantly priced, publicity-getting items, otherwise known as the Fantasy Gifts from Neiman Marcus’s 2011 Christmas Book. Eight of the nine items on display will give some portions of their…
Here’s the boring truth behind Stephen Colbert’s WFAA rant last night: The reason our ABC affiliate didn’t air Colbert’s Super PAC spot about the NBA lockout was “garden-variety human error,” according to the station’s veep, Dave Muscari. Nothing more, nothing less. “The spot,” he tells Unfair Park, “wasn’t rejected.” Matter…
