Back in August we discovered that at long last, 508 Park Avenue — the building in which Robert Johnson, Bob Wills and perhaps even Charlie Parker recorded — had a savior: next-door neighbor First Presbyterian Church of Dallas. But almost four months later, the church has yet to seal the…
Back in February 2009, then-Observer-er Alexa Schirtzinger wrote about how General Electric was burying millions of cubic yards of Hudson River carcinogens out at the West Texas dumping ground owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, the wizard behind Waste Control Specialists. Which I was reminded of this afternoon when I…
Earlier today, via The Twitter, reader Joe Roberts submitted this: “Workers are pulling boards off windows at the old Dallas High School building at Pearl Station. Any clue as to why?” Why, no, Joe. But I have heard in recent days that crews have been gutting the century-old structure –…
It was three years ago I was first introduced to the work of Justin Terveen, though I didn’t know it then — clearly. But since then, of course, I’ve fallen in love with his photos — clearly. Hard to say which is a favorite. This one? No, wait, this one…
Back on October 21, you’ll recall that the City Plan Commission narrowly voted to deny XTO Energy’s application to set up gas drilling along Mountain Creek Lake. The City Council’s likely to have their final say sometime next month, but in the meantime, XTO’s gearing up for yet another day…
Gas drilling opponents from around North Texas rallied around director Josh Fox and his documentary Gasland Friday night at the Angelika, in support of local activists who’ve been fighting the first drilling proposals within Dallas’s city limits. Jim Schermbeck of Downwinders At Risk — who organized the screening — said…
The so-called Google Heat MapAt month’s end, researchers from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory — among ’em, David Blackwell, Hamilton Professor of Geophysics and director of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory — will go to Sacramento for the 2010 Geothermal Resources Council annual meeting. There, the trio will present a much more detailed…
There’s no need to recap the recent history of the Oak Cliff Christian Church — that’s all been well-documented here, beginning with the initial December ’09 post warning of its inevitable demise. At this late date I’ll say only this: Last weekend, I was out with the 7-year-old who lives…
Inside 807 Elm Street from documents submitted to the Landmark CommissionAside from 807 Elm Street, there were a handful of other items of note on the Landmark Commission’s agenda Monday — like this proposed plaque for the Cotton Bowl, or a more detailed look at Jack Matthews’s plans for a…
Justin TerveenHaven’t heard in a few weeks from our Friend looking to rehab 807 Elm Street, but I do know this much: The owners of the circa-1925 building really want to get that thing gone, the sooner the better. On Monday, matter of fact, it comes up before the Landmark…
In May 2008 the Landmark Commission’s Designation Committee first took up the topic of W.H. Adamson High School, once known as Oak Cliff High. At the time it was expected that the Dallas Independent School District might have some issues with designation — not only because the district has only…
One month since the EPA’s stolid road warriors blew threw Arlington to get your thoughts on pollution from gas drilling, the agency’s making its triumphant return to Dallas today with an all-day public comment session at the Hyatt Regency downtown that kicks off in about an hour. This time ’round,…
That’s 807 Elm Street at right, captured last month in a photo taken by our old pal Justin Terveen. Built in 1925, the building occupies 20,025 square feet in a parking lot between N. Austin and N. Lamar Streets facing El Centro. It was, once, among the assemblage of buildings…
As we stroll from the ruins of the Baker Hotel lobby into what’s left of the dining room, Mark Rawlings points his flashlight through a hole in the paster ceiling, lighting an ornate stretch of the original moulding hidden underneath. Back in the ’50s, he tells me, an attempt to…
Last week around this time, the Wall Street Journal was telling us about three very private oil and gas companies — two of them based in Dallas — with designs on getting bigger in the gas drilling world. So, to help take their operations up a notch, both Talon Oil…
Damn it. I’d been meaning to mention this all day, and now the day done got away from me. But there’s still time — close to two hours till the Texas Theatre screens Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It’s easily…
They came in striped ties and checkered ties, sport coats and shirtsleeves and the beard stubble of Washington operators on the road. The four white-collar grunts from the Environmental Protection Agency were greeted in Arlington last night by townsfolk who drove in from around the Barnett Shale to woo them…
These are detail shots of the A26A before restoration from Franklin Poole on Vimeo.Thanks to an early-morning e-mail from Friend of Unfair Park PeterK, I spent the better part of the last hour getting a history lesson on the the Douglas A-26 Invader, which first took flight to fight in…
What you see above is the new bike rack in front of Dude, Sweet Chocolate in the Bishop Arts District — which I mention because, as Bike Friendly Oak Cliff points out this morning, it’s made from 107-year-old streetcar rail. So it’s, ya know, art. Writes Jason Roberts in the…
From time to time, downtown-dwelling Friends of Unfair Park will ask: What’s up with the Continental Building? Not much, of late: Forest City, also behind the Merc overhaul, had been hoping to begin work in ’09, but last May Jim Truitt, Forest City’s vice president of residential development, told us…
I was looking for something entirely unrelated on LoopNet this afternoon when I came across this: The family trying to sell the former St. John’s United Methodist Church on East Side Avenue has come off its asking price of $2.4 million, mentioned in The News back in February. It’s now…
At this very moment Preservation Dallas executive director Katherine Seale is at the Women’s Museum in Fair Park formally presenting its annual list of properties, neighborhoods and “historic resources” that are among the “most endangered” in the city. Even the most casual Friend of Unfair Park will recognize, perhaps, all…
