A couple of things ...
First, Sam has relieved Jim at the Earle Cabell, and he says sentencing could drag on till the end of the day ... if not even later. The live blog's back open for business now that lunch recess is over ...
And Patrick "Car-Free" Kennedy offers his comments about our comments about his thoughts about Downtown Dallas 360 from earlier this week. In short: He's worried that downtown stakeholders' wanting to turn the Stater Hilton and the Old Dallas High School into so-called Catalytic Sites/Projects "might be too big to pull off in the short-term with the budgetary issues." What would Kennedy propose instead?
I was trying to arrive at strategies that generate more bang for the buck to arrive at solutions to problems, ie surface parking lots and daylighting tunnel businesses, that could be more cost effective than writing a $20 million dollar check for abatement of either of those buildings. Work on the easy wins to build up value around those buildings, which then makes those catalyst projects make a little more sense.Which reminds me: For those newish to Unfair Park back in May 2008 we directed your attention to the work of one Vincent Ponte, who, in May 1968, proposed in the pages of Esquire that downtown Dallas bury its businesses underground. And, while digging around today, I also found this: the great Charissa N. Terranova's 2009 history of the tunnels, "Ultramodern Underground Dallas: Vincent Ponte's Pedestrian-Way as Systematic Solution to the Declining Downtown." Can't believe I hadn't seen this earlier (and who's "J. Wilonsky"?).
And, by the way, this is the cover I was thinking of when I saw those end-the-sign-ban signs Wednesday.
