Emma Ruby
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City Hall might soon be no more. AT&T will leave its downtown headquarters in the near future. The Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars each plan to move to other areas of North Texas. But a downtown Dallas without Pioneer Cemetery just seems like the city would be screwing around with forces we ought not to engage with in such a fashion.
Last week we reported that “a historic downtown cemetery has found itself in the crosshairs of a group skeptical about the direction of development in downtown Dallas.” The article explains that this is where you can find the graves of many of the people whose highly recognizable names fill up the Dallas street map, as well as early mayors and veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution and the Civil War. The brutalist City Hall isn’t even 50 years old. Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1849.
Some residents connected to the Save City Hall coalition say they spotted surveyors working around Pioneer Cemetery recently. In a statement, a spokesperson for the city told us everything is on the up and up when it comes to the cemetery, however.
“Pioneer Park is currently under a plan to refurbish the steers and rider, fix the drainage and replant. There is no plan to change the site into something different,” the statement from the city said.
As you might guess. Some of our loyal readers and social media followers had some thoughts on the prospect of such old gravesites being messed with.
“This city is fixing to get cursed (or even more cursed)”
– Velocicrafter on Instagram
“FIFA still looking for something to paint over.”
– Hector on Facebook
“The metaphors are getting kind of loud.”
– Ken on Instagram
“Can’t have a cemetary by the casino.”
– Robbie on Facebook
“Dallas… where even the dead aren’t safe from the developers.”
– Ric on Facebook
“Interesting that they wanna move the cemetery to old city park that was also dismantled last year. And by that I mean every single piece of furniture in those buildings were sold in an estate sale! No respect for history.”
– Lane on Facebook
“City of dallas can you please stop being sh*tty for two seconds I beg of you.”
– Lauren on Instagram
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