Dallas News Blog

​As we mentioned yesterday, Neiman Marcus's downtown flagship will formally unveil this year's Christmas window display Friday night, just before they light the big ol' Christmas sculptree in Main Street Garden. But downtown denizens have already had their sneak preview: Justin Terveen was downtown yesterday as set decorator Ignaz Gorischek and his elves were putting the final touches on the kiddie tube, and he sent Unfair Park a handful of early looks at the extraordinary display. (Justin's covering tomorrow night's shindig as well.) As not to spoil the surprise for those who prefer waiting to open their presents till the very last minute, I'm putting the entire series of photos after the jump.

Harry Wilonsky

What my 6-year-old saw beneath Neimans' window tarp last Friday night

​As we were leaving Main Street Garden Friday night, the 6-year-old who lives in my house wondered what the what was under the tarp covering Neiman Marcus's storefront. I told him: They're building a tunnel for kids to crawl in. He didn't believe me. I lifted him up to peek through a small tear in the tarp. What you see at right is what he saw on Friday -- a bit of the tube as it snakes its way through one of the windows.

At which point my son said, "What if somebody gets sick or scared in the tunnel?" A practical lad. I told him, well, if nothing else, parents standing outside the window will have a terrific view of the chaos that will ensue. I look forward to seeing how this plays out beginning Friday night, when Neimans unveils the holiday window as part of the City Lights shindig scheduled in Main Street Garden, during which Turtle Creek Chorale, Dallas Wind Symphony and Dallas Theater Center will perform following the lighting of Thomas Balsley's 60-foot-tall Christmas tree, which we mentioned a few weeks ago.

DowntownDallas's press release follows for those in need of further instructions. Also: Might wanna bring your raincoat and your rubbers.

Update: Here's more info on the tree, including pictures.

Justin Terveen

Keeping Rosa Parks company at the DART West End Station that bears her name

​So, how to end a Monday: with a Justin Terveen photo snapped downtown over the weekend, or with Gordon Keith and Rhett Miller performing the WKRP in Cincinnati theme song in a video sent to me by a Friend of Unfair Park who knows of my affection for WKRP, the Old 97 and Mr. Keith. Yes, please. The video, from the weekend's Cystic Fibrosis Concert Series benefit at the Granada, follows after the jump.

That's my grandfather, Harry, on the far right behind the counter of S&W Auto Parts on Elm Street; standing next to him is his brother Eli.

​Many thanks to the Friend of Unfair Park who directed my attention to the Daily Mustang piece about the long-gone Honest Joe's Pawn Shop in Deep Ellum -- must have been something familiar about the "Herschel Wilonsky" briefly quoted therein that caught this particular Friend's attention. Figured I might as well use the opportunity to show off my family's old auto parts store, which sat almost directly across from Honest Joe's at 2515 Elm Street from 1932 to 1955. I run everyone else's old pictures of Dallas on Unfair Park; might as well show you mine.

​Back in March, I came across a quite hard-to-find, hand-colored page from the American Architect and Building News from November 21, 1896: the "Dallas Flats," about which we still don't know much. A Friend of Unfair Park, recalling that historical gem, sends word of another American Architect page for sale, this one even older: from March 1, 1884. And though I can't say for sure exactly where it stood (somewhere on Maple Avenue, apparently), I can tell you to whom it belonged: Colonel William E. Hughes, who, after fighting in the Civil War, moved to Weatherford and finally settled in Dallas where, in 1873, he co-founded the City Bank of Dallas with Col. C.C. Slaughter with $50,000 in capital, according to The WPA Dallas Guide and History.

This ancient copy of History of Colorado has more about Hughes, who ended up moving to Denver in 1898; there's more still in this thesis on Dallas politics and business from 1872 to 1914. And the architects -- Ehrick Kensett Rossiter and Frank A. Wright, based up north -- were no slouches either. Me, I'd just like to know where the house was ... or, for that matter, if it was actually built. So would Preservation Dallas.

Paul Sokal's grand-prize winner in the city's Trinity River Photo Contest

​Meranda Cohn at Dallas City Hall directs our attention to the winning photos from the Trinity River Photo Contest, for which our pal Allison V. Smith was one of the four judges. You can view as either a PDF or a PowerPoint. Schutze's entries failed to win, place or show; he's even more upset than usual.

Last week, Willis Winters wasn't too sure -- the Park and Rec Department's assistant director had hoped to get Main Street Garden open by November 13, but, well, you saw the soggy pictures. But, clearly, the mud pit has been Kaboomed: After I noticed the opening dates mentioned on the Cultural Affairs Commission Public Arts Committee's meeting agenda for next week, I called Winters to confirm.

From this last week to finished by November 13 -- ka-boom!

​

"We're still on track," he said this morning. "They're working really hard this week. Rain returns Sunday and looks like all of next week, so they've got till Saturday to get finished. It'll look pretty much finished to anyone who doesn't know. There will be some punch-list items stretching on for a couple of months, but it will be open on November 13. The fences will be down, and there will a new public park downtown."

According to the committee's agenda, just five days later they'll officially debut David Newton's recreations of Lawrence Tenney Stevens's nine-foot-high Contralto and Countertenor statues, perched at the ends of the overhauled-for-$12-million Fair Park Esplanade. Then, on December 4, the Esplanade Fountain has its formal coming-out party following a sneak preview during the State Fair of Texas: Says Winters, Los Angeles-based Fluidity Design Consultants are presently programming the fountains.

"They've selected two songs," he says, "a rousing rendition of 'The Yellow Rose of Texas' and a more classical piece form the Rodeo suite by Aaron Copland, 'Hoe-down.' And Fair Park has commissioned two more pieces for Christmas, for the Lights in the Park."

​Speaking of great books about Dallas architecture ...

On Monday, shortly after I mentioned that the Dallas Historical Society has reissuing Dallas Rediscovered on its to-do list, a Friend of Unfair Park sent word that the American Institute of Architects-Dallas is planning on updating The American Institute of Architects Guide to Dallas Architecture. After all, it's been precisely a decade since its original publication, and in that time the landscape of the city has changed considerably. Like Bruce Banner into The Hulk.

"We have begun talking about it," says Greg Brown, program director for the Dallas Center for Architecture. "When I started, it was one of the first things that came up: 'We need to republish it.' And so it's on our list of to-dos." Mind you, unlike Rediscovered Dallas -- or several other AIA-Dallas books, among them The Prairie's Yield: Forces Shaping Dallas Architecture From 1840 to 1962 and 1978's Dallasights -- the Guide to Dallas Architecture has never gone out of print.

"It's just that we've lost some of the buildings in there, and others have gone up, and it's time for an update," Brown says. "So we are forming some new committees at the beginning of the year, and one will be a program committee devoted to revisiting the guide. We'll get started on it in 2010. I don't know when the final product will be available." (Note to Greg Brown: Call Justin Terveen.)

Till then, this bonus: Over the weekend, I found in the stacks at Half-Price a copy of Dallasights. (Unlike some historic Dallas tomes, copies aren't expensive. At all.) And so, after the jump you'll find a few pages from the "Downtown Dallas" section -- including essays from Walter Dahlberg and Vincent Carrozza. Jump, but mind the dust.

​A few weeks ago, a good Friend of Unfair Park asked to borrow my copy of Dallas Rediscovered: A Photographic Chronicle of Urban Expansion 1870-1925. Needed it for a research project. Half-Price didn't have a copy; dunno 'bout the library. But, sure, I said. Go ahead; just don't lose it. Because copies of the invaluable tome filled with page after page of buildings long ago vanished for progress and parking lots aren't cheap. Amazon has a few hardbacks available, starting at $58.92; a few cheaper copies are available on eBay; Albris's handful of copies go for between $15 and $201.

Published by the Dallas Historical Society in 1978, it went out of print shortly thereafter -- around '80 or '81, says DHS executive director Jack Bunning. I'd called Bunning a few weeks ago to see if DHS ever had plans to reissue the book; he called back only this afternoon and explained that, sorry, he was delayed by the fact the society just this week is moving back into its renovated digs at the Hall of State after a year away and needs to reassess its exhibits accordingly. But, yes, he says, the DHS does indeed have plays to reissue the book -- as well as 1982's When Dallas Became a City: Letters of John Milton McCoy, 1870-1881.

"They are on what I call our big to-do list," Bunning tells Unfair Park. "But we need to review the copy in the book, and I can't give you any time frame. Both those books are on the big hit list of updating the copy and getting them reprinted. Both were very popular, as I understand it." He's thinking next year. Good enough.

​Friend of Unfair Park Peterk, always on the lookout for vintage Dallas photos of note available on eBay, sends our way this morning a genuine (and genuinely cool) relic: a photo of the Camp Dick jazz combo. And what, you might be asking, was Camp Dick? Well, writes  Art Leatherwood in the Handbook of Texas Online, "Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Camp, also known as Camp Dick, was a personnel holding pool for graduates of ground training schools. It was located on the State Fairgrounds in Dallas from January 1918 until January 1919."

A little further digging turns up this nugget concerning its connection with General Jimmy Doolittle, who led the first raid on Japan following Pearl Harbor: "Commissioned a second lieutenant on March 11, 1918, Doolittle was assigned to Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Camp, TX as a flying instructor." I think I just found my Halloween costume.

Photos by Sam Merten

NFL Hall of Famer and Fox broadcaster Troy Aikman braved the stiff winds and cool temperatures Thursday night while promoting the kickoff of the inaugural Friends of the Katy Trail membership drive. Joined by his two daughters, 7-year-old Alexa and 8-year-old Jordan, Aikman graciously signed various items carried by the hundreds of Dallas Cowboys fans appearing at David's Way, an entrance to the trail on Knox Street.

An avid user of the Katy Trail, the three-time Super Bowl winning quarterback engaged most of those on hand in banter, ensuring he connected with any children tagging along or bringing items of their own. Jayson Bales and the Charmers provided the soundtrack to last night's festivities, and the membership drive continues through Sunday. Volunteers recruiting new members can be found on the trail at David's Way, the Thomsen Overlook at Reverchon Park and Snyder's Union, the new plaza being built between Lemmon Avenue and Carlisle Place.

While Aikman's inking duties prohibited us from snagging him for a few questions, we did happen to run into council member Angela Hunt, who said, "Isn't it so cool that Troy is willing to do this?"

More pics after the jump.

Justin Terveen

​Figuring that the glorious weather (at last!) would indeed inspire record turnouts and copious photo ops during the final weekend of the State Fair of Texas, we dispatched the great Justin Terveen to Fair Park. Here's but a taste of what he came back with; he's said he's sending more for a Round Two later today. And, later, a Very Special Caption Contest from the fairgrounds.

Justin Terveen

​Friend of the show Justin Terveen's doing some weekend work for Unfair Park; should have it ready to go Monday, fingers crossed. Till then, then, this inspirational triptych taken yesterday on the northbound Red Line near the Park Lane station.

​Friend of Unfair Park PeterK, who knows of my affection for old Dallas photos, sends word of this rare gem for sale on eBay: a portrait -- or, perhaps, a self-portrait -- of Charles Erwin Arnold. If you're unfamiliar with the name (or the nickname, "Painter of the Lens"), perhaps you've seen some of his photographs of Dallas circa 1900, about 700 of which are in the possession of the Dallas Historical Society; even more reside in the John W. Carpenter Special Collection at the University of Texas at Arlington. Notes Peter, who's well familiar with Arnold's work, this is the "first time I've ever seen of a photo of him." And now it can be yours for the low, low price of ... $29.99? Seems quite the steal. As a side note, Arnold also set up "Dallas' first police ballistics and crime lab."

Danny Fulgencio

Nate Lightfoot placed third in the art competition and offered up his Sharpie so others could tag his ice cream bike's cooler.

​In a dark alleyway beside the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company the crowd counts down in unison: "Three ... two ... one ... GO!" And they're off: two cyclists pedal with such fury their legs melt into a blur reminiscent of old Warner Bros. cartoons. The bikes shake; the crowd cheers. The projection screen clocks the bicycles in excess of 50 mph -- even though they remain stationary. Twelve seconds later the race is over. Amidst applause, one man climbs off his bike breathing heavily. "I think I'm going to throw up," he says.

GoldSprint bike races drew a thick crowd when several hundred cyclists turned out for the
Tyler Street Block Party in Oak Cliff on Saturday. The brouhaha, slightly damp from a light drizzle and a visit from Dallas's finest, marked another milestone toward the finish line for Bike Friendly Oak Cliff's 10-day bicycle extravaganza, Cyclesomatic. And we've got the slide show to prove it.

Danny Fulgencio

​Under improvised lighting and despite thunderheads rolling in from the north, polo players on bicycles commenced to crashing into one another while smacking balls with badly beaten homemade mallets. One of the riders sported a football helmet, wise move.

Such was the scene on Tuesday night at Good Space in Oak Cliff, where cyclists took part in one of the myriad Cyclesomatic events organized by Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. Construction of the bike polo teams was loose at best, as were boundaries and a few rules. While not without a couple nasty spills, a polo mallet proved the only casualty of the evening. Check out the slide show from Tuesday's bike polo extravaganza.

By the way, at 6 p.m. tomorrow the Cube Creative and the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company will host the Tyler St. Block Party. Go check out the Tallbike Freakshow, bike art competition, communal bike rides and music by The Happy Bullets and The Boom Boom Box. Don't forget your bikes and Band-Aids.

​I was looking for ... something. I forget what now. (This maybe?) But my late-night quest brought me to this book from 1894: Souvenir guide of Dallas: A sketch of Dallas and Dallas county, their resources, business enterprises, manufacturing and agricultural advantages. It's where this ad comes from, of course -- another image for the imaginary Unfair Park line of tees we'll never make. The book's full of such historical gems and available for reading in its entirety after the jump, if you have a few minutes -- or a day -- to spare.

And while you're on the flip side, check out, also embedded in full, the other 1894 artifact I stumbled on: Clifton Church's collection of photographs titled Dallas, Texas Through a Camera -- otherwise known as what Dallas looked like before parking lots.

​Not sure how we missed this Monday, but in the comments below, Friend of Unfair Park Enrique De La Fuente directs our attention to the results of a Harris Poll in which people were asked, "Where would you like to live if you were gonna move?" I blame Austin's coming in at No. 11 on the fact that Town LakeLady Bird Lake is no Trinity River.

Update: In the comments I've found the latest phrase for our nonexistent line of Unfair Park T-shirts: "Liking Dallas is punk."

​The 6-year-old who lives in my house is a big They Might Be Giants fan -- because, after all, they did teach him his ABC's and 123's, and they twosome are currently in the process of learnin' him about the science. The one TMBG product in which he's never shown much interest, though, is the band's collection of venue songs, which dates back to '04 and includes a brief art-rockin' ditty about a particular Deep Ellum venue of some note. In case you've never experienced said track and the accompanying video, introduced by the great John Hodgman, only today the band threw it up on its YouTube page. "Creepy and engimatic," indeed. Jump for it.

Henderson Avenue developers Marc and Roger Andres were good enough to take us along on a tour of their neighborhood-in-progress, and spoke a little on camera about their vision for keeping the stretch of road unique. As a sidebar to this year's Best of Dallas market section, Mark weighs in with this more detailed look at the pair. For yet another way into our Best of Dallas picks, you can check out this slide show of our market picks.

​Back in December, we flashed back to ye olden days when The Dallas Times Herald and Marvel Comics would team up to take Spider-Man to the Dallas Ballet or the Hulk to Sanger-Harris (for new pants, natch). One title I completely forgot about: The Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas from 1983, now available for between $6.50 and $11 and totally worth it if only for, as Topless Robot sneered last year, "what we're sure is Professor X's lone utterance of 'Emergency! All X-Men to the Cotton Bowl!' in all of Marvel lore." The Fair opens tomorrow. A re-enactment of this cover is in order.

For those who missed Part One of Mort Meyerson's 20-minute doc, made to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the concert hall that bears his name, it's right here. You might want to watch that before you view Part Two, in which things get Curb Your Enthusiasm tense during the construction.

​The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center opened its doors in September 1989 -- seems like only 18 years ago. Accordingly, there are big doings at I.M. Pei's palace on September 27 -- a free open house that'll include the intriguingly advertised "instrument petting zoo." And if you've got a few spare moments, Meyerson's 2MCompanies Inc. just posted Part One of a making-of doc, and it's quite the revealing flashback from the man who says toward the end that "I'm really not a public person" when explaining his reluctance to let H. Ross Perot bestow upon the joint Meyerson's name. I'll post Part Two when it becomes available.

​I'm a big fan of illustrator Jack Unruh's -- you probably are too if you've seen his work in, oh, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Time or ... look, you name it. The man ain't in the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame for nothing. He's a good. So, funny thing: I was looking for something on eBay and stumbled across this circa-1970s piece the Dallas-based illustrator did of the Dallas Convention Center.

I called Unruh to ask him about it. He didn't know what in the hell I was talking about, so I sent him the link. He took one look at it and insisted, nope, not his. Then he looked at it a little harder.

A close-up from Jack Unruh's Dallas Convention Center piece

​"I would not ever have recognized it, but I recognize the signature," he said. "Boy, if that ain't a crappy-ass painting. It's a wonder I ever survived." He laughed, long and hard. "I think I'd pay $110 to burn the sumbitch."

But, I told him, you're in the illustrators' hall of fame. That price tag seems like a hell of a good deal.

"Mistakes are made every day," he said. "I wonder where in the hell they came up with this thing."

Then he read aloud the description: "This is an incredible piece of original 1970s illustration art for the Dallas Convention Center." He stopped, then laughed again.

"Didn't say good," Unruh said. "Just said 'incredible piece.' That doesn't mean good."

Act now, before our art director Alexander Flores does. 'Cause as far as he's concerned, $110 is a steal for a piece by a local legend.

​Been feeling awful nostalgic for KZEW in recent days -- maybe it has to do with the latest eff-you over on 93.3; maybe it stemmed from catching a vintage clip last week on The Ticket, where someone had dug up Mike Rhyner talking media-league softball way back when. So, of course, I visited The Zoo File -- where, as it turned out, late last week Scott, aka "The Zewkeeper," updated the media player so it could kick out more flashbacks than a Dead show: prolonged clips of John LaBella and John Rody (and Rhyner), a traffic report ("Damn this traffic jam ..."), a Hunt James commentary on how to be a man, the Bangles' Rock and Roll Alternative theme song, a James Taylor in-studio and more than enough to get you through what's left of your Monday afternoon.

Of course, there's a plenty good reason to post this: This Wednesday -- at 6 a.m., to be exact -- marks the 36th anniversary of the station's debut. (But: Some say September 19 is the actual launch date.) To mark the event, Scott writes, "I know I'm going to ... add some more audio by then. I'm going to chat with Rody about it and see what we can come up with." He'll send a note when he's got more.

Speaking of Dallas Area Rapid Transit and Fair Park ...

I was looking for something entirely unrelated on YouTube when I came across this vintage footage posted by DART a couple of weeks ago. Says the description of the footage that was kindly provided by one Johnnie J. Myers:

Fair Park saw its last rail service on January 15, 1956, when the 12-Second line was converted to bus operation. This route ran from downtown Dallas through Deep Ellum on Main to Exposition, then past Fair Park in the same path the Green Line will travel. It then turned south on old Second Avenue to Hatcher Street, roughly parallel to the Green Line right of way.

At one time, there were four sets of tracks in front of the Fairgrounds where the DART Fair Park Station is located, and they were all utilized during the State Fair and for the Cotton Bowl.

For my dad, who grew up on Park Row and whose father's auto parts store moved from Deep Ellum to Second Avenue in 1955, this'll be like watching old home movies. And, as the video's sans sound, I'd recommend clicking here as the film unspools. Because, as always, Tom Waits for no man.

Matt Clarkson

If you think this one looks nice, check out this much larger version.

​Slowly but surely Flickr fills up with images of the Traveling Man who strides through Deep Ellum. Here, for now, are two of our current favorites; after the jump, a rare nighttime shot of his seated counterpart. Co-creator Brandon Oldenburg told our Patrick Michels not long ago he hopes the sculptures, commissioned by Dallas Area Rapid Transit to beautify the Green Line stops in Deep Ellum, become as photographed as the Crown Fountain in Chicago. It's a start.

Library of Congress via Flickr

The late Dallas County Judge Quentin Corley, pictured here in 1916

​It's been too long since we've published a photo from The Wayback Machine, so much thanks to the Friend of Unfair Park who was messing around on Flickr and found this gem amongst the treasures kept by the Library of Congress -- a photo of Judge Quentin D. Corley, for whom Dallas County's Quentin D. Corley Academy is named, but of course. Most of what's known about Corley can be found in this 1914 book A History of Texas and Texans, in which it makes mention of how the Oak Cliff High School graduate lost both his hands, as well as his right arm and shoulder -- in a railroad accident during his brief stint at a civil engineer in Utica, New York, where he worked till coming back to Dallas to pass the bar.

Hence, his rather uncomfortable sobriquet the "Armless Wonder" (per The American Magazine in 1915), which he overcame by developing and patenting the prosthesis seen here that allowed him to not only drive, but also write with a pen, type on a typewriter, light a smoke, button a collar and cut with a knife. Corley died in Dallas in 1980. But per the pro Flickr-er, this photo appeared in a 1916 issue of Popular Science Monthly accompanied by the cutline "Judge Corley can run his automobile alone, and does it because he likes to." Two years later, he would be mentioned in a New York Times story headlined "Handicaps of Fate Defied by Cripples."

Courtesy Reel FX Studios

​"Traveling Man" artists Brad Oldham and Brandon Oldenburg got their first glimpses of their three finished sculptures through a train window yesterday, rolling into DART's new Deep Ellum Station on a Green Line test run.

This morning, they were good enough to send the above close-up of the largest piece, "Walking Tall," which is finished now at the corner of Good-Latimer and Swiss Avenues, along with the other two pieces nearby, "Waiting On A Train" and "Awakening."

The Traveling Man's no stranger to Unfair Park, and the construction's been well documented in DART time lapse videos, but we're including a few more shots courtesy of the Traveling Man's friends at Reel FX.

First up after the jump, though, a slice of video from yesterday's Green Line run, in which Oldenburg makes a brief appearance chatting up DART's Randall Chrisman.

​Occasional Dallas Observer photographer Allison V. Smith and the namesake of the Barry Whistler Gallery on Canton Street were hitched Saturday evening at Allison's family vacationland in Maine. Just read all about it in The New York Times, which has a lovely photo of the couple as well as a few familial details. (In case you didn't know, yes, she's Mr. Stanley's granddaughter.) All I have handy is this photo I took last year of Allison with our pediatrician, the great Dr. Robert Kramer, and some guy named Quincy Jones. Mazel tov to the happy couple, for whom we purchased this lovely lamp.