​Sunday's supposed to be my last day 'round here, but I just may stick around till Monday. The reason: The just-posted agenda for Monday's meeting of the council's Economic Development Committee promises that Karl Zavitkovsky, head of the city's Office of Economic Development, will walk council through a PowerPoint titled "Dallas High School Redevelopment." And I was just saying the other day ... Anyway. I really don't want to miss that.

I just called Michael Jackson -- vice president at Wynne/Jackson and son of Plaza of the Americas developer Clyde Jackson -- to see if he could shed any light on the proposed redo before next week. Last we spoke was in August, when Jackson confirmed that they had the landmark 104-year-old building under contract.

No specifics, he said today, if only because the property's still under contract and the deal's not quite yet done. But, he said, "We're moving forward," meaning: By week's end Wynne/Jackson will send the appropriate documents to the Landmark Commission and Economic Development.

"We are submitting an application to Economic Development because we need some help on this project," Jackson said. "It's complicated and expensive, and we think there's great potential there." Again, for what he's not quite yet ready to say. "And we're submitting to the Landmark Commission since you have to them to them for approval for renovation. They want to know how you're cleaning up the brick, repairing the mortal, the facade, landscaping -- everything. So we're moving forward. That stuff just takes time to see what works and what doesn't and get it right."

Jackson also said he's been meeting with the Crozier Tech Alumni Association, making sure that very active and very vocal group's pleased with Wynne/Jackson's plans for the building. "There are so many groups involved," he said of the process. But, you know, nothing specific. Not yet. Except, he said: "I think you'll be pleased with what you see."

​Speaking of the assassination of John F. Kennedy ...

For a long while now we've written about the ongoing fight between the city of Dallas and Jane Bryant, owner of the decaying apartment complex on 600 Elsbeth near Bishop Arts where, in 1962, Lee Harvey Oswald and wife Marina briefly lived. Just last summer, matter of fact, Bryant and First Assistant City Attorney Chris Bowers traded blows on Unfair Park, with Bryant insisting the city was attempting to raze the building so it could hand over the parcel to a private developer. Bowers said that wasn't the case at all, reiterating the city's long-held contention that the circa-1925 complex "is structurally unsound, has had at least one fire already and constitutes a public nuisance."

Now, this: A swim through LoopNet reveals that 600 Elsbeth is for sale at an undisclosed price. I've called Realtor Joe Lumbley for further details, but he's out till later in the day. So we'll let the listing speak for itself:

This 12,870 SF of land has a 8668 SF 10-unit on it. The building is just a shell. The value is in the land and in its historical significance. The property is under a demolition order from the City of Dallas and is priced just slightly above land value. Lee Harvey Oswald lived in the building for several months and it's mentioned five times in the Warren Commission Report. Whether that's a pro or a con is up to the market, but it certainly makes the property interesting.

Located with 130 feet of frontage on Davis a block from the Bishop Arts District, this property is zoned Multipurpose District 3. Buyer needs to investigate zoning as the Bishop Arts District gets a lot of political interest. Possible uses could be to restore as an apartment with historical significance, convert to office, retail, or restaurant, or to use as parking in the booming district. Property is located next to a Sonic.

I see on the Dallas County's website there hasn't been much action in Bryant's case against the city since December. Attorney Michael Jung, who's repping Bryant in the fight with the city to keep the wrecking ball stashed till further notice, tells Unfair Park "they've kinda slowed the litigation while she tries to sell it, but we're still in court" with an October 15 trial date currently on the court's docket. He doesn't know how much Bryant's asking for the property currently on the tax rolls for $65,350. But you're free to make an offer. Just keep in mind: It's missing a door, though it never sold, per Heritage Auctions' policy of not selling off items tied up in litigation. The door was returned to Bryant.

Click to expand the historic document.

​Out of nowhere, moments ago, I got an email from Dan Stuchal, on the executive team at the local Big Brothers Big Sisters. He's a Friend of Unfair Park, he explained, and well aware of my affection for historic relics. He said he had something at which I might want to take a peek. It would arrive in the in-box soon, he said, but first I might want to read up on the history of the first Big Brothers chapter in the state of Texas. And so I did.

Says here:

In 1926, Ms. Jessie A. White, a young probation officer of the Dallas Juvenile Court, was distraught at the futures that awaited the boys filing through the court system. "When a child is brought to us there are only two things to do with him," she said. "We can send him to the reform school or we can send him back to the same conditions from which he came." What these boys need is a friend that the boy can count on, who can give him the feeling that some one is especially interested in him. Upon this realization, Ms. White took a step which would forever change the futures of North Texas children.

Ms. White visited civic organizations, churches and clubs to recruit mentors and generate support for the Big Brother movement which began in New York City 23 years earlier. Through the support Judge F.H. Alexander and the Dallas Rotary Club Boys Committee which began the process of recruiting businessmen to serve as mentors, the Dallas Big Brothers Club was ultimately born on February 24, 1927.

That, of course, was 85 years ago today. And today -- today -- Stuchal explained, Big Brothers Big Sisters was presented with the very letter Alexander gave White as she went 'round town drumming up support for her endeavor. It's even framed, courtesy the long-gone Van Winkle's downtown.More »

Courtesy Heritage Auctions

​Back in October 2010 Schutze and I really did spend a good half hour poring over The Official Map of Dallas from 1875, which Heritage Auctions never did did sell off; guess the $1,500 asking price was a bit steep, though I see here you're still free to make the owner an offer. I also see Heritage now has a companion piece up for grabs: another historic map of Dallas prepared for Morrison & Fourmy's City Directory in 1882. Says the description:

Black and white map, measuring 31" x 23", giving a bird's eye view of the city of Dallas with land divided into lots which are numerically designated. Also includes several rail lines that serviced the Dallas area, streets, cemeteries, parks, and the Old Fair Grounds. Certified that "this is the most complete and correct Map ever compiled and drawn of the City of Dallas ... from field-notes and actual surveys Dallas. April 22d A. D. 1878" with three facsimile signatures of the City Engineer and two "Late" City Engineers.

More beautiful than its fancier predecessor, this map's sitting at a $500 bid at present as part of Heritage's next Texana Signature Auction. Click here to enlarge. Is that big enough for you?

​A Friend of Unfair Park wondered Saturday afternoon: Is the "unknown teen" named Robert Patterson heard singing "Tell Me How" and "Dear Debbie" on this purchased-this-morning Future Records single none other than the Bobby Patterson? Why, yes, yes it is; just listen to that voice. Said Bobby when I asked him about it last night: "The label was owned by a guy who was a student at SMU." Bobby can't recall the name. "But his dad had plenty of money. He used to come hear me sing at The Beachcomber."

"Tell Me How"/"Dear Debbie" was actually Patterson's second single on Future; before that handclappin'-pop-n-smooth-soul combo platter was the country two-fer of "Walkin' The Floor Over You"/"Beautiful Brown Eyes." Says the Soul 73 mainstay, "I was ahead of my time, as usual." They were recorded at a studio on Commerce, across from the old KLIF HQ. Bobby says he didn't have his own copy till someone sent him the old singles, which date back to '63, when he was still in his teens and attending Arlington State College.

Later would come the immortal Abnak and Jetstar and Paula singles, collected on two essential compilations (the early-years Soul Is My Music and Soul of a Man) and covered by the likes of the Fabulous Thunderbirds ("How Do You Spell Love?") and Golden Smog ("She Don't Have to See You (To See Through You)"). But this Future single, which has never made it to CD, is the oldest blast from Bobby's past I've heard, and I hadn't heard it till Saturday night.

I wonder, though, if the buyer knew the historic back story behind the disc. Because, as it turns out, Bobby actually mentioned Future Records when, in the spring of 1964, he was interviewed by Burt Griffin, one of two Warren Commission attorneys tasked with investigating Jack Ruby. Bobby knew Ruby, initially through Jack's sister, Eva Grant, for whom Bobby had performed on occasion. As Bobby told Griffin, Ruby got him to play The Vegas Club. Because, you see, Ruby was a big, big fan ...More »

eBay seller "ynpcollector"

​I had been contemplating a host of assorted humdrum news items with which to begin this gray Friday when Friend of Unfair Park PeterK dropped in the in-box the photo you see above, taken from an E.W. Kelley stereograph presently up for grabs on eBay for the buy-it-now price of $195. That's more like it. Given that's the completed-in-1909, soon-to-be-demolished Praetorian on the right as we look west down Main Street, best guess is this is the modern-day equivalent (though, of course, much has changed since last Google cruised downtown). Ah, there's George W. Loomis's joint -- one of several owned by the man who sold G.B. Dealey the land near what would become, ya know, Dealey Plaza. The eBay page has an even bigger, sharper look-see, and I've been staring into this photo for, oh, an hour? Jeez. Pardon the delay.

Historic Auto Attractions

​Spent the better part of the morning virtually touring Historic Auto Attractions in Roscoe, Illinois, where, per Roadside America's rave, "the fireplace mantle on which President Truman signed the order to bomb Hiroshima is only a few feet from a pickup truck used on Sanford and Son" and "Colonel Klink's uniform shares a wall with Hitler's staff car." Even virtually, and Wayne Lensing's museum is closed till spring, you can get lost in the joint; it puts the pop in pop culture.

For our purposes this morning we'll visit the Lee Harvey Oswald Display, which contains, among other things, a chair from the Texas Theater, the uniform of the officer (Nick McDonald) who arrested Oswald there, the honest-to-God Klein's Sporting Goods Catalog from which "A. Hidell" ordered his Carcano rifle ... and Oswald's original tombstone, stolen from Rose Hill Cemetery by two teens from Oklahoma on November 22, 1967. Quite the hodgepodge.

As the museum website explains, and this is the part of the story no one disputes, the tombstone was retrieved and returned Marguerite Oswald, Lee's mom, who hid it beneath her Fort Worth home. And there is stayed, till, writes Lensing:

[Marguerite's] home got resold and some time passed before the new owners discovered it. In 2009 the husband passed away and the widow decided to donate it to Historic Auto Attractions which displays one of the largest collections of Kennedy Artifacts in the world. So the stone is now part of our collection for all to see.

But the story's proving much more complicated than that. Turns out, someone here wants the tombstone back -- none other than David Card, namesake and owner of Poor David's Pub, whose father and stepmother bought Marguerite's house in '81 and discovered the grim keepsake beneath the house a few years later. As Steve Blow noted in The News a few weeks ago, "After its rediscovery, Card's parents hauled the stone to his aunt's house in Fort Worth for safekeeping."

But in time, that side of the family died off; the sole survivor is cousin Johnny Ragan's wife Holly. And according to Lensing in this morning's Rockford Register Star in Illinois, she reached out to him through Unfair Park's across-the-street neighbor Heritage Auctions. Says Lensing, he came to Dallas "and worked out a deal, inspected it and brought it back here." Only, David Card and stepsister Cleo Lowe say it wasn't Holly's to sell, and they want it back -- in part because Card wants to put it in, oh, the Sixth Floor Museum. Says he: "This isn't a crank pursuit of a quirky item. It's a serious pursuit of a historical artifact." Forthcoming, sooner than later: The Lawsuit Over Lee Harvey Oswald's Tombstone.

Click to enlarge these first looks at the new-look 508 Park Avenue. You'll find more, many more, below.

​Amongst all the maybes, could-bes and one-days downtown, one development's as close as it gets to a Sure Thing: 508 Park Avenue, which First Presbyterian is in the process of turning into The Museum of Street Culture to be curated by blues historian Alan Govenar. At this very moment, in fact, reps from First Presby and Good Fulton & Farrell are at Dallas City Hall presenting to the Landmark Commission's Central Business District/West End Task Force the pages of plans you will find below, which include your very first look at the rooftop deck and next-door amphitheater, which Landmark signed off on last year.

First Presbyterian found this never-before-seen photo of 508 Park as it looked in '46 in the Jack Warner Collection at USC.

​There are actually three presentations below -- for 508 Park, 1900 Young (which will be razed and replaced by the outdoor concert site) and 1905 Canton, the latter of which is presently a fenced-off patch of weeds. Jon Rollins at GFF, who will make the presentation to Landmark, says there have been some tweaks since last we spoke about the project -- such as the addition of solar panels and rain-water storage units on Canton and restrooms to the amphitheater site, as well as WPA-style murals on the exterior of the site where Robert Johnson and Bob Wills once recorded. "So we'll start to tell the story of the building on the outside of the building," he says, "before you even step foot into 508 Park."

As for the rooftop deck and that dance floor and the new elevator, he says: "The church all along has wanted to occupy the roof, which has a wonderful view of the downtown skyline. 508, when it's reused, will be all about spaces for public gathering, arts groups and the connection between the public and the private. It'll create a space for people to gather and listen to music, which seemed like a natural program, and to be able to do that we needed to make sure it was accessible for the mobility impaired. And we needed to provide shade so people could use it in the summer, and the rail is for safety. But because it's historic, it's important for us not to disturb how the building meets the sky, which is why were using glass."

Rollins says 1900 Young will begin coming down sometime before the end of April, when their certificate of demolition expires; there's some abatement that must take place first in both existing buildings.

Now, on a related note: Carol Adams at First Presby also directs our attention to the just-updated-and-revised 508 Park Ave. website, which offers more history about former Warner Bros. movie storage facility -- including the photo you see above, recently discovered in USC's Cinematic Arts Library. (Who knew there were windows on the side presently devoured by 1900 Young?) She promises more from the archives soon. Till then, the future awaits below ...More »

Photo by Harry Bennett, via eBay seller "ericdatz"

​A couple of years back we virtually toured the Mercantile Bank Building as it looked following its 1958 redo, when Heritage Auctions made available 17 never-before-seen photos of R.L. Thornton's skyscraper taken by legendary Chicago-based architectural-photo firm Hedrich Blessing. Those photos, offered in a single package initially guesstimated to be worth several thousand, never did sell (thought for sure Forest City would have snapped 'em up). Only recently, on behalf of a still-interested Friend of Unfair Park, I asked Heritage's PR man Noah Fleisher is the seller was still interested in parting with the pictures. He said he'd look into it.

Photo by William Langley, via eBay seller "ericdatz"

​Then, a couple of days back, Friend of Unfair Park PeterK dispatched me a trio of photos taken inside the mighty Merc in the 1940s, not long after it was finished in '43. Back then, of course, it was a significant structure for myriad reasons: It counted among its architects Walter W. Ahlschlager, famous for his work in Chicago and New York City. It was, by all accounts, the sole significant skyscraper built in the U.S. during World War II. And it was, till '54, the tallest building in the city.

Turns out there are far more than three photos of the Merc being sold on eBay: A seller in San Diego is sitting on a dozen, each still sitting a mere $9.99 with four days left, all but one taken by William Langley, whose own career appears to span the rough-n-tumble days of the Dallas Dispatch to the Texas Centennial Exposition in '36 (where he rounded up "beautiful bevies") to an ad assignment so unusual (at the time, at least) it landed him in Life magazine in 1959. (And Langley, intriguingly, mentored a young Jeff Kimball, who would go on to become the cinematographer responsible for the look of Top Gun, among other familiar titles.)

I'd begin the tour here. Then, in no particular order: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and, finally, here. Interestingly, the last photo -- the only one with actual people in it -- wasn't taken by Langley. At least, it's not credited to him. Rather, says the seller, the back of the photo is stamped: "HARRY BENNETT - 2108 McKinney - Dallas, Texas Phone 7-4906."

Heritage Auctions

​I'd called Keith Manoy, one of the city's senior transpo planners, about this earlier in the day; but since then I've heard from one of his colleagues, who promises more details about those Elm and Commerce conversions -- a time line, to be specific -- sooner than later. But while I had Manoy on the phone, and since I'm very likely to bid on this 1938 Dallas Steers handbill you see at right that Heritage is auctioning off in February, I had to ask: How's that Union Station-to-Oak Cliff streetcar line coming? Because, ya know, it's been a while, though I heard last week the project was out for bid.

Matter of fact, says Manoy, it sure is, with bids due back some time in March. "And as far as the time frame, we currently expect the project to start construction in April 2013 and be completed around June 2014." He also mentioned something more or less new to the 1.6-mile-long project: Shortly after the feds signed off on the project's environmental assessment last summer, they kicked in an additional $3 million for what's called a "passing track" that will be installed on Zang near E. Oakenwald.

"It's more for the longer-term project," Manoy says. "It will allow a streetcar vehicle to pull over and let another one pass. In the sort term, if a vehicle breaks down we'll have a way to continue service, since it's a single track. With the passing track we can pull it over and continue service and at the end of service day we can pull it out of there." Kind of like a "RIP track," I said, having watched Unstoppable 72 times on cable. "Yes," he said patiently, "kind of like that."

Also, he says, city and DART officials are awful close to picking a car for the line. "I don't want to say too much about it," he says when asked, "but probably in the next couple of months we'll know for sure." Nothing retro, though. Something like this. Won't get you to Steers games either. It's not a time machine.