Funny Moment
Bob and Norm ... under water.
I’m pretty certain Bob Bekoff (the guy on the sidewalk above) enjoyed yesterday’s coverage of the upcoming 10th anniversary for the Bricktown Canal. So here’s a snapshot that is blatantly aimed at reminding him of a somewhat embarassing moment from those early giddy days (that’s his son Norm in the boat). To be fair, these guys pulled off a miracle getting such a big operation launched within just a few weeks when the canal opened July 2, 1999. To read more about their adventure, pick up tomorrow’s Oklahoman.
The Bikers Invade Bricktown
Thanks to Leslie Spears, queen of all media at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, we’re getting a good idea of the number of Harley Davison enthusiasts who attended the national Harley Owners Group rally in Bricktown Saturday night.
Her one observation: Jim Cowan didn’t sweat at all. He literally kept his cool during what was one of the hottest, busiest days ever in the entertainment district.
One more week to go, Jim, and then maybe you can take a couple days off!
The Bricktown Canal: 10 Years Later
Lot’s of cool photos and perspective on what’s transpired along the Bricktown Canal since it opened a decade ago. Read the story here.
Support the Arts
I’ll be expanding on this idea Tuesday, but I want to get things started today: IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT TONIGHT, GO SEE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK TONIGHT AT THE MYRIAD GARDENS!
I know, I know, it’s hot out there. But the performance starts at 8 p.m. and with the sun hitting the horizon it’s just another summer evening in Oklahoma. For $10 you get some great live theater and you’re doing your part to create a great downtown. The box office opens at 7 p.m. and the performance is on the Myriad Gardens Water Stage, which has seen significant improvements the past couple years thanks to donations by Devon Energy.
Folks, if you want a vibrant downtown, if you want to see the momentum continue, you can’t just say “that would be great to see someday …” - enjoy this performance today and show these folks some much earned love.
One more tidbit … you will see “Thunder” at tonight’s game… the voice of the NBA will be speaking the King’s English tonight.
For more about Shakespeare in the Park, visit http://www.oklahomashakespeare.com.
About tonight’s show:
OSP’s first show of the season is As You Like It. Rosalind, the daughter of a banished duke, falls in love with Orlando at a wrestling match. Her usurping uncle, jealous of her popularity, banishes her from court.
Duke Frederick has usurped the title and throne of his elder brother, Duke Senior. Duke Senior has taken up residence in the Forest of Arden with his band of loyal followers, leaving his daughter, Rosalind, behind at the court. Into this situation, enter Orlando and Oliver de Boys, two brothers divided by enmity. Orlando has long been mistreated by his brother; when Orlando enters a wrestling match sponsored by Duke Frederick, Oliver tells his opponent, Charles—a champion wrestler—that he wouldn’t care if Charles were to break Orlando’s neck.
To the surprise of all, Orlando wins the match. In doing so, he attracts the romantic attention of Rosalind and the ire of Oliver. Orlando and his servant, Adam, flee Oliver’s wrath into Arden. Duke Frederick decides to banish Rosalind to Arden as he did with her father. Celia, Frederick’s daughter and Rosalind’s best friend, declares that she will accompany her in exile. Rosalind disguises herself as a boy named Ganymede, while Celia assumes the part of “his” sister, Aliena. They are accompanied by the clown Touchstone.
Orlando eventually finds himself in the company of Duke Senior’s men, pining for his lost Rosalind. Rosalind, meanwhile, purchases a flock of sheep and a pasture, and sets out to lead a pastoral life. Before long, however, Orlando’s habit of carving Rosalind’s name in the trees and leaving love poems scattered about the forest tip her off to his presence. Still disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind seeks out Orlando to get a better sense of his feelings for her. She promises to cure Orlando’s heartache by letting him pour his feelings out to Ganymede as if “he” were Rosalind. Rosalind also attempts a match between Silvius and Phebe that goes awry when Phebe falls instead for Rosalind’s Ganymede. Meanwhile, Touchstone courts a country girl named Audrey, adding to the multiple romance plots.
The resolution begins when Oliver enters the camp. Orlando has saved him from an attack by a lion, and the two brothers have reconciled. Upon meeting Celia, now Oliver falls in love; Duke Senior promises to join them in wedlock the next day. Rosalind makes Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she can’t have Ganymede, then tells Orlando that Rosalind will marry him that day as well. When all have gathered for the wedding, Rosalind reveals herself as the erstwhile Ganymede. She and Orlando are happily reunited, and Phebe agrees to marry Silvius. Touchstone will also marry Audrey. As the pledges of love are exchanged, Orlando and Oliver’s brother enters the scene. Jaques brings news that Duke Frederick, upon meeting a holy man, has repented his ways and opted for a monastic life. Duke Senior is restored to his rightful position, and all live happily ever after.
No Net, No Lifeline…
When I started this blog, it was with the purpose of bringing readers behind the scenes of what’s going on downtown and to advance discussions on how to continue its momentum.
And I do this without a net. Hopefully, more often than not, I get it right and don’t cross a line that is becoming more and more murky in this changing media age.
Did I go too far with my post on Downtown Tulsa Unlimited? I don’t think so, but I can see where some think I was implying in the original posting that Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. was acting like a bully.
Truth be told, I’ve got it from several sources that there is tension out there. But as I tried to say, and maybe not as well as I could have, is that such tension can evolve into something much worse regardless of actual actions.
Perception is half the game, and that’s what I suspect was a key problem with DTU - from my own experience they weren’t very good at telling downtown Tulsa’s story or addressing constituents’ concerns.
I’ve tweaked my post to be more clear about what I was trying to convey.
A Journey: Part Three
If Oklahoma City is overlooking its own assets and strengths, maybe we can be forgiven for doing so since we wouldn’t be the first to commit this mistake. But let’s overcome it.
Twenty years ago this community had a massive case of collective low self esteem. If you want to see how far we’ve come, go no further than the next upcoming generation - teens, people in their low 20s - who are excited about this city’s future. And yes, I know some of you are reading this blog. I’m flattered by that - it’s a huge compliment, but also a burden in that my slip-ups could have consequences.
Amidst the excitement to do something “big” - keep the momentum going, do better than what’s been done to date - do we risk making “big” mistakes? Do we risk forgetting to address other less “sexy” problems that nag us. What good do we accomplish with a big central park if we can’t development the empty lots that prevent Bricktown/Deep Deuce/Flat Iron from being one truly mixed-use, walkable area with vibrant street life? How can we step up our city to tier two status if we still allow flop/drug houses to plague upcoming neighborhoods like The Cottage District/SoSA?
How can we celebrate our city’s identity and heritage if some of our most historic, ornate spaces remain dark and unused? And are we still suffering a bit from that old collective low self esteem? Are we hiding our wonderful history? Are we telling visitors “Heck yeah, we’re a tourist destination and here’s all we’ve got to show you!”
Before delving in $500 million ambitions, what can we accomplish for $5 million?
The End of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited?
Well, kinda sort of. Downtown Oklahoma City Inc’s- counterpart in Tulsa was started 29 years ago to oversee its business improvement district. But an Oklahoma City maintenance company submitted a better bid to oversee much of the group’s operations and now it’s turning from full-fledged six-person office to a small one-person advocacy group.
As an outsider, I saw this one coming. Time after time, I noticed Jim Norton and his organization were increasingly unpopular among downtown Tulsa civic and business leaders I met with. From my own experience I can testify that Norton was not strong on public relations. Whenever I called, he was defensive, short and seemingly unwilling to tell downtown Tulsa’s story. Now, when these calls involved unpleasant stories, I could understand such defensiveness. But several of the stories were truly upbeat features on downtown Tulsa’s progress.
According to various folks I know in downtown Tulsa, such abrassiveness was not uncommon. I have no reason to believe Norton is anything but a good guy who passionately cares about his city. But if you can’t get along with your constituencies, the noblest of causes can end up stalled.
As tense negotiations continue over Downtown Oklahoma City Inc.’s efforts to do an early renewal of the downtown OKC BID one can only hope a similar situation doesn’t develop here. Just visit Downtown Tulsa Unlimited’s website and one realizes it, like Downtown OKC Inc., was doing much more than street cleaning.
Now, am I saying a similar situation could happen here? Am I suggesting the gang at Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. have some relationship mending ahead? That’s not for me to say. No one is coming out in public and saying so either. But what one side might consider to be typical negotiation tactics can sometimes be perceived as bullying or threats by the other side.
Downtown Tulsa Unlimited found itself with a lot of constituents who rightly or wrongly felt that Jim Norton and the organization no longer represented their concerns. From the folks I’ve talked to in Tulsa over the years, it would appear a little extra effort in realm of public relations could have gone a long way to prevent what’s happening next week.
The demise of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited surely offers everyone a lesson about the need to keep one’s eye on what’s really important and to keep cool on things that won’t really matter at the end of the day.
A Journey: Part Two
What was intended to be Dallas' answer to Rockefeller Center is missing something - people.
When I was in college in the late 1980s, a fun weekend consisted of going to the West End in Dallas. Back then Dallas was a big city with a sleepy central business district, no clusters of urban housing to speak of, and just one real urban entertainment district.
West End seemed to be a utopia for urban fun - it had the Marketplace, a mall that had art galleries, restaurants, a game room and theaters, it had an outdoor concert stage, clubs and bars.
It was cool, and it was difficult to see how it could ever fade away. But as we all know, West End is just a shadow of its former self. Downtown Dallas, meanwhile, has exploded into an aspiring world class city with multiple districts and thousands of apartments and condomiminiums. Retail and restaurants can be found everywhere, and lightrail and streetcars link it all together.
But even with an Aquarium, ample shops and stores, even a grocery and a CVS, downtown Dallas is missing something.
None of it really links together. The streets aren’t walkable. Downtown Dallas has a lot of “districts,” but not one of them, not even West Village, is enough to rise up and say “this is Dallas!”
Empty storefronts, lifeless streets are the norm in Victory Park
I brought up some of these issues in my column Tuesday. One supporter of Core to Shore contacted me and argued that Core to Shore is necessary if downtown Oklahoma City is to lure in national developers. This individual, a developer himself, added that inflated land prices and splintered ownership of undeveloped downtown properties require creation of an area more friendly to national developers.
What I didn’t hear in all this is how such an area - Core to Shore - will make it any easier to develop these pockets that prevent downtown from becoming one compact community that attracts a critical mass of residents, retailers and office workers. If anything, this argument seems to support Jeff Speck’s warnings that Core to Shore could seriously slow or stop efforts to develop these empty pockets.
After talking to various folks in Dallas, a concensus emerges: Victory Park is the shining symbol of what’s gone wrong in Dallas. Powerful voices, backed with ample funding, dictated the future development of downtown Dallas. But while these individuals (most notably the Perot family) had money and power, they didn’t know much about urban development. The assumption that “all growth is good” is proven wrong by the rows of empty storefronts at the street level of Victory’s stunning new towers.
Score one for Jane Jacobs against the Perots.
The question then is can Oklahoma City learn from Dallas? And can we learn from our own past? As I’ve delved into these issues, I keep hearing that we can’t stop our momentum, that Core to Shore is critical to moving forward. Oklahoma City is moving toward a future that is based on assumptions that may or may not have been fully throught out to begin with. Are we following the same logic promoting Core to Shore that Dallas did with Victory? Sure, the mayor and others say Core to Shore is an inevitability. Likewise, our grandparents heard that destruction of Main Street to make way for a Galleria mall was an inevitability. We also hear that placement of a new convention center south of Ford Center, detached from Bricktown and existing hotels, is an inevitability. But is it?
Over the past couple of days I’ve been amazed to learn that such questions have been bouncing around behind closed doors for quite some time - but nobody has wanted to be the one to take a chance and be the first to challenge the mayor, challenge the chamber, challenge the planners.
I’m not so shy. More to come. Up next: What about the Santa Fe Depot? How can it help solidify Bricktown as “a place” worthy of Jane Jacob’s seal of approval. And if a convention center is needed, is south of Ford Center really the best site?
Coyotes Take the Stage
It’s a tough job. But someone has to do it. Coyote Ugly is open in Bricktown. And no, I’ve not asked for a water.
Tough Questions for my Old Friends at the County
We interrupt this MAPS 3 discussion to bring you this special bulletin: Oklahoma County Commissioner Ray Vaughn is trying to get voters to first approve a hike in sales taxes and property taxes for the county jail according to a report today on KWTV.
This is an intriguing development for anyone hoping to see a third chapter of MAPS advance development of the central city.
Having once covered county government, here are some questions I would be curious to see answered:
- How is Sheriff John Whetsel’s insistence on patrolling areas already patrolled by Oklahoma City, Edmond and Midwest City police an efficient use of existing tax dollars?
- Why does each county commissioner need their own road crew consisting of hires who historically have been political supporters from previous campaigns (what some people would say is patronage hiring)?
- Why does each county officer need their own public relations flack?
- How much of county time is spent politicking instead of accomplishing actual business?
- How much nepotism can be found within Sheriff Whetsel’s office?
- Are county employees hired based on actual qualifications or based on who they know?
- How much money has been spent settling lawsuits related to Oklahoma County’s hiring practices?
- When was the last time Oklahoma County officials had to CUT their budgets?
- Has Sheriff John Whetsel provided any of the last three jail task forces with all the documentation they requested on his budget, finances and operations?
- Do you trust Oklahoma County or Oklahoma City City Hall to best advance this community’s interests in the future?
- What raises have the county officials given themselves the past five years? What are they paid now? How does their pay compare to that paid to the governor?
