Accurately Quoting Charles Hill (on Twitter)
Sitting here, waiting for a file to upload on streetscapes. And since I’m killing time, why not, I ask myself, copy and post a string of Twitter comments by Charles Hill of Dustbury fame? Here’s Mr. Hill at his very best, completely quoted in context, or at least in the context allowed by Twitter:
In Your Face by Dick Cheney. Justice O’Connor’s husband has died. Their lives together comprise one hell of a story. Peace be with them both. Feed the hungry, just not here. “I find your lack of lube disturbing.” It’s a plot by the Tulsa World. Well, that would be just *creepy*. You say that like it’s an undesirable combination.
Buyer Remorse?
Remember Kelo vs. the City of New London? That was the ground breaking and controversial eminent domain ruling a few years back that involved removing an entire neighborhood to accomodate plans by Pfizer to expand their corporate campus and do a mixed use development. The Wall Street Journal reports the area is a disaster and Pfizer is bugging out.
Read the story here.
Cannon Fodder, a longtime poster at www.tulsanow.org/forum believes there’s a lesson to be learned with this case. Read his comments here.
Our own civic leadership, meanwhile, got some class time of their own last week when they visited Kansas City’s Power and Light District. Some were a bit remorseful over how things didn’t go so well with The Cordish Co. a decade ago when the city was deciding the future over what is now Lower Bricktown. Some privately wondered whether we missed the boat by not teaming up with Cordish, who went on to do the Power and Light District and similar greatly hyped projects across the country.
But with Lower Bricktown, the pricetag isn’t anything closer to what came with doing a deal with Cordish. And Cordish apparently plays hardball. Behind the lights and glitter of the Power and Light District, the stark truth is that Kansas City’s already stressed general fund, and not the Tax Increment Finance District, are paying that pricetag.
Is It Time For Tulsa to Find a New City to Pick On?
For the past few years it seems as if everytime I look at a story involving downtown Tulsa, the folks up there can’t help taking some sort of pot shot at Oklahoma City. And yet I rarely hear Oklahoma City folks taking pot shots at Tulsa. Personally, I love downtown Tulsa, I love the architecture, I love Cain’s and I’m rooting for downtown Tulsa to be better than ever.
And yet the pot shots continue, as I noted in Tuesday’s post on the Journal Record story on Tulsa’s holiday festivities. It’s time for us to take the lead here and end this war once and for all. Praise and encouragement haven’t worked. So let’s give Tulsa another city to diss.
I Wasn’t Going To Say Anything, But …
Skaters having fun at downtown Oklahoma City's Devon Ice Rink
But then Tulsa’s beloved Mayor Kathy Taylor had this to say:
Highlights include a 60-foot by 150-foot ice rink, flanked this year by a “warming” tent for spectators. At 9,000 square feet, Bolton said that rink provides more skating surface than New York’s famed Rockefeller Center ice.“I think our skating rink might be bigger than the one in Oklahoma City,” said Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor.
Dear, dear Kathy… our rink is 62 feet by 150 feet. Just sayin’….
If Only One Post Were Ever Read On This Blog …
Yesterday I posted a page from a 1965 Life Magazine quoting I.M. Pei. I’ve been told the quote is difficult to read. And that’s not my intent – at all. If Mayor Mick Cornett, if chamber president Roy Williams, if downtown corporate leaders like Larry Nichols, Clay Bennett, Fred Hall, Tom Ward, and others were to just read this site once, and never again, I think it might be this one quote by I.M. Pei – the man who has been villified more than any other person as the one who killed downtown in the 1970s:
“Americans are too impatient. They expect instant beauty. But they forget that cities are not built in one day. We may spend years agonizing over a renewal project and then we expect the city to be rebuilt instantly. Can you imagine what Paris must have looked like when Baron Haussmann finished with it? The social and cultural shock must have been tremendous. It’s like surgery; it takes a long time for the tissue around a wound to heal. The city has to echo life. If our life is rough and tumble, so is the city. I’ve always felt that ugliness with vitality is tolerable. The great danger our cities face today is that their vitality will be sapped by too much concern for instant beauty. New York is not a beautiful city. It may even be ugly, but it is exciting. It draws beauty from its vitality. If you drove all the residents out and made it a gleaming commercial center, it would only be beautiful in a narrow sense. It would be lifeless, and therefore intolerable.”
As Oklahoma City prepares to embark on a makeover every bit as ambitious as the one our grandparents attempted 40 years ago, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to delve into the legacy of I.M. Pei. Those of you who have read OKC Second Time Around already know history got rewritten along the way. Now it’s time to deal with this ugly chapter in our history and hopefully learn something from it.
Should We Spend Some More Time Exploring LED Lighting For Downtown?
Hopefully by now you’ve read my Sunday story on the debate over using LED lighting downtown (read story here).
You can read more about Ann Arbor’s LED street light program here. Or read a white paper on the program here.
And you can vote on whether you think Oklahoma City should invest more time researching this matter here (poll closes 9 a.m. Wednesday):
Sunday Flashback Bonus: I.M Pei, Oklahoma City, Life Magazine, 1965
In the 1960s Life Magazine was the big dog in the media world – bigger than Time, bigger than Newsweek, bigger than anything. Even a mention in Life was something pretty special. So when I learned Life magazine issues were now available for browsing via Google, I looked for Oklahoma City.
Nov. 24, 1965 issue of Life Magazine
And I found something. Nothing puts the city’s hiring of I.M. Pei in 1964 in context better than this 1965 article which explored the movers and shakers behind the remake over cities around the world (click below image twice to see full size)
Sunday Flashback: The Relics at Clarence Ford Park
Ideas Great But Where’s The Action?
By Robert E. Lee
Wednesday, February 8, 1995
MARY JO Nelson is still worried about the architectural artifacts located in the 1 Santa Fe Plaza (parking garage) building downtown.
That subject was mentioned herein some time back, and Mary Jo got some great suggestions on where the items might be placed – but no action!
Clarence Ford Park was created in a tiny courtyard of that building which, until recently, housed the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce.
The courtyard held several fragments of Oklahoma City’s architectural history, most collected as buildings gave way to urban renewal.
When the chamber moved to new quarters, that left no one to look after the fragments of Oklahoma City’s architectural history.
It left them an easy target for vandals. Or thieves.
Ann Byrd, state president of Colonial Dames, suggests moving the artifacts to the Overholser Mansion, a Dames’ project.
Dixie Jensen nominated Myriad Gardens, since most of the items came from buildings that one stood on and near the gardens’ grounds.
Bill Robinson, president of Harn Homestead Museum, thinks they should go to that museum’s grounds.
Byron Gambulos wants them in Carpenter Square Theater, which he owns, one of the few pre-urban renewal buildings left on Main Street.
Harold Stansberry, president of Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority, suggests they go to the old Union Station, now headquarters for COTPA.
Suzanne Silvester, secretary of the Oklahoma County Historical Society, recommends its Museum of the Unassigned Lands, 4300 N Sewell.
James Work would like them moved to Kerr Park. His law firm, Shirk Work Robinson & Work, worked on the bond package for expanding Kerr Park and several other downtown projects such as parking garages, pedestrian tunnel, botanical tune, etc. (Incidentally, Jim told Mary Jo he always wanted to find a law partner named Fish, so the firm could be Shirk Work & Fish.) Rosemary (Mrs. Earl) Wiltsie would locate the items throughout Bricktown, downtown’s most-successful urban renaissance.
Rosemary also suggests the chamber’s Convention & Visitors Bureau produce a brochure picturing and telling about the artifacts. (To which Mary Jo and I add “amen. “) Mary Jo’s own idea would be to locate them at one or more of the upcoming Metropolitan Area Projects. Her second choice is Myriad Gardens, which is my first choice.
Enough for suggestions.
Now, how about some action before vandals ruin ALL of those wonderful bits of Oklahoma City history?
Well That Was a Busy Week
I’ve got a pretty in-depth story on this LED situation set to appear Sunday. I’ll let you know if that changes. Have a great weekend!
AND THAT WAS TO BE THE END OF THIS POST, BUT….
I’ve got more to say.
What’s going on at City Hall, and particularly with what is now being dubbed Downtown 180, is unprecedented. By nature, engineers like to get things done, It’s the planners who like to talk a lot, examine things and write reports. I have friends in both areas, and I know this involves some stereotypes. But it’s not that far off from the truth.
That having been said, the engineers at City Hall are turning a new leaf, giving the public not just a view of the decision process going into redesigning downtown’s streets, but they’re even giving some prominent downtowners a voice in the decision making.
But there is a balance to be maintained in all this. It’s good to be sure the important details have been well thought out, and that even uncomfortable questions are asked (I suspect for some LED street lighting might fit into this category). For those who say “huh” to some of the ideas and concepts being brought in by consultants, it’s good to remember they don’t share our history. They’re visitors, bringing in a world of experience and observations that are new to many of us. Some of them are involved in some incredible projects elsewhere (remind me to tell you about what one consultant is working on in Egypt). But we don’t know them. They don’t know us. I’m guilty of having forgotten this from time to time.
We can pick apart every idea, every design until nothing ever gets done. We won’t all like what our downtown ends up looking like. But through this blog, and through the public discussion going in meetings, going on over intimate coffee sessions, this is at least not a matter of the late Paul Brum picking a light fixture from the Pelco catalog provided by OG&E.
The ideas being submitted on this site are being seen and discussed. They’ve been a huge help in my coverage – including the story I hope will be in Sunday’s Oklahoman.
But at the end of the day there are some city employees who are bravely tackling one of the most complicated projects ever attempted downtown. I say this with all sincerity, having gotten to know much about downtown’s history. If this were a project spread out over 10 years, it wouldn’t be so. As a journalist, I say “open it all up,” and “let everyone speak.” But if I were in the shoes of the engineer, or the city financial genius, or the administrator, I don’t know if I could do all this and allow for complete public input as well.
It’s a lot.
I say all this as way of conveying that I take the responsibility of my role in all this very seriously. I won’t back down from asking and pushing the big questions. But moderation at this historic moment probably isn’t a bad thing. My basis for pressing the tough questions this go around will be based on one question: if I don’t ask this question, if I don’t push and possibly annoy folks on this matter, will it result in something everyone will regret five years from now?
So, what question didn’t I push more aggressively in the past? I’ll provide this one photo…
The streetscape along Walker Avenue was completed just a couple of years ago. I asked about why it was being kept one-way, and was told there was no way it could handle two-way traffic. The street is about to be redone again, as a two-way street, as part of the upcoming downtown makeover.
Looking For A Track Record…
“There is no track record with LED being used for street lamps.”
This statement is NOT true. Stay tuned….
