This morning, the former Hotel Black and the Motor Hotel next-door were imploded as the 400 block of West Sheridan continues to be cleared to make way for new development. This comes after the hotly debated destruction of the Union Bus Station at 427 W Sheridan in July, after Councilman Ed Shadid's efforts to save it through litigation failed.
I admit that I will have a hard time missing 427 West Sheridan. Generally, if I know a place by its specific street address, that's a bad sign. It means I've had plenty of negative contact with the place. So though I understand the general anger among otherwise like-minded folks over the demolition of the Union Bus Station, I have a hard time mustering the righteous indignation I was able to for Stage Center (a place I loved and whose address I do not know). I'm more bothered by the destruction of the old Hotel Black, whose glass encased penthouse (or whatever that was) was one of the defining features of our skyline for me when I was a kid. I also hated to see the destruction of the block of retail store fronts along the south side of Main Street. Though they were all empty, and perhaps no longer viable, I loved the porcelain tiled facades that so richly captured their period.
What worries me most, though, is whether or not anything worth having will actually replace these. It's bad enough that historic buildings with lovely facades are being destroyed. But I would at least feel a bit better if I had more faith that something worth building would actually replace them.
Perhaps my fears are unfounded. Before the block was cleared, plans were well underway to develop the 27 story 499 Sheridan project, which already has two major tenants. It's just that we in OKC have heard all this before.
In the 1970s, the Pei Plan called for huge swaths of downtown to be razed to make way for the future Myriad Gardens, the Galleria shopping center, and several other projects. Much of the demolition work, which is cheap compared to actually building new projects, was done so that by the end of the decade, vacant lots separated the financial district from Film Row (where not much was going on and which is only recently on the upswing).
Then, the oil bust of the early 1980s came. A detailed account of the boom/bust and its effects on Downtown development can be found in Steve Lackmeyer and Jack Money's book OKC: Second Time Around (Full Circle Books, OKC), essential reading for OKC enthusiasts. The short account is that many of the planned projects were abandoned. The botanical gardens and the Crystal Bridge were eventually completed, as was a portion of the Galleria which mostly sat empty until the Oklahoman moved into the building recently. Many of the lots that remained were eventually bought on the cheap and paved over into parking lots.
This created what planners have called "missing teeth" (see Jeff Speck Walkable City, 214-5). These gaps in the urban fabric of a city create a sort of false barrier. People don't want to walk across the open, unshaded and uninhabited space of a parking lot, so they simply don't. Thus, each part of downtown becomes an enclosed space, separated and disconnected from all the other enclosed spaces downtown. These empty spaces are part of what makes a downtown un-walkable, unenjoyable, and uninhabitable. (To see how these missing teeth have changed the look of several cities in the period of urban sprawl, see Shane Hampton's overhead slider project for OU-IQC, "60 Years of Urban Change.")
Of course, this is not a problem if the 499 project goes along as planned. But as the lot that's supposed to house the new OG&E headquarters sits fallow across the street (a project that was supposed to begin as early as May), and oil and natural gas prices plummet, I worry that we are simply going to go through the same cycle all over again. After all, this period of renewed fervor to reclaim downtown followed by a stagnating energy market seems eerily reminiscent of, well, the last time the exact same thing happened. What if these projects, like the projects of the 70s, are abandoned? Will the Motor Hotel, Hotel Black, and the Union Bus Station become parking lots?
I hated 427 W Sheridan, but not near as much as I would hate another parking lot in the middle of downtown. I will hopefully (probably?) look back and wonder why I was ever so worried about this. I'm probably afraid over nothing. I'm probably being reactionary. But I can't help it; I'm an Oklahoman, and I've seen it all before.
Showing posts with label OKC History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OKC History. Show all posts
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Territorial Homes for Regular People
When OKC residents think of historic houses, we think of the beautiful old mansions of Heritage Hills, or the only-slightly more modest homes in neighboring Mesta Park. We think of the Overholser Mansion, built in 1903 and regarded as Oklahoma's first mansion.
But this is a working-class town, built first as a railroad depot, then as an industrial and commercial center to support the people brought to the Territory by the Land-Run, and finally as an oil town with dozens of wells actually inside city limits (and, for that matter, on the grounds of our capitol building).
For most of us, the lifestyles of these working-class people is a bit of a mystery--not one many of us have even thought about. In fact, someone informed me the other day that the first settlers to OKC after the Land Run lived in "mud huts," by which he seemed to mean the sod houses of the homesteaders. A student of Oklahoma history, however, will know that people were building permanent wood and brick structures remarkably quickly, as this photo supposedly taken four days after the land run shows. After all, we were a rail yard, which means that we had easy access to the pre-cut wood that defined the National Folk Style home.
Most of these first houses, built very quickly, were intermingled with the businesses and industries along the railroad tracks, and are of course gone, long since replaced by skyscrapers and warehouses. But just southwest of downtown, a few very early, modest homes remain.
The largest concentration of these early homes is not in Heritage Hills, but in the neglected little neighborhood between the old I-40 and the river, and between Shields and Wheeler Park. The oldest I found on my own hunt through this neighborhood was this one on SW 5th street, built in 1901:
But when researching for this post, Kate Singleton's "Intensive Level Survey of Downtown," led me to this house on a different street which was built in 1900. This may well be the oldest extant home in Oklahoma City (if there's one older, I hope someone will let me know).
The intrepid OKC-phile who is not afraid to wonder into the 600-700 blocks of SW 5th through about SW 8th will find dozens of houses built between 1905 and 1910 (plus a few built as late at the 30's and 40's). These are the homes that saw Oklahoma Territory become the State of Oklahoma.
These houses aren't particularly dignified. Most of them are hopelessly run down, and none of them appear on the National Register of Historic places. According to Singleton's survey, few, if any of them would even be eligible. They are working-class homes and have been added on to or altered often, usually as cheaply as possible by residents who had neither the resources to nor the interest in preserving the historical value of these houses.
In fact, most people in general would not be particularly interested in preserving these houses. Tiny, wood-sided houses just don't feel very historic to us. Even Paul Revere's home in Boston became a tenement and a series of shops before a descendant of Revere bought it to save it from being demolished. Houses like these may be historical, but they are not valuable.
In fact, these houses survived this long probably through an accident of twentieth-century urban planning. Cheap houses were built in this area initially because, early in the city's history, the land along the river was prone to flooding. This meant that land value here was low, so small, affordable, working-class houses were built here. They remained here likely because of Old Interstate-40. Wedged between the Crosstown Bridge and the river, this area became no-man's land, at least for the kind of people who are able to tear down old things to build new ones. Nestled safely between the formidable (and ugly) boundaries of I-40 and the North Canadian, the city's periodic attempts at urban renewal always skipped over these blocks. Thus, the fact that this land had no value meant that it was left alone. Had these historic homes been worth anything, they would be gone.
Now, however, I-40 has moved, and has been set below grade with a handsome pedestrian bridge traversing it. Money is being spent on the Core to Shore projects and we're about to put in a really nice downtown park right next door to this neighborhood.
This means that the land where these old homes sit is about to become very valuable. Several houses have already been demolished to make way for the park, and once it is done, developers will rush to acquire the land that borders the park in order to build luxury apartments and condos. These modest nuggets of territorial history will be gone--gone the way of the real Deep Deuce. So go see these houses now while you still can. But take your safety precautions.
But this is a working-class town, built first as a railroad depot, then as an industrial and commercial center to support the people brought to the Territory by the Land-Run, and finally as an oil town with dozens of wells actually inside city limits (and, for that matter, on the grounds of our capitol building).
For most of us, the lifestyles of these working-class people is a bit of a mystery--not one many of us have even thought about. In fact, someone informed me the other day that the first settlers to OKC after the Land Run lived in "mud huts," by which he seemed to mean the sod houses of the homesteaders. A student of Oklahoma history, however, will know that people were building permanent wood and brick structures remarkably quickly, as this photo supposedly taken four days after the land run shows. After all, we were a rail yard, which means that we had easy access to the pre-cut wood that defined the National Folk Style home.
Most of these first houses, built very quickly, were intermingled with the businesses and industries along the railroad tracks, and are of course gone, long since replaced by skyscrapers and warehouses. But just southwest of downtown, a few very early, modest homes remain.
The largest concentration of these early homes is not in Heritage Hills, but in the neglected little neighborhood between the old I-40 and the river, and between Shields and Wheeler Park. The oldest I found on my own hunt through this neighborhood was this one on SW 5th street, built in 1901:
But when researching for this post, Kate Singleton's "Intensive Level Survey of Downtown," led me to this house on a different street which was built in 1900. This may well be the oldest extant home in Oklahoma City (if there's one older, I hope someone will let me know).
 |
| Photo: Oklahoma County Assessor |
These houses aren't particularly dignified. Most of them are hopelessly run down, and none of them appear on the National Register of Historic places. According to Singleton's survey, few, if any of them would even be eligible. They are working-class homes and have been added on to or altered often, usually as cheaply as possible by residents who had neither the resources to nor the interest in preserving the historical value of these houses.
In fact, most people in general would not be particularly interested in preserving these houses. Tiny, wood-sided houses just don't feel very historic to us. Even Paul Revere's home in Boston became a tenement and a series of shops before a descendant of Revere bought it to save it from being demolished. Houses like these may be historical, but they are not valuable.
In fact, these houses survived this long probably through an accident of twentieth-century urban planning. Cheap houses were built in this area initially because, early in the city's history, the land along the river was prone to flooding. This meant that land value here was low, so small, affordable, working-class houses were built here. They remained here likely because of Old Interstate-40. Wedged between the Crosstown Bridge and the river, this area became no-man's land, at least for the kind of people who are able to tear down old things to build new ones. Nestled safely between the formidable (and ugly) boundaries of I-40 and the North Canadian, the city's periodic attempts at urban renewal always skipped over these blocks. Thus, the fact that this land had no value meant that it was left alone. Had these historic homes been worth anything, they would be gone.
Now, however, I-40 has moved, and has been set below grade with a handsome pedestrian bridge traversing it. Money is being spent on the Core to Shore projects and we're about to put in a really nice downtown park right next door to this neighborhood.
This means that the land where these old homes sit is about to become very valuable. Several houses have already been demolished to make way for the park, and once it is done, developers will rush to acquire the land that borders the park in order to build luxury apartments and condos. These modest nuggets of territorial history will be gone--gone the way of the real Deep Deuce. So go see these houses now while you still can. But take your safety precautions.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Compulsive Progress and the Death of Stage Center
When Carpenter Square moved out of Stage Center after flooding a couple of years ago, I desperately hoped they would move back in. Even after the theatre moved into its new building, I held out hope that it would eventually return "home." I naively thought that some benefactor would eventually bankroll a project to renovate the building and move Carpenter Square back in. This hope faded as Stage Center began to deteriorate. The water features were drained, transient camps grew up in the center of the building only to be torn down by the city then rebuilt again, the walkways were boarded up, then boarded up again with taller boards.
Now the building is set to be demolished to make way for a new skyscraper. When the Stage Center comes down, it will be the newest victim of Oklahoma City's compulsive habit of tearing down its own history to make way for Progress.
Any long time resident of OKC will be familiar with this habit. As David Pettyjohn told Ben Felder for in the Gazette, "there is this perception that preservation impedes progress."
In 2010, I wrote a short graduate paper (actually designed to be a sample paper for a freshman assignment) in which I performed a rhetorical analysis of this MAPS 3 advertisement:
I argued that the ad operates by exploiting what I called OKC's "fear of devolution," or a fear that any slowing of forward "momentum" amounted to going backward. In fact, the MAPS 3 ad above actually makes this claim when it shows us a dreary 1994 photo of California Ave as the narrator says that, "we can go back to the way things were, or we can build our city and create jobs without raising taxes" as if a failure to pass MAPS 3 would have meant draining the canal, replacing it with a pock marked street and vacant warehouses, and once again buying lawn mowers for the North Canadian.
When I was researching for that 2010 project, I was surprised to find that this rhetorical move has been a hallmark of political ads in OKC for many years. As far back as the "Yes 'Em All" ad campaign for a bond issue in 1968, ads in OKC have relied on this fear of devolution. The "Yes 'Em All" sold us on four lane roads (and the bond issue to build them) by claiming that "we're at a crossroads. We can stop, or we can go forward."
It's incredible how often this message reappears in OKC's discourse of growth. Since I wrote that paper, I've continued to see it in some form with surprising regularity. Even the fundraising ads for the still incomplete American Indian Cultural Center rely on this thread.
There's an odd pathology in this discourse, one that has been present since at least 1968, and which has had extraordinary impact on the infrastructure and urban planning of Oklahoma City since the [failed] urban renewal projects of the 1970s.
Interestingly, despite the expensive and crippling failure of 1970s style urban renewal, both policy makers and voters in Oklahoma City continue to insist that the only route to progress (whatever that means) is through the continual construction of new things. It's as if we are so convinced that we, as I have often heard of our state, "have no history" that we believe our only option is to be the next up-and-coming city. If we can't attract people with our rich history, the way a city like Boston might, we'll have to attract them with our sparkling newness. In this pursuit, we have consistently denied our own very interesting and decidedly rich, albeit compact, history and subsequently torn it down.
We are, then, stuck in this odd recursive process: we fear that we have no "history" to rely on, so we must build new things to attract people. In building new things, we tear down all our old things. In tearing down our old things, we prevent anything from becoming storied. Because we have nothing storied, we fear that we have no history. Da Capo al infinitum.
Bizarre old Stage Center is the latest victim of this process which, by all signs, will likely continue. And so goodbye Stage Center. May you find architectural heaven and there be with the Biltmore Hotel, the Criterion Theater, the Hales Building, and so many others.
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