Carla Main says she did everything she could to sit down with Highland Park developer Hiram Walker Royall while reporting her book Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land. She finally got in the same room with him today, though, in a morning hearing over Royall’s defamation…
Carla MainWe were first introduced to Highland Park developer, Humble Oil heir and Hiram Walker distant relation Hiram Walker Royall in December 2008, when he became national news for suing everyone connected to the 2007 tome Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land. And by everyone, I…
A little bit o’ this and a little bit o’ that while admiring that picture taken yesterday by Best of Dallas-certified Justin Terveen:A Friend of Unfair Park whose name rhymes with “Jason Roberts” forwards along this Washington Post piece in which Oak Cliff’s Better Block Project inspires a faraway woman,…
I hate you, Jimmy Johnson. Not for winning two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and then up and leaving in a huff, but for luring me into watching reality TV. I really despise reality TV. And, I admit, I’m really hooked on Survivor: Nicaragua. On CBS’ hit show they…
All the sudden it’s been four months since Greg Williams launched his radio comeback by landing a gig at 105.3 The Fan alongside yours truly. Since mid-May I’ve found him to be: *On time. *Thoroughly prepared. *Unequivocally lucid/coherent. *And, well, his old self. He’s come a long way from the…
A 2008 rendering of the new Sylvan Avenue bridge, which will be discussed at another public meeting on October 7Feels like it’s been forever since last we heard of plans to replace the low-lying, flood-prone Sylvan Avenue bridge — almost two years to the month, matter of fact. Back in…
On July 9 Your Texas Rangers acquired Cliff Lee from the Seattle Mariners. Which was great. Very exciting. But, just maybe, something just as interesting was taking place in the chambers of Judge Michael Lynn, the Fort Worth bankruptcy judge who, on July 9, gathered behind closed doors several of…
It was all hands on stage this morning at Jubilee Park, where the new community center’s dedication drew the city’s best and the brightest for an hour of speeches, dancing kids and cookies. Just a block from the new homes along Congo Street, which bcWorkshop celebrated last weekend with a…
Just two days after suffering the worst defeat of his short political career, Mayor Tom Leppert offered something different from his typical canned State of the City address that we’ve grown accustomed to hearing around this time of year. “I am very optimistic about the state of our city, but…
Bobbie Wygant Interviews Robert Duvall for Tender Mercies from Atombomb.tv on Vimeo.I could read to you from this stack of press releases for big-deal Thursday happenings (“Boone Pickens, Mayor Leppert, Chief Brown unveil New Jubilee Park Buildings” and “Mayor Leppert, Dr. Hinojosa to launch first-of-its-kind nutrition education program tomorrow at…
McCarthy Building Company has built plenty of projects around town in recent years — everything from the Wyly Theatre to the W Hotel to the Dallas County Detention Center South Tower to the under-construction Dallas City Performance Hall. To that estimable list add another landmark project: the Woodall Rodgers Deck…
Portland-based urban planner John Fregonese’s name should ring a bell — he’s the guy behind the Forward Dallas comprehensive plan, now in effect four years last June. Saw his name again today in the USA Today: Waco’s done hired him too to create a plan “that includes mixed retail and…
Photo by Andrea GrimesA finished garden planter is born in Deep Ellum last Saturday.More than 30 folks came out to the Deep Ellum Community Day on Saturday, many of whom Deep Ellum Community Association president Randee Smith didn’t know from Adam (Hats). Which, for Smith, is saying something: She spends…
Saturday evening marked a big finish to Ella Garrett’s long, tough summer, with a party full of neighbors and friends outside her new house — the sixth home built by bcWorkshop’s Congo Street Initiative along Jubilee Park’s historic, improbably narrow stretch of road. June was the hardest for Garrett, who…
So, back on Wednesday, when it was, ya know, raining, more than a few Friends of Unfair Park wondered: Why, whenever it rains, does the city’s Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge construction-cam revert to a dry, sunny day — in this instance, August 29? I asked Frank Librio at Dallas City…
Barry KoodaAs I was otherwise occupied yesterday, my wife and the 7-year-old who lives in our house made it over to Oak Cliff for the Blues, Bandits and Barbeque wingding, from which our own Kevin Todora returned with this slide show. But the weekend’s event also marked the return of…
Photos by Jeffrey LilesMount Pisgah Baptist built its first church at the corner of what’s now Preston and Spring Valley in the late 1800s; the structure that sits there now is a rebuild that dates back to 1945. But in 1981 the church bought property on Webb Chapel near Forest,…
The Dallas Business Journal this morning brings news of a $1-billion, 1-million-square-foot movie and teevee production facility being planned in Frisco, near the Dallas North Tollway and Warren Parkway. And that’s not all: According to Premier Studios’ elaborate website, filled with conceptual renderings and site plans and build-out phases and…
Ms. Greer called me this morning to tell me she made it through the night. She’s a courtly, pretty lady, 88 years old, whose house is at the very end of Rockefeller Boulevard by Moore Park, south of Cadillac Heights, about four miles down river from downtown. She’s the last…
Justin TerveenI woke up this morning to find this present in the Unfair Park in-box courtesy — who else? — our old pal Justin Terveen. It speaks, or sings, for itself — and needs to be seen much larger than I’m capable of displaying it here. (So too does this…
I’ve left a few messages today for Taylor Burns, the officer at Park Cities Bank charged with tending to 807 Elm Street. As I noted Monday, PCB, which got the property in foreclosure, would like to raze the 85-year-old building sitting in a parking lot across from El Centro, though…
UCR Urban’s Jack Gosnell — who helped convince Forest City to redo the Merc and the Continental — is among those who’ve been charged with recruiting retail to downtown. Which, presumably, is why Aaron Gentry, our pal Justin Terveen and the You+Dallas crew accompanied Gosnell on a tour of downtown,…
