Tulsa's Near Northside neighborhood, whose rise and demise I documented in a 2014 story for This Land Press ("Steps to Nowhere"), is part of an area that will be the subject of the Unity Heritage Neighborhoods Design Workshop, next week, September 11-15, 2017, led by urban design students from...
Posted by Michael Bates on September 7, 2017 10:36 PM
On April 5, 2016, the Cities of Tulsa, Glenpool, Jenks, and Owasso and Tulsa County will vote on sales taxes to replace the 0.6% Vision 2025 county sales tax that expires at the end of this year. The following are the ballot resolutions approved by the respective City Councils and...
Posted by Michael Bates on February 19, 2016 12:38 AM
On Wednesday night, my wife and I went to Circle Cinema to see a double-feature: Locaciones: Buscando a Rusty James (Locations: Looking for Rusty James") followed by Rumble Fish, the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film based on the novel by S. E. Hinton. The first film at the Circle Cinema...
Posted by Michael Bates on March 22, 2014 10:48 PM
Here we go again. Officials, led by an alleged fiscal conservative, are pumping us up to raise our taxes to pour concrete in the river. [Tom] Dittus is the managing partner of the Blue Rose Café at 19th and Riverside, and wishes he had some neighbors. "Hopefully people will see...
Posted by Michael Bates on December 16, 2013 11:57 PM
Our condolences and prayers go out to the Inhofe family. A small private plane registered to Dr. Perry Inhofe, son of Sen. Jim Inhofe, crashed on Sunday, killing the pilot. The "Improve Our Tulsa" package of capital improvement funding comes to voters as two propositions. We've talked about the 7-year,...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 11, 2013 10:44 PM
This looks interesting. Tonight, Sunday, May 26, 2013, at 5 p.m. at the Church of the Restoration, 1314 N. Greenwood Ave., there will be an event sponsored by the Tulsa African Ancestral Society, entitled "Black Wall Street: The Ninth Wonder." The poster shows four photos of the Williams Dreamland Theater:...
Posted by Michael Bates on May 26, 2013 9:23 AM
Just in case you don't read the insert in your city water bill: There will be a household pollutant collection event on Saturday, April 13th, 2013, and Sunday, April 14th, 2013, on the north side of Expo Square, Gate 7, off of 15th Street, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m....
Posted by Michael Bates on March 17, 2013 10:19 PM
UPDATE: FOUND. At 10:20 a.m., Wednesday, January 23, 2013, TPD issued a release saying that Marilyn Chapel had been located by a family member late Tuesday, and that she was unharmed. Kudos to TPD for putting the info about her safe recovery on the same URL that was used to...
Posted by Michael Bates on January 22, 2013 11:31 AM
The Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority (TMUA) recently switched Tulsa's water system from the use of chlorine as a secondary disinfectant to chloramine -- a combination of chlorine and ammonia -- despite concerns about the effects of the chemical when ingested, used in cooking, or used in bathing. The conversion was...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 16, 2012 10:36 AM
Tonight the Tulsa City Council will vote on whether to annex a 300-foot fenceline running along the west side of the future alignment of the Gilcrease Expressway, parallel to 57th West Avenue. Other parcels within that fenceline belonging to owners who want their property in the city limits will be...
Posted by Michael Bates on November 3, 2011 12:36 PM
A 1977 documentary on historic preservation in Oklahoma has been posted online at the I. M. Pei Project website. The half-hour film, entitled "Born Again: Historic Preservation in Oklahoma," is narrated by Norman architect Arn Henderson. It opens with a sequence of demolitions of beautiful and historic office blocks in...
Posted by Michael Bates on April 29, 2010 12:50 PM
Oklahoma 1st District Congressman John Sullivan will conduct two town halls tomorrow, Monday, August 31, 2009. At 2 p.m. Sullivan will meet with constituents at the NSU-BA Auditorium. At 4 p.m., there will be a town hall in the TCC PACE on the TCC southeast campus at 81st and US...
Posted by Michael Bates on August 30, 2009 4:55 PM
Relocate-America.com has named Tulsa the best place to live in America for 2009. Throughout the calendar year, we accept nominations for cities & towns throughout the country to be considered as a "top place to live". The nominating parties must include their own reasons why they feel their city should...
Posted by Michael Bates on April 21, 2009 11:41 PM
A couple of nice accolades: Forbes named Tulsa the 5th most livable city in America, just ahead of Oklahoma City in 6th. The top 10: Portland, Me. Bethesda, Md. Des Moines, Ia. Bridgeport/Stamford, Conn. Tulsa, Okla. Oklahoma City, Okla. Cambridge, Mass. Baltimore, Md. Worcester, Mass. Pittsburgh, Pa. The criteria: To...
Posted by Michael Bates on April 9, 2009 11:47 PM
Looking for some information relating to my next column (dealing with the requirement to add sprinklers to older apartment and condo buildings), I found the text of one of Ronald Reagan's radio commentaries from the summer of 1977 that had to do with Tulsa and part of the local Army...
Posted by Michael Bates on January 2, 2009 10:43 PM
As See-Dubya says, "Whom to root against?" The worst reactionary impulses of the seventh century, or the engines of postmodern degradation? A pox on both their houses. That's in reference to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint filed by the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK)...
Posted by Michael Bates on August 3, 2008 1:22 PM
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