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Christopher Alexander: Finding patterns, and God, in urban design
From the BatesLine Bookshelf, a very occasional feature on authors and books that have influenced me: Christopher Alexander was an architect, but he might more appropriately have been called a philosopher of the built environment. He spent his career trying to describe and name the qualities that make a place...
Segregation by Design: Greenwood and I-244
Tulsa is the focus of another recent article from a UK newspaper website: A story in the Guardian Online about the impact of expressway construction on Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood, and the possibility of reviving the neighborhood by removing the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop. Twenty-five years before Don...
Memorial Day weekend 1973: Saturday night in Tulsa
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
Sapulpa Route 66 Christmas Chute, Rhema Lights final nights
The Route 66 Christmas Chute on Dewey Avenue in downtown Sapulpa, Oklahoma, has just two more nights to run, but it continues to be a popular attraction two months after its opening on November 3, 2022. Ten overhanging steel structures decorated with a variety of themes stand in the...
Re-elect Governor Kevin Stitt
Oklahoma hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006. Since 2004, every county in Oklahoma has given a plurality of its vote in every presidential election to the Republican nominee. Voter registration, a lagging indicator, continues to trend toward the GOP across the state, most strongly in southeastern Oklahoma,...
Howard Johnson's on Oklahoma turnpikes
The last surviving Howard Johnson's restaurant, located in Lake George, New York, was recently found to have closed, evidently for good. An enthusiast, Alyssa Kelly, reported on Facebook over Memorial Day weekend that there were cobwebs on the door, a for-lease sign out front, and all the furnishings and...
Tulsa City Council chairman attacks Sen. Tim Scott with racial slur
In a social media post last Wednesday, Tulsa City Council chairman Vanessa Hall Harper labeled U. S. Sen Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) with a racist slur. As of this writing, Hall Harper has yet to retract or apologize for the slur, which remains posted on her personal Facebook profile, accessible...
The Usual Suspects: Tulsa Economic Recovery Advisory Committee
Does G. T. Bynum IV know anyone who lives east of Yale, north of 21st, or west of the river? I've been watching the creation of blue ribbon panels for years, and this list is disturbingly familiar. The mayor's picks for his Economic Recovery Advisory Committee are yet another expression...
Tulsa shuts down restaurants, bars over coronavirus threat
On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV issued an executive order closing down dine-in service for all restaurants and shutting all bars, theaters, gyms, and recreational facilities in response to the Wuhan Bat Virus / COVID-19 pandemic. (Original link here. FAQ here.) Restaurants may offer take-out,...
Coronavirus notes: 2020/03/16
News and opinion on the coronavirus plague, in reverse chronological order (mostly): Here is a coronavirus COVID-19 dashboard and interactive map showing current numbers of cases from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Here is the spreadsheet that feeds the map. As of 7 a.m....
2020 Oklahoma presidential primary; liquor sales on Sunday
Postdated to remain at the top of the blog until the polls close at 7 p.m. Today, March 3, 2020, is the Oklahoma presidential preference primary. Oklahoma is one of 14 states (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia (Democrats only), and Vermont)...
GT Bynum's transgender executive order
I will be on with Pat Campbell on AM 1170 KFAQ tomorrow morning, August 29, 2019, just after the 8 a.m. news, to discuss Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV's executive order adding gender identity and gender expression to the city's non-discrimination policy. (UPDATE: Here's the podcast of my August...
Santa Fe, Taos, Aspen and back
Late last night we returned from a quick five-day, nearly 2,000-mile trip to Aspen, Colorado, by way of Amarillo, Santa Fe, Taos, Buena Vista, the Great Sand Dunes, Capulin Volcano, and Black Mesa. We packed a lot into a short trip. Some notes: Downtown El Reno has a very nice...
Zoning should keep walkable neighborhoods walkable
Tulsan Sarah Kobos has another insightful essay up at the Strong Towns website, illustrated with her own photos of lousy urban design right here in our hometown. While she's willing to forgive the urban design errors of the post-World War II decades, she politely asks cities to stop making them...
"There is no Negro business district anymore"
Relevant to yesterday's post on the Smithsonian Channel documentary that misrepresented the history of Greenwood, Tulsa's historic African-American neighborhood that its residents rebuilt after it was sacked and burned in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. The rebuilt neighborhood thrived and prospered for decades, becoming known as Black Wall Street, before urban renewal and expressway construction destroyed it again in the late 1960s. Here is a news story from the time that illustrates the social and financial impact of the decision to route the expressway through the heart of the Deep Greenwood commercial district.
Rick Steves needs to tour his own country "through the back door"
For many Americans, Rick Steves is the guru of European travel, specifically of an approach to travel he calls "through the back door" -- skipping the high-priced hotels, chain restaurants, and tourist traps which insulate you in an American bubble, and instead encountering authentic local culture, staying at B&Bs, hostels,...
Vision Tulsa, Helmerich Park, and strip malls along the Arkansas River
Vision Tulsa Vote Yes ads claim (dishonestly) that approval of the Vision Tulsa Dam Tax hike on April 5, 2016, will prevent future strip malls from being built along the river. In fact, nothing in the Vision Tulsa propositions address development standards. Moreover, the City Council has the power...
<em>You've Been Trumped</em>: Donald Trump bullies Scottish homeowners
Donald Trump's habit of using government to hound people from their homes to make way for his schemes isn't limited to the US. Ian Tuttle has documented Trump's efforts to make life miserable for neighbors of his grand Scottish golf resort -- a resort that has failed to live...
OKC Spaghetti Warehouse, Bricktown pioneer, closes; Tulsa store remains open
Spaghetti Warehouse, one of the catalysts for transforming a neglected neighborhood of warehouses into Oklahoma City's Bricktown entertainment district, closed its doors today after 26 years of business, a victim of the surrounding district's success. The restaurant opened for business, with space for 425 diners, on November 12, 1989, at...
Tulsa pastor indicted for embezzlement
Indicted for "unlawfully divert[ing] Community Center funds for his own personal benefit in the approximate amount of $933,507.80": Rev. Willard Jones, a pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, faces three counts of wire fraud and one count of tax fraud. FOX23 learned a community center the church built was the vision...
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