Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
Even billionaires deserve scrutiny and skepticism from the media
There are those who worry about the influence of the wealthy on federal politics but are quite blasé about the influence of the wealthy on local politics. That slobbery, smooching sound you heard Saturday was Wayne Greene's column in the Saturday, December 31, 2016, Tulsa World, telling all of us...
Remembering 9/11 and Benghazi
Twelve years ago today, America was attacked by Islamofascist fanatics. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives, tens of thousands were injured, hundreds of thousands were left orphaned or widowed or deprived of a dear friend. We particularly remember today a graduate of Tulsa's Memorial High School, Jayesh Shah, who...
Rolling Hills Shopping Center gutted by fire
There are reports of extensive fire damage to the Rolling Hills Shopping Center, on Admiral Pl west of 193rd East Ave in far east Tulsa. Assistant Fire Marshal Rick Bruder told reporters that a discount store and a pizza restaurant were likely destroyed as the fire caused their roofs to...
QuikTrip's attempted street-snatching: Will it be stopped?
UPDATE 2012/05/04: The answer is no, by a 5-4 vote to approve the PUD "amendment" and close the street. Thanks to Councilors Blake Ewing, Karen Gilbert, Skip Steele, and G. T. Bynum for upholding the plan and the notion of public infrastructure for public use over the demands of a...
PLANiTULSA: Which scenario is rosiest?
An edited version of this column was published in the May 21-27, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. The date of the PLANiTULSA scenario rollout was May 12, 2009, not March...
Downtown Tulsa Unlamented
An edited version of this column was published in the May 14 - 20, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Posted October 25, 2022. Cityscope By Michael D. Bates Downtown Tulsa Unlamented The departing head of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited...
PLANiTULSA scenario launch
An edited version of this column was published in the May 7 - 13, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. Here is the blog entry I wrote at the time, linking to the column, and a blog entry reporting on the rollout. The published version is not available online. Posted...
End the parking wars: Share parking on Cherry Street
An edited version of this column was published in the April 29, 2009, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Posted July 15, 2021. See the end of this entry for a postscript. Cityscope By Michael D. Bates Parking wars Will success spoil Tulsa's...
David Bates, Tulsa Santa, featured in <em>Urban Tulsa Weekly</em>
The December 18-24, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly includes a feature story about Santa David Bates by managing editor Katie Sullivan. Some clips: Bates is in his fourth year as one of Tulsa's many Santas that grace the city's holiday surroundings and events. After retiring four years ago from...
Urban lessons from the Painter of Light
An edited version of this column was published in the November 26, 2008, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available online at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. Posted July 13, 2021. Urban lessons from the Painter of Light My...
Arkansas River roundtable
It's always fascinating when you get civic and business leaders speaking more candidly than they normally would in public. Back in February, the Journal Record published a transcript of a panel discussion concerning Arkansas River development in Tulsa. It was the Square Feet Real Estate Roundtable, and the discussion involved...
The Greenwood Gap Theory: The remaking and unmaking of the Black Wall Street of America
This is the originally submitted version of my column in the June 13, 2007, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available at the Internet Archive. The image below accompanied the article. It is from a 1951 aerial photo, labeled to indicate streets and landmarks and to show...
Death by bad urban design
One of the four NCAA men's regionals was held last weekend at the Meadowlands (aka the Hackensack Swamp) in the midst of the industrial wasteland of northern New Jersey. (I spent the worst year of my life there one week.) The University of North Carolina team was put up for...
Planning Tulsa's Riverfront: A Brief History
This is the originally submitted version of a story that was published on January 31, 2007 as the cover story of the February 1-7, 2007, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly, under the headline "The River Review: Planning Tulsa's Riverfront: A Brief History." The story as published can be found on...
Tulsa 1957
I've had this idea of trying to capture life in Tulsa as it was in a particular year, before freeways, urban renewal, and the flight to the suburbs began to change it. It's hard to believe today, but Tulsa was once one of the twenty most densely populated large cities...
Will the real New Urbanism please stand up?
This morning I heard some talk on the radio about "New Urbanism." The backers of The Channels -- the $788 million plan to build islands in the middle of the Arkansas River -- have made reference to the New Urbanist movement. The discussion I heard this morning linked New Urbanism...
Comparing apples to apples on gas prices
Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the Cato Institute write that Americans shouldn't get their knickers in a twist over the price of fuel: In truth, gasoline prices today are taking less of a bite from our pocketbooks than has been the norm since World War II. For instance,...
"Der Kommitet bet men zol rayden vayneeger oon davenen mehrer!"
Tonight I've come across a few interesting links about Jewish history in Oklahoma. In honor of Passover, which began Wednesday night, here they are. The quote in the title is from a brief history of Congregation B'nai Emunah (PDF format), and it's a reminiscence of the mid-1930s: Mrs. Harry Cohen,...
Lost Tulsa: The Main Mall
Over at his Lost Tulsa blog, Tom Baddley has posted a great set of photos of Bartlett Square and the Main Mall, prior to their removal over the last few years. (Be sure to notice the photos of the Tulsa Whirled's Main Street facade, a classic example of mid-century Albanian...
Time to head to The Basement
Those are familiar words during tornado season in Oklahoma, but I'm talking about a cellar of another sort. Via Dustbury and reader Joey Baumgartner, I learn of a new Tulsa blogger, Matt Galloway, whose blog is called The Basement, and after just a month in business, he's already off to...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'shopping centers'. [What is this?]
