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April 2008
The downtown of tomorrow: Your ideas
Talk about a lazy fisherman. My last entry asking for ideas for downtown was like a trotline that kept on bringing in a catch day after day on the same bait. I was having so much fun I just decided to leave it for a while.
So what do my blog readers want for downtown?
To begin with it seems they want a lot of small businesses: art galleries, specialty shops, bike shops, a pharmacy, a bookstore-cafe, a bakery, a yoga studio, a video store, a gas station/convenience store, a dry cleaners. Oh, don’t forget the manly bourbon-and-a-shave place.
On the more ambitious side, several mention an upscale grocery store, like Central Market.
Some mention businesses that are already said to be in the works, such as a gym and a movie theater that serves beer and food.
Readers want recreational shopping in the form of a farmers market and an arts-and-crafts market.
They want a variety of distinctive restaurants. Some mentioned seafood, Italian, French, Southeast Asian, Mediterranean, Indian, barbecue and new-style Mexican.
They want public investment, too: More parks (including a dog park) are mentioned, along with a marina and improvements to the urban section of the Riverwalk. Several mention museums and recreational developments such as an IMAX or amusement park.
Others stress the need for more parking — a major point of debate in cities today. We also got some calls for light rail or a fixed-line trolley.
One reader wanted pavers on Austin Avenue (Say, aren’t there bricks under the pavement already, along with old trolley tracks?).
Some of these items would require a huge investment, but it strikes me that the majority are not “big fix” ideas. For example, no one suggested copying Memphis, which built a sports stadium near Beale Street. The consensus here seemed to be that small-scale improvements are the stairway to urban vitality.
And most of the ideas are doable, a downtown developer who reads this blog told me. He said that even a trolley system isn’t out of the realm of possibility, though it would require significant public support.
Another reader, a downtown restaurateur, told me he’d consider opening a convenience store to serve downtown, even if it wasn’t a big money maker.
Count me as a customer. As a downtown resident, I’d pay a little extra for the privilege of not having to drive four miles to get a bottle of cough syrup. Failing that, a shot of bourbon and a shave might cure what ails me.
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Your turn: What does downtown need?
As you might have read in my Sunday article, the near future of downtown includes pubs, new eateries, condos, an art gallery and fancy offices.
Now I’d like to know what you readers think downtown needs.
What should its future identity be? A Central Business District with lots of gleaming skyscrapers and corporate headquarters? A leisure playground full of restaurants, nightspots and small shops? A tourist Mecca? Do we need a shopping mall? A sports stadium? A Wal-Mart? A giant hotel? Chain restaurants? Or something more small-scale and unique?
Of course, for the first century or so of Waco’s history, downtown was the center of everything. At the time of the Waco tornado 55 years ago, it was home of most of the movie theaters, department stores, office buildings, hotels, clubs and restaurants in Waco, and even a fair amount of heavy industry.
You can’t blame the tornado for the end of downtown’s primacy, but a lot of businesses took the opportunity to skedaddle to the suburbs. Land was cheap out there, the new shopping centers offered oceans of parking and the shiny new buildings seemed preferable to those dank old Victorian brick buildings around the Square.
Nowadays, in almost any American city, the idea of going downtown to buy a wheelbarrow, a watch or a washing machine seems quaint. The downtowns that have thrived are those that have created a new identity with specialty retail (Pike Place Market in Seattle, for example) interesting restaurants, museums, lots of welcoming public spaces and dense housing aimed at young professionals.
In short, it’s got to be a place people want to hang out. Examples: Austin, Texas; Asheville, N.C.; Portland, Ore.; Ithaca, NY; and bigger cities like Montreal, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
As one who lives and works downtown, I find my wish list involves small things that add up to a nice quality of life:
- A pharmacy that offers general merchandise such as toilet paper, milk and extension cords.
- A mailing center with UPS/FedEx, combined with Kinko’s or the like.
- Small parks, plazas and courtyards
- A farmer’s market
- A local history museum
- Lots of varied music venues, offering live music every night.
- A row of small art galleries
- A small grocery with both staples and specialty items (like Trader Joe’s on the West Coast.)
- Ethnic restaurants, such as Indian and Mediterranean.
- A really good barbecue joint.
- Specialty retail such as bookstores, music stores, toy stores and bike shops.
I could go on, but it’s your turn. What do you want downtown?
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Downtown 2008: A time-lapse odyssey
A couple of my colleagues and I have become intrigued by time lapse photography lately. We had the idea of taking a daily picture of the downtown redevelopment area and assembling it into a video for our website.
Well.
It was a brilliant idea, but it turns out someone has beat us to the punch.
This link shows photos taken of the chamber of commerce site starting in April 2007, following the new building’s progress from first dirt work last summer until now. A camera atop City Hall takes pictures every 15 minutes or so. The angle is wide enough to take in some other parts of downtown.
The photos are cool enough. But click in the top center icon and you can see a time lapse video that compresses a year into a couple of minutes. Earth movers scurry around frantically. Then comes the foundation. Suddenly the steel beams appear like an erector set deftly assembled by an invisible child. Then, sheathing, bricks and a gold dome.
If you look closely - very closely - you can see the Waving Man in the background.
We haven’t given up on doing our own time lapse adventures, and we’re open to suggestions. As I write, one of our multimedia guys has a video camera trained in my direction as part of an Orwelllian experiment. He’s going to speed it up and show the Thursday afternoon of a Waco Tribune-Herald reporter in fast forward. All that excitement, crammed into such a small time: Will it overload the circuits?
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Enough with the mudslinging
I am reminded again that online anonymity tends to make some people stupid, mean and reckless.
I’m talking about last week’s blog wars over a local developer.
It seems somebody in another town was mad at him and was in a legal dispute over a business deal. I don’t know all the details. There was never an accusation made, just a lot of innuendo and indiscriminate mudthrowing.
Others — attacking out of the shadows of anonymity — jumped in to crow about the “downtown scandal” and to rail about “profiteering” (a word they apparently failed to look up in the dictionary).
The posts, which were mostly on a colleague’s blog, have been taken down because they violated our user agreement, which forbids:
- Uploading, posting, emailing, transmitting or otherwise making available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, libelous, or obscene;
- Uploading or posting any off-topic or irrelevant material to any chat room or forum.
But you shouldn’t need to read the agreement or know libel law to figure out that it’s wrong to sucker-punch people in a community forum.
Let’s go back to first grade Sunday School and remember the Golden Rule. What if it was you who was being attacked? What if it was me? What if an anonymous poster wrote “Trib reporter J.B. Smith routinely fabricates news stories and is on the take from City Hall. Trust me on this. I know people who know this firsthand. Also, he can’t dance.”
Disregarding the last part (which may be fair comment), it’s false. Sources I have covered in this town for a decade know it’s false. But what if a prospective employer Googles me and sees it? Easy. My reputation is damaged.
In the newspaper world, we sometimes damage people’s reputations in the course of ferreting out the truth. I don’t relish it, but it’s the nature of the business.
But several things will happen before I publish damaging information. I make sure the accusation is based on verifiable sources. I call the person and allow him or her to comment. I try to present those comments fairly. I sign my name to the story and put my e-mail address and phone number at the bottom.
This takes time, caution and the ability to suspend judgment.
An invitation: If you believe someone in the public eye or in a position of trust is doing something corrupt or unethical, call me at 254-757-5752. Have a specific accusation, and back it up with evidence, not innuendo. Put up or shut up. If there are legitimate questions about a public figure, we’ll check it out.
In the meantime, for the good-hearted majority of online newspaper readers out there, I suggest that silent disregard is the best response to those who don’t play well with others.
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PID tidbits
I dropped by for the meeting of the Public Improvement District board today, and the ideas were flying.
This is the city advisory board that oversees downtown projects and services that are funded by a special tax on downtown and Elm Street properties. It’s also become kind of a sounding board for downtown interests since the demise of Downtown Waco Inc. Twenty-four members showed up today.
One was David Wallace, the Sugar Land mayor and Heritage Square developer, who drove up just for the occasion. He told me afterwards that the student housing component of the development, next to the Marriott, is about to break ground, and the designs have been filed at City Hall. I’ll see about getting those tomorrow.
A few quick notes from the meeting itself:
- Architect Sterling Thompson said he’s working with Douglas Brown (a PID member) on redeveloping the Bridge Street area, near the east end of the Suspension Bridge. Brown has been steadily acquiring vacant properties in the Elm Street area for years, but he’s keeping his plans close to his chest.
- Michael Wray, the Austin Avenue Flats developer and Downtown Merchants Association chair, reported that he met with top Baylor officials about improving connections between downtown and Baylor, including better sidewalks. He also plugged the Third Thursday program, which is starting May 15 with a sundown showing of Shrek on a huge inflatable screen at Heritage Square.
- A Baylor researcher shared some early results from an ongoing PID project on how to market and promote downtown. The first focus group involved seven non-native Baylor students, who were asked about their opinions and perceptions of downtown.
It seems they tended to view downtown as RiverSquare Center, and tended to think there’s not enough to do downtown.
None of them had heard of Brazos Nights (see my last posting). They wanted to see a drugstore and more nice retail and restaurants — and they preferred locally owned businesses to chains.
They’d also heard from friends and professors that downtown was dangerous, though none had ever had a negative experience when they ventured downtown. - As if in reply to those fears, Waco Assistant Police Chief Robert Lanning gave an in-depth report about crime in the downtown public improvement district. I’m planning a story about this so I’ll spare you the details, but the pattern is that crimes against persons has been decreasing in the area over the last few years, while property crime has increased.
Overall, there were 943 incidents in the PID last year, about the same as 2003, and the district is much bigger now. Most of those incidents appear to be minor, including traffic stops. All in all, Lanning said, downtown is one of the safer areas in Waco. But some PID members suggested downtown will need more officers as it develops. - Teri Holtkamp, the city’s homeless services coordinator, gave an analysis of homelessness and how it affects downtown. She said a 2007 count found 431 homeless people in Waco, including 70 chronic homeless. That’s down from 2005, when there were 600 counted, including 95 chronic homeless.
She explained that the chronic homeless, who often have jail records, substance abuse problems and physical and psychological disabilities, take up about 50 percent of services available to the homeless.
She said homeless advocates are still working on creating permanent housing for the chronic homeless, possibly at the Veterans Administration complex. They’re working with Mercy Housing, the Catholic group that is building the senior residential community at the old Providence Hospital site in North Waco.
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Stop this man before he dances again
Two items today: News and a confession.
News
May 15 marks the debut of a monthly Big Night on the Town. The Downtown Merchants Association is planning to program special events downtown on the third Thursday of each month. The first one will be an outdoor movie, shown on an inflatable screen in the Heritage Plaza area.
The group also envisions live music and art displays on Third Thursdays. The members are encouraging shops and restaurants to stay open later and offer special deals.
The project is the brainchild of Chris McGowan, the urban planner for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, and Austin Avenue Flats developer Michael Wray.
“This thing is going to start small, but as it develops it could grow into a really wonderful institution,” Chris told me.
I also hear from well-placed, highly reliable sources that the Hippodrome is going to start showing movies this summer. Stay tuned.
Confession
Friday night, defying previous advice and common sense, I succumbed to the temptation of dancing in public.
You can hardly blame me. It was a cloudless spring night with just a whiff of cool breeze. University-Parks was closed off for the evening, and on the stage were two eminently danceable bands.
Grupo Fantasma and Brave Combo were there to kick off Brazos Nights, the free summer concert series at Indian Springs Park. (Here’s the lineup for the rest of the season)
My friends and I spread out blankets and supped on pasta salad and red wine while we listened to the 12-piece Grupo Fantasma’s smoking set of salsa, cumbia and a hint of James Brown-style funk.
As the music played, a group of small boys competed for our attention. They lined up on the giant metal longhorn skull near our picnic site and took turns scooting up to the tip of the horn. Some would do a little dance when they got to the top, then swing down and dangle from the horn, wriggling like a fish on a hook before dropping into the dark below.
Then it was our turn to move to the groove. We approached the asphalt dance floor and began bopping to the Latin beat. A couple of my friends were from Mexico, and they taught me the steps to the cumbia.
Later, when Brave Combo took the stage, I reciprocated and did my best to explain the polka. “You basically just skip around and spin,” I said.
Now a couple of dancing flashbacks. It started at sixth-grade church camp in Athens, Texas, to the sounds of Air Supply, Michael Jackson and Chicago, at the precise moment that I began to appreciate girls. By my eighth-grade prom, I had honed my athletic dance style to the point that my date observed that I appeared to be “dancing on a hot plate.”
Fast-forward to college: I took a social dance as a physical fitness requirement and a valiant effort to meet girls. I succeeded in learning how to do the cha-cha, tango, polka, two-step, jitterbug, foxtrot, etc — after a fashion.
I may be mediocre at these classic dance styles, but cut me loose from them, and I’m in trouble. At wedding receptions and such I see attractive young people bop around to the beat, and it looks easy enough. But a tall, bespectacled white guy tries to copy what they’re doing, and he becomes a comedy act.
This isn’t just me saying this. At a Brazos Nights a couple of years ago, I bravely got up and boogied with a female friend while W.C. Clark moaned the blues. A friend who I’ll call Big Mike (his real name) remained seated the entire evening and remarked afterward that for a musician I had the worst sense of rhythm he’d ever seen.
But this Friday night it didn’t matter. After the musical mad scientists of Brave Combo took the stage, all sense of dignity was drowned out by polkas, cha-chas, spy-movie rock ‘n’ roll and yes, a hip-hop version of the Hokey Pokey. And was there a chicken dance? Yes, I seem to recall there was.
It was spring. It was Friday night. The lead singer was wearing a King Tut headdress. Children were dancing with their moms and dads. My friends’ 10-year-old girl was weaving in and out of our circle, wearing her glow-in-the-dark necklace.
For that evening Waco was a small, friendly town where people weren’t afraid of their neighbors.
So my answer to Big Mike and the other critics over at the punch bowl: I’ve gotta dance. Come join us sometime.
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Ode to the Shotgun House
Here’s another argument for walking: It improves your eyesight. Who knows how many times I have driven past these three shotgun homes on North Sixth Street near Waco Drive before I finally noticed them while walking home from work.
What’s a shotgun house, and why would I bother to take a picture of one?
Glad you asked.
Shotgun houses are long, skinny houses built one room in front of another, with the narrow side facing the street. It was said a shotgun blast fired through the front door would exit the back door. In the 19th and early 20th century, they were popular throughout the South.
Waco used to be packed with them, I’m told. They were concentrated in the poor or working-class areas, especially black neighborhoods. I’ve seen old pictures of them in the area between Baylor and the Brazos River before that area was bulldozed by federal and city Urban Renewal in the late 1960s.
Today they’re an endangered species, here and elsewhere. Some have received historic designation as examples of a once-common vernacular style of Southern architecture.
The cluster of North Sixth Street shotgun houses has shrunk from seven to three over the last 20 years, judging by a city historic building inventory.
The topic of the downtown shotgun houses came up today as I was chatting at a local coffeehouse with Dr. Kenneth Hafertepe, museum studies diretor at Baylor.
“The rarity of shotgun houses jacks up their historic significance,” said Hafertepe, whose research specialty is historic preservation.
One restoration project is in Georgetown, Texas, where I was a rookie reporter in the 1990s. I remember writing stories about this little dilapidated shotgun shack next to the public library and wondered if the next stiff wind would knock it down.
From the looks of the website, the house is now carefully restored and serves as a little museum of black history, with art exhibits and period furnishings.
The history of shotgun houses is fascinating, though it necessarily involves some speculation.
Historians such as John Vlach of the University of Texas have traced it back ultimately to the Yoruba people of West Africa. The story as I understand goes like this: Slaves brought their traditional linear building style with them to the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, where the basic form can still be found.
The Haitian Revolution in the late 18th century caused panicked slaveholders and their slaves to relocate to New Orleans. The economical building technique took root in Louisiana and spread throughout the Deep South and ultimately to Texas.
Dr. Hafertepe from Baylor said shotgun houses are still associated in most people’s minds with African-Americans, but in fact they were widely used by working people of all backgrounds. He said the downtown Waco shotgun houses apparently were occupied by white people, according to old city directories.
“What it comes down to is that whether they were black or white, for poorer people this was a way of organizing space,” he said.
So what kind of home do these houses actually make? To begin with, forget about privacy. There are no hallways, and to get from one end to the other you have to go through someone’s room.
On the other hand, they make good space of a narrow lot, and they offer light on both sides of every room.
They make a pretty good bachelor pad. My old editor in Georgetown lived alone in a restored shotgun house that the landlady had discovered in Austin and hauled to Georgetown.
My boss loved it. One year it was on the Georgetown parade of homes at Christmas. In his typical flamboyant style, he persuaded a harpist and a guitarist (me) to play inside during the tours. It was a favorite stop that year.
But shotgun houses are best appreciated in context. Here are some shots I took during the 1999 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in a neighborhood near the racetrack. Note the close spacing between houses and the gingerbread trim.
That’s me in the last frame, in a little trimmer shape nine years ago. I wonder what shape these houses are in, nine years and one devastating hurricane later?
