Tag: City of Dallas

Dallas Preservation

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Photos courtesy Dallas Heritage Village

The Blum House has suffered ongoing deferred maintenance, Dallas Heritage Village says
It will cost around $650,000 to repair and restore it, according to estimates

Preservationists and history buffs awoke Saturday to alarming news — The Blum House, which sits at the Dallas Heritage Village in Old City Park — was being closed to the public indefinitely due to deferred maintenance.

Although DHV executive director Melissa Prycer posted the news Friday on the organization’s blog, most didn’t actually find out until Saturday morning, when the blog post and pictures of the decaying structure were shared on Facebook.

In the blog post, Prycer said that the staff has been concerned about the deterioration of the rapidly aging Victorian.

(more…)

Blum House, City of Dallas, Dallas, Dallas Heritage Village, History, preservation

Election Day

06/09/19 9:45am

After Arduous Election Season, Johnson Emerges as Victor in Mayor’s Race

It was contentious, a lot. In fact, at one point almost anyone remotely affiliated with a Scott Griggs supporter was blocked by mayoral candidate Eric Johnson on social media. But in the end, he not only unblocked everyone, according to his campaign, but he also won a fairly combative race to become Dallas’ next mayor.

Johnson beat Griggs 55 percent to 44 percent.

Click on map to see larger version.

The tone Johnson took Saturday night was much lighter as he spoke to supporters after Griggs conceded.

After making his way to the stage and hugging his wife, Johnson took a deep breath.

“This is one of those moments that you think you’re prepared for, but you’re just never prepared for something like this,” he said, going on to thank Griggs for his years of service to the city. (more…)

Commentary

06/02/19 9:55am

The Question Nobody (Except Us) Is Asking Candidates

City of Dallas, Dallas city code, Dallas City Council election, Dallas Mayor's race, Dallas Ordinance Section 51A-4.501(i), Freedmans Towns, Historic Black Neighborhoods, Historic neighborhoods, redlining, Segregation, Tenth Street, Tenth Street Historic District, Tenth Street Residential Association, TSRA

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Photo courtesy the National Trust for Historic Preservation

Nobody (at least, media-wise) is asking, but we did. And from the candidates who responded to our questionnaires we sent out a few months ago, we know where many of them stand on an ordinance that is allowing the slow death-by-demolition of one of the country’s few remaining intact Freedman’s towns — the Tenth Street Historic District.

Yes, I said country. It’s also one of the city’s few remaining intact Freedman’s towns, but it cannot be stressed enough — the death of Tenth Street would also be a blow to the preservation, history, and story-keeping of our country, too.

Periodically, I drive through to see the homes that are slated for demolition, knowing that at any one of my drives, I could be looking at an empty lot where there was once a home where a family lived, overcame, thrived, and loved.

There are stories in this neighborhood, and most (if not all) of them happened within the walls of the homes the city of Dallas is capriciously stripping from the community, lot by lot by lot. They’re the stories of a community that has survived in spite of what the city has done to it, not because of what it did for it. (more…)

05/30/19 2:30pm

Positive News, For Once, in Tenth Street Historic District

City of Dallas, Dallas city code, Dallas Ordinance Section 51A-4.501(i), Freedmans Towns, Historic Black Neighborhoods, Historic neighborhoods, Inclusive Communities Project, National Trust for Historic Preservation, redlining, Segregation, Tenth Street, Tenth Street Historic District, Tenth Street Residential Association, TSRA

Demetria McCain, president Inclusive Communities Project, speaks to the crowd gathered at the Tenth Street Historic District Thursday (Photos courtesy John R. Erickson).

Although the demolitions continue unabated in the centuries-old Freedmen’s town, residents in the Tenth Street Historic District got at least a little bit of good news Thursday morning as they gathered in one of the many vacant — yet freshly mowed — lots for an announcement.

It’s an area that hasn’t seen a lot of great news — since it was given its landmark designation by the city in 1993, 72 homes of 260 in the historic neighborhood have been torn down. The community formed the Tenth Street Residential Association to take on the city, and has filed suit to stop the demolitions and to shore up the historic protections it is supposed to have.

But Thursday, the neighborhood got a bit of a boost in its quest to improve its lot, as the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced that it had named the district to its 32nd annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. (more…)

Real estate market news

03/25/19 9:00am

Sixteen Dallas Neighborhood Projects Receive City Funding

Everglade Park will be home to one community project to receive funding from the Dallas Neighborhood Vitality Grant Program (photo courtesy City of Dallas).

Which Dallas neighborhoods will receive grant dollars for community projects? What is holding many back from becoming homeowners in Dallas? We’ll look at that, plus see news on Opendoor’s newest round of funding and how it impacts North Texas in this week’s roundup of real estate news.

Sixteen Dallas Neighborhood Projects Receive City Funding

Sixteen projects across Dallas will receive Dallas Neighborhood Vitality Grant Program dollars this year to implement community improvements. (more…)

02/24/19 9:45am

Tenth Street Lawsuit: Dallas Has “History of Enforcing Segregation” By Ordinance

bcWORKSHOP, City of Dallas, Dallas city code, Dallas Ordinance Section 51A-4.501(i), Freedmans Towns, Historic Black Neighborhoods, Historic neighborhoods, redlining, Segregation, Tenth Street, Tenth Street Historic District, Tenth Street Residential Association, TSRA

In 2013, the nonprofit bcWORKSHOP hosted Neighborhood Stories events, including one in the Tenth Street community, where people wrote their hopes for and memories of their neighborhood (photo courtesy bcWORKSHOP)

Editor’s Note: Preserving the historic neighborhoods that have shaped Dallas should be a priority. But despite historic district designations, Black neighborhoods that were home to Dallasites before, during, and after redlining are seeing a troubling amount of demolitions of homes that, residents insist, would be saved if in other historic districts — predominately white historic districts — in the city.

Over the next weeks and months, we will be taking a look at two of those neighborhoods — Tenth Street, and Wheatley Place. Last week, we looked at three homes in immediate danger of demolition. This week, we look at one way the neighborhood is fighting back.

The lawsuit Tenth Street residents have filed against the City of Dallas does not mince words, nor does it pull punches.

“Tenth Street has historically been subject to de jure racial segregation by the City of Dallas,” it reads. “The City has a history of enforcing racial segregation in some neighborhoods by ordinance through direct decisions of its City Council.”

Much of this history is well-documented and comes courtesy of the government’s own record keeping. Redlining consigned Black families to specific sections of town, where the amenities and even necessities were not as robust as in white-only neighborhoods, if they existed at all.

1930-circa area description of Tenth Street by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (click to enlarge)

That history is something Jorge Jasso, a staff attorney with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, can prove easily. Jasso and other attorneys at Legal Aid are representing the Tenth Street Residential Association in their suit against the city.

Jasso points to a 1930s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (or HOLC) map that has been digitized by the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University that demonstrates the redlining that happened in Dallas.

To be clear, Tenth Street has been home to Black Dallasites for more than a century, and is one of the few remaining intact Freedmen’s towns in the nation. Settled by freed slaves after the Civil War, many of those families continue to hold on to the homes and land their newly-freed ancestors were undoubtedly proud to own.

The neighborhood’s genesis was in the 1880s, as it took shape south of the Trinity River in one of the few spots the Black community could own land. By now, the neighborhood would be considered the northeastern edge of Oak Cliff, bounded by Interstate 35, East Eighth Street, and Clarendon Drive.

Personal timestamps on a neighborhood map (photo courtesy bcWORKSHOP).

In 1944, the city designated the Tenth Street community a “Negro only” area. In 1947, the neighborhood was zoned for duplex and single-family residential use only.

But to add insult to injury, as desegregation became a drumbeat in the 1960s, construction of Interstate 35 was routed through the neighborhood. (more…)

02/17/19 9:55am

Endangered Dallas: Neighborhoods Historic, But Hardly Preserved