Dallas: The Hidden City

by Rawlins Gilliland

I know Dallas. No. I mean it. I know Dallas.

Not because I grew up here but because I live here; navigating its far corners between Farmer’s Branch and Lancaster, Grand Prairie to Garland, Irving to Balch Springs. This isn’t normal in a town where, not unlike those yards with ‘electric fences’ installed to keep one’s hound at home, local inhabitants seem to wear invisible collars that shock them if they venture beyond their home turfs. Why?

Look. The Grand Canyon was once a ditch. Can that rut we’re in be far behind?

I understand territorial imperatives in cities where not everyone drives. But Dallasites get cars as christening gifts. So why run strictly with our own pack on well-trodden trails when, all round you, Dallas is fast becoming the new-and-improved version of the town it once-upon-a-time almost became? In other words, Dallas is coming of age in a pivotal time. All over again. And while much is new, the old is newer still. Be still my heart.

The Fall of Roaming

No prefabricated Hollywood sets masquerading as a ‘town’ for me! My eternal hope springs when I see a ‘60s icon like the old Hilton Inn at Mockingbird and Central reincarnated as the Palomar. Returning to Trader Vic's 40 years later was as close as I get to ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ time travel. This after trekking through the coldly inventive Angelika multiplex across the street, where movies and MasterCards are showcased amidst modern minimalism.

Drive past the turn-of-some-century Crescent to the Blade Runner-meets-Belo world of Victory Park. Where, while eating or shopping, one can see across that open air plaza an outdoor high definition TV screen the size of a Himalayan foothill, where I recently watched my eight foot face onscreen. (WARNING: In high def, middle aged facial pores resemble volcanic craters seen from a Careflite helicopter.)

Diversity University

Circa 2007, Dallas memories are newly minted in many flavors (and languages). Like a recent night at the Latino Cultural Center east of Downtown, hearing the legendary pianist Larry Harlow playing with the Dallas Latin Youth Orchestra under the tutelage of DISD Booker T. Washington Performing Arts School hero, Otis Gray. Watching the faces of the self-described half-blonde Anglo/ half-Mexican Gray and the kids of all colors he directed, the bilingual adrenaline was nothing less than transformational. Anyone discounting today’s teens, dissing the DISD or maligning our multicultural society missed a halcyon event.

Dallas is a town that eats out. I eat my heart out on a typical week across quadrants of your city where despair and joy coincide as elsewhere but in different quotients. Trips across the Trinity in Oak Cliff, whether on Jefferson Avenue listening to mariachis or to that restaurant Mecca, the Bishop Arts District off Davis. Far North Dallas for Colombian cuisine or cheap-thrill Italian. To Harry Hines for sizzling steaks or staking out daytime diners for non-stop truck-stop temptation. Catching jazz off Abrams or Downtown or served with omelets in South Dallas on Lamar near Dallas Police Department headquarters. Having Thai or Vietnamese in old East Dallas or edgy options in Deep Ellum.

Lakewood. Inwood. Wynnewood. Uptown. Downtown to the Nasher Sculpture and Crow Asian and Dallas Art Museums to experience ‘fall in love with your city for the first time’ déjà vu.

Like Little Debbie proffering her moon pies with outstretched arms, the ‘rest of’ Dallas is saying; ‘Try it. You’ll like it!’ How sweet it is.

Reality Checked

Much of Dallas is understandably preoccupied raising children. Consider: One way to create interesting and bravely aware children is to expose them to more than one isolating universe. Even Princess Diana sought to share with her sons enlightening alternative realities, to give them an aesthetic sense of empathetic balance. So why do so many Dallas parents restrict their prince and princesses to house arrest? The whole reason I continue fearlessly exploring this city’s whole is precisely that our parents did not hold us hostage to their own circumspect brand of home schooling.

Yes, it’s lovely to see the even manicures of a Park Cities lawn. But it’s lovelier still at the 60-plus acre Arboretum at White Rock Lake or the over-600-acre Dallas Nature Center...renamed the Cedar Ridge Preserve...on Dallas’ western-most border. Hit the Katy Trail with the kids in tow. Take that long postponed brisk hike along the Nature Trails in the (many times the size of Central Park) Trinity Forest in my Southeast Dallas neighborhood and south. Then go west to South Dallas’ Fair Park Science Place for another IMAX virtual dream sequence. Or across the river to Oak Cliff’s Dallas Zoo.

Back through the Future

Miss the ethno-simpatico of San Francisco/San Diego or Chicago’s music? Hungry for the food-aholic frenzy of New York or starved for the sexy nuance (after two mojitos) of Miami, the morose allure of New Orleans or the true blue state of Texas mindsets? It’s all lurking in Dallas; if not in spades, at least in hearts. Ignorance may be bliss when your spouse is flirting with the pool guy, but not when it comes to ignoring a large city’s at-large offerings. Consider the words of fabled 16th century astronomer Galileo: "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

Why make an astronomical mistake? It’s your city. Find it.

The ‘Other Half’ of Dallas South/West Primer:

Here’s Rawlins’ Hansel and Gretel trail of rice-in-the-forest road map of Southern Dallas, which wraps Dallas’ western border across its entire southern border going east; the lion’s share of your city, about which the lion’s share of Dallasites know little or nothing.

Beginning with Oak Cliff, which is by definition across the Trinity River: Therein lies, opposite Downtown, North Oak Cliff and just beyond that, ‘Downtown Oak Cliff’ (Jefferson/Davis Oak Cliff proper including the Bishop Arts District). Then South Oak Cliff south of I-35/67 to I-20 (no less an actual name for a sector of this city than East Dallas or Oak Lawn/Uptown.) North of Oak Cliff (think I-30) and south of Irving lies West Dallas.

East of South Oak Cliff (think I-45) is South Dallas. This begins south of downtown/I-30 down to I-20, then east to the forest (actually White Rock Creek which runs north/south through the forest). East of the creek and on through the Forest is Southeast Dallas (labeled improperly for years as ‘Pleasant Grove’) on to the Dallas southeast border with Balch Springs and Mesquite.

This story was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.

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