Bricktown battles poorly chosen?


By Steve Lackmeyer
The Oklahoman

Jim Cowan, usually upbeat about anything relating to Bricktown, could not stay quiet any longer about his frustration with the district’s property owners.


In a year that saw several businesses fail and a summer interrupted by gang violence, owners were finally getting involved.
And what is the “crisis” that got their attention?

It’s not gang violence, parking com plaints or the district’s fragile retail presence — but the proposed renaming of two streets and an alley after native performers Charlie Christian, Vince Gill and The Flaming Lips.
“It’s great to see the owners are interested in this issue,” Cowan recently groused. “I just wish we could have seen all these people when we tried to get everybody to talk about parking.”

Cowan is a veteran Bricktown merchant. He opened the Bricktown Brewery in 1992, one year before the city invested more than $300 million downtown in to make the district a statewide destination.

His restaurant and club have hosted some of the biggest names in entertainment. Yet Cowan never stopped contributing ample amounts of time to nursing the district as a whole.

It was Cowan who revitalized the Bricktown Association and got merchants organized. It was Cowan who attended one city meeting after another to coordinate various events and mediate political battles ranging from development of Lower Bricktown to the rebuilding of the Walnut Avenue bridge.

Cowan was out at 2 a.m. after the shootings earlier this year in Bricktown, working with police and merchants to arrive at a delicate balance between law and order and maintaining a party atmosphere. Cowan also tried to start a discussion with property owners this fall about ongoing complaints about parking. Property owners didn’t show for the discussions about parking — but they’ve spent a lot of time arguing over the street names.

Avis Scaramucci is unique in that she’s both a merchant and major property owner. The owner of Nonna’s and The Painted Door recently hosted 15 property owners at the discussion of the street names and thinks more owner meetings will follow. They may not have discussed parking, but Scaramucci thinks owners will get more involved in that issue and others of concern to merchants.

“My message to them is if you’re not out here and you’re not involved, you’re not going to know what’s going on,” Scaramucci said. “I think they’re interested.”

Cowan still thinks priorities are out of whack, and he’s stepping down as chairman of the Bricktown Association after leading it all but two of the past several years of its existence. Scaramucci may have a big task ahead bridging the gap between owners and merchants.
If there is a disconnect between property owners and merchants, will it worsen? New owners who paid premium multimillion-dollar prices for properties are replacing veteran Bricktown property owners like Jim Brewer and the McClain family. Will the new owners ignore merchants’ concerns at the risk of killing the district’s momentum? And will they realize, too late, the importance of active, engaged merchants like Cowan?

Cowan has a good point. Bricktown leadership is bizarre to say the least. I can't see the street names affecting businesses much either way. If anything, it helps to add some character to the area. They seem to feel that brick is the only thing that can add character.

Why are street names such a big deal and parking is not? I don't have a problem with the Bricktown parking situation, but many do, and I think that has a far greater effect on their business. I don't see anyone refusing to go to Bricktown because it has an ALLEY named after the Flaming Lips. Really.

Yet, strangely, I do see people going there just because it does have an alley named after the Lips. That's just how fans are. People drive by Wayne's house for no reason, too. I think any resistance to this idea comes from ignorance of the popularity and importance of the Flaming Lips in popular music around the world. There's really no other way to explain it.

I'm suprised the other streets aren't getting more attention though. Those actually change the names of street already named after someone. I'm just guessing, but I would assume that those people were at some time important as well. At least, they were important enought to get a street named after them. With all the streets we have without names, why are we erasing an honor given in the past to honor someone else? Can't we add something in this town without losing something else?

(before you ask, I have no idea who Byers or Stiles were, but that's not the point, really. 80 years from now, no one will remeber who Vince Gill was, should they rename his street at that point?)

Maybe they were just names like instead of Oak Lane, they named in Byers Lane. They might not have been named after anyone in particular. Like May could be someone's name but in the case of May Avenue it's just a name.

I draw a blank on Byers, but I can tell you about Captain David F. Stiles, commander of a company of the 10th Infantry which was dispatched to keep order in the immediate post-Land Run days, and who donated the little circle of land that became Stiles Park.

Thanks, windowphone, that's what I'm talking about.

I am aware of some other streets that the city wanted to rename. The people who made the proposal had no idea who or what the streets were named for and didn't care. They wanted to exchange Oklahoma history for short term publicity and used their ignorance to justify it.

My point is that these were named for a reason and no one seems to consider that when renaming them. I don't get it. If May is named for someone, is it okay to change the name just because we don't know who it was named for?? Maybe it should be a requirement that any name change proposal can not be passed unless there is discovery about why and who the street is named for in the first place. It just so often seems that the reason Oklahoma City has such a shortage of historic features is because of the constant indifference to its history and character.

Bottom line is that we might as well use up our hundreds of unnamed streets before we begin changing the ones that have names. That way we are sure to not disrespect the contributions of a past Oklahoman just because we are ignorant today of their significance. In my mind, that's why streets get named for people: to offer a lasting gesture of appreciation to those people. We completely undermine the whole point of honoring a person with a street naming when we change the names without any thought or consideration as to why they were named that in the first place.

Why supplant an honor when we can easily honor today's Oklahomans without disrespecting our past leaders’ intentions?

but where does it end....do we rename every block.............just like sheilds turns into ek gaylord and then to broadway....walnut to the whatever dr. bridge and then to mickey mantle.....styles to joe carter and back again...this does not help out of town visitors does it? i guess an alley doesnt matter (but many tax dollars were spent on it). agree!!! for instance hinder just sold out two shows at bt event center and will prob win a grammy do we name something after them........yes but sooner or later you have to draw the line

What has always perplexed me - and it's not just here, of course - is that it's no longer enough to affix someone's last name to a street: it's got to be the whole J. Random Personage.

Then again, there was already a Mantle Drive at Ski Island, so I won't say a word against Mickey Mantle Drive in Bricktown. :)

but where does it end....do we rename every block

With all of the numbered streets we have in this city, I don't think we have to rename any blocks really. Just pick a number and give it a name. I don't like the name switching every block either, but i think it's a lot smoother when it's a numbered street. And in those cases, just change the whole thing...

I know it costs money and it's not something you want to go crazy with, but it is cool when a city's street names tell its history. San Francisco comes to mind and parts of Manhattan. In many cities you can learn a lot just by looking up the history surrounding the names on the their street signs. I thin it also makes it feel like you're living in a dynamic community instead of just working in a large lifeless grid.

Just my opinion.

I agree with you BDP, I just wasn't convinced that all these streets with names are actually named after a specific person. If they are, then nevermind.

Anton Classen, John Shartel, and Dr. Delos Walker (first president of the Oklahoma City School Board) thank you for your support.

I think Tornado Alley would be a cool name.

Love it when folks like the McClains are called veteran Bricktown developers.

Imagine it. The Factory......

I think Tornado Alley would be a cool name.

That wouldn't go over very well with people like me.