www.impeiokc.com

[Kerry]

The more I think about this, I do worry that some of you might think I'm becoming a defender of how so many wonderful historic buildings were razed. This is not so!
I hate what happened...
So, let me share my perspective, which right now is constantly evolving the more I learn about all this.
Pei inspired city leaders to ensure that downtown remained the heart of the city - that it remained a focal point and something worth fighting for even as the city tended to sprawl in all directions.
And yes, if you step back and take an honest account of everything, the city's leadership in the 1960s through the early 1980s didn't abandon downtown. They worked furiously to reinvent it, to make it relevant for a new generation.
Unfortunately they were too zealous in their crusade, and looking back it's easy to say they could have been a lot more thoughtful in what they did and didn't tear down.
Some buildings had to go folks. Most of the area where the convention center was built wasn't really worth saving. The same could be said about where the Myriad Gardens was built.
Now here's the controversial part of my look back... the Biltmore was a wonderful part of the downtown skyline. But when you look at how it was constructed, when you look at how it was never truly a successful business. When you look at how if it had survived it would have distracted from efforts to save the Skirvin... I can make the case, reluctantly, for the demolition of the Biltmore.
That's it folks - I.M. Pei inspired our city to not give up on downtown and to dream big dreams.

I'll sum it up in a sentence. OKC is too big to dream small. Alaska might be America's last frontier, but Oklahoma was the next to last frontier. Whether it was OKC on day one, the IM Pei plan, or the MAPS sequence - OKC was built on big ideas.

Historically, as I see it, the problem wasn't that 2/3 of downtown was destroyed, it was that it was allowed to descend to a level where destruction was even necessary. The IM Pei plan wasn't the problem, it was a solution. The problems existed before anyone in OKC knew who IM Pei was.

[Northsider]

i will take the biltmore over the skrivin it may not have more deco but it diffenlty let you know you were downtown.

it could have ate the skrivin

but then again i wasn't even born when it was torn down

will someone that saw, stayed or worked in it inform what it was like

[Steve]

Northsider, I'm limited to what I know from photos. Do you have any memories of the Biltmore that would allow for a better appreciation of this building? Everything I've seen would indicate the Biltmore lacked the quality of design that went into the Skirvin. I'm also told it had low floor to ceiling heights, and with concrete and reenforced steel structure, it would even today be extremely difficult to renovate and adapt for modern use.

[gen70]

I stayed at the Biltmore back in the late 60's and it seemed kinda bland to me but, I was sad to see it destroyed.

[flintysooner]

Northsider, I'm limited to what I know from photos. Do you have any memories of the Biltmore that would allow for a better appreciation of this building? Everything I've seen would indicate the Biltmore lacked the quality of design that went into the Skirvin. I'm also told it had low floor to ceiling heights, and with concrete and reenforced steel structure, it would even today be extremely difficult to renovate and adapt for modern use.

I don't have many memories which only means it wasn't very memorable. What I do remember is it being drab, poorly maintained, and uncomfortable. I suspect it would have been much more difficult and expensive to renovate than the Skirvin and without much good reason.

The Skirvin, on the other hand, is in many good memories. Even when it was old and showing obvious disrepair the grandeur of the place was still there.

I kind of feel the same way about the old First National lobby.

[gen70]

Could anyone tell me what bldg. was on the site before the Murrah bldg.?

[Urban Pioneer]

Could anyone tell me what bldg. was on the site before the Murrah bldg.?

I believe Father Bruce told me that it was the former Catholic School and Convent grounds tied to the St. Joseph's Old Cathedral at the time.

[gen70]

I believe Father Bruce told me that it was the former Catholic School and Convent grounds tied to the St. Joseph's Old Cathedral at the time.

I was working for Southwestern Bell in a bldg. that was right across the street at the time and watched daily as they demolished whatever bldg. or bldgs. that were there. I thought that there was a large hotel there.(could be wrong)

[Martin]

hope this helps... 1955 sanborn map of the area in question. -M

[gen70]

Thanks for the map.

[ljbab728]

i will take the biltmore over the skrivin it may not have more deco but it diffenlty let you know you were downtown.

it could have ate the skrivin

but then again i wasn't even born when it was torn down

will someone that saw, stayed or worked in it inform what it was like

I had been in the hotel before it was imploded but never stayed there. It didn't leave me with any particular lasting impressions and I'm not sure why I even went there now. I'm sure at the time I wasn't looking for any reasons to remember things for posterity in case it was torn down. I was always impressed, however, with the impression it gave from a distance.

[Doug Loudenback]

I'll sum it up in a sentence. * * *

Historically, as I see it, the problem wasn't that 2/3 of downtown was destroyed, it was that it was allowed to descend to a level where destruction was even necessary. The IM Pei plan wasn't the problem, it was a solution. The problems existed before anyone in OKC knew who IM Pei was.

Yes, that is so, in my opinion, though I do take issue with your use of the word, "allowed." The word involves an element of control, like the city could have, or should have, allowed or disallowed the events which occurred in the relevant time.

I see the "relevant time" as being between 1931-32 and 1950-53 or so. During that time period, mitigating/explanatory factors were present which led to the pre-Pei Plan era. Steve & Jack's OKC: 2nd Time Around explores the early-mid 1950's period very well although they don't make an attempt (as I recall) to explain why things got to where they were before the early-mid-fifties, which is the starting point for their book.

About the pre-mid 1950s period, the considerations are pretty obvious and straightforward.

The Great Depression killed off OKC's building spurt around 1932-1933 which had been going gang-busters since the mid-1920s or so. And, then came WW II in 1941 which provided its own clamp-down hiatus on city growth (other than was associated with WW II -- Douglas Aircraft/Tinker being exceptions). After the war, most people were probably just glad to have it over and nothing much was done. It was a time to relax and breathe easy, get non-war feet back on the ground at a slow and easy pace. Although some late 1940's planning did call for a Riverfront Park, complete with sports arenas, that got nowhere ... the public was probably not ready for it or even considering why such things might be important to the city. In the early 1950s, we were wanting to hear easy-going tunes like Mister Sandman and the like on the TV show, "Name That Tune." Stress, we did not want. Easy living we wanted, and we got it.

During the chilled-out late 1940s to mid 1950s, suburban entertainment and commerce became engaged. Probably without noticing, much less appreciating, the consequences of this then-new and exciting suburban development, we now know that this type of post-war development came to challenge the viability and even existence of the central business/shopping district core.

Downtown movies began to suffer as did downtown retail. Free suburban parking and easy access increasingly drew those seeing entertainment and shopping to the easy way ... why go downtown when strip-center developers provided the option of going to what were probably then thought of as very cool suburban shopping ... we'd probably call them strip entertainment/shopping areas today even though many if not most of them are in a state of decline if not blight today. I'm not talking Penn Square or Quail Springs, but the wide-swath fishing net goes to most every place else that was built 30-50 years ago.

Shifting back to the mind-set of the mid-50s early 60s, because of the suburban development, and before the time that I.M. Pei arrived on our scene, downtown was already in a death-grip ... and when he arrived, he may well have been perceived as the savior of downtown, at least by those who gave a care about downtown.

But, first things first. Downtown's suburban death grip, if it existed, was not caused by the city, but, in fact, it was caused by you and me (were the "you and me" to be transplanted back in time to become our parents, aunts and uncles, they being then relevant to this discussion). In that time, I'd be amazed to learn that strong or even quiet, voices were heard to say, "Do you understand the short-and-long-term impact of what you are doing? Do you understand the effects of your choices upon downtown?"

If I'm even close to the mark, was that black hole in most everyone's perception the city's fault? No, I don't think so. The city wasn't to blame for the public's insatiable need to get what it wanted as fast and as conveniently as possible. To be completely fair, in that time, downtown wasn't probably even thought of as being important to the city's long-term identity -- instead, in our minds' forefront was to get stuff quick, get to the movies quick, get home afterwards quick, eat, turn on the TV and watch Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, and then go to bed.

That type of mentality wasn't the city's fault. It probably wasn't anyone's ... it was just a product of the time.

Whether my description has merit or not, by the mid-1950s, downtown was on its way down. IF (as most of us see it today, I think) A VIBRANT DOWNTOWN is pretty much essential to a city's essence and vitality, credit is due to city leaders in that time for getting the drift. The notion certainly did not come from the suburban developers, or the suburban residents, who went along their merry way.

So, the PEI Plan was born ... not by suburban developers, not by suburban residents, but by city leaders who had a sense that a city's downtown was of fundamental importance. Was the PEI Plan the best approach to take? Was ANY approach to/about downtown, PEI Plan or not, worth pursuing? Why not just let nature take its course?

I'll stop here because if I've not already made my point it will not be made but further elaboration. I'll simply close this by saying, before one says, "How did the city ever let it get so bad as to get the notion that it needed something like the PEI plan," it is not at all inappropriate for one to jump back in time and look through the eyes of our ancestors ... moms, pops, granddads, grandmas, uncles, aunts and whatever ... and give them a hearty share of the causal effect as to why and how things got to be the way they were in the early-mid 1950s.

I didn't use the word "blame" in the above because it it is too harsh and judgmental a term. But I sure as heck wouldn't place "blame" on the city leaders, either (even though some did attempt to advance a downtown plan in the late 1940s).

I apologize for the verbosity. The simple answer is, "It's just the way we were."

[flintysooner]

That's a very good and insightful post Doug.

Master plans of any kind are very difficult but very large areas make them even more so in my opinion.

But it seems to me as I remember that time that it was not so much the master plan itself that was the problem but the impatient exuberance that made us all want its immediate realization.

So all those buildings that stood in the way had to go and at the time it didn't seem so unreasonable to try to remove them all at once. I think most of us thought of it more like a large highway project where you have to acquire all the right of way before you start.

There was a sense of urgency to implement the plan in order to restore downtown or save downtown at the least. We all bemoaned the fact that things were not as they'd once been and downtown was dying and so on. In fact it was already dead and we just didn't want to believe it.

That impatient exuberance was reduced to despair pretty quickly by certain economic realities.

So in many ways the present is not all that dissimilar from the past. The real question is whether we've learned anything.

Hopefully though we can reign in our impatience and exuberance by remembering that the future can be pretty elusive and is unlikely to proceed in either a straight upward line or in the direction we imagine now.

Taking a while to accomplish something, and doing it without debt, and revising long range plans as things change are all pretty good things.

[Kerry]

Doug - when I used the word 'allowed' I was talking about the people, not the city.

[Martin]

dug up an article from the oklahoman archives dated 5/17/72...

the article states that st. joseph's school was closing 'after the next school year' and would sell to the gsa. the article quotes jim white, director of ocura, who states that 'the school property is a part of the original pei plan and is designated as the location of a new federal building.'

-M

[Doug Loudenback]

Doug - when I used the word 'allowed' I was talking about the people, not the city.

Thanks, Kerry, understood.

[Steve]

Let's examine history together (yes, this is an official plug).
Before the revival of the Oklahoma River and emergence of Boathouse Row, before MidTown and the Plaza District, before MAPS and Bricktown, there was the I.M. Pei Plan. The transformation of downtown OKC began, for good or bad, with an ambitious plan drawn up by internationally reknown architect and urban planner I.M. Pei.
Pei unveiled the plan in 1964 with a 10-foot by 12-foot model that cost $60,000 to create. He called for the clear-cutting of hundreds of downtown buildings, many historic, to make way for a “city of tomorrow.” This model, and an accompanying film and murals created during that era, will be on display at the Cox Convention Center during the Main Streets Conference.
The plan was later reviled by locals, but are there lessons, good and bad, to be learned from this experiment? The model was last displayed at the Smithsonian in 1995 and has been in underground storage ever since. This model is returning to public display on May 3 – the start of the conference. An unveiling featuring comments by Mayor Mick Cornett and Dr. Bob Blackburn, director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, will be held at 5:30 p.m. May 3.
To learn more about the I.M. Pei Plan and efforts to bring the model back for display, please visit I.M. Pei OKC | Resurrecting the Model | May 2010.

[soonerfan_in_okc]

So why did the plan die?

[urbanity]

The 1964 model of the Pei Plan to be unveiled again | OKG Scene.com

[Steve]

Sooner, the plan died because of several factors. A populace that was initially passive at best in its response to plans to tear down old structures to make way for Pei's vision grew angry as they saw buildings such at the Criterion torn down. Federal funding dissipated. City Hall, hit by complaints by residents in the mid-1970s, grabbed power away from the once all powerful Urban Renewal Authority. One could say though the Pei Plan didn't totally die until Urban Renewal finally gave up on developing a galleria shopping mall in 1990 ... which then begins a new chapter in our downtown story...

[jbrown84]

I went and checked it out today, briefly. I noticed that a lot of the historic buildings we lost were intended by Pei to be kept, such as the the YWCA (now the library), Biltmore, Huckins Hotel, etc. They also have a huge rendering of the inside of the proposed Galleria which I hadn't seen before and was pretty impressive.

[LordGerald]

I went and checked it out today, briefly. I noticed that a lot of the historic buildings we lost were intended by Pei to be kept, such as the the YWCA (now the library), Biltmore, Huckins Hotel, etc. They also have a huge rendering of the inside of the proposed Galleria which I hadn't seen before and was pretty impressive.

Yes. Pretty neat stuff. A lot was fairly accurate, such as the Myriad Gardens and the location of the Myriad/Cox Center, and the eerie reflecting pool where the Murrah Building would've stood.

I did notice that the rail lines were expanded and intact, and that I-40 was the same as it ever was. Also, Bricktown was the same as it was pre-MAPS. No ballpark downtown or sports arena, except for the Myriad, and the neighborhood north of Deep Deuce seemed "suburban." Very interesting. The thing about models though, is that everything is perfect. Perfect trees, no trashcans, no grease dumpsters behind restaurants and no homeless people, or billboards. It is a distilled reality, and a slightly disjointed metaphor.

For those who haven't seen it, it should be on display through the Mayor's Conference in mid-June. Go see it and enjoy the great work put together by the history team.

[Steve]

thanks to everybody who came to the unveiling tonight!

[CuatrodeMayo]

It was a great event. Bravo to those who put it on.