Century Center or Baum Building?

[Patrick]

Doug, check this out on Ebay....you might want to buy it: LOL!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Ceramic-...QQcmdZViewItem

[John]

You need to go hang out on Doug's site for awhile!

Been there, done that, but he isn't selling any t-shirts!

[Patrick]

Or post cards.

[Doug Loudenback]

Or post cards.

I just copy 'em, I don't sell 'em!

[Midtowner]

You are MUCH to young to be such a cynic, Midtowner! :stars:

It's a very well illustrated theory. Mr. Conn (con?) was a member of said organization. The concourse, one of the few projects completed during that period strangely only connects to government buildings and buildings owned by members of said organization...

Sadly, the OIA was shut down

The "anti-business" AG back then saw to that.. Unfortunately, the courts found that the OIA had to follow the law like everyone else, that led to their unfortunate demise as well as the demise of that 1-term AG.

[SoonerDave]

Patrick: Re the piggybank - you're right.

As far as downtown goes, people like my mom use the name "Pei" like profanity, because (right or wrong) she associates it with the demolition of the downtown Oklahoma City she knew while she was growing up.

I grew up during the "trailing edge" of downtown shopping. I remember going to Brown's a very few times.

What many people don't seem to remember was that the other half of the Myriad Gardens was supposed to be a huge semi-subterranean shopping district - linked, I believe, to the Conncourse tunnel system. There's an escalator that would have taken shoppers to/from the street level down into the shopping area (it's in that little "kiosk" with the neon "Myriad Gardens" sign. When you walk through the Myriad Gardens, and see all those locked doors, those were supposed to be access points to this mall/retail area. Now, other elevator access points have been concreted over and sealed up, so only vague suggestions of what was planned now survive.

As I recall, however, economic conditions crashed well before the Penn Square disaster (the oil embargo comes to mind) and had brought that Myriad Gardens development to a halt well before that time. It was about the same time (I think) as city parks project called the "String of Pearls" that Patience Latting had started, but it fizzled as well...in fact, one of them was where the new Dell call center resides...but I digress...

First thing they need to do downtown is to undo the alternating one-way streets; they make navigating downtown a nightmare. In fact, I remember watching a city council meeting in which a plan to implement precisely this idea was discussed and presumably ready to implement, but obviously it never was...

-David

[jbrown84]

What many people don't seem to remember was that the other half of the Myriad Gardens was supposed to be a huge semi-subterranean shopping district - linked, I believe, to the Conncourse tunnel system. There's an escalator that would have taken shoppers to/from the street level down into the shopping area (it's in that little "kiosk" with the neon "Myriad Gardens" sign. When you walk through the Myriad Gardens, and see all those locked doors, those were supposed to be access points to this mall/retail area. Now, other elevator access points have been concreted over and sealed up, so only vague suggestions of what was planned now survive.

I always wondered what all that was. There's an enterance behind the water stage, the smaller bridge with the enlosed lower level, the glassed-in stairs on Sheridan next to the fountain, and I only in the last year discovered the escalators that are hidden behind some trees in the Galleria garage plaza, directly opposite Sheridan. If you peer in the windows of these areas, you can tell they haven't ever been used. I wish the space could be used for something. Is it actually connected to the Underground?

[Kerry]

Patrick

To answer your question about Urban renewal - it wasn't just an OKC thing. Every city that could afford to tear down old buildings did so. The pictures you see of these great buildings is not what they looked like when they were razed. Many had fallen into such a state of disrepair that there was no way to save them. They were inhabitied by prostitutes, drug dealers, and the homeless. Downtown OKC was no place to be in the 70's. Because of the people using the run down buildings it was making more businesses leave downtown. If the Urban Renewal Authority didn't tear down these building the entire downtown core was going to die. As pointed out earlier, one of the things that hurt OKC the most was the oil bust.

[jbrown84]

Every city that could afford to tear down old buildings did so.

Very true. The main reason that Guthrie has such a great, historic downtown was because the city was far too poor at that time to raze any of the buildings. Now they are much better off. I'm sure many of OKC's buildings had fallen into great disrepair, but it's hard to believe that at least some of them could not be restored, but that just wasn't the practice at the time. Even New York lost it's historic Penn Station to make way for Madison Square Garden.

[Kerry]

Even New York lost it's historic Penn Station to make way for Madison Square Garden.

This was the worst architectural crime of the past 1000 years. If I was a worker tearing down that building I don't think I could have done it. It was a work of art that doubled as a train station.

[jbrown84]

I really don't know what they were thinking of tearing that down.





for this monstrosity...

[Kerry]

I have to wipe away the tears.

[SpectralMourning]

At least the Military blew it up in the Godzilla movie. Maybe life can imitate art (if that's what you wanna call that awful movie) and a few hornets can level the place. Sort of a public demonstration on Fleet Week. Then they can rebuild Penn Station, or something resembling it.

[jbrown84]

Then they can rebuild Penn Station, or something resembling it.

Actually the station is still there, underneath Madison Square Garden. But they are soon moving it across the street into a former post office, a similarly majestic building.