Urban Landscape with Biplane
by Paula Bosse
Scraping the sky… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
When the Magnolia Petroleum Building was built in 1924, it was Dallas’ tallest building. It was so tall, in fact, that it appears to be encroaching into biplane-airspace in this romanticized postcard. If you squint, it looks as if the Dallas citizenry is fleeing from an air-attack as a plane buzzes the Magnolia Building. …Perhaps a Texan King Kong is swatting at it from the other side.
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Sources & Notes
Postcard from eBay. The view is to the northeast, from Commerce and Akard, with the Adolphus Hotel partially visible on the far left and the old Oriental Hotel partially visible on the far right.
See a fantastic photo of these buildings from around the same time in the Flashback Dallas post “The Adolphus, The Oriental, The Magnolia.”
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Copyright © 2019 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
It really does have a sort of weird Bruce McCall quality to it, and all those tiny people wandering up and down Commerce and Akard don’t help a bit.
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[…] from July was this cool postcard of the Magnolia Building, from the post “Urban Landscape with Biplane.” All that’s missing is King […]
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That’s beautiful, but when did the Magnolia building acquire the Pegasus on top?
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1934.
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Paula Bosse… I don’t know who you are or if these articles are your hobby or what, BUT THANK YOU!!!
I was born here in Dallas in 1970 and I remember some of these buildings and places in your posts. Its kinda sad to slowly see them disappear. To me, they are snapshots of my past. A living photo if you will. When I see them, they generate fond memories of a simpler time and of people who are no longer around, memories that would not otherwise probably cross my mind if they were gone. So, when I see the past torn down to make way for the new, I mourn the loss like that of an old friend.
Whole blocks of down town can disappear in a week, neighborhood’s as well. Take lower Greenvill Ave. It looks nothing like it did when I lived there as a young kid, especially Ross Ave and Henderson. Nobody wants to remodle or update anything that is unique, has a little charm and history to it. Everything has got to be homogeneous, a contemporary, glass, metal with fake stucco structure and no yard!! Cuse, why would you need a yard, when kids don’t even play out side any more?
I suppose I should be thankful that, I, at least have memories to lose as the past is torn down. Kids these days won’t have that luxury. For better or worse, they will end up being just like the structures they are being raised in, that are built to replace the past. Cold, plain, and devoid of depth and charachter… the poor things.
Oh well… let’s look on the BRIGHT SIDE, you can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?? They’ll be fine… a little boring as human beings… but, yea… they’ll manage.
But I digress… Thank you again for your articles of the old neighborhood’s and buildings of the past, they are GRREAT!!!
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Thanks for your comment! I agree with almost everything you said, and, I also mourn the loss of entire neighborhoods which are virtually unrecognizable from my childhood, such as McKinney Avenue (and the whole “Uptown” area). Parts of Dallas are becoming very sterile, and historic photos are often the only proof we have that things used to be different. Thanks again.
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