Live Oak, From Elm and Ervay
by Paula Bosse
Live Oak, looking northeast…
by Paula Bosse
Downtown, at the 3-point intersection of Elm, Ervay, and Live Oak (see a map from 1952 here). This photo shows Live Oak, with a view to the northeast. There are a lot of landmarks: the Mayflower Coffee Shop, the Medical Arts Building, the Southland Life Building, the Sheraton Dallas hotel, the Mexico City Cafe, an entrance to an underground public restroom (the tower-like thingy directly under the Lee Optical sign), and the Dallas Athletic Club. Out of frame to the right is the large flashing Coca-Cola sign (which comes with a handy weather forecast). I’ve gotten this intersection from almost every angle. See other photos of this crossroads here and here.
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Sources & Notes
This photo is currently available on eBay (the seller is in France — wonder how this photo ended up in Antibes?).
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Copyright © 2020 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
the interesting thing is that you can see the multi-story parking garage in the distance. a fascinating structure as the cars were taken up on an elevator. the attendants rode up and down on a very narrow elevator system
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I know there was one of those parking garages at Jackson and St. Paul — video of it can be found in this post: https://flashbackdallas.com/2015/12/05/downtown-parking-innovations/
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The video is of a Pigeon Hole system and according to a DMN ad the Medical Arts Parking Garage was a Bowser system. The best I can tell, the systems were similar but the Bowser was less automated requiring a driver to move the car on and off the elevator.
I don’t know if there is anything else to narrow down the date of the photo but because that 56 Buick Roadmaster doesn’t look very old my guess is it is closer to when Southland Center opened in 1958 than when Mayflower Coffee closed in 1968.
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I think the total hatlessness among the men in this photo places it close to the time the Buick was a new car.
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I don’t disagree but I found a couple of things that move it even further away from 1956.
Golden Steer Barbecue (see the sign on the side of the building near the middle of the photo) opened in 1959.
The billboard above the Mayflower Coffee House appears to be the same as an ad that appeared twice in the August 1, 1960 issue of the Dallas Morning News:
A rose waits for those,
Who wait for the rose.
-Warren
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I have a vague memory from my childhood of waiting for a car to come from a parking garage where the attendants rode up and down on an endless-chain kind of perpetually moving elevator. That thing looked scary as heck when I was 8, it would probably be even more so now.
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The Pigeon Hole and Bowser designs incorporated vertical and horizontal motions. What you are describing sounds like a vertical only system. That type has been around since the 1930s and is still in use now:
There was at least one of that type downtown in the 1970s:
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I’m in the process of trying to buy this photo right now thank you for the tip! I’ll bring that photo back home;)
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Good luck!
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It’s really uncomfortable to be this many months away from proper Mexican food and then have a tantalizing view of the Mexico City Café. Woe is me!
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I would like to see photos of the murals on the interior of the Inwood Village El Chico restaurant. I cannot even guess how many times my family, my friends, and I went there over the years or how many pounds I gained!
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Which (if any) of these buildings are still in existence?
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I think the only ones still standing are the Southland Life Building and the Sheraton.
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[…] This photo of the 3-point intersection of Elm, Ervay, and Live Oak is mere steps from the nighttime scene at the top. This daytime scene shows Live Oak with a view to the northeast. When I first began this blog in 2014, I was amazed by how many people mentioned downtown’s (generally unpleasant) underground public restrooms (which I had never heard of) — and this photo shows where an entrance was: near the tower thing seen under the “L” in the Lee Optical sign. From the September post “Live Oak, From Elm and Ervay.” […]
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[…] “LIVE OAK, FROM ELM AND ERVAY” […]
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Mayflower Coffee Shop: Wherever you travel in life, Whatever be your goal, Keep your eye upon the donut & not upon the hole.
Words may not be exact but close I think.
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Ha! My new mantra. Thanks, Ann!
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