Flashback : Dallas

March 19, 2015

An Incredible View From Republic Tower 2 — 1968

Photo by Bill Parrish, 1968, used with permission (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

On August 15, 1968, teenager Bill Parrish — a former Dallasite who was back in town on a visit — was surprised to see that a new building has sprung up since he’d left: the 50-story Republic Tower 2 (built in 1964), the much-taller sister-building to one of Dallas’ most famous skyscrapers, the 36-story rocket-topped Republic National Bank Building. He wondered if he could get to the top of the building to take some photos. Bill remembers the day clearly:

“I lived in Dallas until I was 9 years old, at which time we moved to Palo Alto, Califorinia. I spent the summer of 1968 at Texas A&M in an engineering program for high-ability science students. My parents picked me up in College Station and we came back via Dallas. I was a ‘tourist who used to live there’ and wanted some shots to remember the city by — even as a teenager. I had a fairly good camera, and I knew how to take pictures, having done photojournalism in high school. Also, I remembered how much fun I had living in Dallas, so maybe I was looking at the city a little differently.

“We stopped in Dallas for a few days on the way back, and we spent one day downtown visiting old haunts. My dad and I were in our suits, and we went to the new (to us) Republic Tower 2 and rode the elevator to the top and asked around if we could take some shots out of some windows. Some very nice folks allowed us to use an office that was currently not being used. A number of shots were made from the same office. I think we were in and out in about 5 minutes — I remember the folks up there were very nice to us … considering we just ‘dropped in.’

“I just wish I had shot like 3 rolls of film — like inside the Mercantile lobby, inside Titche’s, and inside Neiman’s. I would have shot stuff at Walnut Hill Village, Marsh Hill Village, in the terminal at Love Field, at my old school, peoples’ houses I remembered, restaurants, etc. if I had known they would be of value in 50 or so years.

“I guess the takeaway is that today if something catches your eye, shoot it (with your phone even), and archive it so it can be found later… and don’t throw away old pictures! You may not be able to keep everything, but be careful about what might be of value to someone.”

Below are some of Bill’s really, really wonderful photos taken on that summer day in 1968 from a top floor of the tallest building in Dallas. (Many of these are HUGE. Click to enlarge.)

The office Bill shot from; his aluminum camera case is on the windowsill.

The original be-rocketed Republic National Bank Building on the left, the taller Republic Tower 2 in the middle.

***

Sources & Notes

All photos in this post by Bill Parrish, used with his permission. They first appeared in the Retro Dallas Facebook group.

During this short trip to Dallas, Bill’s family also shot some home movie footage, which can be seen here.

Below, a Google map showing the Bill’s general view of the photos looking over Pegasus to Oak Cliff:

Some photos by a different photographer, taken from the top of the Republic Center Tower II (its official name) in 2007, can be seen here. A couple of the photos show the exact same shots Bill took. A lot can happen in 40 years!

The Wikipedia page for Republic Center is here; the official Republic Center site is here (worth checking out if only to see the BEAUTIFUL shot of the two buildings, including the re-lit “rocket” tower).

My previous post, “The Republic National Bank Building: Miles of Aluminum, Gold Leaf, and a Rocket,” is here.

All of Bill Parrish’s photos are very large. Click to see some of them much, much larger!

Thank you so much, Bill, for sharing these fantastic pictures. The photo at the top is now one of my favorite-EVER shots of the Dallas skyline!

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March 16, 2015

Triple Underpass — 1950s

Coming and going…

by Paula Bosse

A view toward Oak Cliff, back before the words “triple underpass” began to be capitalized.

I LOVE this photo.

Check out this same view from about 1936 here.

***

Sources & Notes

Photo found here (along with other JFK-related photos of Dealey Plaza).

4 Comments

March 13, 2015

Lakewood’s “Modernistic” Skillern’s Drug Store — 1934

Architect’s drawing, 1934 — Abrams & Gaston…

by Paula Bosse

The drawing above was architect J. N. McCammon’s design for a new 14,000-square-foot concrete-and-stucco building of a new Lakewood development, at Abrams and Gaston (a stone’s throw from land now occupied by the parking lot of the Lakewood Whole Foods). It was to be built by Rae Skillern, whose Skillern’s drug store would anchor the development, with a Wyatt Food Store also occupying a large chunk of the property. The “retail village” was to be modeled (…somewhat) after the much-lauded Highland Park Village shopping center, and its design was described in articles as being “modernistic.”

Construction was to begin in early 1934 and be completed in 90 days, but things hit a bit of a roadblock when Lakewood residents objected to a shopping area in their “high-class” residential neighborhood (charming though Skillern’s design might have been…). A zoning classification change from “local retail” to “residential” was sought by concerned Lakewood inhabitants, but the City Plan Commission nixed this and gave the builders the go-ahead.

Skillern’s No. 4 opened in December of 1934 at 6401 Gaston and humbly hailed its newest emporium as “America’s most beautiful drug store.” It was, by far, the largest in the local company’s quickly expanding chain, and it featured a large, varied inventory, beautiful fixtures and innovative merchandising, a large soda fountain (with curb service), a “perfume bar,” and an open view into the “prescription department” where customers could watch the pharmacists doling out their medications.

The small shopping area quickly became a popular shopping destination (along with the larger Lakewood Shopping Center across Gaston), and the big, new Skillern’s — which sat at the point of the triangular-shaped “village” — was its focal point.

Dec., 1934

Skillern’s left its cool building sometime around 1971, after a fire caused heavy damages in November, 1970. It moved across the street, into the equally cool old Gaston Avenue Pharmacy (known familiarly as Doc Harrell’s drug store, the place with the iconic conical roof), not long after Harrell’s death in 1969. The Lakewood outpost of the Mickey Finn’s chain of pool halls opened in the old Skillern’s space in February, 1972. In 1978 the property was condemned by the city to make way for the weird Abrams Bypass, which cut through that northeast corner of the Gaston-Abrams intersection; several buildings in the immediate vicinity deemed to be in the way of progress were demolished, including Rae Skillern’s “modernistic” drug store, a Lakewood landmark for over 40 years. Pity.

Below, a screenshot of footage from WFAA-Channel 8 News, in late November 1970. A last hurrah.

skillerns_lakewood_nov-29-1970

***

Sources & Notes

Skillern’s was located on the northeast corner of Gaston and Abrams at the tip of a triangular-shaped piece of land. The drawing at the top shows Abrams running vertically (to its west), and Gaston running horizontally (to its south). It would have faced the old Dixie House space. The Abrams Bypass skewed everything, but it was about where the little triangular “park” is now — between Abrams Parkway and Abrams Road, just west of the Whole Foods parking lot. (UPDATE: I now know that that greenspace has a name: Harrell Park!) Below is an aerial photo of what this part of Lakewood used to look like. Gaston is in yellow, Abrams is in blue, the Skillern’s building is circled in red, and the Lakewood Theater (for reference, because this all looks pretty freaky to us today and it’s hard to get one’s bearings) is circled in white. Looking northeasterly.

To see a larger image of this aerial photo — without the markings — click here. (Photo from the book The Dallas Public Library, A Century of Service by Michael V. Hazel, presumably from the collection of the Dallas Public Library.)

An interesting account of the how the bizarro Abrams Bypass happened can be found in the D Magazine article “Why Lakewood Doesn’t Trust Itself” by Charles Matthews (Oct., 1978), here. A Dallas Morning News article on the same topic — “Lakewood Plan May Benefit Bank” by Henry Tatum (March 12, 1978) — can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives.

13 Comments

March 10, 2015

The Allen Street Taxi Company

Allen St. Taxi Co. / George W. Cook Collection, SMU

by Paula Bosse

This has to be one of my favorite “unknown Dallas” photographs that I’ve come across. It shows the Allen St. Taxi Co. — in the State-Thomas area — at 1922 Allen Street (now pretty much vacant land under the Woodall Rodgers freeway). My ability to date cars is not good, but from city directory information, it seems that this photo might date from somewhere between the mid-1920s to around 1930. The owners/proprietors of the company were listed as John Leonard and Andrew Short in the 1929 telephone book. I wonder if they are in this fantastic photo? Let’s look a little more closely at some of the details. (All pictures larger when clicked.)

Those phones!

I love these guys. All business.

“Bullweed.” What is all this writing? I love the guy’s face looking out of the window.

“Dallas.” Car-people know exactly what make and model this vehicle is. …I am not one of these people.

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo, titled “Allen Street Taxi Co.,” is from the George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Image Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; it can be viewed here.

The first “official” listing of the Allen St. Taxi Co. was in the 1929 city directory. The address at that time (which usually reflected information supplied the previous year) was 1907 Allen St. It didn’t appear again in the directory until 1932 when it was listed at 2816 Juliette St. In 1933 and 1934 it was listed at 2114 Hall St. In 1936 and 1937 it had moved to 2217 Hugo. And in 1938, the taxi part of the business seems to have fallen by the wayside, and it became Allen St. Transfer.

In 1925 there were only three official cab companies listed in the city directory. But the rough-and-tumble world of taxi cab service in the unregulated ’20s and ’30s was pretty intense. There were a lot of unlicensed jitneys rolling around town, especially, one would assume, in the segregated black neighborhoods of the city unlikely to be served by white-owned companies. My guess is that this might have been how the Allen St. Taxi Co. began.

For more on the go-go-go competitive world of taxi service at this time, see my previous post, “Washington Taxi Company: ‘Call George!'” here.

11 Comments

March 9, 2015

The Interurban Parlor Car: Perusing the News in Comfy Chairs

(Click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The height of comfort!

You know this photo was taken for promotional purposes, because none of the men has a reeking cigar clenched between his teeth.

***

Texas Electric Railway Interurban ad reprinted in Texas Historian, Jan. 1981.

Interurbans were great. I wish we still had them. Read about what they were, here.

4 Comments

March 8, 2015

Not Dead Yet at McKinney & Routh

A fleet of Cadillacs in front of 2533 McKinney Ave.

by Paula Bosse

The photo above shows a truly beautiful, Spanish-style building that was built in 1927 at the northwest corner of McKinney Avenue and Routh Street. The view shows the Routh Street side. The person who took this photograph would have been standing across the street on the property of the dearly-departed McKinney Avenue Baptist Church (most recently transformed into the Hard Rock Cafe). You might be surprised to learn that the building in this photo still stands, and it’s mostly recognizable almost 90 years later.

The Community Chapel Funeral Home (yes, a funeral home!) was designed by noted architect Clarence C. Bulger (whose father, C. W. Bulger, designed, among other things, the Praetorian Building downtown AND the just-mentioned McKinney Avenue Baptist Church which was right across the street).

ad-funeral-home_mckinney-routh_directory-1929 City directory, 1929

In addition to the funeral home portion (reception area, business office, show rooms, “operating room” (!), chapel with seating for 100, and the euphemistically named “slumber room”), the building also contained a residence for the chief mortician and his embalmer wife, an apartment for the ambulance/hearse drivers, and a “pavilion for recreation of employees.” The building and its beautifully-appointed interior cost in excess of $100,000 (which the Inflation Calculator estimates is the equivalent of more than $13 million today!).

Also, an “oxygen plant” was somewhere on the grounds. I’ve never heard of an oxygen plant, but they seem to be a mortuary thing. Let’s hope recently-bereaved smokers were kept at a safe distance from all that highly flammable oxygen, because the company had a bunch of promotional matchbooks printed up, and I can only imagine they were readily available in tastefully-arranged candy dishes of every room of the establishment. And in those days, one didn’t necessarily step outside to smoke one’s anxiety away.

weever-funeral-home_fkickr1

weever-funeral-home_fkickr2

1937 Dallas directory

The funeral home at 2533 McKinney Avenue lasted almost thirty years. Sometime in the mid-’50s it was renovated into office and retail space (classified ads mentioned 2-, 3-, and 4-office suites). That lovely interior must have been hacked up pretty bad. An early tenant was the Bankers Securities Corporation, shown below in a newspaper ad from 1956 (someone made some poor choices on that renovation of the exterior). (This view shows an entrance from McKinney rather than Routh.)

Ad detail, Jan., 1956

For the next 40-odd years, 2533 McKinney Avenue was home to a variety of insurance agents, a fur salon, several companies that advertised in the classifieds for vague “salesmen” positions (one company did specify that it was looking for encyclopedia salesmen in 1963), art galleries, architect/design businesses, offices of “El Sol de Texas” (“the only Spanish-language newspaper in North Texas”), and antique shops.

It all turned around, though, when the long-suffering building was re-renovated and became a restaurant space. Since at least 1999 when Uptown began to explode, it’s been home to bistros, cafes, and upscale eateries. The photos below show some of the restaurants that have set up shop there, and if you know what you’re looking at, the place really does look very similar to C. C. Bulger’s design from almost 90 years ago.

paris-bistrot_2001 Le Paris Bistrot opened in 1999. The owner changed the name to Figaro Cafe in 2004 when the U.S. was going through an anti-French phase.

urbano_city-data Urbano Paninoteca opened in 2007. Something called Split Peas Soup Cafe opened in 2009.

sfuzzi_scrumpliciousfood_sm

Then Sfuzzi opened with a big splash in 2010. (It had been a McKinney Avenue staple in the 1980s and ’90s, closed, and came back in 2010.) The first photo shows the Routh Street entrance, the second photo shows the McKinney entrance.

And now it’s the Fat Rabbit, which opened earlier this year. Let’s hope they get some landscaping in there STAT! (UPDATE: Fat Rabbit is now an ex-rabbit, and after spending some time of his own in the “slumber room,” he has joined the choir invisible. Next!)

And let’s hope that those tiled roofs and stuccoed walls remain a distinctive part of its future. I love the fact that it still looks a lot like it once did. And I actually like the fact that restaurants have been operating out of an old funeral home for over 15 years. Restaurateurs might be hesitant to publicize the building’s past (although I’m pretty sure most of them have been completely unaware of what the place used to be), but modern-day Harolds and Maudes might be giddy at the prospect of an unusual dining option and move this place right to the top of their date-night list.

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo is a detail of the ad that appeared in the 1929 Dallas city directory. It shows four Cadillacs — a hearse, 5- and 7- passenger sedans, and an ambulance (“purchased from the Prather Cadillac Company”).

Matchbook artwork from Flickr, here.

The first Sfuzzi photo is from the food blog Scrumplicious Food, here. A GIGANTIC version of the photo can be seen here — you can look at all the details. Second photo of Sfuzzi from Yelp.

Fat Rabbit image from Google street view.

Sources of all other clippings and photos as noted.

Some images larger when clicked.

13 Comments

March 6, 2015

The Dallas Skyline from the Maple Terrace Penthouse — 1952

View from the penthouse (Huntington Library)

by Paula Bosse

The best view of the Dallas skyline that no longer exists may very well have been the view from atop the Maple Terrace Apartments, located on Maple Avenue, right across Wolf Street from the Stoneleigh Hotel. The photo above was taken in 1952, when there was a straight-shot view of downtown, with no hulking buildings to spoil the vista. This view — completely unobstructed except for the Stoneleigh (out of frame, at left) — must have been spectacular at night. (Although, as can be seen at the far right, the industrial area that surrounded the iconic DP&L smokestacks was also part of the view. Also not included in realtor brochures would have been the fact that the luxury apartment building overlooked the adjacent Little Mexico neighborhood, often described as a “slum area” — the huge economic disparity between the neighboring haves and have-nots would have been starkly apparent to any gimlet-sipping rooftop visitor. And then there was the not-so-distant meat-packing plant…. But I digress.)

The beautiful Maple Terrace Apartments — designed by architect Alfred Bossom (who also designed the Magnolia Building) — was built in 1924-25 and opened with great fanfare as the city’s first luxury apartments.

An early tenant was Morris Feldman, a Polish immigrant whose family owned the successful Parisian Fur Co. (later Parisian-Peyton). Morris’ son, the incredibly wealthy oilman and art collector, D. D. Feldman, must have been quite taken with his parents’ home there, because in the late ’40s or early ’50s, he transformed the entire seventh floor — which had previously contained 20 “hotel-type” units — into his personal penthouse. The patio terrace with the to-die-for view was the cherry on the sundae.

Countless cocktail parties, dinner parties, and fashionable teas were held in the Feldmans’ penthouse. The interior design — the work of Tom Douglas, of Los Angeles — was, apparently, much admired. The decor consisted of a mixture of typically cool Mid-Century Modern pieces as well as a few touches that, from a 21st-century vantage point, look a little … tacky. Somewhere in all of the acreage of furnishings was a fireplace, a white leather-covered piano (!), “a cocoa-striped sofa with pale blue frame,” murals, white brick wallpaper, and several pieces of furniture and cabinetry with a “driftwood finish.” And lots of lacquer. And mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. These “timeless furnishings in beige, marigold, white leather and ash” (DMN, Nov. 19, 1960) are dated relics of another era, but, at the time, they were splashed across the pages of magazines such as Architectural Digest.

As far as I know, the seventh floor of the Maple Terrace is still a single space. A 1978 real estate ad touted its “recently redecorated” 3,000 sq. ft. amenities:

Below, the present-day penthouse floor plan from the Maple Terrace’s website:

And, look, here’s a photo of what that entryway looks like now, (without the mural):

I’m sure the rooftop terrace is still as beautiful as ever, but, sadly, it will never again boast of that once-incredible view:

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo (and all black and white photos from this series) by Maynard L. Parker, for Architectural Digest; from the Maynard L. Parker Collection at the Huntington Library, accessible here. The top photo is a detail, which has been cropped and reversed; the original photo is shown in reverse on the Huntington site (along with some early image “editing” on the outline of the Stoneleigh), which is a bit freaky when you know that what you’re looking at is backwards!

Color photos and floor plan from the website of the Maple Terrace Apartments, here. Biographical info on the architect, Sir Alfred Bossom, is here. Fabulous photos of the building from AIA Dallas, is here; and a wonderful piece on the mystique of living in the famed Maple Terrace from D Magazine, is here.

An intense and thorough description of the Feldmans’ penthouse decor is in the article “Feldman Apartment: Timeless Decorating” by Jeanne Barnes (Dallas Morning News, Nov. 19, 1960).

In addition to his oil holdings, D. D. Feldman was an important collector and patron of Texas art. In reading about Mr. Feldman, my favorite tidbit is this, from the book The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough (Penguin, 2009):

feldman_big-rich_quote

11 Comments

March 5, 2015

Winter Scene: The Belo Mansion & The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart — ca. 1902

Snow on Ross Avenue…

by Paula Bosse

A beautiful dusting of snow in one of the tonier areas of the city, captured by a postcard photographer in the early years of the 20th century — back when the snowy slush along Ross Avenue would have been caused by horses and the buggies they pulled behind them.

The date of this postcard is unknown, but at the end of 1902 (the same year the construction of the cathedral was completed) it snowed in Dallas — a “weather event” then (as now) so out of the ordinary that it resulted in these rapturous few paragraphs from the December 4, 1902 edition of The Dallas Morning News:

snow_dmn_120402 DMN, Dec. 4, 1902

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard from Flickr, here.

The Belo Mansion was built in about 1890; more info here.

Construction of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart (now the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe) was completed in 1902. Except for the bell tower, which, though part of the architect Nicholas J. Clayton’s original design, was not completed until 2005. More on this “sympathetic addition” from Architexas, here.

While most of the buildings and houses that once stood along ritzy Ross Avenue are long gone, both the Cathedral and the Belo Mansion still stand as Ross Avenue landmarks.

Below, the same view today (sans snow), via Google Street View (click for larger image). I really wish that iron fence was still there.

3 Comments

March 3, 2015

Underwriters Salvage Co., Dallas Warehouse — 1920

The company’s Dallas warehouse on N. Lamar (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The Underwriters Salvage Company of New York (founded in 1893) was a business that worked with insurance companies and merchants in settling losses due to merchandise damaged by fire, water, etc. In their words:

underwriters-salvage-co_1920 Underwriters Salvage Co., 1920

There were branch offices in cities around the country, including Dallas, which was the location of the company’s Southwestern offices, or, their “Gulf Department,” located in the American Exchange National Bank Bldg. on Main St. The warehouse pictured above was at 2014-16 North Lamar (in the West End warehouse district, between McKinney Ave. and Munger). Not only would merchandise being readied for processing be stored there, there would probably also be large fans going full-blast to dry out and remove the smell of smoke from items that would soon be sold for bargain prices, either to the public or to wholesalers via “fire sales” or public auctions.

The company’s most famous fire sale (which they were quick to mention in later national advertising) was the huge dispersal of merchandise from the big fire at Neiman-Marcus in 1964. Instead of the usual, somewhat dull, inventories of shoes or boys’ coats or rope (“all sizes”), that sale included Neiman’s eye-poppingly expensive fur coats and other luxury goods (and, I think, every single piece of merchandise in the store that survived), all marked down to bargain basement prices. Now THAT is a fire sale.

underwriters-salvage_dmn_021013 1913

underwriters-salvage_dmn_062224 1924

underwriters-salvage_dmn_061324 1924

***

Top photo and text excerpt from a tiny pocket-sized booklet/calendar issued by the Underwriters Salvage Company of New York in 1920, featuring photos of the company’s branches around the United States.

3 Comments

March 2, 2015

Texas Independence Day: The Most Patriotic Bank Ad EVER — 1921

by Paula Bosse

Today is the anniversary of Texas Independence. Below, you will find the most heart-swellingly patriotic bank ad ever penned. Before you plunge in, you might want to get a hanky. (Transcription below.)

tx-independence_ad_dmn_030121 Dallas Morning News, March 1, 1921

Four score and five years ago tomorrow a little band of fervent patriots, defying the tyranny of a foreign yoke, gave enduring form and substance to the underlying principles of a free and independent people.

Unfurling the Lone Star Flag to the Southern breeze, they gave its composite symbolism a lasting signification among the nations of the world. Courage, fidelity and truth — devotion to a single aim — wrought out of the wilderness a new empire, dedicated to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Immortalized in song and story, the signers of the Declaration of Texas Independence stand shoulder to shoulder in Texan annals with the martyrs of Goliad and the Alamo and the victors of San Jacinto.

We, therefore, shall honor them tomorrow, pausing in the excited quest for business triumphs to worship for a moment before the shrine of liberty and thus to renew the exalted sentiments in our own hearts that inspired the lives and melded the destinies of our heroic dead. Hence the Clearing House banks of Dallas, over and above a perfunctory obedience to ancient custom and the provisions of our own by-laws, shall close our doors in reverential memory of the sacrifices of men who placed duty before gold, freedom before prosperity and righteousness before luxurious living — actuated by the hope that in this simple tribute to their illustrious names, to their glorious deeds, we may imbibe more of the patriotic spirit that animated them and thus become, through an advancing excellence of citizenship, more worthy of the heritage which they have left us.

American Exchange National Bank
City National Bank
National Bank of Commerce
Dallas Trust and Savings Bank
Security National Bank
Central State Bank
Dallas National Bank

Composing the Dallas Clearing House Association

Remember the Alamo! And remember the men who placed “righteousness before luxurious living”! (Even though that last part’s not exactly a sentiment that Dallas is typically known for….)

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