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Interesting description of Fort Worth


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#1 fragile

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Posted 05 October 2006 - 02:33 PM

From Bernard-Henri Levy's American Vertigo - Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville:

"No sooner said than done. Just after reaching Dallas, I take Route 30, the Tom Landry Highway, named after the former coach of the Dallas Cowboys football team. And here I am, in the midst of a most puzzling city, all parks, deserted hotels, highway overpasses with very few cars - here I am at the center of this empty city where neither the admirable Kimball Art Museum, by Loius Kahn, nor the Hotel Texas, where John and Jackie Kennedy spent their last night together, seem to attract anyone, and where everything looks as if it's actually been constructed around the Mussolini-style building and its whitewashed facade the comptroller had told me about, where a sign reads GREAT WESTERN GUN SHOW."


The "emptiness" he describes is right on the mark...I am always amazed at how large Fort Worth is, yet still has this feel to it, every time I'm there. Hell, even when I lived there it felt empty.

I'm still trying to figure out where the "Mussolini-style building" is...lol!

Edited for horrid grammar mistake...

#2 cjyoung

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Posted 05 October 2006 - 04:05 PM

QUOTE(fragile @ Oct 5 2006, 03:33 PM) View Post

From Bernard-Henri Levy's American Vertigo - Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville:

"No sooner said than done. Just after reaching Dallas, I take Route 30, the Tom Landry Highway, named after the former coach of the Dallas Cowboys football team. And here I am, in the midst of a most puzzling city, all parks, deserted hotels, highway overpasses with very few cars - here I am at the center of this empty city where neither the admirable Kimball Art Museum, by Loius Kahn, nor the Hotel Texas, where John and Jackie Kennedy spent their last night together, seem to attract anyone, and where everything looks as if it's actually been constructed around the Mussolini-style building and its whitewashed facade the comptroller had told me about, where a sign reads GREAT WESTERN GUN SHOW."


The "emptiness" he describes is right on the mark...I am always amazed at how large Fort Worth is, yet still has this feel to it, every time I'm there. Hell, even when I lived there it felt empty.

I'm still trying to figure out where the "Mussolini-style building" is...lol!

Edited for horrid grammar mistake...


Hah, hah, hah!

Empty compared to what? It doesn't seem very empty when I'm leaving downtown headed north on I-35, trying to get to my son's football practice. sleep.gif

#3 fragile

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Posted 05 October 2006 - 05:25 PM

QUOTE(cjyoung @ Oct 5 2006, 05:05 PM) View Post


Hah, hah, hah!

Empty compared to what? It doesn't seem very empty when I'm leaving downtown headed north on I-35, trying to get to my son's football practice. sleep.gif



Well, besides I-35 at those certain special moments, central Fort Worth has a "desolate" feel to it, most especially on the weekends. I've had this impression as a child living there, growing up there, working and going to school there, and I still get it whenever I have the opportunity to visit. I just found it amusing to read the same impression from someone else...

happy.gif

#4 vjackson

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 07:09 AM

I came over to FW with a friend last week, his first time in FW ( Denver transplant), and he commented that the city seemed extremely quiet. The area of town I've found the busiest is the nightmare that is Hulen/Cityview. My favorite part of FW, Fort Worth South, can have an extremely desolate feel, especially on weekends . I'm hoping that will change.

#5 Fort Worthology

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 09:10 AM

What else would one expect from a region so heavily biased towards low density, suburban walled subdivisions, and parking lot-oriented retail where everybody drives?

Things will get better, that much I am confident of. Downtown, of course, is partly successful in this regard, and I think it's well on its way - and I think that the downtown-to-Cultural-District 7th Street corridor and Fort Worth South will boom in this fashion as well.

Fort Worth South already has the weird eclectic businesses - it needs more residential, whether in the form of mixed-use buildings or something like townhomes. Good strides are being made in this area - Texana looks like a solid success, there are new loft apartments over Hot Damn Tamales, and there are other developments like the Fairmount Lofts. As more people move there, things will liven up. I've been seeing some fine street activity at the great Spiral Diner and at Nonna Tatta, thanks to their sidewalk dining which seems popular.

The 7th Street Corridor will be seeing a big influx of residents over the next few years. Putting aside the abysmal MP strip mall, the rest of the big new developments seem quality. Even the actual Montgomery Ward building itself is a solid project, and its new condos will help. So7's retail/office/lofts project will likely be kicking off soon and will fill a gap there, and Museum Place seems like a top-notch project all around. The Acme Brick site will likely lend itself to some good new development, and of course there will be something going in at the old Taylor Rental place, and word of offers being made up and down 7th. If these projects continue in a quality urban fashion (admittedly a big "if"), I think the 7th corridor shows amazing promise.

Make no mistake, Fort Worth isn't going to be some kind of masterpiece of urban development just yet. It'll take time, especially to change the notions of a people so heavily car-only suburb-only parking-lot-only oriented. The sprawl isn't likely to completely stop, either, but I do see great things ahead for Fort Worth urbanism. Yeah, okay, sure, I'm an optimist, but optimism is one thing you've got to have to help drive this sort of thing. Just as Dallas has its Uptown (which I am quite impressed with on several levels, I'll freely admit), I actively hope for Fort Worth to have its own shining urban gems besides downtown.

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#6 hooked

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 09:15 AM

Not everyone is impressed with Levy's work. From a review in the Boston Globe:

Invoking Mark Twain's comment that ''foreigners pronounce better than they spell," a reader from Washington state noted that Levy bungled the spelling of the town of Wenatchee. Another reader regretted to inform that Levy had botched the address of the storied Nelson Algren-Simone de Beauvoir love nest in Chicago. Also in the Windy City, Levy breezily called Chinatown ''the neighborhood of the insane, released en masse from asylums during the Reagan years." But it was not the hardhearted Republicans but the hardhearted Democratic presidents and congressmen who initiated mass de-institutionalization in the 1960s, a reader pointed out.

A former resident of Fort Worth felt that Levy's ''characterization of the city as 'empty' seems particularly curious, as well as inaccurate, and his association of Fort Worth with fascist imagery and ideals strike me as simply bizarre." Prisoner Shane Williams (''an incarcerated reader conversant with Bernard-Henri Levy") penned an erudite critique of Levy's near-obsession with American prisons from inside Los Angeles's Metropolitan Detention Center.

An exchange that provoked more hilarity than even l'affaire Dreyfuss concerned Levy's visit to New York's Rikers Island prison. The state's commissioner of correction insisted, not very convincingly, that two of the gamier incidents in Levy's narrative never happened.


I, too, disagree with the statement that Fort Worth seems empty, unless he's talking about 7:00 on Sunday morning. Lots of folks out and about in downtown, especially on the weekends. Wednesday night the Sundance parking lot between 4th and 5th was full at 7 p.m.

BTW, the Great Western Gun Show moved from Will Rogers to the Convention Center in the fall of '04, I think.

#7 Fort Worthology

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 09:36 AM

QUOTE(hooked @ Oct 6 2006, 10:15 AM) View Post


I, too, disagree with the statement that Fort Worth seems empty, unless he's talking about 7:00 on Sunday morning. Lots of folks out and about in downtown, especially on the weekends. Wednesday night the Sundance parking lot between 4th and 5th was full at 7 p.m.

BTW, the Great Southwest Gun Show moved from Will Rogers to the Convention Center in the fall of '04, I think.


Yeah. While we do have areas of improvement (see my long-winded babbling above), I don't agree on "empty" at all. Some parts are busier than others, naturally.

I've sort of stopped caring what people think of my city. I love my city, and I know what I want out of it, and do what I can to help push that through (quality urban development, for instance). Whatever it is, I still want it to be Fort Worth, though.

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#8 fragile

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 11:04 AM

QUOTE(hooked @ Oct 6 2006, 10:15 AM) View Post

Not everyone is impressed with Levy's work. From a review in the Boston Globe:

Invoking Mark Twain's comment that ''foreigners pronounce better than they spell," a reader from Washington state noted that Levy bungled the spelling of the town of Wenatchee. Another reader regretted to inform that Levy had botched the address of the storied Nelson Algren-Simone de Beauvoir love nest in Chicago. Also in the Windy City, Levy breezily called Chinatown ''the neighborhood of the insane, released en masse from asylums during the Reagan years." But it was not the hardhearted Republicans but the hardhearted Democratic presidents and congressmen who initiated mass de-institutionalization in the 1960s, a reader pointed out.

A former resident of Fort Worth felt that Levy's ''characterization of the city as 'empty' seems particularly curious, as well as inaccurate, and his association of Fort Worth with fascist imagery and ideals strike me as simply bizarre." Prisoner Shane Williams (''an incarcerated reader conversant with Bernard-Henri Levy") penned an erudite critique of Levy's near-obsession with American prisons from inside Los Angeles's Metropolitan Detention Center.

An exchange that provoked more hilarity than even l'affaire Dreyfuss concerned Levy's visit to New York's Rikers Island prison. The state's commissioner of correction insisted, not very convincingly, that two of the gamier incidents in Levy's narrative never happened.


I, too, disagree with the statement that Fort Worth seems empty, unless he's talking about 7:00 on Sunday morning. Lots of folks out and about in downtown, especially on the weekends. Wednesday night the Sundance parking lot between 4th and 5th was full at 7 p.m.

BTW, the Great Western Gun Show moved from Will Rogers to the Convention Center in the fall of '04, I think.


I just finished the book last night, and while there where some interesting points brought up, I wasn't impressed with it. I wasn't expecting Fort Worth to be in it, and I found it surprising. I think Levy drove through on a Sunday morning, or during the Cowboys game.

The "empty" I refer to isn't necessarily "crowd-less," just some parts of the city seem desolate. I've been downtown on a Friday night, just last June, and I could go a few blocks north or south - they were empty in comparison to the jammed sidewalks I had just worked through. But, also, this is just my own personal impression. It could also be the memory remnants of actually seeing central Fort Worth die off during the 70's and 80's.

Hmm, I kinda figured Will Rogers was the "Mussolini-style building." *sigh*

#9 fragile

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 11:06 AM

QUOTE(Atomic Glee @ Oct 6 2006, 10:36 AM) View Post


I've sort of stopped caring what people think of my city. I love my city, and I know what I want out of it, and do what I can to help push that through (quality urban development, for instance). Whatever it is, I still want it to be Fort Worth, though.


I agree. I've never cared what others said, I knew better, and they never had the opportunity to live there...

#10 texastrill

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 11:10 AM

Dust your shoulders off, Fort Worth.
T E X A S T R I L L - G O C O W B O Y S

#11 JulieM

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Posted 06 October 2006 - 05:39 PM

Don't know the author or the book and have little respect for somebody who can't even spell Kimbell correctly and refers to an interstate as a "route". Did he actually come here or read this off of a travel log somewhere.

As for the Kimbell attracting people, I've been twice since April on weekdays and it was crowded both times, the last being the parking lot filled. The time in April it was way to crowded for my tastes.




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