Preservation Dallas seeks endangered building nominations

Preservation Dallas is looking for the most endangered historical buildings in Dallas, and is accepting nominations through April 9 at 4 p.m.

The Tenth Street Historic District is on the existing list, plus Adamson High School and the "vanishing community surrounding Adamson High School," which would include the Oak Cilff Christian Church. That covers stuff that's been int he news lately. We wonder what else is out there.

To submit a nomination, click here or call Sara Junkin at 214.821.3290. 

• Posted by Rachel Stone on Mar 9, 2010 at 12:13 PM in Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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DallasCityHall.com: A missed opportunity

I owe every resident of Dallas an apology. I could have solved the city's budget woes and fixed the long-term problems facing the city, but I choked. I did not display grace under pressure. What didn't I do? I didn't buy Dallas' Internet domain name when it expired yesterday morning -- because then I would have held it hostage until the city met my demands (non-negotiable, of course) to reform how Dallas is run.

More, after the jump:

Continue reading “DallasCityHall.com: A missed opportunity”

• Posted by Jeff Siegel on Mar 9, 2010 at 06:50 AM in City Hall, Siegel, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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City wants to hire fewer cops this year

As the DMN points out, no matter what other priorities have come and gone these past few years, the city council and city manager have found the money to hire 200 more police officers per year. It was Mayor Tom Leppert's election battle cry, as I recall, and the initiative to hire more officers each year appears to have been effective in helping reduce crime. Now that the city budget is bleeding red ink, though, city manager Mary Suhm told the DMN she's recommending that about 120 officers be hired this year instead of the budgeted-for 191. She cites the budget woes, but she also offers up the excuse that cutting back on the hiring is a good thing because the police department needs more time to integrate the rookies on the force hired the past couple of years during the 200-cops-per-year push.

I don't have a problem with cutting back the hiring for a year; almost everything else is being cut downtown, so it only makes sense to dial back hiring cops for a bit. But to say that we need more time to integrate rookies seems suspect; after all, weren't the number of rookies on the force taken into account when the budget was put together in the first place?

There are going to be plenty of tough budget decisions made downtown in the upcoming six months. Why not just play it straight — say that we simply don't have enough money for this or that — rather than look for excuses to try and save face?

• Posted by Rick Wamre on Mar 8, 2010 at 01:31 PM in City Hall, Crime, Wamre, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Dallascityhall.com where are you?

As you can imagine, us Advocate reporters rely quite a bit on the city's official website, Dallascityhall.com for phone numbers, e-mailing city council members, reading meeting agendas, etc. But when I logged on this morning in hopes of locating a number for someone in the Water Utilities department, I found, well, see for yourself. According to Robert Wilonsky at the Observer, who apparently tried to connect earlier than me, the domain registration expired over the weekend. Doh! The site has reportedly been up and down all morning, so by the time you read this, it might be back. But, as Wilonsky notes, it forces the question, "are budget problems that bad?" — a question we addressed here last week (spoiler alert — the answer is "yes").

• Posted by Christina Hughes Babb on Mar 8, 2010 at 12:53 PM in Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Sharing our stuff (instead of buying more)

I was intrigued by the featured opinion piece in Sunday morning's DMN, which asks the question: "Why own anything?" The premise of the piece is the possibility of shifting from a consumption-based society to "product service systems" — as in,opting to lease instead of own a wheelbarrow, ladder, chainsaw, etc. The piece gives examples of companies beginning to embrace this model with items like cars and bicycles, but talks about how it would require a mindset shift on the part of companies to switch from selling us stuff to selling us services.

"The essential insight is that in many purchases, we don't want the thing per se — we want what it can do for us. You don't crave a lawn mower, you want shorter grass; the desire is not for a refrigerator but for cold, unspoiled milk. And according to an emerging line of thinking, there are great benefits in meeting the customer's needs in creative ways that don't necessarily entail ownership."

Of course, many factors could lead to this shift — the recession, the desire to be "green", the fact that we do, indeed, have too much stuff, and as we realize this, our purchases are starting to slow down. (If you don't think we have too much stuff, read this New York Times story on our obsession with storage. It's long, but incredibly interesting.) As a result, companies are trying to think of new ways to make money, and perhaps this method will be an answer.

I also wondered if any neighbors still do it the old-fashioned way — a neighborhood pool of stuff, or just lending out and borrowing to and from each other on a regular basis. The piece opened with a man who had borrowed his neighbor's wheelbarrow the previous weekend, and wanted to use it again, but felt bad asking. He thought about offering a small fee to borrow it, and then thought it would be great to have an entire network of lending and borrowing between neighbors, so created Rentalic. No Dallas residents have posted their "for rent" items on the site yet, but you can rent a wet/dry vac from Richardson and a chipper/mulcher from Carrollton. Other sites along these lines mentioned in the story are: GoGoVerde, Neighborrow, Bright Neighbor, WeCommune and NeighborGoods. It's a great idea, and one that I hope takes off here.

• Posted by Keri Mitchell on Mar 8, 2010 at 10:21 AM in Media, Mitchell, Shopping, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Graham Dodds cooking at 48 Nights Tuesday

There's been some speculation on who wrote Tuesday's intriguing menu for 48 Nights, the temporary restaurant at the site of the planned Sylvan/30 development. If you haven't heard, most of the city's best chefs are donating their services to the restaurant on Monday and Tuesday nights. Diners pay $75 for one set menu, typically five courses, which is released about a week ahead. Proceeds go to the Mass Care Task Force.

Here's one guess for Tuesday's menu, from Teresa Gubbins, who is playing "guess the chef" every week now.

Thoughtful, but she guessed wrong. We hear it's Bolsa chef Graham Dodds, who lived for a while in Thailand. So far, many 48 Nights dates have sold out, but there are still tickets available for Dodds's Thai cuisine. It could be there's some apprehension regarding his menu's second course: "deep fried grasshoppers and scorpions, mae ploy".

I'm game. All I need now is seventy-five bucks and a date.

• Posted by Rachel Stone on Mar 8, 2010 at 10:03 AM in Restaurants, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Advocate radio: parade talk

Everybody loves a parade ... right? Or maybe, they are more trouble than they are worth. With the city's biggest parade event fast approaching, the Advocate editors sit down to discuss this oh-so vital topic. LISTEN HERE .

• Posted by Christina Hughes Babb on Mar 8, 2010 at 09:20 AM in Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Another stake in the Trinity toll road

More bad news for the Trinity toll road, and this time it comes from two of the highway's biggest supporters: Dallas' Only Daily Newspaper and the mayor.

This story details the woes (which, of course, have been detailed many times elsewhere and long before this, and most recently here): There's no money. And it's not safe. And there's no money. Shock and surprise -- Mayor Park Cities finally acknowledges there's a good chance the toll road will never be built.

Now, perhaps, given the city's budget problems, we can stop spending $1.25 million for the Trinity River Corridor project.

• Posted by Jeff Siegel on Mar 8, 2010 at 08:54 AM in Siegel, Trinity River Referendum, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Productivity Killer: make yourself a Na’vi Avatar

James Cameron’s Avatar is up for a whopping nine Academy Awards, though I’m predicting Best Picture will go to The Hurt Locker. If you’ve seen the 3D film, then you can appreciate the technology behind it. And if you’ve ever wondered how you’d look as one of the blue Na’vi creatures, you can find out here. Just upload your photo and get ready for the wonderfully creepy results. Oh, and you can see what some celebrities would look like here, too.

• Posted by Marlena Chavira Medford on Mar 5, 2010 at 02:00 PM in Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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Restaurant talk: Cuquita's

The old Cuquita's on Henderson was one of my favorite Tex-Mex joints of all time.

But there's a Cuquita's in Oak Cliff, on Kiest just west of Hampton — hooray!

We went for the usual — pollo en mole. I read somewhere recenlty that mole is a "food cliche". Whatever, I don't care. I wil never stop thinking it is the best thing under the sun. And Cuqiuta's mole is great — flavorful layers of chocolate and spice. Not so hot it makes my eyes water, but just hot enough that I need two glasses of iced tea. It comes with rice, which is fluffy and like someone's grandma made it — it tastes homemade. 

Cuquita's also serves freshly squeezed lemonade and homemade horchata. Plus they have beer. And they sell breakfast all day.

They're closed on Tuesdays, but otherwise they're open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on the weekends, they open at 8 a.m.

• Posted by Rachel Stone on Mar 5, 2010 at 12:50 PM in Restaurants, Advocate Mag, Oak Cliff
  
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