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Dallas historic preservationists work to restore, revitalize community

Three people standing on the street, read a historical marker in front of the Texas Theatre on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Dallas.
Yfat Yossifor
/
KERA
From left, David Preziosi, Executive Director of the Texas Historical Foundation, Sarah Crain, Executive Director of Preservation Dallas, and Alicia Quintans, American Institute of Architects, read the historical marker in front of the Texas Theatre on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Dallas.

On a clear, sunny morning in Oak Cliff, Jefferson Boulevard is alive. Cars zip up and down the street. Residents walk in and out of storefronts on the bottom floor of the Jefferson Tower. Some eat at El Padrino looking at the iconic Sonny the Steer perched on top of the Charco Broiler Steak House across the way.

These unassuming buildings and landmarks define the street, differentiating it from any other shopping strip in the city.

Among those landmarks is the Texas Theatre, built in 1931 and one of the most important buildings on Jefferson due to its connection to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The theater was the site at which Dallas police apprehended Lee Harvey Oswald, the man arrested for Kennedy's murder. After the assassination, it was covered with a stucco shell on its exterior, altering the look of the building.

“They did a massive redesign of the building to look totally different and kind of erase the connection with the Kennedy assassination,” said David Preziosi, executive director of the Texas Historical Foundation.

Preservation in Dallas started about 50 years ago with the first ordinance created to protect the West End area — and predominantly the Texas School Book Depository Building.

A detail looking up at the marquee of The Texas Theatre
Yfat Yossifor
/
KERA
The Texas Theatre is an important historical landmark in Dallas built in 1931, which has been rescued from demolition and preserved.

Following the Kennedy assassination there were calls to demolish the building and “erase the stain” on Dallas, Preziosi said.

“But there were some forward-thinking people that said, ‘we need we need to preserve this building, it's part of our national history now’,” Preziosi said. “And thankfully it wasn't torn down because it's one of the highest-visited sites here in Dallas.”

The Texas Theatre was also spared and later restored for the filming of the 1991 movie “JFK.” It's been a Texas Historical Commission landmark since 2013 and still operates as a movie theater today.

Jefferson Boulevard has been Oak Cliff’s main street for decades. But Sarah Crain, Executive Director of Preservation Dallas, said, to her, it feels like the main thoroughfare of the city.

“When you walk down the street, you get a sense of place very easily,” Crain said. “And I think that's really what we're talking about, is how do we continue to conserve and preserve these senses of place across Dallas?”

Demolishing history

After the historic Cox Mansion in Highland Park was demolished, community members renewed calls for historic preservation in a town that does not have a system in place for such designations. The 1912 mansion was known to be the most important house in the Park Cities by Preservation Park Cities.

Highland Park town officials said that while the town wants to keep historical homes intact, decisions about preservation remain at the discretion of the property owner.

Larry Good, Preservation Park Cities board member, previously told KERA that keeping historic homes was a visible reminder of history.

“To have more and more of those houses demolished, it just leaves us with fewer and fewer of the representative homes of the whole history of those two communities, so it's important,” Good said of homes in the Park Cities.

Steve Clicque
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KERA

The demolition of the Cox Mansion, built in 1912, is not the first to be demolished — and it won’t be the last, Preservation Dallas president Ron Siebler said.

Years earlier, the Trammell Crow estate at 4500 Preston Road was also demolished.

Historic homes are often what drive people into an area in the first place, Siebler said.

“It's that goose that laid the golden egg," he said. "And yet here we are eating the goose."

Crain, with Preservation Dallas, said the Park Cities are in a different position as far as historical preservation than where Dallas was 50 years ago. When preservation in Dallas first kicked off, it was because of a movement pushed by preservationist homeowners.

“It really takes a community to come forward to save these, either neighborhoods, these cultural icons of Dallas, or these community spaces like churches that may not have congregations anymore,” Crain said. “And when you don't have these public processes, then the responsibility is really on the independent individual owner, and that’s a much more difficult thing to put pressure on.”

Preservation often comes down to tension between cities, individuals like homeowners or developers, and the community and culture of an area.

Public processes available for preservation in Dallas take away the pressure from individual property owners, Crain said.

“In Dallas, what we're really saying is, ‘this is a cultural icon, this is a community icon,' and we're really trying to save the structure," Crain said. "We're saving the heart of whatever neighborhood that we are really going in and advocating for.”

Reviving a community

Todd Lott, board chair of Arts Mission Oak Cliff, knows firsthand what it means to save the heart of a community.

Arts Mission is housed in the Winnetka Congregational Church, a Winnetka Heights neighborhood church built in 1929. It sits at the corner of West 12th Street and South Windomere Avenue, across from Greiner Junior High School.

After passing through different owners and serving a variety of uses, the former church now hosts performances and serves as a shared workspace for local artists.

The Arts Mission Oak Cliff building viewed from the front in the Winnetka Heights historic neighborhood in Dallas.
Yfat Yossifor
/
KERA
The Arts Mission Oak Cliff opened in 2017 and preserved many elements of the church in the Winnetka Heights historic neighborhood in Dallas.

Lott said he and his wife Lola bought the building and restored it about eight years ago, but there is still work to be done.

The ceiling over what used to serve as the sanctuary space is open, exposing the rafters and wiring.

“The acoustics are amazing and I'm just a little worried, and it looks cool, so we're worried about it changing the acoustics a little bit,” Lott said. “And plus, it's expensive.”

Lott said there are grants available that Arts Mission can’t apply for until they’re a fully accessible building.

So, his next project is to install a lift to make the building accessible for wheelchair users. The lift will be inside the building almost like an elevator to maintain the original exterior of the church.

Once Arts Mission is fully accessible, it will open its performers to grants that require them to perform in fully accessible venues.

“Being a good neighbor, being accessible, that's the other issue,” Lott said, noting the community benefit.

Todd Lott, board chair of Arts Mission Oak Cliff, talks while standing in the empty auditorium.
Todd Lott, board chair of Arts Mission Oak Cliff, talks about the space and preservation of the historical building on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Dallas.

Alicia Quintans, a preservation architect with the American Institute of Architects, said when the Lotts first wanted to make the old Winnetka Heights neighborhood church into an arts center, there was pushback from the local community.

“They went through a lot, a lot of hoops,” Quintans said. “I mean, it was a really hard thing to blend the neighborhood wishes with this, but they were successful.”

Neighborhood pushback was one of the unexpected challenges Lott said they had to face when starting their restoration journey. They went door to door in the neighborhood explaining their plans for the building to mixed reactions — some in support, others skeptical.

After going back and forth with the neighborhood and completing the restoration, Lott said one of the first shows they hosted was a Christmas singalong.

Lott said he stood outside on the sidewalk listening to the music and watching the stage through the open front doors. One of the neighborhood skeptics, who had shown up to the Christmas performance, walked outside the building toward Lott.

“I didn't know he was there,” Lott said. “I’m like, ‘wow, thanks for coming.’ He goes, ‘no, no I'm going to go grab my wife and money for the basket.' So, yeah, it's like, we're doing the right thing.”

Got a tip? Email Megan Cardona at mcardona@kera.org.

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Megan Cardona is a daily news reporter for KERA News. She was born and raised in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and previously worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.