It Smells Like Tar There Now
In this week's Urban Tulsa, we have another politely rabble rousing editorial by my favorite republican, Micheal Bates. My favorite part:
Right on, Mr. B! The only way we'll get a downtown worth anything more than a visit is to take it block by block, business by business. And how can the city help with that? Answers forthcoming.
The rest of the editorial talks about the emptiness of downtown, and specifically the death of Main Street as it was guillotined by the Williams Building. There are two bits of Tulsa history, one tragic and one personal, that center around Main Street that I'd like to have remembered.
Number one: There is a building directly across the street from the "Communist Albanian gun emplacement", er, Tulsa World, on Main Street that used to be a Renbergs department store. It has a big funky green facade that makes me think the store must have made one last ditch effort at being fashionable and "with it" around 1989 with a remodel. The store is now closed and the entire building is deserted. This building was once known as the Drexel Building (and perhaps still is in some records) and was one of the first in Tulsa to feature an elevator. And on this elevator in 1921, a young white girl and a black shoeshine boy took a fateful trip, the exact events of which we will never be quite clear on, except that when the doors opened, she cried rape. The black man was arrested, Richard Lloyd Jones wrote an editorial calling for a lynching, mobs assembled, and the Tulsa Race Riot began.
Number two: At 111 East Third Street, about halfway between Main and Boston, on the north side of the street, once sat Saied Music Company. From 1948-1965 it sold band instruments and sheet music under the ownership and direction of Mr. James Guy Saied. He was my grandfather. He died last December, and his death sparked my desire to own my own business and carry on the family legacy of shopkeeping or being a "ragmerchant", as goes the family slang. My desire for a shop led to my interest in cultural development and urban planning, so I never thought to ask him when he was alive, how closely tied to the building of the inner dispersal loop was his decision to move the store? He would have seen very clearly the death of downtown from his shop, would have tracked the path of development and business from Tulsa's heart to the south and the east. His autobiography (my most cherished resource for business advice) discusses the move, but he doesn't mention his reasons for moving. He does note that he chose the new store location, 33rd and Yale, for it's proximity to Tulsa's first large shopping center at 41st and Yale. (which I can only assume would have been Southroads) I know my uncle, now the owner of the company, would love to move the shop south, but knows he couldn't compete with Music-Go-Round and Guitar Center. The path of Saied Music Company is the path of development in Tulsa.
The appearance of the term “acreage” ought to be a clue that a proposal isn’t truly urban development. Suburbs are developed by the acre, but real downtowns are developed in terms of blocks and lots, one building at a time. The diversity created as an area is built up over time by many different builders creates visual interest and long-term sustainability, qualities that a monolithic mixed-use development can only simulate.
Right on, Mr. B! The only way we'll get a downtown worth anything more than a visit is to take it block by block, business by business. And how can the city help with that? Answers forthcoming.
The rest of the editorial talks about the emptiness of downtown, and specifically the death of Main Street as it was guillotined by the Williams Building. There are two bits of Tulsa history, one tragic and one personal, that center around Main Street that I'd like to have remembered.
Number one: There is a building directly across the street from the "Communist Albanian gun emplacement", er, Tulsa World, on Main Street that used to be a Renbergs department store. It has a big funky green facade that makes me think the store must have made one last ditch effort at being fashionable and "with it" around 1989 with a remodel. The store is now closed and the entire building is deserted. This building was once known as the Drexel Building (and perhaps still is in some records) and was one of the first in Tulsa to feature an elevator. And on this elevator in 1921, a young white girl and a black shoeshine boy took a fateful trip, the exact events of which we will never be quite clear on, except that when the doors opened, she cried rape. The black man was arrested, Richard Lloyd Jones wrote an editorial calling for a lynching, mobs assembled, and the Tulsa Race Riot began.
Number two: At 111 East Third Street, about halfway between Main and Boston, on the north side of the street, once sat Saied Music Company. From 1948-1965 it sold band instruments and sheet music under the ownership and direction of Mr. James Guy Saied. He was my grandfather. He died last December, and his death sparked my desire to own my own business and carry on the family legacy of shopkeeping or being a "ragmerchant", as goes the family slang. My desire for a shop led to my interest in cultural development and urban planning, so I never thought to ask him when he was alive, how closely tied to the building of the inner dispersal loop was his decision to move the store? He would have seen very clearly the death of downtown from his shop, would have tracked the path of development and business from Tulsa's heart to the south and the east. His autobiography (my most cherished resource for business advice) discusses the move, but he doesn't mention his reasons for moving. He does note that he chose the new store location, 33rd and Yale, for it's proximity to Tulsa's first large shopping center at 41st and Yale. (which I can only assume would have been Southroads) I know my uncle, now the owner of the company, would love to move the shop south, but knows he couldn't compete with Music-Go-Round and Guitar Center. The path of Saied Music Company is the path of development in Tulsa.
posted by Jamie at 9:52 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the kind words, Jamie, and thanks for sharing your reflections on Tulsa history and your grandfather. That's quite a heritage you have. It sounds like retail runs in the family. I fondly remember going to one of your grandfather's Sousa concerts at the Mabee Center.
I'd guess that Renberg's last face lift was closer to 1970, maybe earlier. Southroads Mall didn't open until 1969, but Southland, now Promenade, opened some years earlier, so that's likely what prompted your grandfather's move to 31st and Yale.
Hi Jamie -
I'd have to go out on the limb even farther than Michael, and say that the Renbergs facade dates to the 1950's. I'm no expert, but I love that period in architecture, so I think I know "streamline" when I see it.
I'm a Tulsa native currently exiled in Connecticut. I was in Tulsa in December visiting family, and saw the Renbergs facade again while looking for . . . you guessed it, the Drexel Building! My daughter is doing a term paper on the Tulsa Race Riot, and we were looking for landmarks.
Keep up the good work on your blog. I am beginning to monitor some Tulsa blogs, as I hope to move back there in the next couple of years.
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