Oklahoma City’s Mesta Park & Heritage Hills Neighborhoods

As a child growing up in Oklahoma City I was fond of many of the frame homes gracing the street grid North of downtown. Once I got my driver’s license I would spend hours driving around looking at all the homes that we so much more interesting than the 1960’s ranch my parents built about a year before I was born.

The home pictured at right is one of many in Oklahoma City’s “Heritage Hills” neighborhood. This hipped roof four square home is pretty common for Oklahoma City. The porch extending over the driveway to create a porte-cochere is also fairly common for the era.

It should be noted that Oklahoma City has only a handful of alleys and those are mostly confined to the downtown area. So garages were used for carriages and later for cars. The horses and dirty cars were kept out back as standard practice until after WWII when they crept toward the front all over the country. The porte-cochere was a great way to drop off passengers as well as protect the horse/car from the hot sun.

It is the one story classic bungalow that I really miss. These homes make up the bulk of Oklahoma City’s pre-war housing stock. The wide porches and overhangs help protect the walls from the hot sun.

The version actually happens to have a small second floor. This was often referred to as an “airplane bungalow.” The upstairs space, mostly just a single room, would serve as a sleeping porch to catch breezes from windows on all four sides. The houses were almost exclusively of frame construction with the porch piers of stucco, brick, stone or sometimes wood.

Just blocks away from the very ordinary bungalow above is this magnificent place, the Overholser Mansion built in 1903, four years before Oklahoma became a state. Not a bad little shack huh?

Nearby was the Skirvin family home. Bill Skirvin, was a wealthy business man and owned the finest hotel in town named, of course, the Skirvin Hotel. His daughter Perle Skirvin was born in Michigan in 1889, the year of the land run in Oklahoma. The family moved to Oklahoma in the late 19th Century and Perle lived in the area until she got married to George Mesta, they moved to the East coast.

She was only 36 when George died and in 1940 she moved to Washington D.C. and got involved in politics. In the 40s “Mesta was known as ‘the hostess with the mostest’ for her lavish parties featuring the brightest stars of Washington, D.C. society — such stars included artists, entertainers and many top-level national political figures.” In 1949 she graced the cover of Time Magazine after being named Ambassador to Luxembourg by President Harry Truman.

Her most famous quote:

“Any bitch with a million dollars and a nice dress can be a great hostess in Washington.”

Her life was the basis for Irving Berlin’s musical Call Me Madam staring Ethel Merman and the neighborhood where she was raised is known as Mesta Park. Not bad for a girl from Oklahoma.

See additional photos of homes from these two adjacent neighborhoods on Flickr.

– Steve

St. Louis Region Needs to Address Parking for Scooters & Motorcycles

Last week I did a post where I bemoaned about getting a tow warning from Saint Louis University after I parked my tiny & cute 49cc moped/scooter on the city’s public sidewalk. In doing so I fully expected the debate that followed. Some agreed that SLU should have no control over the sidewalk and that as a society we need to provide parking for motorcycles & scooters. Others agreed SLU had no control over the sidewalk but that the city should have been the one to give me a warning because I shouldn’t have parked on the sidewalk.

I think the debate was healthy and got people more energized for this post on scooter & motorcycle parking. Scooters and motorcycles are a valid means of transportation. Ditto for bicycles. I believe it is important for our region to make at least the urban core friendly to these environmentally friendly methods of transportation by providing appropriate parking. The City of St. Louis along with urban schools like Saint Louis University, Washington University, Webster University (due to Old Post Office Location), and Harris-Stowe University should be having a conversation and taking a pro-active position on parking needs for more efficient modes of transportation.

Here is just a small sample of efforts I found throughout the country:

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Scooter drivers at UW-Madison will find new, designated parking areas in the heart of campus when the academic year begins, and parking outside of those areas could result in $40 fines, officials say.

The new parking system was created in response to the proliferation of the motorized two-wheelers and the need for scooters to coexist safely with pedestrians on a bustling campus.

“When we had 10 or 100 mopeds on campus, it was fine to have no real rules,” says Rob Kennedy, senior transportation planner. “But now we have 1,000 scooter drivers on campus and, at any one time, 600 are parked on campus.”

In an effort to reduce the number of pedestrian-scooter conflicts on campus sidewalks and to improve safety, officials are creating 665 marked moped parking spaces scattered in about 25 areas. Previously, there were about 100 marked scooter parking spaces on campus.
… Continue Reading

Dates Set for Protest & Appeal on McDonald’s Drive-Thru

Citizens opposed to the proposed Suburban McDonald’s will meet on the sidewalk at 3708 S. Grand at 12:30pm on Saturday April 15, 2006. The media is expected around 1pm. Organizers will have signs but feel free to make your own. A petition will most likely be available as well.

The protest is a lead-in to the appeal of the conditional use variance for the drive-thru. The appeal of the variance will be heard at 1:30pm on Wednesday April 19, 2006 in Room 208 of City Hall.

It is important to have a large crowd at both events. We need to send a strong message to Ald. Florida, Pyramid Construction, McDonald’s, Ald. President Shrewsbury, and Mayor Slay that we will not tolerate prior redevelopment ordinances being trampled by a few with enough cash to get what they want.

On a side note, Ald. Florida’s measure to restrict efforts to recall Aldermen failed at the polls on Tuesday. If I were her I’d be worried, very worried.

Mark your calendars: Saturday 4/15 @ 12:30pm and Wednesday 4/19 @ 1:30pm.

– Steve

A Tale of Two Cities (aka Wards)

While discussing plans for a hotel in the red hot east Loop area a friend asked why Alderwoman Jennifer Florida couldn’t be more like Alderwoman Lyda Krewson. Good question. If you’ve read my prior posts on Florida you know I’m not a fan but I came to her defense. Lyda Krewson is working with Loop visionary & developer Joe Edwards. Or more correctly, Krewson is assisting Edwards create a vibrant urban street, Delmar.

Florida, given a Joe Edwards-type visionary, might just come off looking as good as Krewson does. Sadly, Florida is stuck with John Steffen’s Pyramid Companies. So instead of getting hip bowling alleys or boutique hotels like the Delmar Loop, Grand gets a relocated McDonald’s drive through surrounded by a sea of parking.

The mistake Florida made is to accept what they offer and assume that is the best we can get. Pyramid’s best just flat out isn’t good enough. It a company doesn’t get what an urban street in a city should look like then they shouldn’t be operating in the area. I’m sure some municipality in St. Charles County would love to have this McDonald’s.

Pyramid’s developers must look at this section of Grand and just see parcels of land. An Edward’s type developer that understands the urban model can look at the same part of Grand and see how many residential streets feed into the area, how it intersects with Gravois and Chippewa, that the region’s most popular bus line serves the area. This type developer can see the benefit of a good long-range plan to build up the street to an urban model, the way it was before the city let just anything be built.

It is make or break time. Florida is pushing hard for her lack of vision developer Pyramid. If they prevail it will be a sad day for St. Louis. It will mean we are not willing to become a strong urban city but one that will accept anything and everything just to say we’ve had so much development in our ward & city.

Pyramid’s proposal sickens me. Reminds me of the in-fill housing they built in the city with front facing garages a number of years ago (Delmar west of Vandeventer).

People won’t literally move away because of the McDonald’s but I think we will continue to lose urbanists to other cities if we keep following this path. Similarly, we will not attract the population that seeks an urban city. Cities that are following a more urban model such as Portland and Madison, WI will continue to gain while we are stagnant.

– Steve

Support Parents AND Superintendent Williams

Today is election day and only two of the five candidates for the St. Louis School Board have kids in the system and support much of Superintendent Williams’ plan to reform the schools: Peter Downs and Donna Jones. Don’t take my word for it, listen to Downs himself:

Please vote for Downs & Jones for School Board, give the local community college the funding they need and don’t change the process for recalling an aldermen until they’ve reformed themselves.

– Steve