I had arrived in Oklahoma City when it was still recovering from an oil bust, a mini-depression because of a bank’s speculative lending practices, and a down town bereft of character but pock marked with the empty lots that replaced the razed buildings that had made downtown a place to go in anticipation of what hadn’t arrived and the Bust prevented, positive urban renewal.
I was there long enough to learn that when it came to what was a city needing rebirth, there was a cadre of people, politicians, businessmen, the local newspaper owners, chefs, positioned to take advantage of that time when the city would begin to rise and for the most part designed this to happen to their advantage
Certain people and businesses had quietly bought up the dead section of the city that in the old days had been the warehouse area. It was filled with old warehouses and some former livery stables going back to when the city was first established in the years after the Land Run, and was ripe to become a destination place like other major cities had in areas that were once abandoned and avoided parts of town. The once derelict sections of major cities, especially those with waterfronts, now have boutiques and fancy eateries.
To make the plan work, City Hall came up with an effective tax plan of temporarily adding a penny to the sales tax on every dollar spent in a city within a state that taxes just about everything meaning people far beyond the city and even state residents helped pay for it. After a set number of years the idea of making the old brick building area a tourist destination came to fruition, and the owners and in-laws of the newspaper that had strongly supported and promoted this addition to the city, certain local businessmen who now had a monopoly on that area had most of the improvements to their buildings and the streets to get to them were paid for by taxpayers, and the people who would eventually own the city’s NBA team got a new stadium for their minor league baseball team.
This tax plan was subsequently applied to future projects, all of which had the Brick Town area being the hub as a careful look will show all improvements, like all roads to Rome, lead back to this area, its original owners, and those within the ever shape shifting combinations of a small group of people.
Just across a bridge over the tracks from when this area was where all goods arrived by rail was the historically significant commercial center of the Black section of town, Oklahoma City’s smaller version of Greenwood in Tulsa, from the days of official Jim Crow. The Baptist church there had once turned down a new minister applying for a position because they did not find him dynamic enough. This made it possible for Martin Luther King Jr. to be in the right place at the right time when the Civil Rights movement needed him and where he could be found. This cadre did not own the property there, so, using the age of the bridge as a deterrent to traffic, the renaissance was kept on the White side of the tracks. When the Black Community protested this all too specific use of tax money, the local newspaper ran a cartoon of a car full of gang members in silhouette, I guess to not indicate a particular race so the obvious cries of racism could be denied, shooting at a billboard bearing the name of the tax plan that would make the city great.
Although the Deep Deuce did not meet the same fate as Greenwood, the placement of multilane highways separated it from both the downtown area or any connection to the Black Community it once could serve, and so it died
Citizens for the most part dazzled by the presentation of what was best for the city, but better for the cadre, saw this rebuilding of the city as a source pride and the citizens’ spirit came back up having no idea that it was a small circle of people who had worked to bring this plan about in the back room for their financial gain with the most the people getting from it a being that the city was coming alive.
The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building as tragic it as it was became an excuse to push the selectively beneficial idea as a way to show the world you could not crush the Oklahoma Spirit.
What they did not see was, for example, in spite of the eateries and the variety of cuisines, what those cuisines were and, so, what the populace was only offered, was controlled by the shifting group of investors, among them chefs, whose favored access to location, location, location controlled restaurants and their offerings. This caused little places to close and with that variety as well.
When you look at who owns what, it is clear the small cadre of people are somewhat fluid as they are in Venn diagrams of relationships with each other so, as I saw first hand as food-service was my first job after I arrived in the city, a chef or two connected with a real estate agent or two as partners in one restaurant could also be connected to other restaurants in combination with other partnerships which resulted as in the case with which I am familiar, three high end restaurants of differing cuisine within walking distance of each other owned by two chefs with a different real estate partner in each and all the recipes in any of the restaurants were their versions of a dish no matter what it was named. You could think of it as one restaurant broken up.
People celebrated the variety of restaurants in this rene wing city unaware they were all owned in whole or in part by the same circle of people and even the chain Mexican restaurant could only get in if an arrangement advantageous to the circle was met. It must have been the best Mexican restaurant to have qualified to be a part of this or, more likely, as passable as it might be, the owners agreed to the terms.
The rebirth did indeed benefit the city as far as tax dollars and low wage jobs, but what the city could have was limited, and still is, by which ideas benefit the people enough the be a little better than before but, more importantly, benefit the cadre most.
As the city rose and the downtown began coming back, there was even a tax plan that would have allowed the building of a new charter school in that area for the new, hoped for downtown, high salaried residents when all the rebuilding was done. The land was owned, along with others, by a former mayor and former president of the city’s school board who was one of the people promoting that new school, and the one slated to head its board of directors.
The light rail paid for by a similar tax plan to the first, did not bring people into the city from the outlying sections, but brought the people already in the downtown area to Brick Town.
The rebuilding of the city was a noble idea and it has paid off more for some than most all quietly controlled according to the benefit, not to the citizens, but the few. So, there was really nothing wrong with the intention and results, to a degree, the problem was the secret control wielded by a few.
Seeing this happening when I lived there and seeing it continue in other projects now that I don’t, I find I am seeing it happening where I am now.
The State Pier in New Bedford Harbor is a sad, hulking, drab warehouse like thing looking like a closed big box store sitting on a giant parking lot waiting for cars. It sits across the Highway to Cove Street, a scar of a multi-lane road that tore down much of the old waterfront, a ground level version of the Central Artery of Boston’s now defunct Expressway that cut through Boston for decades separating the city proper from its waterfront. Looking at the view of the highway and pier from the bottom of a revitalized Union Street is not a sight that adds to the area. The highway separates the down town businesses and the Historic district from the waterfront, so, besides the steamship terminal and the areas to off load freight, there is one restaurant you have to either drive to or face the traffic on the highway to walk to, a classy seafood snack bar, an ice cream shop, and really nothing else to have you go there unless you mean to.
The highway itself, a long festering mistake in many ways, is to become more like a boulevard with a few more traffic lights to slow traffic down and better street lighting with grassy areas to make it less of the highway it is and a little more pedestrian friendly. A compromise Rose Kennedy Greenway.
It will be a better view entering the city by train and car than what is there now.
What is along the way will also need an upgrade, especially approaching the State Pier and Union Street, and obviously, those things there that have brought success to similar cities with some form of water front would be a positive move.
And so it was that the people of the city recently learned that restaurants, retail shops, a new seafood auction house along with the operations hub for the offshore wind industry already making its appearance will be added to the pier, welcomed additions to the waterfront and a good blind to block the uglier view of the pier that is there now.
According to the mayor,
“The development group selected today, comprised almost entirely of established New Bedford-based businesses, has presented a proposal consistent with what stakeholder groups have demanded: a redevelopment scenario that at once serves the port’s maritime industries and knits the front of the pier to the downtown in order to draw more residents and visitors to the waterfront.”
The state finance agency that manages the 8-acre, state-owned pier chose Taber’s Wharf Partners to develop the pier.
Right now, with only one restaurant on that side of the highway, more would add variety and with shops and other attractions people would have more of a reason to cross over.
It would extend downtown.
The group is made up of five partners with names like Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE) and Coast Line Transfers, but these faceless names are actually made up of the owner and operator of several city restaurants including the one there now so if you do not want to go to that one, having been there before and would rather try another one this time, the choice is limited and controlled while another restauranteur opening a place there would give choice, not only in cuisine but in who gets my money, the former director of the New Bedford Port Authority and now-managing director of Coast Line Transfers, and other commonly popping up names.
The plan calls for a 99-year lease, parking to support anticipated foot traffic on site, a new security plan, and capital investment.
I had just finished dealing with finding housing as it was being discovered the city is being bought by ghost landlords and collections of LLCs that see the city as a mere investment whose spirit will morph into whatever the investors decide it will be no matter how removed they are from the city because of their position in the chain of investors and LLCs.
The city is at the beginning of its rebirth for investors. A casino had fallen through, as did an aquarium, and with the train connecting the city to Boston, there has to be things to get the tourist dollars here.
I had seen this before and the similarities, a small group of connected people who would dictate the spirit of the city and what is offered here according to their benefit as opposed what is actually wanted here.
You just want an unassuming Chinese restaurant downtown and they decide what you get is Asian Fusion or nothing.
The selection process did not sit well with state legislatures as, its being a state-owned property, the process leading up to the announcement should have been more transparent especially as they claim it thwarted efforts by officials and the public to obtain more information on the submitted proposals. It is land owned by the people of the state who should know how it is going to be used, by whom, and to whose benefit.
The mayor might like the idea as he can finally claim he landed a big one and is the person who brought the city back, at what cost and to whom?, but according to State Representative Bill Straus,
“Until today’s press release, no one in the public, no one in the legislature, has been privy to the documents going back and forth. This was done entirely in the dark.”
State Senator Mark Montigny who has outlined legislation to advance economic development admitted,
“The pier was grossly mismanaged for many years, and it has taken a lot of effort to get it to this point in the development process,”
But did not like the Oklahoma City approach adding,
‘The lack of substantive communications from the agency over these past several months has been concerning, and we will remain engaged in this process to ensure that state pier is put to its highest and best use . . . While this is a very encouraging step toward our continued economic revitalization, we will carefully scrutinize MassDevelopment’s recommendation announced today.”
The developers chosen have 180 days to come up with a detailed development plan, engage with current and potential users of the property, provide financial statements and estimates, and present the planned phases of development.
The Venn Diagram will be interesting.
Train is coming. Property is changing hands. The city is allowing the un-housing of its people. Use of public land quietly decided on. Palms are being crossed with Benjamins.
Again, a great idea questionably executed.
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