Fun with Beryl Ford

[PonderInc]

I was looking through the Beryl Ford Collection online, and found an interesting photo of the model for the Civic Center area.  I'm intrigued by the big, round thing.  Very Jetsons!  What was it supposed to be?  

[PonderInc]

Here's an interesting insight into the 1950's mindset:

[dbacks fan]

It sits roughly where the old city hall is now but it dwarfs everything around it. The County Court house looks like it could easily fi inside of it.

[MichaelBates]

The round thing was supposed to be the civic auditorium with 14,000 seats for conventions, 13,000 for basketball. On the far left (near 6th and Guthrie) was a 2,500 seat theater.

The original civic center plan from 1955 covered 4th to 6th, Denver to Guthrie, and was supposed to include Gilcrease Museum and an art library, a new city hall, the new county courthouse (already built), federal offices, and state offices, an exhibition hall plus the aforementioned theater and auditorium. 5th Street would tunnel through the complex. The library was going to use the old courthouse (where the Bank of America building is now).

The 1955 plan was developed by the Architectural League of Tulsa. According to a 1959 report about the plan's revision, the 1955 plan was "selected by Sigfried Gideon as one of the world's 22 foremost examples of city planning in the last 100 years."

The plan in PonderInc's photo appears to be the fall 1959 revision. After approval of a bond issue in March 1959, the plan was significantly altered -- the library was added to the plan, Gilcrease Museum decided to stay in Osage County, and they decided to close 5th Street, over the objections of downtown merchants who thought the closure would hurt through traffic past their stores.

The building in the front center, along 6th, is City Hall. The low rise building between it and the County Courthouse is the police and municipal courts building. The tall building is the 20-story federal building. North of the courthouse is the library, which took the place of a state office building and oil museum in an earlier plan. West of the auditorium is the exhibit hall and meeting space.