Brady District

[TulsaBeMore]

Some names I came up with last night based on the area containing some of the oldest buildings in town, a place that's really a part of early Tulsa history and that helped pave the way for Tulsa's future... and names I could imagine myself saying to other people without laughing:

Heritage Arts District - A lot of Tulsa's 'firsts' happened in the area. Heritage has a nice sound to it. "I hear that new restaurant in the Heritage District is really great!"
Legacy Arts District - Similar to heritage, also has a nice sound.
Founders Arts District - Since we tore down the oldest buildings in Tulsa for the Williams Center complex, this is really the last piece of town that our founders built that still exists.
The Roots District - Similar to the previous in that this is where Tulsa's roots are (minus the Council Oak Tree), but 'roots' is more down-to-earth than either 'heritage' or 'legacy', somewhat relates to Guthrie & Dylan, Cain's is where the roots of Texas swing are, and the whole district is where a lot of new roots have begun to take hold.
Tribune Arts District - The Tulsa Tribune building is a local landmark, and was one of the first residential projects downtown in decades. Tribune also means 'a champion of the people'.

I really can't believe the three finalists are the best of the bunch that all the creative folks in the area could come up with.

These are all better than the ones the creatives created.  My favorite is the Roots Arts District.

What's wrong with the "Greenwood & Arts District" - For short call it "The GARD"  You could promote it as "Avant GARD"  I struggle to figure out the geographical boundaries of Greenwood and Brady anyway.  Surely Greenwood isn't just the block around Greenwood & Archer?  

I think they decided on The Bridge - a faint reference to the overpasses, but they're more into bridging the race and cultural divide -- I think.  Walsh Branding is part of that district.  I'd think they could come up with something better.  They do good work.

[Hoss]

These are all better than the ones the creatives created.  My favorite is the Roots Arts District.

What's wrong with the "Greenwood & Arts District" - For short call it "The GARD"  You could promote it as "Avant GARD"  I struggle to figure out the geographical boundaries of Greenwood and Brady anyway.  Surely Greenwood isn't just the block around Greenwood & Archer?  

I think they decided on The Bridge - a faint reference to the overpasses, but they're more into bridging the race and cultural divide -- I think.  Walsh Branding is part of that district.  I'd think they could come up with something better.  They do good work.

I saw someone suggest Bob Wills District.  Obviously for the Cains.

[TulsaBeMore]

I saw someone suggest Bob Wills District.  Obviously for the Cains.

I've always thought Main from Archer to I-244 should be renamed "Bob Wills Music Avenue" or similar.  But, then people might start looking deep into his background...deeper than has ever been looked at before and find ?

I've heard some people upset about Woody Guthrie - socialist, etc. 

[Hoss]

I've always thought Main from Archer to I-244 should be renamed "Bob Wills Music Avenue" or similar.  But, then people might start looking deep into his background...deeper than has ever been looked at before and find ?

I've heard some people upset about Woody Guthrie - socialist, etc. 

But I'm pretty sure most everyone knows Woody was considered a socialist.  He wrote a song specifically about 45s father.

Here's one passage:

I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
he stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
That color line
Here at his
Eighteen hundred family project

And he rewrote part of another ("I Ain't Got No Home") to include him:

Beach Haven ain't my home!
I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain!
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven looks like heaven
Where no black ones come to roam!
No, no, no! Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

[heironymouspasparagus]

I've heard some people upset about Woody Guthrie - socialist, etc.  

That would be the deplorable Nazi and KKK parties.


His guitar and it's most famous sign;


https://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Woody_Guthrie_NYWTS.jpg&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie&h=3677&w=2926&tbnid=zg7lN27uc1M3hM:&tbnh=186&tbnw=148&usg=__GtLCFXHFQomPH2ZqRMA-Rg2vTyE=&vet=10ahUKEwj8j72RpabWAhXDbFAKHeSsCAIQ_B0InAEwEg..i&docid=beWGKZ2liy_8RM&itg=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8j72RpabWAhXDbFAKHeSsCAIQ_B0InAEwEg&ei=eU67WbzvJcPZwQLk2aIQ

[Hoss]

That would be the deplorable Nazi and KKK parties.


His guitar and it's most famous sign;


https://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Woody_Guthrie_NYWTS.jpg&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie&h=3677&w=2926&tbnid=zg7lN27uc1M3hM:&tbnh=186&tbnw=148&usg=__GtLCFXHFQomPH2ZqRMA-Rg2vTyE=&vet=10ahUKEwj8j72RpabWAhXDbFAKHeSsCAIQ_B0InAEwEg..i&docid=beWGKZ2liy_8RM&itg=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8j72RpabWAhXDbFAKHeSsCAIQ_B0InAEwEg&ei=eU67WbzvJcPZwQLk2aIQ

Namesake of Marshall's This Machine IPA.  Done (Marshall reference in a mostly unrelated thread).

[Conan71]

Can't have a Roots District, that connotates slavery.
Can't have a Founder's District, since all the city forefathers were racist haters and there is no Founder's Brewery there either.

Bridge District has many interesting connotations.  But, to the average tourist, they are going to be pissed when they walk over any bridge other than the pedestrian bridge with the Center Of The Universe on it and see the I-244 over-passes at the north end and think that's our idealized bridges.

All this hullabaloo started from what I believe was a shoddily researched story on Tate Brady's background.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Can't have a Roots District, that connotates slavery.
Can't have a Founder's District, since all the city forefathers were racist haters and there is no Founder's Brewery there either.

Bridge District has many interesting connotations.  But, to the average tourist, they are going to be pissed when they walk over any bridge other than the pedestrian bridge with the Center Of The Universe on it and see the I-244 over-passes at the north end and think that's our idealized bridges.

All this hullabaloo started from what I believe was a shoddily researched story on Tate Brady's background.

Archer-Cameron District.

The hyphen gives it a distinguished look, and the 7 syllables lends an intellectual provenance.

[DowntownDan]

Archer Arts District has a nice ring to it.  Better find out who Archer was to avoid the same problem in the future though.

[AngieB]

Archer Arts District has a nice ring to it.  Better find out who Archer was to avoid the same problem in the future though.

I thought of that one (but it had already been submitted). I think it would be good. TJ Archer owned Tulsa's first hardware store. I looked him up yesterday and found a lot of info on the Tulsa Gal website. Appears to have been a good guy.

But since we judge everyone on the worst of their actions instead of the greatest of one's achievements, it won't happen, I'm sure. Someone might be offended.

And what happens to The Brady Theater?

[heironymouspasparagus]

I thought of that one (but it had already been submitted). I think it would be good. TJ Archer owned Tulsa's first hardware store. I looked him up yesterday and found a lot of info on the Tulsa Gal website. Appears to have been a good guy.

But since we judge everyone on the worst of their actions instead of the greatest of one's achievements, it won't happen, I'm sure. Someone might be offended.

And what happens to The Brady Theater?

Archer Theater.

[erfalf]

The following was posted on Batesline a few years ago following the expose in This Land.

What´s in a Name: The Legacy of Tate Brady [by Dr. Jeffrey Myers]
As one of the great-grandchildren of W. Tate Brady, I was deeply saddened to learn of his affiliation - direct or indirect - with racist organizations. Although he died long before I was born, we great-grandchildren often heard of his deep affection for "Tulsey Town" and his coining of the term "Tulsa Spirit".

Personally, I have never thought of "Brady" Street simply as a personal tribute to one of Tulsa´s founders, but rather a reminder of one of the most eventful and "spirited" chapters in the history of the city - with all of its triumphs and tragedies, virtues and vices, successes and failures. To preserve a name - including both the achievements and the shortcomings it represents - serves to convey historical identity.

In some ways, Tate Brady can be said to have been a child of his times. He was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in a young city painfully divided along racial lines. He was a man filled with larger-than-life dreams, as well as inconsistencies. Having joined the Ku Klux Klan as a young man, he later renounced the group, going on to support an anti-Klan gubernatorial candidate for election.

If I am not mistaken, though, he is being judged for one substantiated act of cruelty which, despicable as it is, remains one single act. I am not aware of any evidence of his complicity in other crimes, nor is there convincing evidence linking him to an active role in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Fortunately, times have changed; needless to say, actions must always be understood and judged in the context of those times. Historical revisionism is sometimes tempting, but often self-serving.

It has been said that Wyatt Tate Brady was known for hiring African Americans to work in his hotel and other businesses. Not long before she died at the age of 104, Mabel B. Little, a survivor of the Tulsa Race Riot who was once employed by Brady, recalls in her book, Fire on Mount Zion: My Life and History as a Black Woman in America (1990): "Another man, Mr. Tate Brady had good feelings for black people. He hired several black boys as porters. But he told them up front, "Listen, boys: I'm gonna train you so you can get your own businesses someday."

I´ve always liked the fact that this historical street north of Main only bore a surname - and not a first name, thus pointing beyond itself, not only to the larger Brady family - many of whom loved and gave generously of themselves and their gifts to Tulsa, but also to the wider family, named and unnamed, of pioneer-spirited Tulsans. The name Brady invokes that which is unique to Tulsa - not only at its best, but also that which needs to be transformed and redeemed, individually and together.

In a moment of larger vision, W. Tate Brady was once quoted as saying: "Indian and white man, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, we worked together side by side, and shoulder to shoulder, and under these conditions, the 'Tulsa Spirit' was born, and has lived, and God grant that it never dies." Though framed in words from another era, this vision would seem to capture the magnanimous, unifying "spirit" of Tulsa - the direction surely intended by the street sign bearing the name "Brady".

[Conan71]

Archer Theater.

As long as Peter Mayo owns it, I don't believe the name will change.  I wouldn't put it past a subsequent owner.  It was originally Tulsa Municipal Theater (IIRC) so that's a pretty non-offensive historic name since there seem to be people wiff tender wittle feewings about things that happened a couple or three generations before they were even born.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

That would be the deplorable Nazi and KKK parties.

Are you kidding me? This is what people hate about "liberal"/"Left-wing" logic. If you don't like the liberal view, you are "racist", a "nazi" or "kkk". (On a side note, that kind of thought police is not truly liberal in any way). You have no logic to back up your claim, so you resort to ad hominem attacks (almost ironic, isn't it?).

There were many unpleasant things about Woody Guthrie. The man loved Stalin, even after it was apparent that Stalin was leading a mass genocide of his own people. Guthrie was a socialist/communist and that goes against what America is about just as much as facism does. Sure, you're free to have your own dumb views, but when they're as harmful and fringe as Guthrie's, they should not be glorified. Additionally, Guthrie said many racist things throughout his life. He was no saint.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Are you kidding me? This is what people hate about "liberal"/"Left-wing" logic. If you don't like the liberal view, you are "racist", a "nazi" or "kkk". (On a side note, that kind of thought police is not truly liberal in any way). You have no logic to back up your claim, so you resort to ad hominem attacks (almost ironic, isn't it?).

There were many unpleasant things about Woody Guthrie. The man loved Stalin, even after it was apparent that Stalin was leading a mass genocide of his own people. Guthrie was a socialist/communist and that goes against what America is about just as much as facism does. Sure, you're free to have your own dumb views, but when they're as harmful and fringe as Guthrie's, they should not be glorified. Additionally, Guthrie said many racist things throughout his life. He was no saint.

I wasn't "glorifying" Guthrie.  What I have tried to do several times is point out the irony of how many people 'sing his praises' - so many of them not left wingers at all - without knowing what he really was all about.

And if you read my comment, in reply to TulsaBeMore's comment, "I've heard some people upset about Woody Guthrie - socialist, etc.",

it very clearly says, "That would be the deplorable Nazi and KKK parties."

Meaning, of course that the people most likely to be upset would be those two groups.   Slow down and read carefully.  You appear to be "listening" (reading) just to reply, rather than listening (reading) to hear.


Woody was no saint - never said he was.  He also pretty much left his kids while he was going off around the country on his mission.  One can speculate about whether he should have even been a father since he wasn't really great at it, but then we would not have Arlo - a very talented person.  And I bet Arlo and siblings would have some strong opinions on whether Woody should have had kids.

Woody was raised in one kind of household with a certain environment - obviously bigoted and racist.  But then he outgrew his upbringing and changed into something very different.  

I like his music and the principles espoused by much of his work - but not all.  I suspect I would not get along well with him on a personal basis...he was way wrong about too much stuff.

Interesting insights into Woody;

https://jagadees.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/woody-guthrie-the-musician/

From the article, an audience member wrote to him about a performance and the ensuing apparent epiphany, at about 25 years old;

And he gets a letter from a member of his listening audience the next day. And I know that letter by heart. I've seen it. He says, "You were getting along pretty well on your program tonight, until you announced your n***** blues. I'm a Negro, a young Negro in college. And I certainly resented your remark. No person or person of any intelligence uses that word over the radio today." And that letter really hit Woody like a slap in the face. He was mortified. He apologized profusely on the air the next day. He made a big point of dramatically tearing out the song sheet from his notebook and tearing it to shreds and promising he would never use that word again. And as he later said, "I apologize to the Negro people for the frothings that I let slip out of the corners of my mouth." So this is the beginning of his conversion, I suppose, to eventually becoming one of the most ardent champions and activists for racial equality.