Something Fun

[jacobi]

For those of you (like me) who get impatient with how slow development can be downtown, be of good cheer.  Do this and it will make you feel alot better as to how far we have come.  Go on to google maps and look at the street view for the Brady district.  The ballpark isn't there.  Tribune two, not there, New hotel, not a chance.  AHHA, just a vacant parking lot.  The Brady village square is still central trucking.  Do this and walk around the downtown of 2007 and be amazed at how far we have come.  If you want to bring yourself back down into the dumps, go look at the Baryl Ford Collection directly after.

I may have mentioned this before, but I couldn't remember.  If I did, apologies. 

[dsjeffries]

I wish TNF has a 'like' button. The transformation so far has been incredible, but just imagine what it's going to look like in another two years. And five years. And ten years...

[Conan71]

The ironic part is, how much of this growth has come after DTU essentially ceased to exist.  That was clearly a worthless marketing and downtown advocacy organization.

[Townsend]

The ironic part is, how much of this growth has come after DTU essentially ceased to exist.  That was clearly a worthless marketing and downtown advocacy organization.

Imagine if the TDA worked well.

[carltonplace]

The ironic part is, how much of this growth has come after DTU essentially ceased to exist.  That was clearly a worthless marketing and downtown advocacy organization.

But...but...they made a website. 

[Conan71]

But...but...they made a website. 

And Jim Norton silently collected a $100K+/year paycheck while he trimmed his toenails behind his desk and did little else.

[AquaMan]

Lunches at the Celebrity Club with the other members.

[rdj]

I won't say DTU needed to be saved, but I will say Norton was a big advocate for downtown and while maybe he didn't do the best job he certainly wasn't sitting around doing nothing.  I would lay most of the blame at the board.  It was made up of many of downtown's largest property owners, if they wanted more from the staff they should have demanded it.

I would also venture to say some of the things we see today can partially be attributed to Jim and his staff.  The seeds for today's projects were planted long ago.

That said, they needed a radical overhaul and their board sat by idle for far too long.

[Conan71]

I won't say DTU needed to be saved, but I will say Norton was a big advocate for downtown and while maybe he didn't do the best job he certainly wasn't sitting around doing nothing.  I would lay most of the blame at the board.  It was made up of many of downtown's largest property owners, if they wanted more from the staff they should have demanded it.

I would also venture to say some of the things we see today can partially be attributed to Jim and his staff.  The seeds for today's projects were planted long ago.

That said, they needed a radical overhaul and their board sat by idle for far too long.

Okay fine.  He wasn't doing nothing, he just wasn't doing much.  

I had a lot of dealings with him and DTU in the early 1990's that left me very underwhelmed at their efforts and generally "not getting" really great promotional ideas and opportunities for downtown.  These weren't simply my hare-brained ideas, this was some of Tulsa's best and brightest creative talent trying to push downtown to the masses.  There may have been issues with the board, but Norton was definitely not the sort of dynamic leader who could direct DTU beyond the short-comings of the board.

[jacobi]

I'm hoping that the greenarch and new med school get up and running before they come through town again.  That would be fantastic.

[dsjeffries]

I'm hoping that the greenarch and new med school get up and running before they come through town again.  That would be fantastic.

They who?

[Conan71]

They who?

You know.  The "they".

[jacobi]

The google car.

[Hoss]

The google car.

From what I heard, it came through again last summer.  It takes time to compile and code all those photos.

[jacobi]

Yeah I heard that too.  I just figured that they hadn't made it downtown.