Steps to no houses-North Tulsa

[hello]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed but I'm not pulling up anything in search. Does anyone have any information on the steps that lead to just grass, no houses around Main street and other places in North Tulsa? I'm assuming they have something to do with the race riot but would like to learn more about them.

[Townsend]

If you're talking about West of OSU Tulsa, those were neighborhoods the powers-that-be decided were so damaged and rampant with drugs and prostitution, that it made sense to remove them.  That is the story I remember.

I'm sure others on here can be more specific.

[Conan71]

Either they were torn down when the IDL was constructed or during the urban renewal project in the early 1980's.  The area roughly to the northwest of I-244 and Cincinnati had a lot of drug and prostitution activity.  The epicenter was Main & Haskell as I recall.

[AquaMan]

Yeah, it was surgery with a blunt instrument. Police couldn't cope with the increase in drugs, prostitution and murder in a very small area of nice, historic homes that were being abandoned by owners when the suburban sprawl was raging like prairie fire. The homes were picked up by unscrupulous investors who would rent them out by the week without interest in repairing, rehabbing or supervising them. It was just before gentrification caught hold in near downtown.

Lots of money from urban renewal and the overt choice to run 244 through these hoods killed the cancer but also blunted future development of these areas. Can you imagine the lovely views these homes must have had looking South with the skyline, the refineries and the river in the evening?

[rdj]

This land is owned & controlled by the Tulsa Development Authority & University Center at Tulsa Trust.  When the Chamber and other interested parties successfully lobbied the legislature and higher ed to place a public university in Tulsa that would offer a bachelor degree they created UCAT and set aside this land, along with the land OSU-Tulsa sits on, for development of the universities.  The original plan as UCAT was to have the land grant university, OSU, offer courses that meet its mission as a land grant university, Langston would provide a set of degrees which no other public university in Tulsa could offer, and then OU would fill in the gaps.  Not too long after the first UCAT building was built OU was offered the former Amoco building at 41st & Yale and chose to move their courses their renaming it the Schusterman Center after the family that donated the building.  OSU-Tulsa has continued to expand, albeit all to the east and south, while Langston built a new building recently.  Additionally, OETA recently moved into a newly constructed building on the campus.

The whole point is that as long as the OSU system chooses to not build residential housing and truly grow OSU-Tulsa the land will sit fallow.  There was some discussion of OU building a clinic or facility to support the School of Community Medicine on the far western edge of the land that sits at the intersection of John Hope Franklin/Boulder/Main.  This would tie in with the Boulder transit corridor as outlined by the master of watercolors, Jack Crowley.  I believe that plan was abandoned with the idea to move in the Hartford building in the Blue Dome District.  However, that plan has also fallen through, and I'm not sure where it is headed now.

The land has great potential as a mixed use neighborhood due to its proximity to downtown, higher learning and a gentrifrying neighborhood in Brady Heights.  I believe a mix of housing for OSU-Tulsa/Langston students, young professionals, retirees and retail to serve them could be very viable.  Emerson Elementary borders the land and could be a great neighborhood school with an influx of families.  The key is getting UCAT & TDA to get off their butt and let someone figure out how to develop it!

[rdj]

Yeah, it was surgery with a blunt instrument. Police couldn't cope with the increase in drugs, prostitution and murder in a very small area of nice, historic homes that were being abandoned by owners when the suburban sprawl was raging like prairie fire. The homes were picked up by unscrupulous investors who would rent them out by the week without interest in repairing, rehabbing or supervising them. It was just before gentrification caught hold in near downtown.

Lots of money from urban renewal and the overt choice to run 244 through these hoods killed the cancer but also blunted future development of these areas. Can you imagine the lovely views these homes must have had looking South with the skyline, the refineries and the river in the evening?

Yep.  The hill was once called Standpipe Hill because it was the location of Tulsa's water tower or standpipe.  It supplied the town with drinking water prior to Reservoir Hill and the tapping of the Spavinaw watershed.  Here are views of downtown from the hill from the Beryl Ford Collection:

Tulsa From Standpipe Hill, 1907
http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15020coll1/id/17750

Cincinnati from Standpipe Hill, 1911
http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15020coll1/id/4202

Tulsa skyline from Standpipe Hill, 1935
http://cdm15020.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15020coll1/id/16623/rec/18

[heironymouspasparagus]

The whole point is that as long as the OSU system chooses to not build residential housing and truly grow OSU-Tulsa the land will sit fallow.  There was some discussion of OU building a clinic or facility to support the School of Community Medicine on the far western edge of the land that sits at the intersection of John Hope Franklin/Boulder/Main.  This would tie in with the Boulder transit corridor as outlined by the master of watercolors, Jack Crowley.  I believe that plan was abandoned with the idea to move in the Hartford building in the Blue Dome District.  However, that plan has also fallen through, and I'm not sure where it is headed now.

If we as a state quit doing a "Mary Failin'" to education in the state, that expansion might actually happen.... sometime next century!

And yes, others have participated in this, but she lends her name readily to the attitude and approach.

[TheArtist]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed but I'm not pulling up anything in search. Does anyone have any information on the steps that lead to just grass, no houses around Main street and other places in North Tulsa? I'm assuming they have something to do with the race riot but would like to learn more about them.

The steps leading to nowhere, in that area, and the "empty lots" around Greenwood are not the result of the race riots.  The Greenwood district was rebuilt, some say better than it was before.  It's ultimate destruction was the result of other factors including "urban renewal", the IDL, and integration, to name a few plus what has been mentioned above. 

I think there is currently an art exhibit going on where they too wrongly assume these are remnants of the race riot.

[AquaMan]

Makes for a more dramatic explanation but indeed it was pressure from the downtown businessmen to do something to address the nearby crime. I was working downtown at the time. We were still a mayor/commissioner system with good ole boys in charge of police, fire and water still mired in the same mindset that built the assembly center complex and wanted to run an expressway through Maple Ridge for suburbanites. Their solution in this case was to improve the area by destroying it and using federal money as the fuel.

The irony was that the crime was the result of the many flophouses, drug dens and vacant properties that were purchased by well heeled professionals, doctors, lawyers...investor class people. I knew some of them. There was little interest in downtown housing other than nearby Liberty Tower or University Club tower because of nearby black populations. As the original owners died or moved to the suburbs and the area was redlined by realtors and bankers, they became cheap. Whether the property was sold through condemnation, or operated as a weekly rent property the new owners came out okay either way.

[hello]

Thanks for the information everyone!

[DTowner]

The view out my office window is of Standpipe Hill, so this was great information.  

Running a freeway through the front yard of those homes pretty much sealed their fate, but what a shame for this prime real estate to be fallow for so long.  One of the downsides of land owned or controlled by a university/public entity is they can afford to let land sit idle until they need it/have the financing to do something with it.  In this case, that is decades and counting.

While not exactly related, the discussion of these steps to nowhere attracted me to this article about pedestrian stairs in Cincinnati.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/05/stepping-restore-cincinnatis-neglected-pedestrian-stairways/5468/

[rdj]

At the least I wish they would do something to beautify the hunk of dirt that lies between MLK (formerly Cincinnati) and Detroit Ave as they leave downtown and merge into MLK only.

[Hoss]

At the least I wish they would do something to beautify the hunk of dirt that lies between MLK (formerly Cincinnati) and Detroit Ave as they leave downtown and merge into MLK only.

Isn't that technically part of Standpipe Hill?

[rdj]

Isn't that technically part of Standpipe Hill?

Yes, it is.  But, it is too small to support anything but a "park."

[TheArtist]

I always thought that piece of property would make a great place for a restaurant, the view is fantastic, and or a large sculpture, or gateway structure for OSU Tulsa.