How others see Tulsa

[TheTed]

In this month's issue of Esquire there's a story by a guy who intended to cover the Belevedere's unearthing. Thanks to an incredible amount of delays and missed connections, he missed the whole thing.

I can't seem to find it online, but this passage about Tulsa is very harsh, but very true.

"Having missed everything ... I decide to find a bar and drink until my situation improves. This turns out to be harder than one might anticipate; taverns don't seem to exist here. I have lived in some of the least exhilarating cities in America, but Tulsa is almost like urban sarcasm. Tulsa makes Akron seem like Las Vegas. It's Friday night, but every downtown street is a reenactment of the opening ten minutes of 28 Days Later. All the avenues have names like Denver and Detroit and Cincinnati, as if those cities were theoretical, unattainable utopias. The townsfolk are incredibly nice, but the emptiness is relentless (and kind of terrifying). I can't fathom what things are like here when they're not having a festival."

I actually had a friend compare downtown to the movie 28 Days Later. Another friend that visited was taken aback by the empty feeling at the airport and downtown.

[TheArtist]

Yea but downtown and a night life aren't important, as a lot of people on here will tell you. What will get people talking positively about Tulsa is better roads and lower taxes.

[YoungTulsan]

Because you know that a higher tax rate (disconnected from any sort of results) will make people think higher of Tulsa.  8.517% is so low, it is embarassing!

[dsjeffries]

Well, yes, most of downtown is void of anything after 5 p.m., but I think the guy was generalizing here WAY too much.  No, downtown's not jumping and jiving yet, but go to Brookside on a Friday night, like I did this evening.  Absolutely packed.  Or go to Cherry Street.  Heck, even Blue Dome is in downtown.  Taverns exist.  Yes, downtown is just now being brought back into life but this city is FAR from dead. Our streets are named for cities in alphabetical order for a reason, not because they're unattainable utopias.

And, P.S., I'd never want to go to Akron.

[Wilbur]

You can't base your entire opinion about Tulsa based on 10-square blocks.  Had the person gone three blocks north of downtown, he would have found plenty to do.  Had he gone two-miles south of downtown, he would have found plenty to do.

I've experienced similar things in my travels, but I blame myself for not taking a more proactive approach to finding the night-life.

[rwarn17588]

Too bad he didn't venture down to Red Fork and quaffed a few beers at the It'll Do tavern. A few games of tabletop shuffleboard and Bob Wills tunes from the jukebox would have cheered him up. []

[TheArtist]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

Because you know that a higher tax rate (disconnected from any sort of results) will make people think higher of Tulsa.  8.517% is so low, it is embarassing!

Yes, since over all we pay the lowest rate of taxes. And you can definitely see the results connected to that. We should lower the sales tax rate and increase the property, and income tax rates. And of course expand our universities and work on our education levels.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/snapshots/PL4075000.html

[aoxamaxoa]

Artist, would a tax increase excluding groceries and clothing make more sense?

"The townsfolk are incredibly nice, but the emptiness is relentless (and kind of terrifying)."
How true. I wonder if he'd have more choices if he was a constant church goer.

TheTed,thanks for the thread. Sad how he missed McNellies and all the holes in the wall.

Urban sarcasm....interesting.

"Love to shake it on shake down street.
Used to be the heart of town.
Don't tell me
this town don't have no heart.
Just gotta poke around."
garcia/hunter

[TulsaJayhawk]

Chuck Klosterman's Esquire story goes on to mention the Tsunami Sushi restaurant as well as Dirty's and 1974 bars.  There, he chats with a 19-year-old cook on a break.

"I hate Tulsa, but only because I live here," the cook said.  "Still, there are some good things about living here.  I love working at Tsunami's, for example.  The people that work here are hella cool ["hella cool"?].  And Tulsa has some awesome underground tunnels.  Huge, train-sized tunnels. They're amazing."

Klosterman then finds yet another 19-year-old for a perspective on T-Town, a busboy on a cigarette break:  "I love it here. In my opinion, it's the world's biggest little city.  I know they say that about Reno, but they should say it about Tulsa. This is kind of a hard thing to explain, there is just so much action here - it's just that there's nothing to do."

Okay, now YOU figure it out.

[aoxamaxoa]

"I hate Tulsa, but only because I live here," the cook said. "Still, there are some good things about living here."
Well, hates a little harsh.


Klosterman then finds yet another 19-year-old for a perspective on T-Town, a busboy on a cigarette break: "I love it here. In my opinion
it's the world's biggest little city. I know they say that about Reno, but they should say it about Tulsa. This is kind of a hard thing to explain, there is just so much action here - it's just that there's nothing to do."

SNAP!!!!!

We're spread thin on plenty to do.

[Kenosha]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur

You can't base your entire opinion about Tulsa based on 10-square blocks.  Had the person gone three blocks north of downtown, he would have found plenty to do.  Had he gone two-miles south of downtown, he would have found plenty to do.

I've experienced similar things in my travels, but I blame myself for not taking a more proactive approach to finding the night-life.

The point is...HE SHOULDN"T HAVE TO.  Quit burying your head in the sand man...no article has been more right on in describing the desolation downtown...yeah yeah yeah, I know...McNellie's, Cain's, the Arena.  We have made some strides...but still...It's bad down there and it's embarrassing.

So, I read that article this morning, and about  halfway through I was prepared to be pissed off.  Then I read the whole thing, and realized that the whole thing wasn't about Tulsa, but about optimism.  The things we value in Tulsa; the Art Deco, Cain's Ballroom, the beautiful midtown neighborhoods; were all built during a time in which people, especially in Tulsa, weren't afraid of the future.  A time in which they believed that THINGS COULD BE BETTER, and that they would. I am sure that had those leaders that buried that car squinted hard enough, they could have never envisioned a future in which our downtown would be described as an "urban sarcasm".  It should scare the living hell out of every civic leader, every businessperson, every church-goer, every oil baron, every aeronautical engineer, every line cook, every ditch digger, every stay at home mom, every Tulsan, that our core has rotted to this level.  It must change.  Or we will fade into the footnotes of history...the town that oil made, and killed.

BUT, I am here to tell you that it can, and it should get better.  I have great optimism for our city.  I believe that we can once again be a  beacon for hope and opportunity in this country.  There are a few people who seem to be scared of the future, and those people happen to make a lot of noise.  But I am not willing to stand around and let those people drag me down with them. Taxes never have and never will be our downfall, it is our unwillingness to invest in our future that has been and always will be our downfall. UNTIL we...we who believe that it can be better, that we can DO BETTER...stand up and shout...NO MORE!  No more NO'S...No more admiring our past in the mirror, no more complaining about what can be...  It's time.

It's Tulsa Time.

[aoxamaxoa]

^I'd say "ditto" but might come across as a comedian.

Good post.

[sauerkraut]

I guess it's true Tulsa has a bad rep. elsewhere and it's not all that popular. Omaha is offten joked about as being a backward cowtown, yet Omaha is a big viberant city of over 400,000 people and a booming economy. I'd say it's all in the eye of the beholder. Columbus, Ohio just revolves around those stupid OSU Buckeyes and Football.[xx(]

[deinstein]

They think it's trashy. (Admiral)

They think it's generic. (South Tulsa)

They think it's polluted. (West Bank)

[rwarn17588]

Drinking game ... take a swig every time sauerkraut mentions Omaha or Columbus.

[xx(]