Tacoma's Cultural District & Fort Worth's

There is a town in Texas with so much culture they had to build an entire Cultural District to contain it. That would be Fort Worth, with an area of its 700,000 plus population town designated as "The Cultural District."

It's true. I'm not making it up.

Fort Worth's Cultural District is basically a few museums, a fair grounds and one theater.

Meanwhile, little Tacoma, where I am right now, a little town, less than a third the size of Fort Worth, has no "Cultural District."

But, though Tacoma does not have enough culture to assign the title "District" to it, Tacoma does have a cluster of museums in the south end of downtown. among other cultural amenities, like a new convention center. Due southeast from the convention center is the Tacoma Art Museum, next to that is the Washington State History Museum, across a Bridge of Glass, from there, is the Museum of Glass.

The setting for Tacoma's "cultural district" is quite scenic, with Mount Rainier hovering above, on a clear day, like today. There are a lot of restaurants and shops and galleries in Tacoma's "cultural district." The Glass Museum connects to the Thea Foss Waterway, which is a sort of promenade along the waterfront, with marinas with a lot of docked boats. A cable stay bridge and the Tacoma Dome anchor the south end.

The free to ride Sound Transit train runs through Tacoma's cultural district, along Pacific Avenue.

Tacoma's "cultural district" is quite aesthetically pleasing. It would be a stretch to say the same regarding Fort Worth's Cultural District. Sadly, even if Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision's Town Lake and canals ever get built, that still won't provide Fort Worth's Cultural District with any water-based culture. While Tacoma comes by water features naturally.

As for any sort of rail moving people to Fort Worth's Cultural District. Well, I don't know if they are still running, but there are these little green trolleys that Fort Worth bought from some place in Australia, that putter from the Cultural District to downtown to the Stockyards. I've never seen anyone riding one. They may be gone now.

Below is video I took today of a walk by Tacoma's museums and the Bridge of Glass and Thea Foss Waterway. Sadly, I took the video about 1pm. An hour later The Mountain was out.