Historically Marking A Visit To Fort Worth's West 7th Bridge With Signature Irony

I think I already may have mentioned that on Monday I found myself in downtown Fort Worth. At that point in time I decided to check out some of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's "Products".

One of The Boondoggle's "Products" is three bridges being built over nothing. Prior to it causing an epidemic of eye rolling The Boondoggle referred to these three simple bridges as being signature bridges which would become iconic symbols of Fort Worth.

No, that is not an artist's rendering of one of The Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing you are looking at here.

When I was in downtown Fort Worth on Monday I decided to head west out of downtown, on West 7th Street on my way to Uncle Julios. I parked at the north end of Trinity Park and proceeded to get an up close look at the new West 7th bridge across the Trinity River.

As you can see this is a visually interesting, futuristic looking bridge. With a wide pedestrian path, outside the lanes of traffic, on both sides of the bridge.

A close up look at the West 7th Bridge had me thinking that it would not cause giggling to refer to this bridge as a signature bridge, with it being a one of a kind type deal. I also thought that this bridge had the potential to become a sort of iconic image of Fort Worth, as the connector between its downtown and the town's fabled Cultural District.

From the location from which I took the above picture I then proceeded under the bridge to find myself soon making an amusingly ironic discovery in the form of a historical marker.

I will copy the information one sees on the above West 7th Bridge Historical Marker....

One hundred years after the initial W. 7th Street bridge opened, the world's first pre-cast network arch bridge was dedicated on November 15, 2013. The innovative design by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Engineer Dean Van Landuyt and progressive construction techniques allowed the bridge to open in only four months.

The $26 million signature bridge connects motorists and pedestrians with downtown Fort Worth and the Cultural District, offering a scenic view of the Clear Fork Trinity River, and was a successful partnership between the community, TxDOT, Sundt Construction and the City of Fort Worth.

Progressive construction techniques allowed this bridge to open in only four months?

While downstream a short distance, the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is building three simple bridges over nothing, with a 48 month construction timeline. Not four months.

The re-built West 7th Bridge cost $26 million? How much are The Boondoggle's plain, simple bridges supposedly going to cost? I may be remembering wrong, but it seems like $27 million is an amount I have read.

I like how this historical marker accurately refers to the West 7th Bridge as a "signature bridge".

Are the Trinity River Vision Boondogglers aware of this feat of bridge engineering, completed in four months, a short distance upstream from where The Boondoggle has currently made a big mess?

The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo Plus The World's Biggest Non-Mechanized Parade Is This Week

I was in Albertsons yesterday evening and came upon the poster you see on the left. This was the first I realized that the annual Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo time of the year is here again.

In the time flies department it seems like only yesterday I was convinced I was going to make it to the 2013 Stock Show Parade.

However, I did not make it.

I do not remember what events, if any, conspired to keep me from getting myself to downtown Fort Worth to watch the Stock Show Parade.

I have seen many extremely well done parades since I have been in Texas. The Stock Show Parade may be my favorite. I have watched this particular parade twice.

I think the thing I like about the Stock Show Parade is the fact that it is totally non-mechanized, billing itself as the biggest non-mechanized parade in the world.

I have no idea if it is true that the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade is the biggest non-mechanized parade in the world, used to, as I am, to not blindly trusting Texas propaganda.

How have I managed to miss any pre Fort Worth Stock Show promoting til last night's poster discovery?

The Stock Show starts up in only three days, on January 17, with the Stock Show Parade taking place the day after the opening, Saturday, January 18.

I have no current urge to haul myself to downtown Fort Worth on Saturday to watch the Stock Show Parade for the third time.

I have until February 8 to haul myself to Fort Worth's Cultural District to the location of the Stock Show & Rodeo, to make my second visit to that event, but, I currently have no strong current urge to do that either.

Currently all my urges are at a very low ebb....

Funkytown Gets Down While Dallas Can't Tube Along With Other Nonsense

On the left you are looking at what is known as a screencap. This particular screencap is the home page of the Panther Island Pavilion website.

I was peacefully reading this week's Fort Worth Weekly when I found myself looking at a large ad for Panther Island Pavilion and its current cast of music acts of whom I have never heard, playing at what is, supposedly, the only waterfront stage in Texas.

I remember when Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market was promoted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and other local propaganda purveyors as being the first and only public market in Texas, ignoring the fact that it was not only not the first and only public market in Texas, it was not even the first Public Market in Fort Worth.

From the Panther Island Pavilion website home page an interesting blurb...

© Panther Island Pavilion - All Rights Reserved.
A Product of Trinity River Vision Authority

The Panther Island Pavilion name has been copyrighted? With All Rights Reserved? How much did that cost the taxpayers? This is a "Product of Trinity River Vision Authority"?

A Product?

Like a flood control product? Or is this an economic development product? Producing the imaginary one and only waterfront music venue in Texas? On an imaginary island? With an imaginary pavilion?

Why do the knuckleheads who provide Fort Worth's chamber of commerce type propaganda have such a penchant for ridiculous hyperbole? There is no island. There is no pavilion. The waterfront is a polluted river.

Panther Island Pavilion is only the most recent example of this type absurdity.

Been to Sundance Square lately?

The fact that there is no Sundance Square has been perplexing Fort Worth's few tourists for decades. Yes, currently there is some sort of actual square under construction on a couple of the parking lots that those few Fort Worth tourists often mistake for being Sundance Square, but the completion date for that actual Sundance Square seems to have the same type fleeting completion schedule as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Back to the Panther Island Pavilion absurdity. On the website's home page is where I learned that Panther Island Pavilion is the only waterfront stage in Texas, in the following blurb...

Panther Island Pavilion (PIP) is a scenic outdoor venue on the Trinity River with the Downtown Fort Worth skyline as a backdrop. PIP has the only waterfront stage in Texas, a main stage for year-round events and two additional band shells for multi-act festivals. A sand beach provides public access to the river for boating, tubing, fishing, and swimming. Kayak and Paddleboard concessionaries are located on site for rentals.

Scenic? PIP? A waterfront stage? Skyline as a backdrop? A sand beach? Swimming?

Ugh. I could elaborate, but I think Ugh suffices.

Also on the Panther Island Pavilion website's home page you get to experience an amazing example of propaganda and hubris in a series of bizarre, for want of a better phrase, slogans...

SOAK YOURSELVES IN GOOD TIMES.
THE COOLEST PLACE TO PARTY IN SUMMER.
WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT NEW BRAUNFELS? BEER. WE GOT IT. CHEERS.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN'T DO IN DALLAS? TUBE.
GOOD TIMES ARE FLOWING IN FORT WORTH.
THIS IS WHERE FUNKYTOWN GETS DOWN.
LET THE COOL TIMES FLOW.
FOR A GOOD TIME...JUST ADD WATER.

You can't tube in Dallas? Add water for a good time? There is no beer in New Braunfels? Funkytown gets down here?

This past week's #1 Fort Worth Scandal has been the revelation that Fort Worth's Mayor, Betsy Price, has been traveling the world with a contingent of Fort Worth Police as she spreads the Fort Worth message across the planet, increasing the flood of tourists coming to Junky, I mean, Funkytown, to experience what can only be experienced in Fort Worth.

So, when one of those thousands of Japanese, Chinese, Australian, German or other tourists arrive and let's say, one of the Japanese, asks the Fort Worth Propagandist, "Where Sundance Square?"

"Sundance Square is downtown Fort Worth."

"What? No square? We want to see square that make other towns green with envy?"

"Sorry. No square."

"Okay, how bout Cultural District. We come to see Fort Worth Culture."

"Great. There are several museums in the Fort Worth Cultural District."

"Museums? We not come to Texas to see museums. We have museums in Tokyo. We want to see western culture. Cowboys."

"No problem. We can go to the Fort Worth Stockyards. There you will see cowboys and longhorns and western cultural stuff."

"Great. That what we come to Fort Worth to see. Get to see real stockyards too?"

"Well....sort of."

I tell you, Fort Worth really needs some sort of federally administered truth in labeling statute imposed upon the town....

Exploring Fort Worth's Cultural District Is A Sophisticated Cultured Undertaking

The above is an advertisement in this week's Fort Worth Weekly. A time or two I've had people, who do not live in Texas, suggest that I am making up the fact that Fort Worth has an area it calls its Cultural District.

When I first arrived in Fort Worth a thing or two perplexed and confused me.

One perplexing confusion, I distinctly remember, was the futile search to find Sundance Square. All I could find was parking lots. Yet there were all these signs pointing to Sundance Square. It took years for me to learn there is no Square in Sundance Square.

Currently there is a project underway, that is long past its due date, to finally add an actual Square to Sundance Square.

The same directional signage that pointed me to the non-existent Sundance Square, and which is still misdirecting, all these years later, also pointed to the "Cultural District."

Yes, it really is true, Fort Worth has an area it calls its Cultural District. Apparently culture needed to be restricted to one designated district. When I first learned of the Cultural District it seemed really embarrassingly uncultured to me, to so label a district, as in unsophisticated nonsense not worthy of what some locals (Betsy Price) believe to be one of the greatest cities on the planet earth.

Other towns have districts they assign a designation to, like the Arts District or the Theater District or the Museum District.

But, Cultural District?

Methinks there is likely only one town on the planet that would be so goofy as to label a part of its town as its Cultural District.

It is sort of poetic, and apropos, that Fort Worth's Cultural District is so close to its Rockin' the River Happy  Hour Inner Tube Floats and the Panther Island Music Venue, with the World's first Drive-In Movie Theater of the 21st Century, nearby.

Methinks Fort Worth's Cultural District should be expanded to include the wonders that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is bestowing on Fort Worth.

That would be the sophisticated, cultured thing to do...........

Apparently Many Believe A New Bridge Will Be A Signature Feature Of Fort Worth's Skyline

It appears the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is once again allowing online readers to read their newspaper without having an online subscription. I suspect the initiation of the online subscription saw a precipitous drop in numbers of readers, and thus what could be charged for online advertisements and thus the return of being able to read the online version without a subscription.

I learned that I was back empowered to read the Star-Telegram when I clicked on a headline that intrigued me on the front page.

The headline that intrigued me is "Fort Worth's newest bridge going up while traffic flows."

Turns out the bridge in question is the new West 7th Street Bridge that crosses the Trinity River from the downtown Fort Worth zone to the pretentiously named Cultural District.

The blurb on the front page included the following...

In a dirt field just west of downtown Fort Worth, a giant gantry crane is being used to hoist freshly cured concrete and steel arches into an upright position. Here, the pieces of what many believe will be a new signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline -- the new West Seventh Street bridge.

Can you guess what part of the above blurb caught my eye?

If you guessed that it was "what many believe will be a new signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline" you guessed correctly.

This seems to be a variant of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Green with Envy verbiage, where the Star-Telegram informs its readers that some perfectly pedestrian thing in Fort Worth is making other towns, far and wide, Green with Envy.

The Star-Telegram's Green with Envy verbiage seems to have been laughed out of existence.

One of the reasons I was so appalled at the bizarre Green with Envy Star-Telegram declarations was I wondered how it was that the Star-Telegram determined that other towns were Green with Envy about something in Fort Worth. That is just really, obviously, goofy.

And now I am wondering how it is the Star-Telegram determined that "many" believe this new bridge will be a signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline? That just seems to be another really, obviously, goofy thing to claim.

Now, that is not to suggest that this bridge won't be a signature feature of Fort Worth's skyline. Lord knows the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth could use a signature feature. One that actually made other towns Green with Envy would be a really good thing.

Judging by the artist's renderings I saw in today's Star-Telegram (one of which is below) if these renderings even remotely represent what this bridge is going to look like, I can see where this bridge might add a long needed signature feature to downtown Fort Worth's skyline.

Time will tell if this bridge makes other towns, far and wide, Green with Envy...

While I Was Out Of Town Fort Worth Again Became The Envy Of Other, Older, Larger Cities

I've been out of the Dallas/Fort Worth news orbit for less than two weeks. Somehow, during that short absence, Fort Worth's Fort Worth Weekly got infected with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram propaganda virus.

That being verbalizing, in print, the absurdly weird idea that anything in Fort Worth is the envy of other, older, larger cities.

Just the "envy of" verbiage makes me cringe.

Below are the first three paragraphs from this week's Fort Worth Weekly cover article titled Second Annual Visionary Awards....

Here’s a conundrum: How can Fort Worth have such an incredible array of art-related institutions and not be an “art town”? (At least not yet.)

Yes, there are arty aspects of the Fort that are the envy of many other, older, much larger cities. The tri-headed brilliance of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Kimbell Art Museum, and Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth make Fort Worth the museum capital of not just Texas (sorry, Dallas; sorry, Houston; sorry, Austin) but arguably the entire Southwest.

So why isn’t Fort Worth considered an art town? Why would an established visual artist tell an up-and-comer seeking career advice to go to Dallas? (Names have been removed to protect the innocent. And the guilty.) Are Fort Worthians simply too enraptured by their Cowtown heritage to care about anything not bovine or floral, forcing progressive artists out of town?

I'm thinking that maybe Fort Worth is not considered an art town, or, really, even considered, by most Americans, to be a town they know anything about, because Fort Worth really is not on the American radar screen.

Example.

Flying back to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, from Phoenix. At the terminal, prior to boarding, the announcements are along the line of "Zone 3 Flight 348 to Dallas now boarding."

While taxi-ing, prior to takeoff, the pilot announces that due to a tailwind we are hoping to land in Dallas a few minutes early.

About a half hour before landing the pilot informs the passengers that we are about 200 miles out of Dallas, where the temperature, in Dallas, is 64 degrees. Upon landing we get a welcome to Dallas.

Fort Worth was not mentioned once during the flight.

Same thing happens when one flies to Seattle. You hear no mention of Tacoma, even though the airport is the Seattle Tacoma International Airport. However, the population of Tacoma is barely over 200,000, while Fort Worth's population is approaching 800,000.

Regarding Fort Worth's "art" scene.

Well, I admit I am a very poorly educated, ill read moron, so it really is no mystery why I'd never heard of Fort Worth's museums prior to moving here.

I do recollect, soon upon moving here, being in downtown Fort Worth,  wondering where Sundance Square was, well prior to learning there is no Square in Sundance Square, and being amused by signs pointing to the "Cultural District," wondering why in the world would a town designate an area as its Cultural District?

I think a really good measure of how far below the national radar Fort Worth flies is the fact that there really is no iconic image of Fort Worth that anyone, anywhere, sees and instantly knows it is Fort Worth. The Fort Worth Stockyards sign does not count, because of the dead giveaway of having the town's name in that particular, sort of, iconic image.

The Fort Worth Weekly article asks "why isn't Fort Worth considered an art town?"

Well.

Have you looked at the town? Really looked? And compared what you see to what you see in towns that have a more elevated reputation?

I'm guessing a town that might be thought of as an "art town" might pay attention to something as basic as landscaping. Other big towns, with which I'm familiar, pay attention to the aesthetics of how their town looks.

In the Phoenix metro area every freeway exit that I saw is landscaped. Roads are landscaped. The entire area  is landscaped.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, the freeway exits to the town's only well known tourist attraction, the Fort Worth Stockyards, are un-landscaped, weedy, littered eyesores.

This type thing, that being littered eyesores, are not the type thing that causes envy in other, older, much larger cities.

Or so it seems to me.

Walking Into Kroger & Being Transported Back To Washington Via Christmas Trees With Streetcars

On my way to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdic Lake I stopped at Kroger to get this week's FW Weekly.

As soon as I stopped my vehicle, and opened the door, I was hit with a most un-Texan fragrance.

I was instantly transported back to Western Washington, where the forests of evergreens scent the air like Christmas trees.

The Christmas trees from Washington have arrived at Kroger. According to the label on one of the trees, "Another GEM from the Emerald Forest: Emerald Christmas Company."

Based in Bellevue.

I do not recollect ever seeing a Christmas Tree Farm in Bellevue. Bellevue is rather urbanized. Think of Bellevue as being to Seattle like Fort Worth is to Dallas.

Only upscale. Very upscale. With way less open space.

If Bellevue had not entered this current discussion, due to being mentioned on a label on a Christmas Tree, it likely would have been more appropo to say Tacoma is to Seattle like Fort Worth is to Dallas.

Only. Again. More upscale. Way more upscale.

Tacoma already has a streetcar, for instance. And Tacoma has a brand new convention center hotel that required no bribes to get built, sitting in an area of many museums, which the streetcar passes through, which Tacoma does not feel the need to label as Tacoma's "Cultural District."

Unlike Fort Worth.

Which has signs all over its downtown zone, pointing you out of downtown, to the "Cultural District."

Such rubes up in Tacoma, they just don't realize it is very sophisticated to call a part of your town your "Cultural District."

Speaking of Tacoma's streetcar. It actually serves a purpose. Tacoma has a transit center where buses, trains and streetcars come together. At the transit center there is a huge parking garage.  Free. You can park there and take the Sounder Train to Seattle. Or the streetcar to downtown Tacoma. Also free. Or hop a bus. Or go shopping in Freighthouse Square.

With Freighthouse Square being a successful version.

On steroids.

In little Tacoma.

Of what 3.5 times bigger, population-wise, Fort Worth's, Santa Fe Rail Market tried to be.

But which failed, miserably.

I sort of predicted the Santa Fe Rail Market failure. It was sort of like shooting fish in a barrel. And it was sort of a precursor to Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. Another enterprise I predict will fail. For similar reasons. But on a much more massive scale, with costly ramifications.

Anyway, watch the below video, which I made in 2008, during my hellacious month-long stupid mistake of spending a long month in Tacoma, and you will see the Tacoma streetcar, coming at you, with Tacoma's convention center behind it. With lots of people on board. They are passing through Tacoma's "Cultural District." The building you will see the streetcar pass by is a museum. Then, in the video, you will walk across a Bridge of Glass and see another museum, shaped like a pointy cone. That would be the Museum of Glass.

In the video you will also see a small part of the Tacoma waterfront, yet one more thing Tacoma has in common with Fort Worth. Only Fort Worth's is not yet built, and will be smaller. And likely will float no boats and have no signature bridges, like the one you'll see in the below video...

Free Admission Today For Fort Worth's Cultural District Museums

I met a Texan this week who spent 7 years exiled in Seattle working for Boeing. She hated the cold, wet weather. Today in Texas she is experiencing her Washington nightmare, because this rain dripping on us today is like a typical fall/winter day in Western Washington.

I don't know if it will let up enough to go on a walk.

I could go to Fort Worth's goofily named "Cultural District" and do some free museum walking today. This particular Saturday is National Museum Day.

So, today the "Cultural District's" 8 museums are free of admission charges from 10am til 5pm.

And the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, aka "The T" is providing free transport between the museums in the "Cultural District."

I have never been to the Kimball Museum. I've not been to the new Science and History Museum. Nor have I been to, nor had much desire to see, the Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. I have been to the other museums in the "Cultural District."

I think. I know my favorite has been the Amon Carter Museum. And I really like the architecture of the Modern Art Museum. The art, not so much.

So, maybe I will take off and join the museum throngs today for some cultural walking.

Barbecue & Longhorns

I'm going to the Fort Worth Stockyards today. I think. It is very very cold out there, in the mid 20s now at 10am. Cold weather feels way colder in Texas than it used to feel up in Washington. The Stockyards should be well stocked with people today due to the Stock Show taking place in another part of town. I'm planning on taking video, hopefully of the Fort Worth Herd. The cows and cowboys should be on the move, even though it is cold.

It's been so cold I've been unwilling to go outside for any aerobic activity, so I'm starting to atrophy. And go stir crazy.

While at the Stockyards I had planned on going to Riscky's Barbecue for All You Can Eat ribs. Only $7.95 for the next 2 weeks. They are real messy, but you are supplied with a roll of paper towels. But Riscky's is fun only if you can Eat All You Can while sitting on a picnic table at their outside patio where you can watch herds of people, cows and horses walk by. By afternoon the prediction is a high of 45. I somehow don't think that will be a comfortable temperature for sitting outside eating messy barbecue ribs.

Yesterday's post about the Stephenville UFO has been getting a lot of kooks (Freudian slip, meant looks, not kooks) from all over the world. This morning someone from Hiroshima was looking at it. But it is the Russians, not the Japanese, who seem to be way too interested in the Texas UFO. Maybe it was a Russian military experiment gone awry.

Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo

Click here for 2009 Fort Worth Stock Show
Rodeo & Parade Info

The Fort Worth Stock Show is currently open for business. The Stock Show is pretty much like a state fair only it's held in the depths of winter. It started off on Saturday with the world's biggest non-mechanized parade. That means there are no motorized vehicles pulling anything and a lot of horses making messes. I've been to the Stock Show Parade twice. It's an entertaining parade except for one slightly jarring note. That being that the parade route is not cleared of vehicles parked on the side of the road. So in many places along the parade route you share space with a car while trying to get a good look at what is passing by.

I've been to the Stock Show & Rodeo twice also. The first time being barely after moving here. We had rodeo tickets. I'd not gotten over my aversion to country music by that point in time and so the rodeo was pretty much torture for me. It's held in an ancient colisseum called the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium. The Stock Show used to take place in the Stockyards, but for some unfathomable reason it was moved to Fort Worth's Cultural District. Yes, Fort Worth has so much culture an entire district had to be built just to contain it. The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo runs from Jan. 11 to Feb. 3.

I highly doubt I'll go to the Stock Show this year. Last year's Stock Show Parade was cancelled due to an ice storm. Here in Fort Worth they call this Stock Show weather.

I did go to the latest State Fair of Texas. It's in Dallas. I'd gone to the State Fair once before and enjoyed it a lot. The second time, not so much. By 5pm I was tired of it and bailed. This year's State Fair of Texas seemed like it'd been taken over by car dealerships. It was a major turnoff. But I did get some good video of the Midway. Midway is State Fair Speak for carnival.

Click the play button twice to start the
video of the State Fair of Texas