A hundred years Sooner

Nov. 16 – Tulsa, OK

Like Lubbock, Tulsa was in a state of ongoing refurbishment, city and hotel alike. We suffered through a week at the Crowne Plaza, where jackhammers would be tearing up concrete in the lobby during the morning and afternoon, as they were likewise tearing up the downtown streets, permitting no escape from the din. Elevators, if working, had a habit of going in the wrong direction and stopping at the wrong floor, or not at all. It became a regular occurrence to be awakened by the maid telephoning your room to inquire about the Do Not Disturb sign on your door. As lemon juice for these lacerations, a tidy package of sleep aids and a CD of soothing sounds was provided with each room, a gesture made doubly ironic in a city that gave little cause to be awake at all during daylight hours.

Tulsa may be the only town I've visited where more goes on downtown after dark than during the day. Restaurants and delis in the city center shut their doors at two in the afternoon, while taverns and coffee shops don't open at all until four or five. But once night fell, we were within walking distance of two distinct entertainment districts.

The first, a short walk across any of a number of bridges over the Santa Fe railroad (whose presence was betrayed loudly by air horn for five minutes at a time, at intervals of approximately five minutes), was known as the Brady Arts District. It might better be called the Shipping and Receiving District, for interspersed between loading docks and warehouses are funky boutiques, cafés and a few taverns—intercity commerce meets la vie bohème.

More thorough whistle-wetting (of dubious necessity if the passing locomotives are any indication) can be had in the Blue Dome neighborhood on the eastern edge of downtown. The Blue Dome itself surmounts what was once a filling station, and in fact remains one, since a wing of the edifice is occupied by Arnie's Bar, an unpretentious self-styled dive with a shuffleboard table and the occasional Irish band playing. Around the corner is McNellie's, another Celtic-themed watering hole and a sister venture to the Mexican restaurant across the street. Such unlikely cross-branding seems apropos to the agressively upswinging economy of the district, where even I, with no interest whatever in the real estate market, could read "Buy! Buy! Buy!" in each shuttered window of every unrenovated brick façade.

Tulsa rivals its big brother Oklahoma City in urbanity, if not in population, for its city center has a compactness and venerability that suggests a genuine purpose for being (historically the oil industry), as opposed to the bigger city's somewhat arbitrary designation as the state capital. Landmarks such as the Blue Dome, the Union Depot and the Philtower Building recall the boom years of Art Deco, seeming to root the city more firmly into the American fabric than can be said of the capital.

During my week in Tulsa, I hated the noise and construction because I had to live in it; would jackhammers and chain-link fence be any more welcome in your living room than in my lobby? Yet hammer and fence were darning the fabric of this part of America, and for that week, despite or because of the tribulations, I nevertheless did live in it.

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