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10.25
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Klyde Warren Park: The Bridge to Somewhere?
There hasn't been this much ballyhoo over a grand opening in this city since IKEA in Frisco, In & Out Burger in Dallas, the Apple store in Uptown or the new Texas Stadium in Fair Park. (Oh yeah. Hurts to miss that one.)
And now: Meet Klyde Warren.
Our folksy friends at D Magazine has published an outstanding article...book...chronicle...CD Box Set on Klyde. It's worth the get, if you are into that sort of thing. Seeing all these great stories reminded me, and others who were here then, Klyde began as an idea.
And for those who travel along Woodall Rodgers for work or leisure, Klyde made everyone's ess list. This construction was going to slaughter traffic. It was going to be apocalyptic. People were going to walk faster to work. And for what? So we could plant some grass on top of a bridge? Now, look at it? It's beautiful! Klyde has even got a website. And upon completion today, we learned there was a skosh of knee-jerking with the traffic contention.
So, tomorrow is the big day - the Grand Opening.
And, of course, because Mother Nature is an old cow who needs to get on Match.com quickly (if you know what I mean), there is a cold front coming in and people are going to be wearing turtleneck sweaters. That notwithstanding, this weekend's festivities look interesting, as noted by more of our buddies at the Dallas Observer.
While there are going to be great things to do on the Klyde, what will be the legacy of this park? Due respect to Large Marge (and the website we created in the link), Klyde wants to be the most important bridge in Dallas. For decades, there has been this chasm between the Uptown district and the Downtown, well...everything else. Now, 10 years in the making and $110 million in the spending, here's Klyde with his arms wide open to the financial area and the commerce side, the opulent side and the older side, the haves and the don't-have-as-much.
Will he reach both sides? Time will tell but this park has done something for the city that it hasn't had in a while - a nice ingestion of hope. For a once-considered traffic headache and plot of grass to do that, I'd say it has been worth the wait. Keep reaching, Klyde. We all will be watching.
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