THE OLDEST ‘NEW URBANIST’ IN DALLAS

By KERI MITCHELL

Photo by RASY RAN

Bill Densmore believes in the concepts of geographical and architectural determinism — that the way cities are designed and built have a direct impact on the happiness and prosperity of their residents. He uses terms such as “walkable community” and “mixed-use” to describe his hopes for Old East Dallas.

Densmore, a retired Bryan Adams High School history teacher, doesn’t identify himself as a new urbanist, but his beliefs fit squarely with the tenets of new urbanism and its approach to planning and development: “Human-scaled” urban design with housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces.

The movement found its footing in the early ’90s, when planners, architects and the like began calling for a return to the design principles that had characterized towns and cities for centuries. New urbanism has continued to gain ground since then, often appealing to millennials who may have grown up in the suburbs and now are attracted to city centers.

Densmore can empathize with this attraction but for a completely different reason — he actually lived in the bygone era to which these young folks long to return.

Munger Boulevard in the 1940s morphed almost daily into a football field for Densmore and his friends. They called themselves the Munger Mongrels, one of several neighborhood pick-up teams in the era of sandlots and five-and-dimes.

Automobiles hadn’t yet replaced streetcars, so Munger Boulevard’s broad median strip, which Densmore refers to as an “esplanade,” remained unmarred by the traffic demands of later decades. It was still a two-lane road and looked much like Swiss Avenue, but unlike Swiss’ tree canopy, which cuts through the center of the boulevard, Munger’s tree canopy outlined the esplanade, giving Densmore and his friends ample space to run plays.

If they ever tired of football, they could catch the streetcar on Columbia Avenue and ride it all the way to Southern Methodist University to shoot hoops. Columbia was then the hub of neighborhood activity and commerce, says Densmore, now 84 and living in Lakewood Trails.

Everything in his universe was accessible by either foot or streetcar, and it knit together the neighborhood in ways he felt but couldn’t yet put into words.

By the 1950s, busses and automobiles had grown popular enough to render streetcars outmoded. In 1954, the Dallas City Council ordered the Dallas Transit Company to dispose of all streetcars within two years. The streetcars ran their final route in January 1956 and the system was dismantled.

“It was a horror when they did that,” Densmore says. “At the time I didn’t know. I was a teenager and all I wanted was a car.”

Two decades later, Dallas’ new thoroughfare plans called for a six-lane road that would snake through Old East Dallas’ historic but dilapidated neighborhoods, connecting Abrams Road to Columbia Avenue and curving down to Main Street. The goal was to move cars Downtown as efficiently as possible.

In Densmore’s view, it was the nail in the coffin of Columbia’s heyday as “the Agora of Munger Place,” when pedestrians easily traversed the street to catch a flick at the Rita Theater, enjoy a malt at one of the soda fountains or jump on the streetcar to head Downtown for work or Uptown for fun.

He’s not alone in this view. A movement is afoot to give Columbia Avenue a “road diet,” shrinking it from six lanes to four and repurposing the space for pedestrians and cyclists.

“Because of its six oversized lanes and the large distances between pedestrian crossings, this road has been a source of division in the neighborhood ever since it was constructed,” the Change.org petition states. “The people on either side of this road were once close neighbors but can no longer reach the friends, services or parks on the other side without significant difficulty.”

The petition gained enough steam that the roughly $8 million Columbia Avenue project was included in city staff recommendations for the proposed $1 billion-plus bond, slated for November’s election. City councilmembers have since been given more purview over their own districts’ projects, however, so “it’s kind of in their hands now,” says Nathaniel Barrett, the Munger Place resident who wrote the petition.

Both District 2 and District 14 councilmen Adam Medrano and Philip Kingston have indicated their support of the Columbia Avenue project, but “there’s a very big difference between being supportive and putting limited resources toward a project,” Barrett says.

Still, he’s optimistic that Columbia Avenue will make it through the grinder once Council finalizes the bond later this month. First of all, Barrett says, “it’s cheap,” requiring merely “plastic, paint and planters to go from a big nasty seven-lane road [with turn lane] to one a lot smaller.”

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Traffic projections indicate that just three lanes could accommodate the vehicles traveling between Lakewood and Downtown, he says. Outside lanes could be converted to bicycle lanes with wide sidewalks and on-street parking, or even bus-only lanes, utilized in other cities but not yet in Dallas. Such a “road diet” would force cars to travel at “more reasonable speeds,” Barrett says, and pave the way for more Main Street-type development along Columbia.

“Main Street connects directly into Columbia,” Barrett notes of the thoroughfare’s design. “It’s an opportunity waiting to happen.”

News of the petition and potential changes on the avenue gave Densmore renewed hope for the neighborhood he knew and loved.

“It can’t be what it was. Nothing ever comes back,” Densmore says, but he adds that such redevelopment “would likely cause Munger Place to again find Columbia to be a vibrant retail area for the neighborhood. This would certainly help to bring back something of a walkable community.”

Densmore’s family moved to Munger Place in 1938, nearly three decades after the neighborhood was developed. After the Great Depression, it wasn’t the upscale haven it had been in the early days but was still a nice place to live, he says.

The death of the streetcar, hastened by technological advances that made automobiles and busses less expensive and more readily available, wasn’t the only turning point for the neighborhood.

Before and during World War II, movie theaters were cool bastions of respite where people gathered to watch the latest flick or, during the war, newsreels of the fight overseas. By the late ’40s, Densmore recalls, television sets began to dominate neighborhood living rooms, making the communal experience of theaters obsolete.

Almost simultaneously, soldiers who had returned home from the war were ready to settle down, but not necessarily in urban areas.

“Those poor guys had lived through the Depression and the war,” Densmore says. “They wanted to have fun. They wanted to marry the girl next door and live on Main Street in a little town, so they moved to Garland and to Richardson and those little towns all around.”

The smaller towns had smaller homes, which were more affordable to the young war veterans and easier to clean and cool. So streetcar lines were replaced by parking lots, movie theaters by TVs and urban proximity by suburban amenities, “and that left the big homes there falling apart,” Densmore says of Munger Place and the surrounding historic neighborhoods.

The Munger Mongrels were too young to fight in WWII, but several of them, including Densmore, fought in the Korean War. When he returned home in the mid-’50s, Densmore didn’t recognize what he saw.

“I thought, ‘Something’s wrong with this country,’ ” he recalls. “I just didn’t know what was wrong. It took me a while to find it.”

What was wrong, he much later realized, was the loss of community. The ample boulevards built in the early 20th century gave him and his friends space to gather and play, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired prairie-style homes with their wraparound porches offered a cool place nearby to sit and talk afterward.

They walked everywhere. Two grocery stores and an icehouse were within walking distance, which was crucial since refrigerators weren’t yet common. Buckner Park was within four blocks for occasional football games with opposing neighborhood sandlot teams, the Tremont Kids, the Alley Cats and the Owls. If something was too far to walk, they jumped on the streetcar at Columbia and Collett, which was the hub of neighborhood activity.

“We got together, and the whole group stayed together, because of geographical and architectural determinism,” Densmore says.

Dallas has disregarded its own urban fabric for decades, he believes, but he sees the tide beginning to turn. At one point, he thought the house he grew up in on Tremont was destined to be demolished for apartments, until the urban pioneers of Swiss Avenue successfully campaigned for residential historic districts in the 1970s.

“I heard a guy was fixing it up, and I went over and helped him work,” he

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says of his family home, then laughs, “I’m sure I got in his way.”

At the time, he thought Munger Place might evolve into an artist community. The fact that the front porch neighborhoods that brought together him and his friends in the ’40s are sought-after places to live today is nothing short of astounding to Densmore.

It was music to his ears to hear Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings recently call for “efficient and flexible public transportation” and for correcting “some of the injustices” of the past caused by the construction of highways and demolitions of neighborhoods, as noted in a June 16, 2017 Dallas Morning News story. News of the petition for a Columbia Avenue makeover sent Densmore over the moon.

“They need this. They need a good street. They don’t have it,” Densmore says. “When I was a kid, Columbia Avenue was the place you went for everything.”

Barrett agrees wholeheartedly. The Main Street-style structures that once fronted Columbia mostly have disappeared, with the avenue now fronted by more parking lots than shops.

“It’s not that it’s boarded up shop fronts and hotels,” Barrett says, but Columbia no longer has the elements of connectedness that unite neighborhoods. What it does have, he believes, is good bones — “qualities that are timeless and will withstand the test of time, with a little bit of love.”

A streetcar is not currently part of these tools it already has,” Barrett says.

If it happens, Densmore may not be around to see it. Most of his fellow Mongrels already have passed on. But that doesn’t quell Densmore’s passion for people in his former neighborhood to experience the same connection and quality of life that he did.

Barrett’s vision, for one glaringly obvious reason — cost. But “what I would love is for this project to get underway and the city would take another look at Columbia Avenue,” he says. The city, in prior planning efforts, came up with code for “complete streets” and “form-based zoning” that could translate into exactly the type of Columbia Avenue that he and Densmore envision.

“I would like the city to use some of

His ideal is the left bank in Paris, a place he visited several times during the 37 years he taught European history at Bryan Adams. Densmore fell in love with Paris’ small shops and cafés with tables that often spilled out onto the wide sidewalks with trees. People resided in apartments on top of the businesses they frequented and parking lots were tucked away from view — a walkable community that reminded him of Munger Place.

“I’d love to see Columbia be like that,” he says. “Dallas will never be Paris, but if we had a little more of that, it would be helpful.”

“It would be tough to do it, and it would cost a lot, and it may be too much to do,” Densmore reasons. “But it’s worth it to be that type of people, I think.”

By WILL MADDOX

Photos by DANNY FULGENCIO

C.J. WILSON’s childhood home didn’t have running

water. To take a shower, he walked down to a truck stop along Interstate 20. He showered among the truckers. The nearly mile-long walk back home made him as sweaty and dirty as he was when he left.

His single mother’s ailing health meant she couldn’t work. Food was scarce, but Wilson calls her his superhero. “I tear up because I think about the days she would go to sell whatever she had at the flea market, just for us,” he says, his voice choked with emotion.

It was football that provided a path forward. First at Baylor, then all the way to the Dallas Cowboys. These days, he tries to be the strong male role model and father figure he never had as a football coach and teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School.

During Wilson’s own high school years, he was a third-string cornerback on the freshman football team. After another cornerback made a gaffe, Wilson boldly approached the coach to say, “If I was in, that wouldn’t happen.”

While he doesn’t recommend that strategy to his players, it worked, and he was called into the game to show his undeniable talents.

Wilson’s early success went to his head. His poor attitude got him thrown off the team, meaning he missed the to help the Waco institution.

“God was sending me as a light into a dark place,” he says, “and I thought, ‘Am I losing my mind?’ ” crucial sophomore and junior playing seasons when colleges begin to track talent. By senior year, he swallowed his pride and begged to be let back on the field.

It proved to be a painful few years up until his final season, in 2006.

“The team was terrible,” Wilson says.

Everyone knew it, from the other teams they faced, to the guys in his own locker room. The negativity stung Wilson, who, like most freshmen, saw little time on the field his first year.

“I love sweets, but there was nothing sweet about humble pie,” he says

He didn’t let his coach down, earning defensive district MVP and scholarship offers from Texas, OU, Baylor and Georgia Tech. Bob Stoops of OU, Mack Brown of Texas and former Cowboys coach Chan Gailey (who coached Georgia Tech at the time) all paid Wilson a visit.

“It was the best worst thing ever,” he says of his recruitment.

Despite Baylor’s poor athletic reputation at the time, he saw the potentila

The next year, walking pneumonia left him near death with a lung full of fluid. By junior year, he was ready to shine as a team starter. He was named one of the best defensive backs in the country.

But the success wasn’t always sweet. Black students were rare on campus, while racism was not.

Hatred found its way to the front door of his apartment. “I used to get ‘I hate you nigger,’ handwritten and typed notes, outside my door,” he says of being harassed at his apartment. “Before games, other notes would say, ‘Go back to coon county.’ And I would have to perform for those same people who said that.”

While he never lacked confidence, he avoided a lot of the social scene that troubles many athletes in college.

“I don’t think I went to one party in college,” he says. “People thought I just came to play football and then went home to a different town.”

His talents on the field buoyed him into the professional spotlight when he was drafted to the Carolina Panthers in 2006. “I will be the water boy if you need me to be,” he told his coach, John Fox, at the time.

Wilson says life in the NFL isn’t as glamorous as what is portrayed on TV.

“You have no ‘you’ time,” he says. “Every minute was scheduled, from the moment you wake up until the moment you sleep. It is planned out. You couldn’t go to the store or go out to have a nice dinner, without being bothered.”

An NFL career, while lucrative, proved to have its own set of challenges. Wilson was asked to sign napkins and even breasts, and once was given a lock of a fan’s hair. Despite the pressure of the team, coaches and fan base, Wilson remained a role model.

“I knew I couldn’t mess up,” he says. “All these little kids — what happens when they see me doing something stupid?”

The child who grew up dirt poor with a single parent was now in the position to take care of his own mother. He found relief in ”Seeing the light in my mom’s champion and future Hall-of-Famer Brett Favre. When he was traded to the Cowboys in 2011, the pressure was immediate when he was given the locker once held by All-Star and Hall-Of-Famer Deion Sanders thrived under Wilson’s coaching style. “Coach Wilson has taught me that true greatness is inside me. He has taught me how to be the best me when I play,” West says.

When his wife became pregnant, Wilson changed. He didn’t want his daughter to see him as a football player but rather as her father. Following his NFL career, Wilson went back to Baylor to finish his degree, where he was on the dean’s list and majored in history. He was the first Baylor Football Legend named in the new stadium at Waco.

“Coach Wilson has taught me how to approach all my issues in life differently.” eyes, knowing she didn’t have to worry about anything at that point.”

While Wilson expects this season to be “epic” with his sights firmly set on the state championship, he isn’t just about football. Faith has always been a guiding force.

Unlike many professional athletes, he used his money wisely and only on his family. He put three cousins through college and threw many a graduation party.

With the larger bank account came added pressure from relatives. He even had money stolen directly from his account by a family member who worked in finance. “I met brothers and cousins I never knew existed, all with new business opportunities,” he says. “I asked one man, ‘Where were you when we couldn’t eat? When our house had no water and our house was 98 degrees?’ ”

It wasn’t much easier on the field. His first game was against Super Bowl

After graduation, he returned to Dallas to fulfill his lifelong dream of coaching youth football. When word got out, he was recruited once again, fielding more than 40 phone calls from schools interested in locking him down. It was Kyle Richardson, the former Woodrow principal, who wooed Wilson into picking the Wildcats.

“Coaching is always what I wanted to do,” he says.

He loves his job, made clear when he turned down a coaching position with the Chicago Bears to stay at Woodrow. “I feel like I have 200 sons and daughters. They come to you and they share stuff they are afraid to tell their parents,” he says.

Travis West, a rising senior receiver and defensive back at Woodrow, has

He recently penned the book “Biblical Black History,” highlighting the unsung roles of black men and women throughout time from a Biblical perspective. He spends much of his off-time traveling to different churches to speak.

Wilson also has reveled in the chance to be the father he never had. He and his college sweetheart, Caryn, welcomed daughter Cara two years ago.

“My daughter is terrible and I love it,” he says of her frequent shenanigans. “She can always come home to daddy. The first time I heard ‘daddy,’ I cried.”

While football has defined much of his professional life, he hopes it never defines him.

“The game changed my life, it didn’t become it,” he says.

“I never wanted to be seen as a good football player. I want to be seen as a good man.”

Boo The Deaf Kitty

Boo was the third cat brought to the Lakewood house of Carol and Frank Rowland, when big sisters Dot and Sophia needed a furry friend. The Rowlands have a soft spot for misfit felines, and when they learned Boo was deaf, they knew they were the family for him.

“Our goal is to build awareness for cats with disabilities in shelters and let people know that they still make great pets, sometimes better than average,” Carol says. “Sure, we keep a bell on him so that he doesn’t sneak past us, and instead of calling him, we use flashlights to get his attention. But it is well worth it. I would love to have Boo invited to schools for the deaf and help children to accept themselves as they see how loved a deaf little kitty can be.” Boo has proven so popular, his Facebook page has almost 1,000 followers. Keep up with him at facebook.com/boothedeafkitty.