SEEKING SOLACE IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

BY RACHEL STONE PHOTOS BY DANNY FULGENCIO

While it might not rival New York or Chicago’s urban pandemonium, Dallas is a bustling city with its share of highstress professions, crowded scenes, road rage and those intermittent heartaches to which no human is immune. If you know where to look, you’ll find our neighborhood offers respite from the daily grind or occasional trauma in the form of peaceful nooks, comforting crannies and uplifting activities. Here, find a guide to our readers’ and our own favorite escapes.

When Alicia Quintans opens her window shades in the early morning, she can see sunlight casting through the trees and mist off Cedar Creek.

The creek is home to waterfowl and other wildlife, and neighbors think the creek’s ecosystem could be part of what keeps the Beckley Club Estates peacock population around.

Beckley Club Estates, near the Dallas Zoo, was built in the 1920s. Its developer originally dammed the creek to create three lakes, but when the artificial lakes started causing flooding and unsafe conditions, the city blasted a hole through the dam. So now, the creek runs except in the driest conditions.

A greenbelt runs alongside the creek, and neighbors often walk their dogs there.

A spillway under Beckley on South Shore draws graffiti, says Quintans, an architect and preservationist. Some neighbors complain about it as a nuisance, but “I appreciate nice work,” she says.

If your grandparents are from Oak Cliff, they probably hung out at Kiest Park. The park, just north of Kiest Boulevard between Hampton and Rugged, has been a Mecca of teenage activity from the time kids could get the keys to a jalopy and go cruisin’.

The park was built in 1931 after Dallas Times Herald publisher Edwin J. Kiest donated 231 acres to the city.

Soon after, the Works Progress Administration built a brown fieldstone pavilion, stone entryways and a pergola with a manmade brook.

Later, a 2-mile walking path was added, and that, along with baseball fields, tennis courts and playgrounds, keeps the park busy all the time.

“I do some of my best thinking and jogging around that track,” says Teresa Coleman Wash of TeCo Theatrical Productions.

In the 2006 bond election, voters approved spending about $2 million to improve Kiest Park.

The pergola, which had fallen into disrepair and was taken down in the 1960s, recently was rebuilt.

Those improvements, which also included repaving the track, took about eight years to materialize but were just completed this past spring, thanks to a continued push from Friends of Oak Cliff Parks.

Lucky Dog Books

The number of bookshops in our neighborhood recently increased by 50 percent when boutique/cafe The Wild Detectives opened in Bishop Arts. That, along with Imported Books on Clarendon and Lucky Dog Books, gave us three choices in the neighborhood. Not bad in an era that has seen the death of many booksellers including retail giant Borders.

The Detectives is a good place to have a pour-over while getting some work done or to meet a friend for a beer. And Uncle Robert’s Imported Books is best for the opportunity to chat with nonagenarian owner Robert N. Jones.

But Lucky Dog Books is a place to get lost.

633 W. DAVIS 214.941.2665

Nine-foot shelves hold used paperback and hardcover books by the thousands. A loft offers tables for studying, working, having a quiet meeting or just reading.

The shop is an offshoot of the former Paperbacks Plus. When that store lost its lease in Lakewood several years ago, the owners reopened three shops, including the one in Oak Cliff. The others are on Garland Road and in Mesquite.

Lucky Dog Books also is a meeting place for writing groups and clubs, and the shop hosts occasional events, including musical performances and writing workshops. Find more information at luckydogbooks.com.

Native Texas grasses and wildflowers sway in the late-afternoon spring breeze at Oak Cliff Nature Preserve.

The birds are chirping. A plane flies overhead. The occasional whine of sirens or zipzip of a motorcycle from nearby Hampton and Illinois remind you that you’re in the middle of the city, even though all around is nature.

This 111-acre sanctuary is not immune to the pollution of urban life. But it is kept clean and safe thanks to a coalition of mountain bikers.

The Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association is more than just a bicycling club.

Its members received permission from the Texas Land Conservancy to build 8 miles of mountain bike trails at OCNP in 2006. Since then, DORBA has maintained the Oak Cliff Nature Preserve mountain bike and hiking trails through its stewardship program.

The trail stewards are “the unseen heroes” of Dallas mountain biking, says Cash Anglin of DORBA.

The association raises money through membership dues, races and grants to maintain 16 mountain bike trails in the Dallas area.

The Texas Land Conservancy, which owns the park, also is working on plans to improve the trailhead at OCNP to make it more inviting for picnics and hanging out.

DORBA gave the preserve a new life, but it fell into public use in 2002 thanks to the efforts of Oak Cliff preservationists.

When a developer announced plans to build homes on the former scouting campground in 1999, neighbors including David Marquis fought to keep more than 100 acres natural in perpetuity. Find more information at dorba.org.

Anglican

ALL SAINTS DALLAS / 2733 Oak Lawn / 972.755.3505

Radical Inclusivity, Profound Transformation. Come and See!

9:00 & 11:00 am Sunday Services. www.allsaintschurchdallas.org

Baptist

CLIFF TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH / 125 Sunset Ave. / CliffTemple.org

Building everyday people into everyday missionaries for Jesus Christ.

Sunday School: 9:30 am / Sunday Worship: 10:45 am / 214-942-8601

Disciples Of Christ

EAST DALLAS CHRISTIAN CHURCH / 629 N. Peak Street / 214.824.8185

Sunday School 9:30 am / THE TABLE Worship 9:30 am

Worship 8:30 & 10:50 am / Rev. Deborah Morgan-Stokes / edcc.org

Episcopal

CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH / 534 W. Tenth St. / 214.941.0339

Sunday: 8 & 10 am Holy Eucharist, 12:30pm Santa Misa en Español Sunday School for all ages / Children’s Chapel / christchurchdallas.org

Methodist

KESSLER PARK UMC / 1215 Turner Ave. / 214.942.0098 / kpumc.org

9:30 am Sunday School / 11:00 Worship / All welcome regardless of creed, color, culture, gender or sexual identity.

TYLER STREET UMC / 927 W. 10th Street / 214.946.8106

Sunday Worship at 8:30 am and 10:50 am www.tsumc.org

NON-DENOMINATIONAL

KESSLER COMMUNITY CHURCH / 2100 Leander Dr. at Hampton Rd.

“Your Hometown Church Near the Heart of the City.”

10:30 am Contemporary Service / kesslercommunitychurch.com

Presbyterian

OAK CLIFF PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH / 6000 S. Hampton Road

Sunday Worship at 9:30 am & 11:05 am 214-339-2211 / www.ocpres.com

No Harm Done

The first story involved the abduction of 276 young women in northern Nigeria. Members of the terror group Boko Haram overpowered security guards at an all-girls school in Chibok, yanked the girls out of bed, forced them into trucks and disappeared. Some escaped, but as international outrage swelled, leaders of Boko Haram were emboldened to kidnap more young women. Reports indicated that some had been sold for $12 each as sex slaves.

The second story revealed that over the last ten years, the Vatican has defrocked 848 priests who sexually abused children and young adults and sanctioned another 2,572 with lesser penalties. As a clergyman, this clandestine tragedy deeply grieves me, especially in light of thousands of other instances of sexual abuse that have never been exposed, among Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Assemblies of God and every other group who claims the name “Christian.”

No matter your religion or lack of religion, we can agree every child deserves a safe environment in which to live, learn and play. Every child should be safe in his or her schools, neighborhoods and places of worship. These places should be sanctuaries — places of safety and support. But we have not cared enough, or been vigilant enough, to make this a reality.

So I feel compelled, at least on behalf of the Christian community, to say that we are sorry. We’re sorry that children have not been protected as they should be, and that some who claim the name of Christ have acted nothing like him. We’re sorry that we have been guilty of singing hallelujahs while not working for safer neighborhoods.

Apologies are not enough. Action matters more than words. Better practices and safeguards, more engagement in schools through mentoring, tutoring and simply presence, as well as taking responsibility for the safety of our children in our neighborhoods, can all create a safer Oak Cliff for the sake of our children.

A reporter of the Bosnian genocide, trapped in crossfire, discovered a panicked man holding a little girl hit by a sniper bul- let. He immediately threw down his pad and pencil and rushed to help both of them into his car.

As the reporter raced to the hospital, the man cradling the bleeding child said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still alive.” A few moments later he said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing.” Then he said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm.’‘ Finally he whispered, “Hurry. Oh my God, my child is getting cold.”

When they reached the hospital, the little girl had died. Later in the bathroom, while washing blood from their hands and clothes, the man turned to the reporter and said, “Now I must go tell her father that his child is dead. He will be heartbroken.”

The reporter was amazed. “I thought she was your child,” he said.

“No,” the man responded. “But aren’t they all our children?”