FROZEN IN TIME

The story behind the abandoned 1920s retail strip in North Cliff COMMENT. Visit oakcliff.advocatemag.com/backstory to tell us what you think.

I like to drive around Oak Cliff.

Quite frankly, I’ve told friends that if I ever disappear and my car and body are found in some strange place (and no foul play is involved) it’s because I was just curious and took a spontaneous “detour” down some street I’ve never visited before and, obviously, expired behind the wheel. You’d think by now I’d have been just about everywhere in The Cliff, but there are still streets and parks and places to experience. And, time is passing. So I’m trying to do it all before my children determine it’s time to confiscate the keys and sell my car, and I find myself grounded, permanently.

A few months back, on one of my Sunday afternoon excursions, I decided to explore the North Cliff neighborhood off of West Clarendon. The neighborhood is an assortment of brick and frame houses from different eras that range from Tudor style to old farmhouse leftovers, certainly an interesting mix. Slowly driving up one street and down another, I meandered around taking in the ambience. Then, suddenly, my lazy, relaxing trek halted when I came upon an aging and deserted late-1920s retail strip in the 700 block of Pierce Street, with an odd placement (per today’s world): nestled inside a residential neighborhood. The dated, vintage strip center looked like something out of a Bonnie & Clyde movie or some Depression-era drama.

Somewhat recalling the sight from an earlier and rapid shortcut through the area, this time the cozy enclave of brick buildings captured my attention. I was immediately enchanted.

These one-story, attached, retail buildings with cable-supported awnings reminded me of those movie or TV scenes where an oldtimer from another era comes back for a visit and sits on the corner, staring at the buildings while envisioning how the town used to look back in the day. Imagining housewives in cotton shirtwaist dresses and grandmothers in 1930s-1940s orthopedic shoes — all with their

Olivia Walton-esque hats and carrying brown paper bags of groceries. I could also picture 10-year-old boys in knickers and caps perched atop vintage bicycles, while milk and bread trucks made deliveries and the locals gathered under the awnings, which is probably a fairly realistic scenario for that era.

The buildings seemed, to me, to be pleading for a reno.

About two weeks after my visit, an acquaintance, Mary McLachlan, an avid cyclist, historical enthusiast and amateur photographer, posted some photos of the buildings online. She told others how she was recently cycling in the area, and the structures caught her attention. Like me, she was smitten. (I think we must be twins separated at birth except for the cycling, of course.) A flood of comments and messages followed the post, most of them chock-full of delightful details and heartwarming stories.

Brian Haney, whose mother owned the J&J Beauty Shop in the strip, said, “[It] seemed like folding towels at home was never ending when I was a kid.”

“Sims grocery store was there,” typed Stephany Pitt White. “My mom would send me for milk, bread and cigarettes. Yep a 10-year-old buying cigs.”

JoEllen Glasgow McVey posted that she and her grandmother often walked from Gladstone Drive to these little stores. “One was a variety store where my grandmother bought thread and other sewing materials,” McVey says. “That was a very looooooooong time ago!”

According to Suzanne Welsh Burch, “A laundromat with front-loading machines was one of the center buildings. In the late ’40s. Mom and I would go get the family’s clothes washed, then drive the wet stuff home to hang on the line. We got our very own machine in 1951 when baby sister came.”

Ken Shields had a paper route on Catherine Street in the ’50s. “There was a grocery store and a bar. Can’t remember the rest. My older brother took the paper into the bar dark and smoky in there scared me.” Shields and his brother purchased Baby Ruth candy bars and Cokes in the grocery to celebrate the end of the paper route. “Then,” he wrote, “me ‘n my brother would ride our Radio Flyers down the hill and crash onto the well-kept yard at the bottom of the hill good times.”

On the other side of Pierce sits an old vacant ceramics store, formerly Coat’s Vari- make your COMMENTS on this column

OAKCLIFF.ADVOCATEMAG.COM/BACKSTORY ety Store, and beside that a more modern building, built in 1939.

“One of the stores was Bateman Ceramics,” typed Donna Clark Dorflinger who lived on Brooklyn Street. “My mother did business with him. He was a sweet man. The other store was a grocery store, where we went for groceries. On the other corner of the store was [a] store like a 7-Eleven.”

“Randy Reynolds’ aunt and uncle owned the tiny store at the end of the [streetcar] line on Pierce and Brooklyn,” posted Diane Lovelace Rogers, who drives by the old buildings several times each week. “Only the concrete slab is there [now]. I love these little buildings and wish I could think of something that could be done with them today.”

These charming relics from the past remind us how life used to be, before everyone had a car and people rarely locked their doors, and when most of the moms were home during the day. Although change is constant, and progress invariably pushes out the old, I’d love to see these charming structures repurposed in some way.

However … I just checked my purse and the keys are still there. And my car’s still in the garage. So I’m outta here! I’ve got places to see. Better go for a drive while I still can.

Your Stories

Longtime Cliffi tes recount memories and reconnect on oakcliff.advocatemag. com/backstory

I went to three separate elementary schools. First, second — Jeff Davis. Third, seventh — Mark Twain. Fourth through sixth — Daniel Webster. I then followed all of those kids I met to Browne JH and on to Kimball HS. Out of the 923 students in our graduating class, I think I knew by sight, if not their name, at least half of them. Everywhere you went Kiest Park, restaurants, Wynnewood Theater, shopping you met someone you knew. That was pretty cool now that I think of it. Thanks for jogging the Old Memory, Gayla!

—Ron Brannon

Again, great job, Gayla. Because of the growth during those years, we were growing up through elementary, junior high and high schools, and all the churches; you nailed it. We definitely grew up in “Home Town USA.”

—Larry Stevenson

Thanks for explaining this in such detail! I’m a member of a family with three generations raised in Oak Cliff! I live out of state now but still am deeply connected to the Cliff! Time and distance can’t break the childhood bonds of church, school or my neighborhood, Glen Oaks.

—Susan Keener

Gayla Brooks can date her neighborhood heritage back to 1918, when her father was born in what was then called Eagle Ford. She was born at Methodist hospital and graduated from Kimball High School. Brooks is one of three co-authors of the recently published books, “Legendary Locals of Oak Cli ” and “Images of America: Oak Cli ”, and writes a monthly history column for the Oak Cli Advocate. Send her feedback and ideas to gbrooks@advocatemag.com.

So true, Gayla. Many of my friends today are my friends through SOC, Storey, Clara Oliver, Fernwood Baptist, BSA Troop 144, and the list goes on. Also, many of those same fri ends had parents that grew up in Oak Cliff and shared childhoods and neighborhoods with my parents just adding to the Oak Cliff connection. Oak Cliff was more than just a section of Dallas — it was a genuine Community.

—Jim Kidd