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Remember there was government housing, or "projects", along Hall Street east of Central. back in my beer delivery days we pushed a lot of malt liquor in that area. Never felt unsafe though. Probably would feel a bit out of sorts at the new "upscale" apartments located there now.
Wow, thanks so much for pointing me towards Little Mexico/Freedmen's Town - that was a real eye-opener!
I'd thought the area might have been full of industrial parks/light industry/maybe some sort of downscale office spaces where almost nobody lived - I had NO idea there was this kind of history. Really informative reading!
And good gosh, has it ever changed in 20 years....and I sure hesitate to say "for the better".
There were some things like car dealerships, garages, ice factory, dairy - also there were many more historic homes scattered around - some of them were Victorican vintage.
Thanks to all for adding to my nostalgic recollections of the area now known as Uptown Dallas. In the 50's and into the mid 60's my grandmother lived on Howell Street between the southbound Central Expressway service road and the north side of the divided portion of Lemmon Avenue. My older brother, Randy, and I spent many, many summer days playing in the area during that period. Our grandmother Mable Dorris lived on the south side of Howell only a block from the service road. There was one house to her east and then a vacant lot that bordered the service road. The house next door was owned by Mrs. Wright, as best as my 60 year old memory serves. There was an alley that ran parallel to Howell Street betwee Lemmon and the service road. A Google Earth search still shows what I believe to be the driveway entrance to that alley on the Lemmon Avenue side. On the southside of that alleyway adjacent to the service road was a two-story Optical Clinic building, which was essentially right across the fence from my grandmother's backyard. On the west side of Mabel's home one or two houses were razed when I was just old enough to recall, then a year or so later a two-level office builing was built there about a block east of Lemmon. It was memorable in that the ground level became the parking lot once the 'second floor' -- one huge, contiuous concrete slab -- was lifted by numerous cranes to the second story elevation, thereby creating office space above and a parking area underneath. Quite a thing for a young kid to watch such a large, building-size slab of concrete being lifted at one time then anchored in place to the upright columns. I mention this event because I think that building might well have been one of the first commercial buildings in that area. It is long since gone, along with the Optical Clinic and most all other vestiges of that time. A DART bus stop now sits alongside the expressway service road where we used to play as children.
The area was all wood frame houses with clapboard siding, brick chimneys, and covered front porches. Sitting in the shade on that porch was a big pastime in the hot Dallas summers in the 50s since there was no air conditioning -- other that an old 'swamp cooler' in the main room of the house. Some reading this will remember those big, bulky 'evaporative coolers' which were the size of washing machines; they simply pulled outside air through a fiber mesh that had recirculating water trickling through it, such that you got very damp but slightly cooled air blowing into the house via a large squirrel cage blower. It helped beat the heat, but it was really hard on wallpaper of other things in the house that didn't appreciate the continual dampness. Most everybody used those coolers, including some family relatives who lived across the street on the north side of Howell. That side of the street was still all residential houses from the service road to Lemmon during those days.
Most of the residents were blue-collar white families back then. The Freedman's Town area just to the south was primarily a black community, and I still recall the old Freedman's cemetary alongside Central Expressway. Segregation was very present in those days... at least culturally, if not legally... so we didn't get to play with many kids from more than a block or two from Howell Street. On occasion we did get to a chance to see many black families and play with the kids when one of my uncles or older cousins would walk us to the 'Ice House' for a Coke or ice cream on hot summer days. I think that store was on Oak Grove several blocks off Central Expressway, and it was part of some fond memories of that time.
You can still find that section of Howell Street on some maps and especially on Google Earth, but usually as an overlay only. The street itself seems to have mostly disappeared or been relocated somewhat and shortened. Other than the DART stop, the entire triangle of land I've referred to here is now vacant, that being the section borderd by the former Howell Street, Lemmon Avenue and the southbound Central Expressway service road. All that remains from those good 'ol days are some of the original big trees that used to shade my grandmother's house and those of her neighbors. What is abundantly clear is... that section of Uptown has come a long, long way since then. It was a special place for me and my older brother then, and in my memory... it still is.
Last edited by GlennDorris; 12-04-2013 at 06:14 AM..
Reason: typos I didn't notice
Thanks to all for adding to my nostalgic recollections of the area now known as Uptown Dallas. In the 50's and into the mid 60's my grandmother lived on Howell Street between the southbound Central Expressway service road and the north side of the divided portion of Lemmon Avenue. My older brother, Randy, and I spent many, many summer days playing in the area during that period. Our grandmother Mable Dorris lived on the south side of Howell only a block from the service road. There was one house to her east and then a vacant lot that bordered the service road. The house next door was owned by Mrs. Wright, as best as my 60 year old memory serves. There was an alley that ran parallel to Howell Street betwee Lemmon and the service road. A Google Earth search still shows what I believe to be the driveway entrance to that alley on the Lemmon Avenue side. On the southside of that alleyway adjacent to the service road was a two-story Optical Clinic building, which was essentially right across the fence from my grandmother's backyard. On the west side of Mabel's home one or two houses were razed when I was just old enough to recall, then a year or so later a two-level office builing was built there about a block east of Lemmon. It was memorable in that the ground level became the parking lot once the 'second floor' -- one huge, contiuous concrete slab -- was lifted by numerous cranes to the second story elevation, thereby creating office space above and a parking area underneath. Quite a thing for a young kid to watch such a large, building-size slab of concrete being lifted at one time then anchored in place to the upright columns. I mention this event because I think that building might well have been one of the first commercial buildings in that area. It is long since gone, along with the Optical Clinic and most all other vestiges of that time. A DART bus stop now sits alongside the expressway service road where we used to play as children.
The area was all wood frame houses with clapboard siding, brick chimneys, and covered front porches. Sitting in the shade on that porch was a big pastime in the hot Dallas summers in the 50s since there was no air conditioning -- other that an old 'swamp cooler' in the main room of the house. Some reading this will remember those big, bulky 'evaporative coolers' which were the size of washing machines; they simply pulled outside air through a fiber mesh that had recirculating water trickling through it, such that you got very damp but slightly cooled air blowing into the house via a large squirrel cage blower. It helped beat the heat, but it was really hard on wallpaper of other things in the house that didn't appreciate the continual dampness. Most everybody used those coolers, including some family relatives who lived across the street on the north side of Howell. That side of the street was still all residential houses from the service road to Lemmon during those days.
Most of the residents were blue-collar white families back then. The Freedman's Town area just to the south was primarily a black community, and I still recall the old Freedman's cemetary alongside Central Expressway. Segregation was very present in those days... at least culturally, if not legally... so we didn't get to play with many kids from more than a block or two from Howell Street. On occasion we did get to a chance to see many black families and play with the kids when one of my uncles or older cousins would walk us to the 'Ice House' for a Coke or ice cream on hot summer days. I think that store was on Oak Grove several blocks off Central Expressway, and it was part of some fond memories of that time.
You can still find that section of Howell Street on some maps and especially on Google Earth, but usually as an overlay only. The street itself seems to have mostly disappeared or been relocated somewhat and shortened. Other than the DART stop, the entire triangle of land I've referred to here is now vacant, that being the section borderd by the former Howell Street, Lemmon Avenue and the southbound Central Expressway service road. All that remains from those good 'ol days are some of the original big trees that used to shade my grandmother's house and those of her neighbors. What is abundantly clear is... that section of Uptown has come a long, long way since then. It was a special place for me and my older brother then, and in my memory... it still is.
The 3500 and 3600 blocks of Howell Street were actually the site of multiple bombings in the summer of 1940, when black people, who had previously only lived south of Lemmon, began moving in. I am not sure whether at that point the result was that the remaining whites left or whether they forced the black people to move back.
The black neighborhood evolved from Freedman's Town, which was originally located outside city limits as freed blacks within city limits would be arrested for vagrancy. The area had become part of the city by 1905, and up to the 1950s I think the black neighborhood was usually called "Short North Dallas" or just North Dallas, rather than Freedman's Town--the area known as North Dallas today was Far North Dallas back then, and the current Far North Dallas was completely rural.
The dividing line between Little Mexico and the black neighborhood was McKinney Avenue. Little Mexico was located south of the Katy tracks, and prior to the massive influx of refugees from the Mexican Revolution during the 1910s, the area had largely been settled by poor European immigrants, many of them Jewish. The Cumberland Hill School and William B. Travis School served Little Mexico and were known as Mexican schools, though Hispanic students were never segregated by law and Mexican-American students outside the area attended the neighborhood white schools.
There was definitely legal segregation in the 1950s as well. Black children were forced to attend all-black schools (in Short North Dallas, they attended J.W Ray and B.F. Darrell elementary schools and Booker T. Washington Technical High School) until 1961, when limited desegregation began. Travis and Ben Milam schools in Uptown were two of the eight schools which integrated that year. The high schools were not integrated until 1967, but the district used gerrymandered attendance zones which meant that Booker T remained all black and served almost all blacks in the area. By that point, the construction of Central had torn the community in two and eliminated much of the housing stock, and Booker T. was closed as a high school and converted to an elementary school in 1969. It eventually became the arts magnet in 1976, and ironically is now the whitest high school in DISD.
The construction of Central destroyed much of the black community, and the construction of Woodall Rogers finished the job, as well as tearing Little Mexico apart. Most of Little Mexico is now the Victory development. The communities were also affected by the city's annexing West Dallas and building thousands of units in the West Dallas projects, which saw many of the low-income residents leave. I believe the area was very low in population until the construction of Cityplace started the Uptown boom and turned it into the white yuppie neighborhood it is today.
There are still some remnants of the area's former history left--St. Paul's UMC still is a black church in the arts district, the former Moorland Negro YMCA is now home of the Dallas Black Dance Theater, and St. Peter's Catholic Church is still open, though it is now designated as a parish for African Americans and Polish speakers, a very interesting mix. Booker T and J W Ray schools are still open, and the Roseland housing projects are still there, though they've been substantially redeveloped.
There is very little of Little Mexico still around that I know of other than the Little Mexico Village projects.
The 3500 and 3600 blocks of Howell Street were actually the site of multiple bombings in the summer of 1940, when black people, who had previously only lived south of Lemmon, began moving in. I am not sure whether at that point the result was that the remaining whites left or whether they forced the black people to move back.
The black neighborhood evolved from Freedman's Town, which was originally located outside city limits as freed blacks within city limits would be arrested for vagrancy. The area had become part of the city by 1905, and up to the 1950s I think the black neighborhood was usually called "Short North Dallas" or just North Dallas, rather than Freedman's Town--the area known as North Dallas today was Far North Dallas back then, and the current Far North Dallas was completely rural.
The dividing line between Little Mexico and the black neighborhood was McKinney Avenue. Little Mexico was located south of the Katy tracks, and prior to the massive influx of refugees from the Mexican Revolution during the 1910s, the area had largely been settled by poor European immigrants, many of them Jewish. The Cumberland Hill School and William B. Travis School served Little Mexico and were known as Mexican schools, though Hispanic students were never segregated by law and Mexican-American students outside the area attended the neighborhood white schools.
There was definitely legal segregation in the 1950s as well. Black children were forced to attend all-black schools (in Short North Dallas, they attended J.W Ray and B.F. Darrell elementary schools and Booker T. Washington Technical High School) until 1961, when limited desegregation began. Travis and Ben Milam schools in Uptown were two of the eight schools which integrated that year. The high schools were not integrated until 1967, but the district used gerrymandered attendance zones which meant that Booker T remained all black and served almost all blacks in the area. By that point, the construction of Central had torn the community in two and eliminated much of the housing stock, and Booker T. was closed as a high school and converted to an elementary school in 1969. It eventually became the arts magnet in 1976, and ironically is now the whitest high school in DISD.
The construction of Central destroyed much of the black community, and the construction of Woodall Rogers finished the job, as well as tearing Little Mexico apart. Most of Little Mexico is now the Victory development. The communities were also affected by the city's annexing West Dallas and building thousands of units in the West Dallas projects, which saw many of the low-income residents leave. I believe the area was very low in population until the construction of Cityplace started the Uptown boom and turned it into the white yuppie neighborhood it is today.
There are still some remnants of the area's former history left--St. Paul's UMC still is a black church in the arts district, the former Moorland Negro YMCA is now home of the Dallas Black Dance Theater, and St. Peter's Catholic Church is still open, though it is now designated as a parish for African Americans and Polish speakers, a very interesting mix. Booker T and J W Ray schools are still open, and the Roseland housing projects are still there, though they've been substantially redeveloped.
There is very little of Little Mexico still around that I know of other than the Little Mexico Village projects.
Thanks for sharing. How sad the legacy of urban freeways and how they destroyed urban ethnic communities around the country.
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