Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to [email protected] or sent online at okgazette.com. Include a city of residence and contact number for verification.
Thought rehab
Oh, counsels Bocock and Box, how do your souls rest while representing the 499 Sheridan project? I remember when floors were shaved off the Devon Tower’s design to make it less of a stark thumb in the skyline; but now you want to remove a block of history because you “need more room?” Maybe you could downsize the acreage-size offices currently in the tower; energy is too unstable a business to be bulldozing property over.
But no buildings were destroyed to make way for the Devon Tower; it was an architecturally insignificant parking garage! [Chesapeake Energy] Arena? It replaced a sentimentally significant bakery, but not an architecturally significant one. I was sad to see it go, and I took pictures of it before the wrecking ball started swinging; I rode by it daily when going in to work with my mother, and of course, we can remember the warm bread smell.
But it was just a concrete factory, meant for utility, not to please the eye.
All these decent people spending their money rehabbing “unrehabbable” buildings in Bricktown, Automobile Alley, Midtown; why must we have these other bottom-line-obsessed owners who destroy Stage Center and anything else that gets in their way? Every one of those buildings on the block could and should be rehabbed; examples of success are a mere block over.
If you must have your sprawling phallic-symbol towers to prove your might, as has been said, find yourself an empty lot and knock yourselves out. It’s too bad we’re wasting all that other land on the Core to Shore giant park; Myriad Gardens has served my downtown park needs well for decades.
I know it’s too late to change, but I would have just run a strip straight south of the gardens, turning that street into tree-lined bike and pedestrian paths on down to another big park at the river; then there’d be all that prime land on either side to stake your towers on.
— Daniel Shywaoub Oklahoma City
Earned equality?
What nonsense put forth by Chan Aaron with his skewed stats regarding income inequality (Commentary, “Income inequality at all-time high,” Aug. 12, Gazette). It’s just another bit of silliness propounded by the left.
In America, we have equality at the starting line, not the finish line. If you want to climb the income ladder, it’s possible; there are endless success stories of those of humble beginnings who’ve done it. If you want to see income inequality, look at any nation below El Paso founded by the Catholic church.
— Thomas L. Furlong Oklahoma City
