|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
|
|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
Save the ’Yards
To the editor: Fort Worth Weekly sure does speak of things others dare not to. I’m enjoying all the recent great articles on development and politics lately in your paper — particularly “Stealth Candidates” by Dan McGraw (April 27, 2005). Wow, is the gambling and money issue in the Stockyards possibly going to win in Fort Worth after all? Are years of authenticity crusaders (Steve Murrin, etc.) going to end up losing after all their hard life’s work? Is the only thing that ever really gave Fort Worth a signature difference from every other airport stop in America (as Steve Murrin used to say) going to finally turn into just another “rubber tommyhawk” factory?
From a distance now, here in Central Texas where they have a pretty suck-sessful theme called “keep Austin weird,” I sure hurt to think that my home town Fort Worth could become another Disneyland kind of generic, duty-free shop stop on the travel/tourism super highway. There is some really “greater than weird” stuff in music and art and authenticity from Fort Worth (and certainly “greater than casinos”).
Way back in the ’90s (as my son would say), I remember walking around the run-down old cattle pens in the Stockyards amongst the great old Fort Worth history and cowboys and children of the cowboys. And Willie Nelson played a concert down in the Stockyards in the ’70s that gave enough of a money flow to spur the first renovations. It’s one of the last places in America that hasn’t gotten completely ruined.
Hope we aren’t about to forget whom we came to the dance with in Fort Worth. I sure would hate to see it all boil down to one-armed bandits.
Carter Milner
Canyon Lake
Email this Article...
