40th Anniversary of the Dallas Arts District

This week 40^th anniversary of the Dallas Arts District, which has since grown into a major attraction and employment hub.

The area on the edge of the Central Business District near Woodall Rogers Highway and the Central Expressway was largely empty when the Dallas City Council voted to designate the area on February 16, 1983.

On Friday, schoolchildren from the suburbs came to the play Dallas Black Dance Theater at the Wiley Theatre.

“I am an example of the dancers who were on stage, I am an example of the students who were in the hall admiring the dancers, and now I am one of the teachers,” said Katricia Eaglin.

She was a graduate of the High School of Performing and Visual Arts. Booker T. Washington, one of the few surviving buildings built in the area 40 years ago.

She repeatedly auditioned to win a spot on the Dallas Black Dance Theater stage.

She said she grew up with the area.

“I was here when the area where Moody is was just a parking lot,” Eaglin said.

Students from Lancaster posed for photos on the steps of the Moody Theater as they completed their tour of the area on Friday.

A historical photograph of the area from the 1980s shows mostly empty space.

“There were used car parks, body shops and the Borden Dairy Farm,” said AT&T Center for the Performing Arts spokesman Chris Heinbaugh. “At that time, the city center was really empty, and the leaders of the city at the time were thinking: “How could we stop this? How can we stop this decline? We could do it with culture, we could do it with art.”

Lily Kabatu Weiss, Executive Director of the Dallas Arts District, is a former Artistic Director at Booker T. Washington. Weiss said that Eaglin was once one of her students. Both of them oversaw the transformation of the area over the years.

“We were a suburban city where people just came to work and left. In the arts district, it offers more. It offers more art and culture, more restaurants and retail, more of that collaboration and synergy that any good city needs,” Weiss said.

Concert halls and museums were built with city money and private donations. Private development filled in the gaps and helped create jobs.

“And these are direct jobs, but also indirect jobs. It can be restaurants, office workers, hotels, and all the people who work here behind the scenes,” Hainbo said.

Recent development includes a hotel, apartments and office space around cultural sites.

Clyde Warren Park, on a terrace above the Woodall Rogers Freeway between Uptown and downtown Dallas, was also a game-changer for the nearby arts district.

“This is a revolutionary approach to connectivity and this is what we want to see in the city of Dallas,” Weiss said.

The future of the Arts District includes plans for a new path along Rout Street to Uptown and another path to Deep Ellum to better connect the Arts District to the fabric of Dallas’ booming downtown.

Eaglin said she hopes more students will follow her path through the Dallas Arts District.

“Art is a way that many children learn and can express themselves. And that’s why we need it. We need to continue to promote the arts in our communities,” Eaglin said.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 4.2 million people a year visited the Arts District, Weiss said.

She said new studies of current overall attendance and financial impact are planned.

Hainbo said the visitors are returning. He said that 33,000 of the jobs in Dallas are related to the arts.