What's going on in the SW corner of the Myriad Gardens. They have some large construction vehicles there. Please tell me they're not ripping out more trees.

Frittergirl?

What you see is a temporary "construction" road that had to be put into place to allow for the large equipment being used to build a new elevator as part of the water stage project. The old elevator is out of date, out of compliance and no longer serviceable.

The new elevator will be on the west side of the bridge leading to the water stage plaza. Unfortunately, the road will probably still be in place during Festival.

No trees were harmed in the making of this road.

Some trees severely damaged (bradford pears, mainly) after the ice storm did have to be removed - many, ironically, were from that very area. All in all, the Gardens suffered a "total" loss of only about 20 trees, although about 60% of the trees suffered "significant" damage. Staff will wait until after this next growing season to analyze the needs of the Gardens and look to replacement.

Sadly, they also lost about 70%-80% of their holiday light inventory, so they're looking at means of replacing that, as well!

Look for some exciting announcements about the Gardens soon (as in 3 weeks to a month soon) and don't forget to drop by and say HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY to the Crystal Bridge on Tuesday, March 25. FREE ADMISSION (plus cake and punch) all day long! For you City historians, you might be interested in the new exhibition, "In Full Bloom: Twenty Tropical Years," a historical retrospect of the Gardens' earliest beginnings (including the naysayers back then), and a look to some exciting new projects for the future!

FritterGirl, perhaps this will give the Garden's a chance to purchase LED lights for the holiday's and save on the electricity bill and help out the environment!

FritterGirl, perhaps this will give the Garden's a chance to purchase LED lights for the holiday's and save on the electricity bill and help out the environment!

Actually, they have looked into LED lights, and it is "the plan" for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, LED lights are not cheap. The cost for total replacement of all lights is in the high 5-figures, so they're looking at doing this in "stages." For some strands, even through wholesale buyers, the lights are more than 3x to 4x what one would pay for a traditional strand.

Donations are welcome!

Sounds good. I need to go by there and take a peek at what they are doing with the water stage. I guess most of the improvements could not be done until after last summer's Shakespeare ITP season?

Last-year's improvements were much less superficial.

They added new permanent seating, and installed new professional-grade sound and lighting systems. They also renovated the space under the plaza "corridor" to turn into a small box office / concession area.

The bulk of the project won't be realized until after next year, when the Foundation also starts on the next phase of funding for the project.

This final stage will include installation of additional seating, renovation of some of the underground space to convert to dressing rooms, plus installation of the "canopy" system that will provide shade and other weather protection during performances.

I'm trying to find the rendering. When/if I find it, I'll post it!

Thanks. I assume all of those underground tunnels will eventually be open again, as Larry Nichols wants to connect them to the new Devon Tower?

One of the things that Nichols said about the location of their proposed new tower was that he wanted to see Myriad Gardens be better utilized by the public.

I agree completely and have made the same point several times.

Certainly, placing 2,000 employees just on the other side of a short tunnel will go a long way towards that goal. I imagine Devon will put even more support into the park once they open for business across the street.

I used to eat my lunch quite frequently in the Myriad Gardens when I worked downtown almost 20 years ago. It was a great place to sit and get a break from the office. I really enjoyed it when the 4th of July Fireworks were centered here. It was much more enjoyable to spread a blanket down in the park than to stand in the street by Kerr Park.

This is a little off topic, but is the Ford dealership just south of the gardens going to be demo'ed for C2S? It's like you're in Eden then, BAM, car dealership.

Yes, all the Core to Shore plans show an twin-tower office complex immediately south of the Myriad Gardens and immediately north of the proposed Central Park.

At the very least, the city could use eminent domain to take that property and relocate the dealership.

Otherwise, we'll have a huge car dealership right between the two biggest downtown parks.

After listening to the NBA press conference on 3/25, I went to the 20th Anniversary Myriad Gardens activities ... took lots of pics which I'll post over the weekend in a blog post ... yesterday, I decided I needed more "outside" pics ... it was SO pretty, even with stuff not really "green" yet. I got carried away and took 35 outside pics ... here are a few ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds03.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds03s.jpg

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Great pics Doug! Nice to see the updates at the water stage.

Another thing they really need to fix is that ugly rusted "wavy" metal that you can see lining the shore in Doug's first pic. It's also used to wrap around some hills on the west side. It looks really cheap and tacky. It would look great if they'd cover it up with some natural stone walls. Not sure if that would work at the edge of the water, but it would on the hills.

Thanks, Metro! I'm surely glad that I took those pics yesterday instead of today ... brrr, it's cold again!

All of the pics that I took (and some other stuff I'll use in the blog post) are located here, for them that wants 'em .... DougLoudenback/myriadgardens - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/)

Here's another of the stage ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds17.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds17s.jpg

And, of course, you've gotta have some ducks & fishies ...

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Here's one showing the construction that FritterGirl was talking about ...

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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds32s.jpg

Oh, I hadn't seen all that excavated dirt. That's too bad they had to do it that way. There were some great trees on that hill there.

http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v78/125/97/79800335/n79800335_30375411_4006.jpg

http://photos-e.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v78/125/97/79800335/n79800335_30375412_4238.jpg

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http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v13/125/97/79800335/n79800335_30070306_7832.jpg

I've now done my Myriad Gardens article (at least in its present form) at Doug Dawgz Blog: Myriad Gardens (http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2008/03/myriad-gardens.html)

In addition to the pics taken on 3/25 and 3/28, it develops the history of a downtown park. The 1st venture that I could find is this one in 1946 which never got off the ground ... kind of an early day MAPS project, I guess ...

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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/downtown_misc/7_11_46s.jpg

In the pre-Pei Plan zone, Dean McGee and others began their efforts in 1962. A nationwide design competition for architecture students occurred in 1963 ... the area for the park hadn't yet been selected and the area shown for the student competition shows some interesting things ... note the areas to the left and right of the theoretical "Oklahoma Tivoli Gardens" ...

Large: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/2_8_63_contestsite.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/2_8_63_contestsites.jpg

This one, from a North Carolina University graduate student, won the free trip to Copenhagen (or cash equivalent) ... best pic I could get from the Oklahoman archives ...

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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/4_6_63s.jpg

Once the Pei Plan was in place, a model design for the Oklahoma Tivoli Gardens looked like this ... credit OKC: 2nd Time Around and OCURA ... notice the 2 botanical tubes and the sphere which was a proposed observatory ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/2tubes_okc2ndtime_ocura.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/2tubes_okc2ndtime_ocuras.jpg

The article traces through a few Oklahoma articles showing progress ... this one while the lake (which is fed by an underground water table from the North Canadian/Oklahoma River) was still at ground level ...

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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/6_11_79s.jpg

Other items in the history are covered, also.

In addition to the pics taken on 3/28, a few of which are in this thread, above ... and including this cropped view of the Water Stage ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds17a.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds17as.jpg

... several pics taken at the 3/25 20th Anniversary of the Crystal Bridge are included at the end ... some of which are ...

Exhibits ... this being a 1960 image of downtown with a border showing the Gardens' planned location ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/downtownaerial1960.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/downtownaerial1960s.jpg

Work Begins
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Construction Progress
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And some people pics, including ...

Michael Laird, President of the Myriad Gardens Foundation
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Jim Tolbert, Chairman Emeritus of the Myriad Gardens Foundation
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Allan Storjohaan, Myriad Botanical Gardens and Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory Manager since 1991, releasing some butterflies
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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/alanstorjohanns.jpg

... and a few pics on the way out ... highest to lowest ...

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There's a good bit more in the article. Hope you enjoy looking it over.

Now this is a great thread the pics,old files and news clips are nice.

Wow! Thanks for posting Doug! Great work!

Thanks, guys.

One aspect of the history that I only glossed over was the very great uncertainty that existed as to whether the Botanical Tube would ever get done. Dean McGee was certainly patient and tenacious to get this project done and he barely lived to see it happen. A very nice exhibit in the Dean A. McGee Center (where the exhibit and speaker pics were taken) is a large newspaper size book with lots of press clippings which trace that uncertainty. I'm hoping to get back and get that info to add to the blog article (as well as take a tripod with me so that the camera can be still enough to not have to use a flash for the wall-mounted exhibits), which are really quite nicely done.

One of the exhibits that I particularly liked was this 1960 aerial of downtown ...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/downtownaerial1960s.jpg

In addition to the 1024 px wide version here, http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/downtownaerial1960.jpg , I've uploaded a much larger version of that image to my web server, here: http://www.dougloudenback.com/downtown/downtownaerial1960large.jpg if anyone wants it. It's 3050 x 2034 pixels in size.

I can remember going in to the Crystal Bridge before they had any plants in there. It was just styrofoam blocks at each end.

Yes, all the Core to Shore plans show an twin-tower office complex immediately south of the Myriad Gardens and immediately north of the proposed Central Park.

At the very least, the city could use eminent domain to take that property and relocate the dealership.

Otherwise, we'll have a huge car dealership right between the two biggest downtown parks.

Ah, yes, more inappropriate use of eminent domain to confiscate productive, private property for a fraction of its value for some "superior" state purpose.

Gotta love it.

Ah, yes, more inappropriate use of eminent domain to confiscate productive, private property for a fraction of its value for some "superior" state purpose.

Gotta love it.

http://dallasmorningviews.beloblog.com/archives/debbie_downer.jpg

Doug, any idea what the building across from the Colcord was? It's on the SW corner of Sheridan and Robinson, now just a grassy knoll in the Myriad Gardens.

Doug, any idea what the building across from the Colcord was? It's on the SW corner of Sheridan and Robinson, now just a grassy knoll in the Myriad Gardens.

I want to say it was called Tivoli Inn or something referencing the future 'Tivoli Gardenns'.

Doug, any idea what the building across from the Colcord was? It's on the SW corner of Sheridan and Robinson, now just a grassy knoll in the Myriad Gardens.
Yes, as is more particularly described in the blog article, it was the Tivoli Inn ...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/workbegins2s.jpg

... and has been more or less been replaced by the "Gateway" sculpture ...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/myriadgrounds24as.jpg

When doing some research on another topic, I quite coincidentally ran across a June 2, 1972, page 1 Oklahoma Journal article which contained this text:


$17 Million 'People's Park Plan Unveiled

Perhaps the most imaginative dream for a people's park in the heart of a large American city was unveiled Thursday as the plan for Oklahoma City's Myriad Gardens. Local officials say they hope to reach for the stars and have most of the park finished by 1976.
* * *
Everything from a children's zoo to an ice skating pond and including a 30 foot deep canyon, a two-acre lake, botanical gardens, a sports hall of fame, a classic car museum, arts and science centers, a planetarium, a cluster of restaurants and movie houses, museums and a new Main Library for Oklahoma City is included in the Gardens plan.
* * *
A Phase Two plan for the gardens will extend east to Shartel and triple the park's size to a total of 33 acres.

The article contained a drawing of the plan ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/oklajournal_6_2_1972.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/oklajournal_6_2_1972s.jpg

Taking some liberties, I've colorized those parts that I recognize ...

Larger: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/oklajournal_6_2_1972_color.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/myriadgardens/oklajournal_6_2_1972_colors.jpg

If a botanical "tube" exists in the picture, I can't see it. But, the Biltmore (aka Hotel Oklahoma) and Tivoli Inn were clearly contemplated in the plan, as were numerous other items, the "commercial" parts of which were said in the article to provide monies for the maintenance and expansion of the Gardens.

I'm not at all persuaded that the more pastoral park that came to be was a less desirable ambition.