#downtown okc

[totaldoorsolutionsok]

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[moteldogs]

me in a dive bar without a cigarette is like qn angel without wings

[mickeymantlesblog]

Wine Bars In Downtown Okc

Discover the vibrant wine bar scene in Downtown OKC, Oklahoma, where a sophisticated ambiance and extensive wine selections await. After indulging in the perfect glass, elevate your evening at Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse, a culinary landmark where diners are transported to a realm of culinary delight. Savor the finest cuts of steak, impeccable service, and an atmosphere that exudes elegance. To savor this culinary adventure, call (405) 272-0777 and reserve your table at Mickey Mantle Steakhouse, where every meal is a celebration of excellence and unforgettable moments.

For more information on Wine Bars In Downtown Okc visit our website

[mapsoffun]

Something that I greatly appreciated during my time in Oklahoma City was the streetcar system that runs through several downtown spots. Given how hot it was while we were there, it was great to have a system that you can hop on and it’s fairly affordable. An all-day pass runs $3, while individual pubare a dollar each. 

The streetcar runs in one big loop, but on the map you can find places where you can hop off, walk a few blocks in a few minutes, and pick it up later in the loop so you don’t have to ride it the entire way if you don’t want to.

[hmbl1]

Factory Obscura OKC #lines #artimmersion #handmadeart #experience #OKC #Books

[bikerboy0416]

Up High !!

[floydsglasses]

TWISTERS SPOILERS AHEAD (my review)

So from the get-go I already knew that Kate and her friends were more than likely going to get stuck up into a tornado in the beginning of the film because well I could just tell.

I'm honestly really happy that they were showing her PTSD rather than you know ignoring it because there's a lot of bad things that happen in natural disasters and I don't think people can just move on as quickly as like movies from the 90s made it seem like because I know that in the original they show Jo having her problems of being impulsive and wanting to go into a tornado because of what happened to her dad.

In her case Kate is running away from the tornado because she's terrified. I'm honestly surprised with Tyler cuz I thought that they were just going to make him be like a total douchebag like how Hangman was in TGM. But I'm happy that they showed that he's actually just a really good guy who had a heart of gold.

And I also knew that white cars were probably not good people because you can't trust corporations. I'm glad that they didn't keep Javi as a pseudo-type villain because I hate when movies do that.

The Wrangler crew has my entire heart and I'm really glad that the other storm people didn't end up getting killed like how Jonas got killed in 1996.

I'm happy that they put more focus on Daisy's character than Glen which love him don't get me wrong but I love having the female character be the lead in this case because most advertisements were showing Glen and not Daisy but I think that was actually a good marketing tactic.

Glad they're showing the darker side of these disasters rather than romanticizing it I know that the original tapped into that but not in the way that this one did. I was on the edge of my seat every time those tornadoes were on the screen.

Which I hate to say this but I think the drive-in scene from the original maybe beaten by the rodeo one but don't tell anybody I said that.

Some people were saying like there was a love triangle that was supposed to be going on between Javi Kate and Tyler but I honestly didn't see it I'm glad that they kept hobby and her as friends and I love the hinting that her and Tyler were more than likely getting together at the end a little pissed that they cut the airport kiss though.

This movie kind of gave me a new appreciation for my state because every shot I saw was like oh you know I've probably seen that before and it made me really happy seeing you know the prettier side of my state rather than what I've grown up with which is political stuff I'm not going to talk about that here.

Is something else I want to add I know that those New York scenes were more than likely shot in downtown Oklahoma City because come on that looked a little too clean to be New York City. (Not that OKC is clean either)

Oh and Ben I'm happy they didn't make him like a snobby British character and a guy who actually was being really nice I thought he was going to be a snob.

Anywho I give this a 9.7 out of 10. I loved it it was really fun if I could see it again I would now I'm going to have to trust in my head that I can remember this movie while it's still fresh for my story that I'm writing.

[hazelenergy]

24 hours before I'm 6 years dead. Gimme some ideas.

[moki-dokie]

Already posted this on twitter but tumblr tends to be a better place for this sort of thing. so. just basically gonna copy-paste the qt I did for this.

so, interesting thing that i feel is a prime example of why this "problem" is utterly made up bullshit capitalist propaganda.

back in the 90s, OKC was essentially dying. downtown was one of the worst in the nation. gang infested, falling apart, roads not only in severe disrepair but very poorly planned, and utterly reliant on offices nobody wanted to work in for good reason. it was BAD. (edit: also the 1980s recession hit here especially hard so it was suffering in general from the fallout of that, too.)

enter the MAPS program. a 66 month long temp raise on sales taxes to completely revitalize, restructure, and rebuild our downtown from the ground up. nothing like this had ever been done before in the nation, not on this scale. and keep in mind OK has notoriously been very red.

this was a bipartisan project (and continues to be still) and believe it or not got some of the most support during republican rule. i don't think there's ever been a project proposal before or since that received such outstanding support by voters either. everyone wanted it.

with MAPS our downtown got a convention center, music hall, trolley system, baseball stadium, library, arena, new streets, and like 3 miles of river dammed and moved to create a canal and set the foundation for future projects on the river itself.

by the 2000s, downtown was completely transformed. MAPS was so successful that another one was proposed and passed. And then 2 more.

since the original MAPS, theres been new parks added, river sports, cultural centers, hiking/walking trails, more street upgrades, a senior wellness center, state fair improvements, public transit upgrades, and too many infrastructure improvements to name.

OKC is now a contender to other major attractive downtowns in the nation. it is now a place you WANT to go. we got our own NBA team now that shaped some of the best in the league currently. it's one of the few walkable areas in the whole state too. its honestly beautiful.

point is, we got here by adding enrichment, art, entertainment, and public spaces. not more offices. not more soulless cooperations. not more industry. those were the problem, getting rid of them and replacing them with ways to improve happiness and community was the solution.

and we did it in one of the most socialist ways possible. in one of the reddest states in the nation. if your downtown is dying bc nobody wants to return to offices, then your downtown was dead already to begin with. work should not be the reason a downtown thrives.

so don't believe the capitalist propaganda for a single second. we have 30 years of evidence right here in OKC to prove that shit wrong at every turn. and any politician who spouts that rhetoric is 100% bought and paid for by some major corp.

anyway MAPS is really cool and everyone should read up on it https://okc.gov/government/maps-3/maps-history and advocate for similar projects like it in your own metro. if one of the poorest, most conservative and oft forgotten about places in the nation can do it, any city can.

and PS: all of this was happening at the same time as the Murrah bombing recovery - at the time the largest domestic terrorist attack in the nation. so like. there really is no excuse for a city to allow their downtown to die other than politicians licking the boots of big corps.

PPS: the newest MAPS was just passed a couple of years ago and is the largest one of them yet. we'll be getting more parks, a youth center, another senior center, a mental health and addiction facility, more public transit, more upgrades to streets, a new animal shelter, additions to the state fairgrounds, a civil rights center, lots of beautification, a multipurpose stadium, and three pretty fucking amazing projects that are worth going into more detail about. A family justice center - a temporary one exists but this one will be permanent. this is a really fucking cool place that helps victims of sexual assault, human trafficking, elder abuse, domestic violence, and children who've been through traumatic situations. a diversion center - this will essentially be a way to get people out of the prison system and back into society. it's for low-level, non-violent offenders that really shouldn't have landed in prison in the first place. our prisons are fucked around here, and so extremely overcrowded. I'm sure that could be said for most around the nation. this is more like rehabilitation and its really awesome to see. and lastly, a wholeass chunk dedicated to fighting homelessness - the first time this has really, truly been addressed with logical solutions. i gotta give big fuckin kudos to everyone involved on this one - its something they discussed openly with citizens, something they asked for suggestions about, something they've wanted to solve rather than just hide and needed the public's help to figure that out. the goal is to completely eradicate it by shifting focus to a housing-first program, create truly affordable housing (of which there is an extreme lack of in the heart of OKC), and offer services at every step of the way to make sure once a person is housed, they are able to also support themselves and stay housed. with $50mil from MAPS and $400mil from outside sources, this will be the largest of any of the projects to date and I am SO thrilled about it.

[weirdellis]

Couple of sketches while walking around downtown OKC with Scott Sackett.

[nickgerlich]

Prairie Edifice

I always laugh when press conferences are held amid much fanfare, announcing business plans beyond comparison. Superlatives are the rule of the day as the speakers gush the salient attributes of their plan, which, invariably, is missing one key ingredient: Money.

Details, details. I suspect in the majority of cases, these media feeding frenzies are designed simply to test the waters, and see if they can attract the investors they so desperately need to make their dream come true.

I have a big problem with anyone announcing things half-baked, though. It’s too easy to send out press releases and host media events, without having even a fraction of the money in place to actually make it happen. But man, sometimes those announcements can get a lot of traction. Publicity is great when you can get it, even if it’s bad.

Like with the recently proposed skyscraper in Oklahoma City that would tower 1907 feet above the state’s capital, a full 134 stories. Why 1907 feet? Pure symbolism in measured dose: That’s the year that Oklahoma was admitted to statehood. It would be the tallest building in the US, and the fifth-tallest in the world.

Now I am not opposed to progress and all that, and am not against building new structures that stretch the imagination. But Oklahoma City? Good grief, we might be able to see this from Amarillo on a clear day. That’s a hell of a lot of building. Looking out of place just a bit, ya know?

The plan calls for a hotel, retail, offices, and residences, and with 134 stories, there would be plenty of room for all of that. Heck, the 50-story Devon Tower, currently the tallest building in Oklahoma, didn’t exactly fill up over night.

The sad part is, I doubt this will ever happen. I have grown to be skeptical of every big announcement like this. I have seen it happen too many times. In recent years, a developer from Houston announced big plans to renovate the 1926 Herring Hotel in Amarillo, something that is long overdue on this beautiful building. It would take at least $50 million to do so, though.

And then COVID hit, and the plans quietly went into the ether. The website for the project is dead, and I have my doubts I will ever see this gem restored in my lifetime.

As for the current monstrosity, social media reactions have been less than encouraging. Ranging from the usual litany of “why don’t they fix the potholes” to “this is bullshit,” I don’t think a whole lot of folks are buying it. I like the idea in concept, but it’s a lot like the AI-generated multi-level RVs I see on the socials and other such wild imaginations. They are just figments of creative minds and software.

Sure, there are four other buildings in the world taller than this one, and they actually exist. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why, other than “because we can.” They become badges of wealth, ostentatiousness writ large.

Then there are the folks who lob the very predictable F-5 tornado into the discussion. It is no secret that central Oklahoma is in the crosshairs of Mother Nature, smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley. But no, a building like this would not fall into a twisted wreckage. It would just result in a massive pile of broken glass, just like I saw a few years ago in downtown OKC when the Devon Tower had a similar calamity strike it.

I like OKC a lot. And since I came here for a quick getaway, I saw fit to write a blog about it. OKC is not perfect by any stretch, and, just like all big cities, has experienced a homeless problem. I hate that. It turns my stomach when I see smoke coming from underpasses along I-40, where folks have set up encampments.

But it is a good place, a city with about 700,000 people, and a metro of 1.4 million. That’s no slouch, and I have found the 3.5-hour drive from Amarillo to be all too easy when I want to experience a little bigger city culture. There are some amazing restaurants here, not to mention shopping that we will never see in Amarillo. Heck, whenever I leave Amarillo for a bigger city, like OKC, I come prepared to hit Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. You know how it goes. What you can’t get is what you want, right?

But in terms of a skyscraper this tall, I have to wonder if the developer has other plans in mind, and is using this as mere subterfuge to get what he wants. It is pie-in-the-sky, and if I were a betting man, I would rather buy lottery tickets. This ain’t happening.

Dr “Tall And Taller” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[morgan--reads]

Top Ten Reads of 2023

10. The Odyssey - Homer, trans. Emily Wilson

Wilson’s beautifully clear and compelling translation of this classic made me fall in love with the story all over again. 

9. Ducks - Kate Beaton

A simple, quiet graphic memoir that depicts loneliness, sexual harassment, and the exploitation of workers without embellishment or judgement. 

8. To Calais, in Ordinary Time - James Meek

So entertaining that it makes reading its pseudo-Middle English a breeze, this darkly comic story of a Medieval journey is both horrifying and touching in parts, providing a window into the foreign country of the past. 

7. The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman

Even with the perilously high stakes, this high-fantasy story about a thief finding himself caught up in world events is incredibly funny, largely due to its narrative voice. But that’s not all—underneath the jokes lies a complex and intriguing plot. 

6. River of the Gods - Candice Millard

The story of the fascinating rivalry between two English explorers searching for the source of the Nile grows to encompass all the themes of Victorian-era colonial exploration. 

5. The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard

The past matters just as much as the present in this high fantasy story, as Cliopher Mdang, who has been secretary to the emperor for many years, works to change the world he lives in. Relationships are the core of this story in spite of its epic scope—Cliopher’s with the emperor, with his friends, with his family, and with his homeland. 

4. The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler

A deeply moving story about loneliness and connection, told through a plot involving an android, sentient octopuses, AI romantic partners, hacking, and robot monks. 

3. Fifth Sun - Camilla Townsend

This history of the Mexica or Aztec people made me rethink how history can be written. Townsend uses sources with as much creativity as historical analysis to create an imaginative, powerful narrative that centers the Mexica experience. 

2. Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

An absolutely gorgeous novella that conjures a lovely and lonely world of a labyrinth with a single inhabitant, revealing a conspiratorial plot with perfect deliberation. 

1. Boom Town - Sam Anderson

I have no interest in Oklahoma City or its history and yet this book drew me in and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It’s not just the bizarre events it recounts—OKC’s theft of a basketball team, their founding within a single chaotic hour, the total destruction of the city’s downtown to make way for a new city that never came—it’s the way those events are told. Anderson links together the seemingly unrelated with a cohesive narrative that is as quietly tragic as it is bizarre.

[shefanispeculator]

1. Blake Shelton backs Gwen Stefani on a No Doubt classic

A famously funny and self-deprecating celebrity, Shelton said he was a bit intimidated to play his first OKC show since 2019, when the Ada native opened his “Friends & Heroes Tour” at the downtown arena.  

"I've been nervous ever since I saw how many people are up here, man. Look at that," Shelton said, gesturing into the packed upper tiers of Paycom Center. "It's already nerve-racking when you come out in front of your hometown crowd. It is: They already know all the bad sh-- about you, man. When you come out, they're like, 'Oh man, he owes me $20. It's $25 now.' ... And I hadn't even toured in two years ... so it's been a long time."

But the eight-time Grammy nominee told the unabashedly loyal audience he used his time off during the COVID-19 pandemic to practice on his guitar, playfully showing off his strumming skills on snippets of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" ("Keith Urban can kiss my a--," he teased, jokingly referencing the country music guitar ace) and fellow Oklahoman Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places" ("Garth gets pissed at me when I sing his songs," Shelton quipped).

"I've been working on this stuff, and I'm really proud of myself. I'm messing with this one right here: watch this," he said, playing the moody acoustic opening to "Don't Speak," the 1990s pop smash for his wife's former rock band No Doubt.  

As Stefani strolled out crooning the familiar lyrics, the already thunderous crowd turned absolutely ear-splitting. Wearing a short spangly dress and matching boots topped with a big plaid jacket, Stefani commanded the massive stage with her smoky voice and superstar presence, as the grinning Shelton stepped back into the shadows with his band to back his wife on guitar and vocals.

As her last refrain of "Hush, hush darling" faded, the smiling Shelton flirtatiously bowed to his spouse and introduced the cheering crowd to "your new home-towner, Gwen Stefani; I mean, Gwen Shelton."

Although they've been married almost two years, newlywed vibes still sparked between the music power couple as they crooned their hit duets "Nobody But You" and "Happy Anywhere." Their long embrace at the end delighted the all-ages audience, which showered Mrs. Shelton with whistles, screams and shouts of affection as she exited the stage.

[mickeymantlesblog]

Prime Steaks Downtown Okc

Immerse yourself in an extraordinary dining experience at Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse, nestled in the heart of Bricktown in downtown Oklahoma City. Celebrated for its prime steaks and exceptional wine bar, patrons are transported to a realm of culinary delight. Featuring an extensive selection of wines sourced from around the globe, meticulously curated to complement each dish, Mickey Mantle's offers a wine pairing experience that is unparalleled. To embark on this culinary adventure, make a reservation by calling (405) 272-0777 at Mickey Mantle Steakhouse, where every meal promises to be a celebration of excellence and unforgettable moments.

For more information on Prime Steaks Downtown Okc visit our website

[mapsoffun]

Ma Der Lao Kitchen was the first restaurant I put on my map for Oklahoma City after reading a food writer sing its praises. This restaurant is adored by the food media, and for good reason: it’s pretty fantastic. I was completely new to Lao food, so I was excited to just go with the flow and take recommendations from our bartender.

My husband and I were here for happy hour, where cocktails are half-price and they have a nice menu of food specials, including an exclusive house-made sausage that comes with a papaya slaw on top. We ordered a batch of the sticky rice to scoop up the other dishes with our hands and then went a little crazy with some happy hour specials as well as selections from the main menu. Everything is meant to be served family-style, but the portions are pretty reasonable for two people to eat a good amount of food.

There were a lot of highlights for me, including the fried chicken wings with the spicy curry sauce, the pickled cabbage, the aforementioned house sausage, and the fried rice. The fish steamed in a banana leaf with some rice noodles was tasty, but I was so full by this point I wasn’t able to eat a ton of it. The cocktails were also very creative and refreshing, and we were never without water which was helpful given how damn hot it was out!

If you’re staying in downtown OKC, the easiest way to get here is via rideshare, but it’s totally worth it. The neighborhood that it’s in is small but growing, and locals on the OKC subreddit and our Uber driver couldn’t help but sing the praises of The Plaza District neighborhood and how it’s a destination for food enthusiasts. Ma Der is definitely the star--its chef is a James Beard nominee--but I’m hopeful that its gravity pull brings more people to this neighborhood to turn this spot into a flourishing food-focused destination.

[getoutofthisplace]

Dear Gus & Magnus,

This morning I drove to our South OKC office to meet Bryan and Brandon to prep for a video shoot this afternoon. Because the script was still in the approval process this morning, when I got to Oklahoma, we still needed to gather props, which took us to downtown Norman. When Grandpa & Tutu were in town last, Grandpa told us about his mother's shop on Main Street in Norman -- Hoover Fashion Shop. I found an old ad for the store and went to the address listed and sent a photo to Grandpa, who said he didn't think that was the spot. So who knows.

Dad.

Norman, Oklahoma. 3.29.2023 - 1.49pm.