The mission today was to make the downtown route and see if I could find a big, real Christmas tree. Ft Worth has a beautiful Michigan 45-60 foot downtown in Sun Dance Square and this year is not the first year that a Michigan tree graced Ft. Worth's downtown.
Starting at the center of the universe--that is to say, North Park Center, I made my way down Greenville Avenue through all three sections. Businesses had decorated pretty well. In fact, they looked nice. At Ross avenue in Lower Greenville, I made my way to Washington and cut across into Deep Ellum. While Deep Ellum businesses had decorated-- for the larger crowds that now come to Deep Ellum by day, it was not enough, I though. It was on to Commerce Street into downtown to see what I could find. In fact, I didn't even notice Nieman's decoration if they had any this year.
Much to my surprise, there were a lot of artificial trees that looked the same. Klyde Warren Park, The Plaza in front of City Hall and the Plaza at the Ron Kirk Bridge Deck Park. It was pretty much ditto, ditto, ditto. Except when you got to Main and one of the cross streets in from of Nieman Marcus where the odd, but comical, but half way interesting faux tree made of old car tail lights brought traffic into a gawking mode. Imagine that.It was rather pretty in a Holiday Spirit kind of way don't you see.
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| Looks like a 59 Chevy to me.I remember those tail lights being covered in canvas on the dealer's show room floors. They did things like that back in the day. |
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| Pretty much like city hall and Kylde Warren, this is in the Plaza at Ron Kirk Bridge Deck Park. |
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| The top was nice at Ron Kirk. Didn't get a shot of the Statler's live one and/or where it came from. |
After making the block several times I had to make a quick shot from traffic. The valet services were packed with the holiday brunch crowd fresh out of church services. The image came out pretty well.
When I got to Main Street Park, the distraction was so intense that I actually forgot to look to see if Main Street had a tree. The distraction was across the street on the south side. Low and Behold! there was a good 40 foot live tree. Undecorated, but that didn't matter. The tree was beautiful and I don't even know where it came from. And I should have guessed that such a tree would be at this particular business. It left Dallas for some 20 years or so then came back into their original building that had been upgraded and still holds tons of history for personalities from an "A" list of Hollywood's "A" listers. The business: The Statler Hotel, of course. I would not have expected anything less. And---once again---they are at the top of the list of class in the Hotel business. They remind me of the old Orrington Hotel in Evanston, Illinois or the Drake in downtown Chicago. The Statler remembered how the little things make all the difference in the world.
