27 May 2006Saturday spottings (with dozers)From this very department, December 2004:
Rumors that [Bradford] Commons would be sold have persisted, and KGOU radio reported this week that the University of Oklahoma, one rumored buyer, isn't interested. I haven't heard that the Commons are going to be Cabrini-Greened out of existence, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see bulldozers heading down 8th Street.
They've been there, and for the most part, they've done that. About two-thirds of the ill-fated apartment complex has been razed in anticipation of expansion by the Presbyterian Health Foundation, which up to now has stayed on the west side of Lincoln. When I lived out northeast and worked downtown, I passed by this place pretty much every day, and I never quite imagined it gone; then again, by all accounts it had become a hellhole in recent years, and, well, you know how people feel about hellholes. Another known but somehow still unexpected vacancy was at 10th and Martin Luther King, this big empty space where Douglass High School used to be. Of course, the new Douglass is just to the south, and eventually this space will be filled by new athletic facilities, but it's still jarring if you haven't been by there lately, which I haven't.
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