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Monday Morning Roundup


by Stephen Becker 21 Nov 2011 8:01 AM

Today in the roundup: Preserving Robert Johnson’s legacy, reviewing the Omni Hotel and a guide to Dallas park pavilions.

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REMEMBERING ROBERT: If you opened the front-page section of the Sunday New York Times (worth the money every week – promise) you might have noticed a familiar name on the inside back page. That’s where former Dallas Morning News pop music critic Thor Christensen writes about the Dallas church that is renovating 508 Park Avenue – the building in which Robert Johnson recorded about half of his songs. Johnson buffs surely see the irony in a church caring for the space that housed the man who legend says sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar skills.

ON THE OMNI: You can’t drive by Downtown Dallas at night without noticing the newest resident in the neighborhood. All of those swirling, rainbow-colored lights that line the new Omni Dallas hotel bring a little of the Las Vegas Strip to town. I haven’t been inside yet, but Scott Cantrell has, and he was less than impressed. “Like Dallas, alas, the Omni has a split personality: awkwardly trendy on the outside, timidly but fussily nostalgic inside,” he writes in his dallasnews.com review. And he signs off by saying: “At least hotels tend to do extensive interior redos every few years. In the meantime, if this says “Dallas,” a sigh is in order.”

ART IN THE PARK: If you’ve visited a Dallas park, you’ve probably noticed the architecturally-significant pavilions that many of them feature. If you’d like to know a little more about them, then check out a new guide to the pavilions produced by the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department.  Unfair Park can bring you up to speed on all of the city maneuvers that ultimately lead to them being built.

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  • scott

    The interior of the Omni (lobby, halls, elevator areas) features works by local artists. In fact, the hotel is planning a website to highlight these works. Better than a sigh, don’t you think?