Oak Lawn, Dallas

About

Oak Lawn is one of the wealthier areas of metropolitan Dallas, with the population consisting mainly of urban professionals. The area is peppered with Upscale townhouses, condos, apartments, and duplexes. Along the Uptown portion on McKinney Avenue and along Turtle Creek Boulevard, there are many new high-rise condominiums and apartments. It is also a very diverse neighborhood with well established areas of older, single family homes.

For most of the 20th century the southern portion of the neighborhood near the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Harry Hines Blvd was known as "Little Mexico". St. Anne's Catholic school served as the center for the community. With the redevelopment of the neighborhood beginning in the 1980s Little Mexico vanished. Only a few structures of this original community remain for most have been replaced by high rise office buildings, luxury hotels, and condominiums. As of 2010, St Ann's Catholic School, which had closed, is now an upscale restaurant.

Oak Lawn became a magnet for the counterculture movement in the late 1960s due to its inexpensive apartments and its proximity to Lee Park.

Neighborhoods

Government and infrastructure

The United States Postal Service operates the Oak Lawn Post Office at 2825 Oak Lawn Avenue; ZIP Code: 75219.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons South Central Region Office was previously in Oak Lawn. It has since moved to the U.S. Armed Forces Reserve Complex in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Diplomatic missions

The Consulate-General of the United Kingdom in Dallas was located in Suite 940 at 2911 Turtle Creek Boulevard.

In April 2005 the British government announced that it was closing the Dallas consulate in the summer of 2005; its territory was transferred to the consulate-general in Houston. It was one of 19 British diplomatic missions shut down around that time period. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom said that the consulates and embassies closed as a way to decrease costs.

The Consulate-General of Mexico in Dallas is also located in Oak Lawn. Alfredo Corchado of The Dallas Morning News said that as of 2009, in terms of activity and size of the area Mexican population, the Dallas consulate is considered to be the third most important Mexican consulate after Los Angeles and Chicago.

The consulate moved from 8855 North Stemmons Freeway to 1210 River Bend Drive in January 2009.

Public schools

The public schools in Oak Lawn are part of the Dallas Independent School District and are zoned among the following:

The William B. Travis Academy/Vanguard for the Academically Talented and Gifted is located near McKinney Avenue and Oak Grove Avenue.

The current Sam Houston Elementary campus was scheduled to open in the northern hemisphere fall of 1999. In 2014-2015 its student body was 95% low income; despite that it exceeded its "performance targets". Due to gentrification, Sam Houston's enrollment declined to 201 students in the 2015-2016 school year while it had 302 students in the 2011-2012 school year.

Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School was previously in Oak Lawn.

Private schools

The Walt Whitman Community School (WWCS), an LGBT-oriented private school, was established in 1997 in Oak Lawn. It closed in 2004.

Public Libraries

The Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library serves the Oak Lawn area. In addition to its regular library holdings, it has the only circulating, non-reference collection of GLBT materials in the US.

Transportation

Central Expressway (US 75) flanks the community on the east. Spur 366, known locally as Woodall Rodgers Freeway, runs along the southern border of the community. The Lomac and Uptown portions of Oak Lawn are served by the free M-Line, provided by the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority and Dallas Area Rapid Transit. The Blue and Red light-rail lines stop at Cityplace Station, right outside Oak Lawn. Just outside Oak Lawn to the southwest is Victory Station in Victory Park, which is served by the Trinity Railway Express, both red and blue lines during special events, and regularly by the Green and Orange light rail lines. The two lines continue to the northwest, stopping at Market Center Station and Southwestern Medical District/Parkland Station within Oak Lawn.

Culture

Oak Lawn is considered to be the epicenter of Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex's gay- and lesbian-culture. Cedar Springs Road, between Oak Lawn Avenue and Wycliff Avenue, has numerous businesses, retail establishments, restaurants and night clubs catering to the LGBT community. The area has some of Dallas' most renowned gay bars and nightclubs, including Station 4 (formerly The Village Station), The Brick, Woody's (formerly Moby Dick's), J.R.'s, Sue Ellen's (recently opened in the Throckmorton Mining Company's old location), The Mining Company (recently opened in the former location of Sue Ellen's), Havana, The Round-Up Saloon, Drama Room (formerly Mickey's and BJ's), Alexandre's (formerly After Dark), Illusions(now closed), Pekers (formerly The Side 2 Bar and Phases), Zippers, BJ's NXS (formerly Crews Inn), Pub Pegasus, The Hidden Door, The Tin Room, Cross Bar, Marty's Live, Cedar Spring Tap House, Dallas Eagle, and others, most of which are located along, or close to, Cedar Springs Road. Oak Lawn is contiguous with the Dallas Design District and less than two miles away from Downtown Dallas.

The area also hosts some of the larger city festivals including the annual Halloween street festival, Dallas' Gay Pride parade, and Easter in the Park at Lee Park.

In 2014, Dallas's Oaklawn was voted the number one gayborhood by Out Traveler.

There is a large concentration of Hispanic owned businesses, restaurants, grocery stores, nightclubs, and retail establishments on the Maple Avenue corridor between the Inwood Road and the North Dallas Tollway.

Architecture

Oak Lawn is one of the older neighborhoods in Dallas. Continuous redevelopment of the neighborhood has created a mixture of architectural styles spanning much of the 20th century to the present day.

Measuring by structural height, the tallest buildings in or adjacent to Oak Lawn are as follows:

1. Cityplace Center, 560 feet (171 m) (42 floors)
2. W Dallas Victory Hotel and Residences, 439 feet (134 m) (32 floors)
3. Azure, 375 feet (114 m) (31 floors)
4. 1900 McKinney (26 floors)
5. Mayfair at Turtle Creek, 302 feet (92 m) (24 floors)
6. 2500 McKinney, 285 feet (87 m) (25 floors)
7. Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, 285 feet (87 m) (21 floors)
8. 17 Seventeen McKinney (22 floors)
9. Residences on McKinney, 231 feet (70 m) (22 floors)
10. La Tour Condominiums (22 floors)
11. McKinney Avenue Lofts (21 floors)
12. The Ashton (20 floors)
13. The Mondrian (20 floors)
14. The Vendome, 252 feet (77 m) (20 floors)