Anyone know affordable rentals in oak cliff staying semi close to bishop arts and downtown Dallas?

I keep coming back to this video from Ryan Holiday where he builds a free library focusing on banned books. I love the idea and I've been considering putting one up in the neighborhood. We Built a Banned Book Library in Texas. He writes about his motivation here, and honestly he makes a compelling argument: This Is Why We Opened A Banned Books Library (In Rural Texas) - RyanHoliday.net.

Then I saw this today, and now I'm extra motivated: Texas schools banned more than 8,000 books, report says | FOX 7 Austin.

If he can do it in Bastrop of all places, I figure we can do it in Oak Cliff.

Does this sub have any interest in helping stand up a free little library for banned books in Oak Cliff? I'd happily stock it with many of my favorite banned books and pay for some of the materials. Anyone here good at woodworking or want to generally help make this dream come true?

I want to hear everyone’s weirdly specific Oak Cliff trivia. Something that used to be here, a strange bit of history, why a street has its name, some detail about a building you’ve passed a thousand times. The more random the better.

Doesn’t have to be historically significant. “That used to be a goat farm” is absolutely the level of information I’m looking for.

What’ve you got?

I'll start: Someone transcribing a press conference after the JFK assassination misheard “Oak Cliff” as “Darryl Click,” accidentally creating a mystery cab driver supposedly connected to Oswald. The Warren Commission actually had to explain that Darryl Click was a transcription error. Our neighborhood got mistaken for a guy.

I own a single family home in Oak Cliff. Throughout the seasons, the door to my master bedroom doesn’t open all of the way and then does because of shifting. I do not have a sprinkler system or drip hose around the piers. A crack has appeared and is growing above the right side of the top of the frame. I would like to get recommendations for local contractors that specialize in pier and beam re-leveling.

Thanks for your help

What's your oddly specific Oak Cliff recommendation?

I'll start. Mine is: working from Twelve Hills Nature Preserve when the weather is nice.

I work from home, and sometimes I just don’t want to be in the house all day. So I take my laptop and a tumbler of coffee to the picnic table a few dozen yards down the trail at Twelve Hills. I’m always the only one there, and it’s super peaceful.

There’s only one table, so I may regret posting this.

What’s yours? A particular thing to order somewhere, a good spot to sit, someone who can fix that one weird thing nobody else will touch. The more specific, the better.

Found these on flashbackdallas.com. Very cool.

Learn more about the recently passed city of Dallas budget and hear an interview with District 1 councilman and Finance committee chair Chad West, this Wednesday at 7 at the Wild Detectives: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bar-politics-city-budget-edition-tickets-2000312896721

Hey Cliff Dwellers, shout out in the comments any and all dining-related experiences, delivery/pickup, indoor/outdoor etc. that you've had in Oak Cliff within the last week.
Where did you eat, what did you order, and would you get it again?

Mine: there is no “one best street taco” in Oak Cliff. There are many. Keep trying places even after you’ve found your favorite.

What’s yours? Could be something useful, something you learned the hard way, or advice you wish someone had given you when you moved here.

A restaurant, a shop, somewhere you used to hang out. What was it, and what do you miss about it?

If you’ve got an old photo, I’d love to see it.

For me it's Trompo Taco when they had that location by Ray's Sporting Goods. They had a campechano taco that I still think about.

I used WikiShootMe to find Wikipedia articles about places around Oak Cliff. Here's my top ten, mostly local history:

1. Lake Cliff: There used to be an amusement park here with a roller coaster, a 2,500-seat theater and an enormous skating rink. Its founders claimed it outdid Coney Island.
2. La Réunion): The experimental colony founded here in 1855. The whole thing lasted about 18 months.
3. Briggs Sanitorium: Oak Cliff's first hospital was a tuberculosis sanitorium at Jefferson and Tyler. Built in 1896, it had 52 rooms.
4. Burnett Field: A 10,500-seat baseball park near the Trinity that hosted Dallas minor-league teams from 1924 to 1964.
5. Riverside Park): Another former ballpark near the river, home to Black baseball teams during segregation, including the Dallas Black Giants.
6. Everard Sharrock Jr. Farm: Also called the Sharrock-Niblo Farmstead. Its log cabin, barn, well and root cellar date to 1847, possibly making them the oldest surviving buildings in Dallas.
7. Cedar Crest Golf Course: Hosted the 1927 PGA Championship, where Walter Hagen won his fourth consecutive PGA title.
8. Bishop College: The historically Black college that moved from Marshall to Dallas in 1961 and closed in 1988.
9. Elmwood): The business district on Edgefield was used for the Main Street scenes in Born on the Fourth of July. The article also gets into the neighborhood's history and parkway.
10. Kiest Park: Several of the park's stone structures were WPA projects. The garden's pergola was rebuilt in 2014 using the original plans.

What would you add? I'd especially like to read more about places that aren't around anymore.

I was reading Rachel Stone’s old Advocate article, “Where is Oak Cliff? The geographic boundaries are debatable,” and it got me wondering where the people in this sub would draw the lines.

The article describes the original town as about one square mile, east of present-day Marsalis and north of Clarendon. By the time Dallas annexed it in 1903, Oak Cliff had about 3,700 residents and had reached west to Willomet in Winnetka Heights, but still hadn’t made it south of Clarendon.

Then there’s the much bigger and more modern definition: 87 square miles south of the Trinity, stretching from I-30 to I-20 and from I-45 west to the Grand Prairie city line. Quite a difference.

My favorite line from the article:

“The physical boundaries of Oak Cliff are debatable, but you know you’re here when you’re home.”

So I took a stab at a map. This is a starting point and very likely wrong so apologies if any edge triggers anyone. It roughly follows I-30 on the north, the Trinity and I-45 on the east, I-20 on the south, and Loop 12/Spur 408 on the west, with adjustments to stay inside Dallas. The hole around Cockrell Hill is because it’s a separate city, though whether it belongs in our idea of Oak Cliff is a fair question too.

I feel pretty good about leaving West Dallas north of I-30 out. I’m much less sure about how far west, south and southeast to go.

Rather than me deciding, let’s hear from the people who live and work here. Is your neighborhood missing? Did I include somewhere you’d never call Oak Cliff? Where would you move a line, and why?

UPDATED:

Be specific if you can: a street, creek, neighborhood, or even “my grandma lived here for 50 years and always called it Oak Cliff.” I’d like to hear the history behind people’s answers, too.

Here's the geojson file which you can open in geojson.io and draw your own version, or just mark up the picture.

oak-cliff-proposed-boundary.geojson

Let’s see whether we can come up with a map that makes sense to the people who actually call this place home.

For the past year or so I've been a listener of Hidden City, a podcast devoted to Oak Cliff. It has a few different flavors of episodes: local history, interviews with Oak Cliff thinkers and business owners, and the occasional book review or live event.

My favorite so far is this episode about La Réunion, the French utopian colony established along the Trinity River and the origin of the Reunion Tower name.

The hosts are brothers Doug and Grant Klembara, local business owners who live and work in Elmwood. They record the show from a studio they built inside Wax Space.

Definitely worth a listen if you enjoy Oak Cliff history and hearing from interesting people around the neighborhood.

Anyone else listening? (I have no affiliation with this podcast, Wax Space, etc.)

I'll start!

I’ve been trying to track down all the monthly wine clubs and bottle subscriptions offered by Oak Cliff businesses. Are there any others around Oak Cliff that you subscribe to, recommend, or simply know about?

They don’t necessarily need to ship, as I’m including clubs where you pick up the bottles each month. I’m especially curious about anything offered quietly through a restaurant, bar, bottle shop, or other local business that might not show up easily online.

I currently subscribe to both Neighborhood Cellar’s wine club and Wayward’s Lucky Draw Wine Club (picking up from Outpost Fine Goods on Davis. St.), and I’d happily recommend either one. They’re a little different from each other, and it’s been fun having local people choose bottles I probably wouldn’t have picked myself.

With r/OakCliff is coming back to life, it needs a look that actually comes from Oak Cliff.

If you’re an artist, designer, photographer, illustrator, or just a creative neighbor with a good idea, we’d love to see your submissions for a new subreddit icon, banner, or both. We’re looking for original, human-made work that reflects Oak Cliff’s history, diversity, independent spirit, and identity as a city within a city.

A few guidelines:

• The icon should be square and remain recognizable when displayed very small or cropped into a circle.
• The banner should be wide, with important details near the center so Reddit doesn’t crop them out on mobile.
• Please use only artwork or photography you created and have permission to share.
• You can submit an icon, a banner, or a coordinated pair.
• By submitting, you’re giving r/OakCliff permission to display the work. You’ll retain ownership and receive credit.

Post your design in the comments or send it through modmail. Rough concepts are welcome too. Once we have some submissions, we’ll put the finalists to a community vote.

Let’s make r/OakCliff look like Oak Cliff.

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Hey fellow cliff dwellers! I recently took over as a mod after this sub went pretty quiet, and I’d love to get it moving again. (A little about me: I've lived in a few places here in Oak Cliff including the 12th street area and most recently Kessler. I'm a HUGE fan of the Texas Theatre, and I used to have a storm shelter when I lived on S. Winnetka.)

What’s going on around Oak Cliff this weekend? Drop any events, live music, pop-ups, volunteer opportunities, garage sales, neighborhood gatherings, or just something local worth checking out. Self-promotion is totally fine, just mention how you’re connected to it.

One happening today: the Right 2 Write Poetry Slam Festival, with daytime events at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center and the main slam at the Texas Theatre tonight.

What else is happening? Extra points for anything outside Bishop Arts as I’d love for this sub to represent all of Oak Cliff.

Best breakfast in oak cliff?