Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 09/10/2026An homage -- and not, I hope, a eulogy -- to the dispensers of memories at the State Fair of Texas. The men and women -- and their parents -- who built the fair long before people just went out there to take photos of fried foods stuffed inside fried foods. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Some veteran State Fair food vendors hope not to become historyA little more than halfway through the annual event at Fair Park, concessionaires fret about another year of declining sales. 172
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 07/10/2026The roller rink Dallas City Hall never wanted, paid for with more than $1 million in federal housing dollars, is the roller rink Dallas City Hall will own and operate -- and pay for -- forever and ever and ever. And I will write about it forever and ever and ever. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: The roller rink nobody wants and Dallas City Hall can’t afford to keepYet another attempt to offload South Oak Cliff’s Southern Skates has come up empty. 040
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Also, the show that got Robert Hilburn out of Los Angeles for a piece about how much Elvis hated journalists at the time. Good reading whilst listening to the 104-track "My Aim Is True" boxed set released yesterday. www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.p... 060
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 03/10/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: Elvis Costello & the Attractions' second Dallas date: May 26, 1978, at the Convention Center Theater. Audience-made keepsake sounds like it was recorded in a back pocket, but solid. And they play "Dallas version" of "Less Than Zero." archive.org/details/elvi... 1166
Reposted by Robert WilonskyThe Organizing School @organizingschool.bsky.social · 03/10/2026DMN piece on Kleberg featuring College of Constructive Hell-Raising grad and Neighborhood Association Co-Chair David Carranza. 021
Reposted by Robert WilonskyThe Dallas Morning News @dallasnews.com · 02/10/2026Columnist Robert Wilonsky writes: “This was my getaway, the country close enough to the city,” David Carranza, a 62-year-old former Oak Cliff resident said. “Peaceful. Quiet. The slow-paced life. I thought.” He laughed. bit.ly/4dRCy3H 022
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I wrote about Neimans' closing earlier this week and was there with Stanley's granddaughter Allison V. Smith when The Store closed for the final time Wednesday. A corporate publicist tried to kick us out during those final minutes: "No media allowed." Outrageous. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: The sad shrug of a farewell for downtown Dallas’ Neiman MarcusScenes from a funeral as the future remains uncertain for the building long considered the soul of the city. 0132
Reposted by Robert WilonskyNathaniel Barrett @ncoxbarrett.bsky.social · 02/10/2026The problem with Kleberg (and all southeast Dallas) is there's conflicting visions for it: The neighborhood association types want it to be a country livin' reserve. Developers want to build homes. The numerous industrial users mostly want to be left alone. Nobody's happy. 141
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 02/10/2026From Lawrence Wright's 2019 "God Bless Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State": 13521
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Council member Lorie Blair says of Kleberg: It's not the middle of nowhere, but it is the end of the city. Annexed by Dallas in 1978 and wondering why ever since. I spent Wednesday in the southeasternmost section of the city, which might as well be the country. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Turns out you can’t escape Dallas’ problems in rural Kleberg‘Why does it have to be so difficult?’ wonder residents wanting a quiet life but are still faced with crime and contamination. 040
Reposted by Robert WilonskyThe Dallas Morning News @dallasnews.com · 30/09/2026In recent weeks, I’ve watched the store slowly fill with the grieving lined up over the still-open casket, Robert Wilonsky writes. One employee I’ve come to know told me the sadness has become overwhelming. bit.ly/4xSSUQI 063
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I'm in Neiman Marcus' downtown Dallas flagship three, maybe four times a week -- usually to grab a bowl of tortilla soup and a popover, sometimes just to walk. Hard to believe this place will be locked and dark beginning tomorrow. What's the word that means "sad and angry"? tinyurl.com/ytnjwdpytinyurl.comWilonsky: The sad shrug of a farewell for downtown Dallas’ Neiman MarcusScenes from a funeral as the future remains uncertain for the building long considered the soul of the city. 1121
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: A belated 40th anniversary to R.E.M.'s sixth Dallas date: Sept. 20, 1986, at the Fair Park Band Shell. Newcomers, old faves, covers and the debut appearance of "Harpers," which Michael Stipe had co-written with the band Hugo Largo. archive.org/details/1986... 0152
Reposted by Robert WilonskyRecrudescence of the Kakistocrats @reddtrain.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Dallas trying to balance the city budget $2000 at a time by bringing the pain down on places where people eat and drink after midnight. 022
Reposted by Robert WilonskyBevoOne @bevowon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Dallas trying to out-Waco Waco 041
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Dallas' city attorney is dispatching code to see if a restaurant’s really serving food to the late-night crowd. If they see anything suspicious — like, say, a DJ or more drinks than food on the table or two people dancing by a table — they’ll issue a citation. Dozens of venues have been hit of late.dallasnews.comWilonsky: Dallas’ plate of late-night entertainment and shot of code enforcementDozens of venues claiming they’re really restaurants are being cited by Dallas City Hall for being bars. 150
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Another weekend, another round of texts about another fire claiming another boarded-up structure in South Dallas. Except this one was an apartment complex tied up in litigation and a court-ordered sale. It was a bad place in bad shape where bad things happened. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: In South Dallas, one of the city's worst crime hotspots burnsThe South Cliff Apartments were in litigation, for sale and, now, in ruins along Botham Jean Boulevard. 151
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 19/09/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: A keepsake turning 33 today: when Neil Young brought Booker T. & the M.G.'s to Starplex. A bang-up line-up that on paper shouldn't have worked but on stage (& setlist) added up to my 2nd-favorite NY show ever. tinyurl.com/242yjkuk Setlist: tinyurl.com/47vpvxzj 0122
Reposted by Robert WilonskyChristopher Coffman 🌹 @coffmanesq.bsky.social · 18/09/2026as someone who works in the brutalist ziggurat (laudatory), i was just thinking the other day as the budget was being debated, “gee, it seems like the city hall relo debate just up and evaporated” 031
Reposted by Robert WilonskyMatt L @mattl1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I work in this building. It's a comically ugly building with no real character. A perfect encapsulation of the era in which it was built. The only benefit to sharing it with the City would be the ability for me to not have to go off-site to express my contempt directly to City leadership. 041
Reposted by Robert WilonskyNathaniel Barrett @ncoxbarrett.bsky.social · 18/09/2026It's hard to express the disappointment I have in those pushing for the city hall relocation. 1112
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 18/09/2026The Dallas City Council told the Dallas City Manager they expected an update on potential City Hall relocation options by no later than Aug. 26. To which she responded, "Nah." But I did see her in the Comerica building on Aug. 31. It was awkward. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Did I run into the city manager at the future Dallas City Hall?The City Council was expecting info about relocation options in August. It’s late September, just FYI. 261
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The texts began arriving shortly after 4:30 p.m. Saturday: A house is burning on South Boulevard. Another one. Two houses burned Saturday, two blocks apart. This, just three weeks after Texans legend Abner Haynes' house was destroyed. DFR is investigating. This isn't normal. Not in any neighborhood.dallasnews.comWilonsky: Fear and fury as historic South Dallas homes continue to burnWithin 14 hours on Saturday, two more houses, two blocks apart, caught fire, and no one knows how. 0115
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 15/09/2026"Betz did not disclose his age. Public records suggest he is either 24 or 25 years old." 192
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Some days, the car just steers itself toward Second Ave., which the city has long promised to address while buildings are torn down and boarded up. Never knew until this week that the longtime thrift store below was one of the original Tom Thumbs -- shame on me. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: The shuttering of the Neiman Marcus of South Dallas’ and what it meansMeanwhile, City Hall keeps promising to remake Second Avenue, ‘a shell of its former self.’ 1112
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Wednesday morning, I drove up Midway to an event space that normally hosts weddings, corporate events and bar and bat mitzvahs. And long column short, The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room was far, far more overwhelming an experience than I ever could have imagined.dallasnews.comWilonsky: A visceral visit to the Epstein files ‘reading room’ in North DallasOff Midway Road, a traveling exhibition reminds visitors that behind the endless headlines are 1,200 women still suffering. 0185
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 05/09/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: The New Who Revue live from the Cotton Bowl (via Westwod One) on Sept. 3, 1989. The 25th-anniversary reunion-slash-cash grab that resulted in a surprising setlist and a show far better than we ever expected. tinyurl.com/3eejmud9 Setlist: tinyurl.com/5ba99v3d 194
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 04/09/2026More here: www.womensmarch.com/release-the-...womensmarch.comRelease the Epstein FilesThe mission of Women’s March is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change. 060
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 04/09/2026On the way back downtown from Fair Park, I noticed they're already decorating Canton Street in advance of next week's GOP event at the American Airlines Center. 1498
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Long column short: The city of Dallas is very bad at following its own rules. And even worse about responding to questions why it can't, won't or doesn't care about doing the most basic things. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Dallas fumbled renaming Houston Street Viaduct for Pettis NormanIt doesn’t appear City Hall gave the public proper notice about a proposed name change for 115-year-old bridge over the Trinity River. 292
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Last week, I walked past another historic home claimed by a suspicious fire. This was the South Blvd. home belonging to the Lincoln High School and North Texas State graduate who integrated college football in Texas and became Dallas' first pro football star. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: A mysterious fire claims home of Dallas Texans legend Abner HaynesArson investigators are trying to determine what sparked the blaze that consumed the football great’s South Boulevard house last month. 061
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 29/08/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: "Goodbye Cruel World"; hello, Fair Park Band Shell. My 1st Elvis Costello and the Attractions show: Sept. 4, 1984. This newly posted keepsake isn't perfect; sounds a little underwater at times. Still: 33+ "hits," deep cuts & covers. archive.org/details/elvi... 162
Reposted by Robert WilonskyNathaniel Barrett @ncoxbarrett.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I've reported my share of water line breaks and usually DWU fixes them with astonishing speed. Someone at DWU said internal goal was to respond to leaks in 1 hr. There was one just last week on my Old East Dallas street: repaired same day reported. Things work differently down south it seems. 0122
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 28/08/2026“They said, ‘We know there’s a problem, it doesn’t affect your water bill, quit calling,’” Charlotte Savage said Wednesday morning. “I’m so tired of it.” Since MAY. This city. This summer. I swear. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: What a broken water line in South Dallas says about the broken cityResidents near Fair Park complained for months about water and trash in their streets. The fix finally came this week. 2173
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 26/08/2026To this day, whenever I see Tim Curry, I think of those midnight screenings of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Highland Park Village, where the movie ran longer than at any other movie theater in the country. Rest in peace, Frank-N-Furter. That was one hell of a good time. 2254
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Some preservationists saw workers poking around Pioneer Cemetery in front of the convention center and wondered: What up? This: a $15-million makeover for the cemetery and those steers Trammell Crow planted downtown to kill a competing convention center hotel. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Digging up the $15M redo for Dallas’ bronze steers, Pioneer CemeteryThe convention center redo will involve remaking, but not exhuming, the once-contentious intersection that became a tourist attraction. 060
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 25/08/2026This ran in the Dallas Times Herald on Ocr. 24, 1976. 070
Reposted by Robert WilonskyJoel @itsjoels.bsky.social · 25/08/2026This is the letter kids got at the end of Dolly’s Imagination Library. I defy you to read this and not cry. 7243894111285
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 25/08/2026In 2013 I had the good fortune of spending a few minutes on the phone with Dolly Parton for @dallasnews.com. It was a brief chat. But she was more than up for a deep dive, for which I was always grateful, never more so than today. Godspeed. One of the all-time great singers, songwriters, humans. 1234
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 22/08/2026For Your Weekend Listening (and Viewing) Pleasure: Weezer just released its 20th record. I tend to stop at its second, "Pinkerton," which the band played in full at Deep Ellum Live Dec. 18, 1996, with most of the debut. Someone videotaped the whole wild-ass night. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-cw...youtube.comWeezer - Live at Deep Ellum, Dallas (December 18, 1996)YouTube video by gilmi 0104
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 21/08/2026One detail provided at the end of the piece: The judge who wound up with this case is Brantley Starr, nephew of Ken Starr and a Trump appointee and the subject of this piece: ballsandstrikes.org/fedsoc-twelv...ballsandstrikes.orgThe Worst Trump Judge In America Is Brantley StarrA look at the career of Brantley Starr, an up-and-coming Trump judge whose last name is almost as offensive as his first name. 052
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Dallas City Code is clear: Churches are allowed by right, but private schools require specific use permits. To which this small church with a big new property said: Nope. To the federal courthouse they went. Now a Park Cities developer could rewrite Dallas' rules. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Trinity Bible Church sues Dallas over its rules for private schoolsCity Hall requires private schools get permits. Trinity Bible Church’s new federal suit says that’s discriminatory. 040
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 20/08/2026That hero's name is Waco-born Doris Miller, who, in 1939, came to Dallas to enlist in the Navy. web.archive.org/web/20170505... 12610
Reposted by Robert WilonskyNathaniel Barrett @ncoxbarrett.bsky.social · 19/08/2026Dallas has a long tradition of nearly destroying Deep Ellum but it just keeps bouncing back. Dallas in 1966: "This new freeway is going to cut out the heart of Deep Ellum". Dallas in 1971: "Nobody knows what happened to Deep Ellum" 1101
Reposted by Robert WilonskyBrandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026What Dallas has done to its most famous neighborhood and entertainment district represents, at best, unconscionable ineptitude. At worst, deliberate sabotage. When a city destroys dozens of its own businesses, including many family-owned, there's a serious leadership problem. 9349
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 19/08/2026Whilst walking the length of Deep Ellum on Monday, I ran into a group of 20-somethings visiting from Austin. One of the two women in the group used the same word, over and over, to describe a neighborhood wrapped in for-lease signs and chain link: underwhelming. www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: It really feels like Dallas is kicking Deep Ellum while it's downHow much longer can neighborhood businesses hang on with a ripped-up Commerce Street, empty buildings and, now, daytime parking meters? 2124
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 15/08/2026For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: Found this newly posted gem this morning: Elvis Costello & the Attractions at the late Wintergarden on July 30, 1982. 33 songs, and that's without including the Spinners drop in "Alison" or the"Dallas" theme intro'ing "Green Shirt." archive.org/details/elvi... 0143
Robert Wilonsky @robertwilonsky.bsky.social · 14/08/2026West Dallas lifer George Garcia has heard for years that Dallas was selling the pound and moving it to Hensley Field. “Money runs everything,” Garcia said of the expensive new builds surrounding him. “Nobody thought there would be apartments here. But now look." www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm...dallasnews.comWilonsky: Can Dallas still afford to keep prime real estate for its auto pound?City Hall has talked about selling Vilbig Road property for decades. It’s going to be in the public safety bond anyway. 130