City - Oklahoma City, OK - Suite Street 1942 - Side by Side

by Mike Savad

Title

City - Oklahoma City, OK - Suite Street 1942 - Side by Side

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Hand Colorized Photo

Description

Hand colored photo from 1942, Nov
Original title: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Photographer: John Vachon
Location: 93 W Sheridan Ave, Oklahoma City, OK

Close your eyes imagine a time when a single street had like 50 hotels on it, where every other location was a place to sleep at. If when you closed your eyes and saw the location, did it look like this? Probably because you saw the picture before you closed your eyes... you cheated.

I honestly don't know why they need this many places to stay other than they had at least one large hotel and the others probably followed that lead.

There is a bit of interesting trivia, the first parking meters were invented in 1932 by Carl Magee, he created the first patent living in Oklahoma. But he had a hard time making a working model, so he hired two engineering professors from a local college, and they perfected his design, and by 1935, the first batch of 175 parking meters were installed in downtown Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935. These meters were pretty newly installed and they have that guy to thank for them.

This location though, is almost entirely gone. Back in the 1970's this area was in disrepair, despite being a classic look of Art Deco, the city decided there would be some urban renewal. With the promise of a shopping mall they removed all the local businesses, and people living in housing, and they never built that mall. They tore down the Biltmore, built in 1930, razed in 1977. When they demolished it, it was the largest steel structure to ever be demolished, at the time.

On the right, the building with that "Fidelity" sign on it, was known as the Baum Building, it was very ornate, and they had a lot of regret tearing it down. See that white building on the right at the back, that is the Colcord Building, it was built in 1910 and it was the only one they didn't remove. Today its ironically, a hotel. Just beyond that was the Black Hotel and Bus Station, it survived a really long time, but was removed in the mid 2000's.

Today this location has only that one white recognizable building, without it, it would be really hard to verify my position.

Finding the colors for this was challenging, despite being a hotel, all but one had a postcard, and I'm not sure if it was to that building. That building on the sign, that's still standing by the way. I tried to count the hotels but lost count. The Biltmore colors came from postcards and the TV as they removed it.

Uploaded

May 5th, 2024

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