Move City Hall?

I've gotten really sloppy about posting blog links to my Urban Tulsa Weekly column. In case I forget, you can always go directly to the urbantulsa.com home page and find a link under Columns. Articles from the new edition are posted on the website Wednesday morning. I will be adding retroactive links to previous articles so that you'll be able to find a complete archive listing here.

In any case, this week I consider the idea of moving City Hall to the Williams Communications Group building, aka the Borg Cube, aka One Technology Center. Our existing City Hall is inadequate and, to say the least, homely:

A couple of years ago, I was giving a tour of the city to a friend from New York. Despite her love of '60s pop music and fashion, the poorly-executed '60s architecture of City Hall left her cold. When I pointed out the place that occupies so much of my attention, she declared, "That is the ugliest city hall I have ever seen."

As you'll read, even Weird Al dissed our City Hall when he filmed a movie here. (In the service of researching this article, I had to watch UHF again. In the commentary track, Weird Al misidentifies the ersatz City Hall as the Christian Science church at 10th and Boulder -- it's the First Christian Church across the street at 9th and Boulder.)

The real City Hall entrance is gloomy and subterranean, beneath the Civic Center Plaza. In place of grand steps, there is a curb cut leading up a few inches from the main driveway through the parking lot. A set of automated sliding glass doors are framed by white-painted cinder blocks, on which is mounted the words "CITY HALL" in original-series Star Trek block lettering.

Also in this week's issue, Brian Ervin has a story on the anti-illegal-immigration proposal currently before the Oklahoma Legislature. Ervin does an excellent job of setting out the details of the bill, how it differs from last session's bill, what influences shaped the bill, and how changes in the balance of power have changed the prospects for passage. He spoke to proponents Rep. Randy Terrill and Sen. Jim Williamson and opponents Victor Orta and Ed Martinez and is very fair in representing both perspectives. (UTW has a real gem in Mr. Ervin.)