Rosedale... croissants to cardiac surgery

If memory serves me well.... a 1970s Life magazine photo essay derided America’s eyesore highways and included a photo of Burnet Rd, crisscrossed with power lines and blanketed with billboards and fast food restaurant signs. Much has changed with the rise of the area I like to call LoBu—Lower Burnet—to a happening hotspot in Austin, complete with gourmet sandwich shops, Middle Eastern delis, coffee shops and trendy restaurants, Dollar Tree, Top Notch hamburgers, pizza joints with in-house breweries, hipster bars, fitness centers, second hand stores, bookstores, bakeries, condos and a Bingo parlor.

I planned a meeting with an architect friend--Jim—to figure out how this change occurred. We wanted to look most directly at the Rosedale neighborhood where Jim R has been a resident since 1994. We me at Monkey Nest Coffee and ordered a couple of skim milk--decaf lattes but who’s counting calories? The conversation quickly assumed caffeinated levels of intensity. What makes Rosedale such a thriving amazing neighborhood?  How do you explain the explosive growth of American cities?

Jim, though way too modest to be uppity about it, took me to school with a rapid 10-minute summation of American city planning. Rosedale offers a powerful alternative to living in the ‘burbs. Turns out the seismic shift, a boomerang effect to the original white flight to the suburbs that began in the 1950s, has theoretical underpinnings.

Jim defined the two schools of development. Rosedale, with its walkable streets and grid layout follows #1) the “new urbanism” or urban planning model. And #2)  the “subdivision-cul de sac” model, the suburban development plan, features main road entry to a subdivision leading to a series of cul-de-sac streets lined with homes.

Jim smiled at me. Maybe he knew my brain was racing to recall Massapequa, New York – a Long Island suburban town—and the layout of my neighborhood where everybody entered via Merrick Road. “The subdivision model puts 5 miles between residents and the grocery store,” said Jim. Oh my God, that’s exactly right and I bet 90% of the Long Island residents, now pushing 8 million, have to drive 5 miles to the grocery store!

Jim contrasted the 5-mile grocery drive to his situation in Rosedale where Central Market “one of the best grocery stores in the world is a 15 minute walk.” Of course, not every town has a Central Market, or anything close to that, but we are talking Rosedale—a neighborhood Jim characterizes as “one of the great neighborhoods of America.”

Hey we need a new Statue of Liberty and this one goes just a few hundred yards downstream from Stevie Ray Vaughn—but in the middle of the Colorado River. We construct an iron and copper statue of Janis Joplin, holding a microphone aloft and put it on a little island beneath the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge. A plaque at the base goes something like this... Give me your young, your digital, your bearded hipsters yearning to breath... er. Uh?... ACL air.... And maybe have an LED display of the Austin population, a flickering number constantly on the uptick.

Rosedale has several of the other key qualifications according to the new urbanist outline for an ideal living environment—definable boundaries and friendly public spaces.  Jim said the geographical boundaries of Rosedale are clear— 38^th St for the southern line; 45^th St. is northern boundary; Lamar Blvd makes the east side line; and Shoal Creek Blvd defines a western boundary. Comprised within these boundaries—you get Seton Hospital and Upper Crust bakery, two amenities accessible by foot and valued greatly by Jim, for reasons you will soon learn.

Years ago, Jim noted Rosedale had some rundown properties and a couple of those memorable Austin shady characters of yesteryear... barely paying their rent. That sounds like me. Jim admitted financial struggles forced him to leave Austin in the mid-1980s, taking his architect’s toolbag to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Nowadays, architects probably just need one toolbag—a 3-D, CAD software on their computer. But Jim says he still likes to sketch when designing schools and hospitals. He certainly sketched the Rosedale picture for me beautifully.

Ramsey Park is the important public space at the center of Rosedale—an open space to relax and exhale, spend time with children, a place to walk the dog, swim, play tennis, basketball, softball or just hangout.

Jim explained the subdivision model does provide advantages for human interaction. The main road to the neighborhood means fewer entry points and protection from unwanted visitors. The cul-de-sac streets encourage drivers to proceed more slowly. Residents get to know each other more readily on the smaller streets. You might know every neighbor within the bounds of a single street and the quieter, less trafficked streets provide more safety for children out playing.

Jim recalled the early days when the Draught Horse and Common Interest on Medical Parkway stood almost alone as a beer drinking, socializing options for Rosedale residents.  Burnet Road was “mainly scruffy car lots and places like the Poodle Dog Lounge.” Now there are a multitude of options, including Flying Saucer at the Triangle, Woodrow’s, Hopfields, further afield on Guadalupe, Black Star Coop, on Airport Blvd, and Billy’s on Burnet. There is a downside, of course. Rosedale has become so darn attractive, and expensive, nobody can afford a house there anymore... except the lucky few.

The constant flow of trucks hauling lumber into Rosedale for remodel projects are testament to the many people living there, and the massive gentrification of the area. McMansions once ruled the day, until laws were modified to respect the original scale of the neighborhood.  Homes are now limited to cover a specified percentage of the lot space, usually limiting them to about 2,800 square feet. Jim said the new law has deterred people were building 6 or 7 bedroom mini-dorms designed for rental to college kids.

Even with Rosedale’s stabilization the air of mystery never completely abandons any place fit for human habitation. Jim marvels at the human entropy. “Sometimes I’ll see a person every week for two years or so, and then they’ll disappear from sight, seem to be completely gone. Then 7 years later I’ll bump into them again, like this guy I saw the other day at the Ramsey tennis courts.”

Rosedale has been desirable for many years, even before Austin’s boom took on juggernaut proportions, and the perfect storm of great services and community spirit, serve as a role model. Austin, and other cities across the country, can learn much from the magic of Rosedale.

Oh, and the part about Seton Hospital and Upper Crust bakery... Jim said you “can walk to anything you want, from croissants to cardiac surgery.” And he means it. He goes easily from his house to Upper Crust for the yummy pastries or a cup of strong coffee and actually did walk to Seton Hospital one morning in 2005 for treatment of a heart arrhythmia, all in a day’s work, or walk, within the Rosedale grid.

But the strangest coincidence was the day back in the late ‘90s when a runner in the Capital 10,000 keeled over with heart attack and had the very same first and last name as Jim. The runner even came from Ohio, just like Jim. He got calls for days from people checking to make sure he was not the same Jim who died tragically in the middle of the race.

“One day, a week later, I was walking on 43^rd and Lamar and a car screeches to a halt. David, the wildhaired unofficial mayor of Rosedale, jumps out of the car and screams, “You’re alive!”

Jim notes “notice of my demise, like Mark Twain’s, had been greatly exaggerated. David just hadn’t gotten the word yet.” You may be wondering... how did David get unofficial mayor status? He helped lead the group that fought valiantly to keep the Triangle from becoming just another strip mall, home to a supermarket, asphalt parking spaces and nondescript apartments. They knew their neighborhood deserved better and refused to give ground to the real estate moguls.

People like Jim and David help make Austin the great place it is, a magnet for the Young and the Digital from the world over. I thanked Jim for his time and perspective and we moved on down Burnet Road.