Hidden City

Architecture critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Lamster joins The Hidden City to talk about his book, Welcome to Paradox City, and what Dallas’s buildings reveal about the people and decisions that shaped it. From the debate over Dallas City Hall to the character of Jefferson Boulevard, we explore why Dallas is so quick to tear down the old and build something new, and what gets lost along the way.

We also talk about the changes in Bishop Arts, the hidden places worth discovering on foot, and why caring for our neighborhoods starts with everyday things like sidewalks, trees, and paying attention to what’s already here.

A mansion filled with screams. A little girl who vanishes along Coombs Creek. A mysterious woman moving through the darkened Texas Theatre.

This Halloween, we explore three of Oak Cliff’s strangest ghost stories, tracing the history behind the haunted house at Hampton and Camp Wisdom, the elusive legend of a girl named Mary, and theater employees’ accounts of encounters they still can’t explain. Some stories have surprisingly earthly explanations. Others leave more questions than answers.

Join us for a trip through the neighborhood’s eerie past.

In 1897, years before the first airplane took flight, reports of mysterious airships began appearing across North Texas. One was spotted over Dallas, and just a day later, a newspaper reported that an airship had crashed into a windmill in Aurora, Texas, leaving behind a pilot believed to be from Mars.

In this episode, Grant and Doug explore the strange history of the 1897 airship sightings, the alleged alien burial in Aurora, and the newspaper stories that fueled the frenzy. Along the way, they uncover connections to early Oak Cliff and examine how a small Texas town became home to one of the country’s most enduring UFO legends.

Javier García del Moral returns to The Hidden City to talk about what’s new at The Wild Detectives, the upcoming Hay Festival Dallas, and Oak Cliff’s growing literary scene. He shares the story behind opening a second bookstore in Bishop Arts, how an international literary festival found its way to Oak Cliff, and why Dallas is becoming a destination for writers and readers from around the world.

We also talk about the changes Javier has seen in Bishop Arts over the past decade, the challenges that come with rapid development, and the role that bookstores and cultural spaces play in bringing a community together.

Before Arlington became North Texas’s baseball destination, the game belonged to Oak Cliff. In this episode of Hidden City, we uncover the intertwined histories of Burnett Field and Riverside Park - two ballparks just blocks apart, divided by segregation. From the Dallas Black Giants and a stadium fire that briefly brought the white team into their ballpark to Dave Hoskins’s extraordinary 1952 season breaking the Texas League’s color barrier, this is a story of baseball, courage, and the places Dallas forgot.

For this episode, we’re changing things up a bit. Instead of our usual format, we’re telling this story as a more traditional true-crime narrative, taking you inside the investigation and following the clues as they unfold.

In 1990, three women connected to the street life along Jefferson Boulevard were murdered in a series of killings that would become one of Dallas’ most notorious true-crime cases. As police searched for a connection, the women who knew Jefferson Boulevard best began sharing what they knew about the men, cars, and encounters happening on the street.

On April 2, 1957, a powerful tornado tore through Oak Cliff, hitting the Kessler Theater, destroying homes and businesses, and eventually crossing the Trinity into West Dallas. Ten people were killed and around 200 were injured, but the tornado also became an important moment in the history of tornado research. Photographed and filmed from all over Dallas, the storm gave scientists an unprecedented look at how tornadoes move and behave. More than 60 years later, its path can still be traced through Oak Cliff, and the Kessler Theater still stands as one of the most visible reminders of the day the tornado came through.

Barry and Sandra Nash have called Oak Cliff home for more than 40 years. They join us to talk about what Oak Cliff was like when they first moved here in 1980, the changes they’ve watched unfold over the decades, and the people and places that shaped the neighborhood along the way.

We talk about the evolution of Bishop Arts, raising a family in Oak Cliff, Barry’s unexpected career coaching some of television’s biggest names, Sandra’s career in medical aesthetics, and what makes Oak Cliff’s diversity and sense of community so special.

Before B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, there was T-Bone Walker. Born Aaron Thibeaux Walker, he grew up in Oak Cliff’s Tenth Street neighborhood, where he was surrounded by music and crossed paths with some of the blues’ earliest legends, including Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly. We trace T-Bone’s journey from Tenth Street and the Bottoms to the stages of Los Angeles and around the world and come back home to explore what remains of the Oak Cliff that helped create him.

Haley Leavitt joins us to share how she found her place in Oak Cliff’s creative community and how an experiment involving salvaged church pews grew into the Oak Cliff Art Walk. What began with 35 artists inside the then-vacant Oak Cliff Assembly drew nearly 1,000 people and has since become an annual platform for artists, residents, and community organizations across the neighborhood.

We also talk about Haley’s work in business and community development at Proxy Properties, the transformation of historic spaces like the Oak Cliff Assembly and East Dock Oak Cliff, and the relationship between art and real estate development. Haley reflects on restoring old buildings without erasing their stories, inviting artists into the process, and creating places where Oak Cliff’s existing community can remain visible and connected.