Gay Dallas by Night
reprinted with permission by the author
While Dallas maintains a reputation as a powerful business center, a foremost retail and restaurant hub, and a place where lesbians and gay men wield considerable financial and political clout, the city is sometimes thought to lack cachet as a gay leisure getaway. True enough, the best museums in Texas are in Houston, the scenic Riverwalk and Spanish colonial historic sites are in San Antonio, and the best lakes, bike trails, and scenic driving are in and around Austin. But Dallas has enough daytime diversions to keep you thoroughly engrossed for a few days. Besides, who says you can't build a great vacation around shopping and eating out?
Downtown Dallas sits at the center of a network of highways that connect the city with nearby Fort Worth and a number of mushrooming suburbs and edge cities. Due north, Uptown, which comprises the neighborhoods of Oak Lawn, Highland Park, Turtle Creek, and McKinney Avenue, is where many Dallasites eat, shop, and live, and work.
Oak Lawn is for the most part a youthful, heavily gay enclave of professionals, with some students as well. The hub is Cedar Springs Road, which, from the intersection with Oak Lawn Avenue up to about Knight Road, is lined with gay-supported restaurants, bars, and shops (including a super-cruisy Kroger Food store). Here, the lesbian-gay bookstore Crossroads Market carries not only books, but also gifts, cards, and porn mags. There's also a cafe serving light food and coffee. The intersection of Cedar Springs and Throckmorton roads has come to be known as "the Crossroads"; the surrounding area has a strong mix of genders, races, looks, and ages, though on a Saturday night it's overrun with pretty young things on the prowl. As you saunter past the storefronts of trendy clothiers, gift boutiques, and home-furnishings stores in Oak Lawn, notice that the neighborhood is also the home of Walt Whitman Community School, which when it opened in September 1997 became the United States' third high school for gay and lesbian students.
Take a break from all that shopping to partake of juicy hamburgers, served by hunky waitrons at - where else? - Hunky's, a dishy little fast-food restaurant in the heart of the action. Or drive a short way to Dream Cafe, which draws lots of lesbians and gays for breakfast (the buttermilk pancakes topped with ricotta are famous), as well as lunch and dinner. Between bites, you can toss a Frisbee to your dog or your date on the long green lawn out front.
The moneyed faction of the gay community extends south into posh Turtle Creek, but the condos and housing throughout all of Uptown have a good share of gay and lesbian residents living in them. To the north of all this gayness is swank Highland Park, Dallas's wealthiest residential neighborhood, a land of perfectly manicured lawns and grand mansions. Highland Park Village has upscale clothing stores and boutiques, plus several good restaurants. For an opportunity to see where power dykes and A-list gay guys wine and dine, splurge for a meal at the famous Mansion on Turtle Creek hotel, which is particularly appealing at lunch, when the courtly dining room is filled with sunlight (and the clinking of wine glasses). The kitchen is presided over by New American cooking guru Dean Fearing. His style is complex - lunchtime delights such as tortilla soup, warm lobster taco with yellow-tomato salsa, and jicama salad always astonish.
McKinney Avenue, in eastern Uptown, has been revitalized in recent years (well, except in parts that remain seemingly forever under construction). Dozens of the city's trendiest restaurants are here, and a restored trolley provides access. In the northeast quadrant of Uptown, tony shops and restaurants have sprouted along Knox Street, which becomes Henderson Street once it crosses the Central Expressway. Knox-Henderson takes in Travis Walk, a small complex containing some nifty restaurants and boutiques. The area borders the southern edge of Southern Methodist University, and many cute college types filter through the neighborhood.
Gays and lesbians tan their hides at White Rock Lake, a short drive east of Uptown. Bordering the lake is the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, 65 acres of floral and vegetable gardens and an art- and antiques-filled Spanish Colonial-style mansion. Take I-30 east from downtown, exit north at Grand Avenue, and follow this until it becomes Garland Road. If you're planning a picnic at White Rock Lake or looking to stock up on delicious gourmet goods and groceries, check out Cafe TuGogh or, across the street, Eatzi's.
A growing arts district at the northern tip of downtown, near the base of McKinney Avenue, includes the Dallas Museum of Art - which has a collection of pre-Columbian art, as well as a newer wing of North and South American work spanning the past several centuries - and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, frequent host to the gay Turtle Creek Chorale.
The nearby West End Historic District, anchored by the West End Market Place, is a series of early-20th-century brick warehouses and factories that have been restored to accommodate mostly touristy shops - it's not an especially gay-friendly spot, especially at night, when drunken hetero singles descend upon the bars and restaurants, but by day it's worth passing through here to check out some of the shops.
Just south is Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was assasinated on November 22, 1963, and where thousands congregate every year on the anniversary of his death. Across Elm Street, along which Kennedy's motorcade traveled, is the so-called "grassy knoll," from which conspiracy theorists believe a second gunman fired at Kennedy. At the northeast corner of the plaza and Houston Street is the infamous Texas School Book Depository, which contains the Sixth Floor Museum, preserving the space from which Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have fired at the president. Not long ago the collection here grew to include numerous effects and memorabilia from the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. No matter what your age, politics, or affinity for Kennedy men or pillbox hats, this is one Dallas attraction you should make it a point to see during your visit.
