DART Adventures and Bass Performance Hall

*Editor’s note: I originally wrote this in December, but due to a series of personal events was never able to post it. I hope you enjoy this belated winter post!

Up to this point, my blog has mostly focused on the Dallas half of “DFW”, so I wanted to write a little about Fort Worth.  I was so excited when a friend invited me to see “The Nutcracker” at Bass Performance Hall in Downtown Fort Worth. I would never have guessed that the most memorable part would be the train ride there.

For those who have never been to the DFW area, it’s important to note that living in the Metroplex is a lot like living in Los Angeles: Most people have cars and public transportation is typically used only for special occasions.  However, in the last few years, the Dallas Area Rail Transit (DART) and the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) have made an excellent marketing effort to get more riders.

Because it’s about an hour drive from Dallas to downtown Fort Worth, including several highway changes, my friend and I opted to take the DART instead. It still takes about an hour to get there, but there’s way less road rage and some of the second floor tables have outlets where you can plug in a laptop or (in my case) a dying phone. On this ride, the windows were decorated with snowflakes and “Winter Express” labels.

As the train pulled away from Union Station, we noticed some people walking down the aisle, handing items to passengers. A young lady approached us and offered candy canes. She explained she was with DART handing them out.  Since I saw a family with young children eating the candy canes with no apparent signs of poisoning, I politely accepted and thanked her. My friend and I shared a mutual moment of joy over the candy.

At the next stop, more DART employees boarded and handed out candy canes. This time, they also were passing out paper reindeer antlers. Much to my friend’s chagrin, I gladly accepted and proudly wore my paper antlers. After all, how often does public transit make an effort to be goofy and fun?

A few stops later, four teenagers boarded the train dressed in holiday gear. They serenaded us with Christmas carols! As you will (hopefully) be able to see in the video, they were wonderful.

The Nutcracker was a fun ballet to watch, though I’m sad to say that during our matinee showing one of the dancers fell several times. Don’t let that stop you from catching a show at Bass Performance Hall though.  This privately funded theater features stunning 48-foot tall heralding angel figures on the outside, and beautiful high ceilings on the inside.  Originally built in 1998, Bass Performance Hall is a Fort Worth icon located in an easily accessible part of downtown, just off Sundance Square.

One fun thing to note is that the offices and rehearsal space for Bass Performance Hall are located in the Maddox Muse Center, a red brick building across the street.  The Bass Performance Hall website shares that this building was originally built as the Fort Worth Medical College in 1894, the medical department of Fort Worth University. This school had the distinction of training Francis Daisy Emery, the first woman medical school graduate in Texas.

Don’t have time to catch a show? Tours are available on Saturdays at 10:30 a.m., schedule permitting.

Bass Performance Hall
525 Commerce St., Fort Worth, TX 76102
(817) 212-4300
www.basshall.com


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial

Image
The Dallas Uptown skyline looms behind the Freeman's Cemetery Memorial. I like this view because of the combination of past and present. On the corner of Lemmon Avenue and North Central Expressway lies an often overlooked piece of Dallas history. I myself drove past it several times in the years I lived in Dallas without realizing what I was driving past. From the outside, it appears to be nothing more than a green space or park intended to offer a little scenery. But those willing to walk up and examine it closer will find that the fenced off green area is actually a stark reminder of the city’s troubled past. These photos show the walkway toward the central monument. The figures pictured in the middle represent freed slaves.   A plaque next to Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial states that the area near what is now Uptown was once home to a settlement of freed slaves following the United States Civil War that was known as Freedmantown. In 1869, an acre of lan...
Read more

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza: A Dallas Staple

Image
View of the Texas School Book Depository Building (far left) where it is believed Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK from a sniper's nest on the sixth floor. Photo courtesy the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade pulled onto Elm Street in downtown Dallas, preparing to end what had been a highly successful campaign stop. Suddenly, a shot rang out and the president slumped to the side. A second shot rang out and the scene devolved into chaos as the motorcade sped to get out of the line of fire and onlookers dove for cover or scattered. Autopsies would later reveal that the president was shot twice: Once in the throat and once through the skull . Check out this cool interview with Henry Wade who was the Dallas County District Attorney in 1963. Eye witness testimony, along with amateur videos and photos, led to confusion about where the shots were fired from and whether there was a second shooter. Some say they saw a...
Read more

J. Erik Jonsson Central Library

Hello Readers! *Author's note: I originally wrote this in 2014 and recently recovered the lost file. I hope you enjoy! Sorry, there are no pictures for this post. As some of you may know, I've been getting into the swing of things at my new job as a grant writer for a local nonprofit organization. As a result, I haven't had much time to update Dynamic DFW. Now that things are on an even keel at work, I am hoping to post regularly again, though it will likely be monthly instead of weekly due to time constraints. For this post, I wanted to focus on the  J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Dallas. Named after Texas Instruments co-founder J. Erik Jonsson, the library is the heart of the Dallas Public Library system and has a few really neat features! Make a beeline for the 7th floor. There you can see: 1. An original broadside print from July 4, 1776 of the Declaration of Independence. This was basically one of the drafts handed out before the official Declaration...
Read more