The down low on the high rise
Now, how ’bout that summer solstice, everybody! Exactly 14 hours, 18 minutes and 46 seconds of yawning daylength bridging sunrise to sunset, followed by a full moon to boot! Why, one could practically spend 24 hours solid reading Dr. Seuss along the shoals of Turtle Creek and not even need a jar of fireflies! Let’s just get creek-running in the good old summertime right to it, shall we?
Dear Howard: The world, overnight, has gone totally batshit. My husband and I have been leasing for more than six years now, but the summer of our renters’ discontent has finally arrived: Cars in our apartment complex are continuously broken into; at least one or two elevators are constantly down; management never changes out anyone’s air filters, and the pool is repeatedly being closed, always with no explanation other than, quote, “maintenance” work.
Then there’s the weekends! Like firecrackers on the Fourth of July, popping gunfire from the clubs lining McKinney Avenue keeps us on edge, midnight to dawn.
We can’t take it any longer. Both of us have been reduced to just a mass of jangling nerves. Our time is NOW for that leap into the great unknown: homeownership!
Chrysanthos and I both agree we’d prefer high-rise living over suburbia’s proverbial picket-fence. But what’s the vibe nowadays for, like, living vertically? For people like us, I mean?
And not that it should matter, but Chrys is Latvian; I’m black, we’re both gay. Tell us the truth, Howard, will you? The real truth. We can handle it. This will hardly be the first, nor the last time, that our dreams collide with reality. How prevalent, or low-burn insidious (being more to the point) has homophobia-creep recently gotten in Uptown’s beautiful bubble? — Go Joe Dawg Go
Dear Dawgonnit: The real truth, you say, eh? Well, firstly, let’s just clear the elephant out of the room: These Donald Trump election years are always hell on minorities — gay, Black, Jewish, Latino, the physically handicapped, you name it. Unless you’re Caucasian, corpulent and can carp at your golf caddy, “Snap it up, Goombah!” whilst swallowing a Big Mac whole, glassy-eyed as a Gaboon viper, then you’re already at a disadvantage.
Chrys, Joe — permit me go out on a limb here and take a wild guess that your current residence has the name ‘Post’ attached to it in some form or another? Uh huh, well, I can totally sympathize with your renter’s disgust, believe me. My husband and I, plus our two luckless cats, bunked at one of those cheap Post horrors for fully two years during a recent remodel of our own place. Hellhole Gardens, I called said rental — charitably.
But listen: The leap from apartment renters to home owners is always a nerve-racking experience under even the best circumstances. Bottom line, guys: As an interracial couple — a gay interracial couple — it’s a tough row ahead, I’m not going to lie to you.
Of course, we all know discrimination is against the law, just as we all know there’s no better real estate agent than a former hooker. (And they’re all former hookers. But whichever one still bleaches her hair the flinty blondest, that’s who you pick: more splintery than mesquite wood, just pay her the rate she tells you it’s gonna take, and whichever high rise you choose, consider yourselves in!)
Highland Park’s high-rise corridor parallels Turtle Creek for about a solid mile: Lush, verdant, luxuriant and sparkling, it bears no more resemblance to natural Texas topography than Neptune. As with all residential edifices, a building’s vintage usually plays a key role into luring signatures onto a real estate sales contract. Would you prefer a newer building or an older building? Each comes with their pros and cons.
For example, in Dallas, a key divisional gauge separating what’s considered old versus new, is whether the building under consideration was built before or after battery-powered, electronic cement floor levelers first hit mainstream, high-rise construction in the mid-1980s. They were a game-changer.
As any resident can testify who lives in a high rise built prior to, say, when unfaithful Sue Ellen Ewing slurred at her husband, “Cheer up, J.R. Chances are, it’s your baby,” such luxuries as level flooring did not yet exist. Even today, set a ball down on these floors — any floor, any room, any ball — and watch it begin rolling. The Grand Canyon is more level than the floors of old high-rises.
On the other hand, it’s only the older buildings that come with abundant floor space, colossal rooms, high ceilings, real balconies and the best views of downtown Dallas.
Dear readers, take my hand, close your eyes, and let’s travel backwards, slowly, slowly to where all the tattered grandeur, the faded magnificence glitters new again. At the box office, Julie Andrews and Julie Christie compete for No. 1; the future Katy Trail roars of train tracks’ locomotive engines, and local phone calls don’t even require area codes. An ebullient Joan Crawford and husband, Alfred Steele, president of PepsiCo, wave from one of the spacious, wraparound penthouse balconies.
Ahh, the Turtle Creek High-Rise Corridor — swimmin’ pools, football stars … POP!
The bubble bursts. Reality is back. Our future’s now.
Not a single Turtle Creek high rise is equipped to handle a full garage of EVs. “Electric vehicles?” sniggeringly scoffs Central Texas’s blasé, fossil-reliant boards. “Honey, that day will never come here!”
Indeed, rose may be the eyewear color of choice most preferred by Texans through which to view their world; albeit, denial little alters the fact that the very first target listed on the Xi/Putin American Annihilation Pact is Houston’s oil refineries.
Yeah, but aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Guys, if it’s the old Grande Dame high rises that tickle your fancy most, simply spend some Sunday afternoon on walkabout of your chosen favorite’s lobby, grounds, pool, etc. Better yet, find someone on the inside to help you in evaluating your choice — a friend, or a friend of a friend or even a frenemy of a frenemy — who lives in the building and is privy to its most salacious secrets.
Grand Dame high-rises are notoriously difficult to run, say nothing of running well. And one should always first assess just how openly hands-on, and effective its HOA board is. Your inside source will know whether a board “coup d’etat” has taken place in the past few years and should equally be able to inform you whether the new board majority delivered on its promises — to fix the former regime’s previous failings via implementing “financial-best” practices (to be interpreted however one so desires, as they mean absolutely nothing, whatsoever). Things like policy transparency, key staff retention, managerial excellence, candid concern and rightful respect for all homeowners, yadda, yadda, yadda.
More often than one could give a damn, incoming board majorities frequently rush to hire a new management company, solely to relieve them of the frightening responsibility of actually having to perform the job they were elected to do. Subsequently, to the cleaners get taken not only the new HOA board, but all the homeowners, equally. What a shocker.
Hence, an older building — with its often astronomical HOA fees and its complex maintenance needs combined with its reputation for being “difficult” — is pure manna from Heaven for a management company!
Invariably, by plan, the board majority too often then becomes convinced that the only salvation between it and utter catastrophe is the loving arms of the management company; thus, over time, the board majority grows ever more unlikely to challenge the decisions of its shining knight in white armor, convincing even well-meaning board members to turn a blind eye toward any further continuation of practices that they specifically sought election to change. And when challenged by homeowners, they wind up defending the indefensible, until that dread day finally comes requiring an emergency special assessment be made just to rescue the building.
At last, Chrys and Joe, we come to perhaps the most consequential issue affecting your daily enjoyment of high-rise living: the character, competence and conduct of your building’s general manager.
Back in the golden era of Dallas high-rise life, one could expect the general manager to possess at least a modicum of courtesy, competency, transparency, responsiveness and respect for the homeowners he or she served. Well, kiss those days long gone!
Nowadays, when it comes to general managers, we’ve been reduced to nothing but blind luck of the draw. Some are pleasant enough, albeit, incapable of running even a lemonade stand. And others are but wolves in sheep’s clothing, blessed with the anti-managerial gifts of rudeness, obfuscation and concealment.
But back to your question of homophobia, Joe: The wolves are unlikely to have any qualms whatsoever using the “F-word” against you once your back is turned: “Bougie fa**ot!”
Hopefully, your inside source will already well know what’s going on inside your favored choice of residence. And should there be a high level of dissent among the homeowners about the HOA board’s performance, the management company, and its general manager, beware!
As for the building I call home, its grounds and surrounding area are nothing short of gorgeous. The residents here (with but a few, rare exceptions) are kind, wonderfully accomplished people. Our building is the very nuclei of Uptown graciousness. Every tenant one meets here has the same aim: to live in the most desirous high-rise on Turtle Creek. We are all so very fortunate.
And for anyone requiring a reality check before turning molehills into mountains, I suggest taking a pleasant vacay this summer to one of those exotic wonders of reality-dose tranquility spots: Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria, Russia, China, Israel or perhaps the tropical paradise of Haiti.
Be sure to send me a postcard!
Now, guys, back to your hunt for the perfect high-rise space: Trust your instincts. If your initial concern regarding a building’s general manager is, “Hmm, I dunno; something about him just doesn’t feel quite … right,” then remember the immortally-prescient words of Oscar Wilde: “Only a fool doesn’t judge by first impressions.”
— Howard Lewis Russell
July’s ready and panting, men! Whatever questions your heat delirium can conjure up, scooch your burning thighs over here ‘neath my ceiling fan and share some iced tea, on me at AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.