The Bishop Arts District is a shopping and

entertainment district An entertainment district is a type of arts district with a high concentration of movie theaters, theatres or other entertainment venues. Such areas may be officially designated by local governments with functional zoning regulations, as well as ...

in north

Oak Cliff Oak Cliff is a neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, that was formerly a separate town in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1901. It has since retained a distinct neighborhood identity as one of Dallas' older established neighborhoods. Oak C ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

(

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

), near the intersection of Bishop Street and Davis Street. The Bishop Arts District is immediately southwest of

Downtown Dallas Downtown Dallas is the central business district (CBD) of Dallas, Texas, United States, located in the geographic center of the city. It is the second-largest business district in the state of Texas. The area termed "Downtown" has traditionally ...

and south of the

Kessler Kessler or Keßler (in German) may refer to: * Kessler (automobile), an American automobile made 1921–1922 * Kessler (name), people named Kessler * ''Kessler'' (TV series), a British television series from 1981 * Kessler, Ohio, an unincorporat ...

neighborhoods. The Bishop Arts District is home to over 60 independent boutiques, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and art galleries.Bishop Arts District
- Main page. Retrieved 17 December 2022.

History

The area was originally developed as warehouses and shops in the 1920s. In the 1930s, a trolley stop along Davis became Dallas' busiest trolley stop. The district began a decline in the mid-1960s through the beginning of the 1980s. The reasons for the decline included the rise of the shopping mall, the loss of sizable tenants such as Astor theater and Goodier Cosmetics, neighborhood demographic changes and finally the fact that buses began to replace streetcars making trolley stops like Bishop and Seventh useless. In the fall of 1984, Jim Lake saw a bargain in the now run down storefronts and began buying up property. He said, "Hopefully we'll make money on this in the future, but in the first three to five years I'm gonna feed it." Lake said of his decision to buy the property, "I just thought it needed saving." As a sign of his commitment, Lake provided, rent-free for a year, space for a police storefront. This was an important element in the area's security and sense of community. Continuing through the 1990s and 2000s, renovations have taken place to transform the two city blocks into a walkable, urban environment. Murals, brick pavers, and other street elements have polished the rough look of the warehouses and have made the area a popular leisure and dining destination. In 2015, Exxir Capital invested $42 million to construct a mixed-use development includes retail, office, and apartments in the district. A portion of the district is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

as the North Bishop Avenue Commercial Historic District. File:Bishop Arts District 2.jpg, Looking southwest at Bishop Street & 7th Street File:Bishop Arts District, Dallas, Texas trolley stop.jpg, Former popular streetcar stop

In popular culture

The Bishop Arts District has become a popular destination for celebrities to visit. Past celebrity sightings include Dua Lipa, Lana Del Ray,

Leon Bridges Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges (born July 13, 1989) is an American soul singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 2015 song " Coming Home", which received regular airplay and was also a Top 10 Most Viral Track on Spotify. Brid ...

, and

The Weeknd Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known professionally as the Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. Known for his sonic versatility and dark lyricism, his music explores escapism, romance, and ...

. The area's culture has continued to mature with the expanding Oak Cliff Film Festival, which has garnered media attention from

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

and

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Landmarks

Oak Cliff September 2016 42 (The Kessler Theater)

*Kessler Theater - an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

theater built in 1942. *Mayor's House - former Dallas mayor George Sergeant's residence.

Transportation

The district can be reached via several

Dallas Area Rapid Transit Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is a transit agency serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex of Texas. It operates buses, light rail, commuter rail, and high-occupancy vehicle lanes in Dallas and twelve of its suburbs. In , the system had ...

bus routes and from

on the Dallas Streetcar.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 32, 44, 56.23, N, 96, 49, 42.02, W, type:landmark, display=title Arts in Dallas Arts districts Warehouse districts of the United States