SundayLifeThe Dallas Morning News L I F E S T Y L E M A G A Z I N E DallasNews.com | SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006

DEEPROOTSAs hype and hysteriaebb and flow, small businesses anchor Deep Ellum 10

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ALAN PEPPARD

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DigitalEXTRA

ON THE COVER: Gary Evanswelds metal joints on a piece ofoilfield equipment at Ed W. SmithMachine Works, which has beenin business in Deep Ellum since1939. By Staff PhotographerSmiley N. Pool.

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10 SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006 | THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS | DALLASNEWS.COM

If you want to find out what’s hap-pened to Deep Ellum, sit in RobertMerrill’s chair a few hours.

It’s early in the afternoon, andone of the Deep Ellum regulars, aformerly homeless man who has

found employment in a nearby bar, is sittingon the other side of Mr. Merrill’s desk atDeep Ellum Auto Glass. The visitor is hun-gry for conversation and, between phonecalls from people who need windshields anddispatching trucks to their assistance, Mr.Merrill is being attentive and courteous.

Out the window, across Main Street, hiseyes take in the parking lot where his grand-father started the business in 1939. Next

door to that, in what was once an upholsteryshop, is the wine-dark facade of Club Hush,one of the neighborhood’s newer dance ven-ues. Last fall, an argument at the club esca-lated into a fatal shooting on a nearby streetcorner. A few doors east is Taboo Tattoo, oneof several needle parlors along Main.

The rest of the buildings on that side ofthe block are vacant, some with the ubiqui-tous “For Lease” signs in the windows. Mr.Merrill has a space for lease right next door.

These are uncertain times for Deep El-lum. Many of the best-known clubs and res-taurants have closed or moved out. Freshvenues are moving in. The mayor, policechief and neighborhood leaders have heldmeetings about crime. Graffiti proliferates.

Through it all, Mr. Merrill and perhaps adouble dozen others like him remain. Theyare survivors of an older, deeper Deep El-lum, living reminders of a place where onceupon a time people made and sold thingsthat other people actually need. Like capsand dresses, furniture and shoes and automufflers.

In a city where everything changes in theblink of an eye, they’ve watched it all comeand go — the waves of artists’ lofts and gal-leries, the coffeehouses, the fly-by-nightclubs and upscale restaurants and tattooparlors.

And, most of them say, they’ll be here

long after the current show passes on.

The music loverTalk of the neighborhood’s decline have

not shaken Don Bannister at Catalina Cy-cles Harley Parts on Main Street.

“I was in Deep Ellum before Deep Ellumwas cool,” he says.

He’s standing behind the counter, run-ning the place all by himself. Business islight, and the hired man has the day off. But,come Saturday, the hogs will line up at thecurb and bikers will prowl the aisles lookingfor the latest chrome-plated accessory, anew tire or a spare sprocket.

“I came here July 1, 1967, my birthday,”Mr. Bannister says. He was just out of theArmy and custom-building cars. Graduallyhe started to buy and sell motorcycles, thenparts.

“It was all automotive places — car lots,upholstery shops, glass shops, warehouses.There were a few small restaurants.”

That all changed in the mid-1980s, Mr.Bannister says. “Rent was cheap in this ter-ritory. People started moving in and havingart studios and galleries. Different restau-rants started.”

He likes it because it reminds him of So-Ho, New York’s neighborhood of artists and

C O V E R S T O R Y

‘I was in before Deep Ellum was Despite thefrustrations, loyalty runs

deepBy BILL MARVEL

Staff Writer

Commerce Street is nearly silent in the pre-dawn hours when work begins at EdW. Smith Machine Works in Deep Ellum.

A well-worn drill press at SmithMachine Works has been useduncounted times in the constructionof heavy equipment for the oil andgas industry. Salvador Valdes washes a radiator at Texas Auto Radiators, which has been in Deep Ellum since 1918. Essential services used to be the lifeblood of the historic business district.

DEEP ELLUM COOL’

Photos by SMILEY N. POOL/Staff Photographer

See Page 12

DALLASNEWS.COM | THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS | SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006 11

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12 SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006 | THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS | DALLASNEWS.COM

galleries, and New Orleans’ Quar-ter. But he remembers traces of anolder Deep Ellum, even before theautomotive shops. In the 1920s,this was a near-downtown districtof cheap hotels, pawnshops andjuke joints. And it was mostly Afri-can-American.

When he was a boy living onnearby Fletcher Street, he used towalk through with his dad. “Thatwas the days before Central Ex-pressway,” he says. “At what wasthen called the Central Tracks,” af-ter the Houston & Texas CentralRailroad, which divided Deep El-lum from downtown proper.“There was a pocket of blacks. I al-ways liked walking past there be-cause I like the music,” he recalls.

So Deep Ellum’s ups anddowns are no surprise. “It’s the

sort of stuff the market does all thetime.”

He says he’s been offered “aconsiderable amount of money”for the building and the parkinglot next door, which he also owns.“But I have no desire to retire.

“This has been a good place forme.”

Heavy metalFor most of the survivors, Deep

Ellum is a family thing. John D. McMurray III runs the

company founded by his fatherand grandfather in 1940. His twosons also work here.

McMurray Metal Co., whichsells bronze, copper and brass,started over on Commerce Street,but moved to its Elm Street loca-tion within a year. A&P Mufflerwas across the street, Mr. McMur-ray says. Dallas Cap & Emblem

was over on Main, “Honest Joe’s”pawnshop a few blocks west.

“There were a whole lot of littlemom-and-pop stores,” he says.

But mostly, the automotivebusiness held the neighborhoodtogether. “Almost any part youwanted for a car was down here.Now, you have to go all over Dal-las.”

Mr. McMurray has had chanc-es to move. “We’ve talked about itsome,” he says. A few years ago, thebusiness needed more room. Thena building opened up just acrossthe street.

On the other hand, there havebeen problems. A few weeks ago, ayoung man stepped into the build-ing, pickled up a sheet of copper —it must have weighed 100 pounds,Mr. McMurray says — and dashedout the door with it, holding it highabove his head. He got half a block

before employees ran him down.Will McMurray Metal stay or

go? “I’ll let my boys decide. Who

knows what’s going to happenwhen the light rail comes through?

“I think Deep Ellum will gothrough many transitions.”

New lifeBehind the bland brick facade

on Commerce at Trunk Avenue,Ed W. Smith Machine Works fab-ricates heavy equipment for the oiland gas industry, as it has since

1939. Workers here still punch anold-fashioned time clock andbreak for lunch at the toot of thefactory whistle. Pneumatic tubessnake across the walls and ceilings,delivering paperwork from oneroom to another.

“It’s been a great old business,and it’s fed our family for years,”says Dan Brown, general managerand one of the owners. His father-in-law bought the company in the1970s, after the death of the origi-nal Ed W. Smith.

Mr. Brown likes to pull an en-velope of 8-by-10 photos out of adesk drawer and show them to vis-itors. They show the Works and itsproducts over the years: Machin-ists hunkered down for a groupportrait, the founder posing be-tween giant de-misters. Out in theback, where huge machinescrouch over the concrete floors

C O V E R S T O R Y

Continued from Page 10

@ See a slide show and find aninteractive map of thebusinesses described here. DallasNews.com/Extra

DigitalEXTRA

Robert Merrill is reflected in racks of glass as he works on a vintage Chevrolet Impala at Deep Ellum Auto Glass, which was founded in 1939 by his grandfather. Atone time, the area was home to many businesses providing automotive services, but now neighbors include a nightclub and a tattoo parlor.

DALLASNEWS.COM | THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS | SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2006 13

and steel trusses arch high over-head, one wall formerly belongedto a Deep Ellum hotel with none-too-savory a reputation. The ho-tel is gone, but a row of ornatelyframed windows remain, allbricked up.

Mr. Brown says that as someof the clubs and restaurants de-part Deep Ellum, less-trendybusinesses are moving in. “We’vegot little computer companies,little printing companies,” hesays. A man who prints andstitches fabric has bought thebuilding across the street. A dis-tributor of industrial fastenershas moved in a block away.

“I think we need more ofthese,” Mr. Brown says.

Still, doing business here hasits irritations. “Some of the after-hours stuff down here has turnedto vandalism,” he says. “Everywindow in the place has beenbroken. We’ve got steel over allthe windows. I’ve gone outside inbroad daylight and caught some-one graffiti-ing my building.”

Another inconvenience, ac-cording to his bookkeeper, JudyCombs, is the loft-yuppies andtheir dogs.

“It’s not that people have littledogs,” she says. “They have dogsthat you can ride.” And the dogsdo … well, what dogs do.

And truck drivers makingpickups and deliveries are alwaysstepping in it and tracking itthrough her office, she says.

The pessimistDog droppings are not the

worst inconvenience.Wilson Peters views the

neighborhood from the cool,dark recesses of Texas Auto Radi-ators on Main Street. His familyhas been rebuilding and install-ing automobile radiators at oneDeep Ellum location or anothersince 1918.

“Change is hard,” he says. “Youjust look around at all the emptybuildings.”

The original idea of a place forartists and lofts was promising,he says. “Then the developerscame in and drove off the peoplewho started it. Those poor artists,they couldn’t afford to pay therents.”

When a homeless shelteropened a few blocks away, hesays, it was the coup de grace.“Now, we have panhandlers come

in here all the time. “You have bars and clubs, and

then you have the homeless andyou have people who prey on peo-ple,” he says. “It’s the wild, wildWest down here every night.”

At the same time, he feels, it’sbecome less friendly to business-es like his.

For annual events such as therecent Deep Ellum Arts Festival,they’ll shut down Main Street, hesays. “How can a small businesslike me operate when they shutdown the street?”

Mr. Peters used to save hisscrap metal for resale. He kept itin a large container parked out bythe curb. “One of the last times,the city inspector came by andtold us we could not put the con-tainer out there. We’d been doingthat since 1918.”

“If I had to do it now,” he says,“I would not come to Dallas.”

The optimistA short walk across the park-

ing lot from Wilson Peters bringsa brighter view.

Robert Merrill’s talkative visi-tor has come and gone. There area few more phone calls to attendto; one of his drivers is making adelivery. Then he surveys thescene outside.

Mr. Merrill loves Deep Ellum,and has ever since his motherbrought him down here while shehunted scrap leather for herpurse-making business. He start-ed in the auto-glass shop in 1977and watched as real estate valuesclimbed, climbed, then leveled.

He says Deep Ellum’s currentproblems have come with youn-ger, and rowdier, crowds.

“I think it’s a cycle,” he says. “I think DART will help a lot,”

he says. The light rail line sched-uled to open in 2009, will passtwo blocks north. “It will ease alot of traffic and bring a lot of peo-ple down here.”

He’ll still be here, he says. He tried relocating. “We’ve

had branches at several differentplaces,” he says. “This is the onlyone we’ve stayed at.”

Grandfather had a bit of ad-vice on the subject: “He once toldmy uncle, ‘Stick with what youknow.’

“I love it here. I wouldn’t takeanything for it.”

E-mail bmarvel@dallasnews.com

John D. McMurray III pausesnear a portrait of his father atMcMurray Metal Co. “There’snot many of us left,” he saysof longtime businesses inDeep Ellum. The companywas founded in 1940 by hisfather and grandfather.

C O V E R S T O R Y

I will, Ido, Idid...Engagement, Wedding, Anniversary and Special Occasion Celebrations

Wells - WitzkeChris and Betty Witzke

announce the engagement oftheir daughter, KatrinaWitzke to Lee Wells, son of,Larry and Lorraine Wells ofSan Antonio. The couple willmarry June 24, 2006, inNewport, NC where thebride's parents now reside.

Hopkins - NetherlandMr. and Mrs. Larry Netherland of Dallas are pleased to

announce the engagement of their daughter, Monica LeeNetherland to Harold Newton Hopkins III of Crockett, sonof Harold Newton Hopkins, Jr. of Houston and Larry J.Christopher and the late Patricia Christopher of Crockett,TX.

The bride-elect is a 1997 graduate of, J.J. Pearce HighSchool and a 2001 graduate of Southern MethodistUniversity, with a BA in Creative Advertising. Theprospective groom is a 1997 graduate of, Crockett HighSchool and a 2001 graduate, with Honors, from SouthernMethodist University, with a BBA in Finance and RealEstate.

Monica and Newton plan to marry on May 28, 2006, atBeaulieu Gardens in Napa Valley, California.

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