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Architecture critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Lamster joins The Hidden City to talk about his book, Welcome to Paradox City, and what Dallas’s buildings reveal about the people and decisions that shaped it. From the debate over Dallas City Hall to the character of Jefferson Boulevard, we explore why Dallas is so quick to tear down the old and build something new, and what gets lost along the way. We also talk about the changes in Bishop Arts, the hidden places worth discovering on foot, and why caring for our neighborhoods starts with everyday things like sidewalks, trees, and paying attention to what’s already here.

A mansion filled with screams. A little girl who vanishes along Coombs Creek. A mysterious woman moving through the darkened Texas Theatre. This Halloween, we explore three of Oak Cliff’s strangest ghost stories, tracing the history behind the haunted house at Hampton and Camp Wisdom, the elusive legend of a girl named Mary, and theater employees’ accounts of encounters they still can’t explain. Some stories have surprisingly earthly explanations. Others leave more questions than answers. Join us for a trip through the neighborhood’s eerie past.

In 1897, years before the first airplane took flight, reports of mysterious airships began appearing across North Texas. One was spotted over Dallas, and just a day later, a newspaper reported that an airship had crashed into a windmill in Aurora, Texas, leaving behind a pilot believed to be from Mars. In this episode, Grant and Doug explore the strange history of the 1897 airship sightings, the alleged alien burial in Aurora, and the newspaper stories that fueled the frenzy. Along the way, they uncover connections to early Oak Cliff and examine how a small Texas town became home to one of the country’s most enduring UFO legends.

Javier García del Moral returns to The Hidden City to talk about what’s new at The Wild Detectives, the upcoming Hay Festival Dallas, and Oak Cliff’s growing literary scene. He shares the story behind opening a second bookstore in Bishop Arts, how an international literary festival found its way to Oak Cliff, and why Dallas is becoming a destination for writers and readers from around the world. We also talk about the changes Javier has seen in Bishop Arts over the past decade, the challenges that come with rapid development, and the role that bookstores and cultural spaces play in bringing a community together.

Before Arlington became North Texas’s baseball destination, the game belonged to Oak Cliff. In this episode of Hidden City, we uncover the intertwined histories of Burnett Field and Riverside Park - two ballparks just blocks apart, divided by segregation. From the Dallas Black Giants and a stadium fire that briefly brought the white team into their ballpark to Dave Hoskins’s extraordinary 1952 season breaking the Texas League’s color barrier, this is a story of baseball, courage, and the places Dallas forgot.

For this episode, we’re changing things up a bit. Instead of our usual format, we’re telling this story as a more traditional true-crime narrative, taking you inside the investigation and following the clues as they unfold. In 1990, three women connected to the street life along Jefferson Boulevard were murdered in a series of killings that would become one of Dallas’ most notorious true-crime cases. As police searched for a connection, the women who knew Jefferson Boulevard best began sharing what they knew about the men, cars, and encounters happening on the street.

On April 2, 1957, a powerful tornado tore through Oak Cliff, hitting the Kessler Theater, destroying homes and businesses, and eventually crossing the Trinity into West Dallas. Ten people were killed and around 200 were injured, but the tornado also became an important moment in the history of tornado research. Photographed and filmed from all over Dallas, the storm gave scientists an unprecedented look at how tornadoes move and behave. More than 60 years later, its path can still be traced through Oak Cliff, and the Kessler Theater still stands as one of the most visible reminders of the day the tornado came through.

Barry and Sandra Nash have called Oak Cliff home for more than 40 years. They join us to talk about what Oak Cliff was like when they first moved here in 1980, the changes they’ve watched unfold over the decades, and the people and places that shaped the neighborhood along the way. We talk about the evolution of Bishop Arts, raising a family in Oak Cliff, Barry’s unexpected career coaching some of television’s biggest names, Sandra’s career in medical aesthetics, and what makes Oak Cliff’s diversity and sense of community so special.

Before B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, there was T-Bone Walker. Born Aaron Thibeaux Walker, he grew up in Oak Cliff’s Tenth Street neighborhood, where he was surrounded by music and crossed paths with some of the blues’ earliest legends, including Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly. We trace T-Bone’s journey from Tenth Street and the Bottoms to the stages of Los Angeles and around the world and come back home to explore what remains of the Oak Cliff that helped create him.

Haley Leavitt joins us to share how she found her place in Oak Cliff’s creative community and how an experiment involving salvaged church pews grew into the Oak Cliff Art Walk. What began with 35 artists inside the then-vacant Oak Cliff Assembly drew nearly 1,000 people and has since become an annual platform for artists, residents, and community organizations across the neighborhood. We also talk about Haley’s work in business and community development at Proxy Properties, the transformation of historic spaces like the Oak Cliff Assembly and East Dock Oak Cliff, and the relationship between art and real estate development. Haley reflects on restoring old buildings without erasing their stories, inviting artists into the process, and creating places where Oak Cliff’s existing community can remain visible and connected.

In 1990, Oak Cliff came remarkably close to asking Dallas for a divorce. About 2,000 people packed a public meeting to discuss creating a new city of roughly 310,000 residents, complete with its own government, budget, police and fire departments, libraries, and public works. What began with long-standing complaints about neglected streets, drainage, libraries, code enforcement, and political representation quickly became a serious municipal question—one that drew national media attention and forced Dallas to prepare for the possibility of losing a huge piece of itself. In this episode, we dig into the original maps, budgets, legal memos, service plans, and meeting records to find out why Oak Cliff wanted out, whether it could actually have become its own city, and why the movement ultimately failed. Along the way, we explore the deeper fight over race, representation, money, and what it means to belong to a city that doesn't always feel like it belongs to you. Oak Cliff never seceded—but for one extraordinary season, Dallas had to ask what it would take to make Oak Cliff stay.

For nearly 16 years, Nova has served as a second living room for Oak Cliff, a place where neighbors gather over great food, familiar drinks, and plenty of local characters. In this episode, JD Reid joins the podcast to share how he and his partners transformed a former Dairy Queen on West Davis into one of the neighborhood’s most enduring restaurants, opening with just a handful of menu items and around $1,200 left in the bank.JD reflects on immigrating from Scotland, leaving the corporate world for the restaurant business, and what it takes to keep an independent neighborhood spot going. He also talks about Nova’s chef-driven menu, its relationship with the Kessler Theater, and the responsibility that comes with creating a place where employees and neighbors have put down roots.

Stevens Park is one of Oak Cliff’s most familiar landscapes, but its history stretches far beyond the golf course. What began with Annie Stevens’s 1923 gift of 40 acres in memory of her parents grew into a public park, an 18-hole municipal course, and a neighborhood shaped by the creeks, bluffs, and rolling hills of Oak Cliff. In this episode, we trace the course from its early sand greens to its reputation as “Little Augusta,” exploring the civic ambition, complicated history, and generations of golfers behind it. It is a story of stubborn land, public space, and the many people who imagined what these hills above the Trinity could become.

What does it take to build a city where artists can make meaningful work without burning out? Avery-Jai Andrews, executive director of Arts Mission Oak Cliff and founder of Agora Artists, joins the show to talk about returning to Dallas after pursuing dance in New York, the hard lessons of starting her own company, and why supporting the artist matters as much as supporting the art. Avery-Jai shares how a former Winnetka Heights church building became a gathering place for artists, neighbors, and collaborators, and explores the tension between creativity and commerce, the importance of relationship-building, and Oak Cliff’s potential to sustain a thriving artistic community of its own.

For the final installment of the Hidden City Summer Reading Club, Doug and Grant are joined by Eric Nystrom to discuss Nathanael Johnson’s Unseen City, a book about learning to notice the wildlife hiding in plain sight.From hawks over Elmwood and turtles in Cedar Creek to bald eagles along the Trinity River, the conversation explores the nature woven through Dallas and what we discover when we slow down, ask questions, and pay closer attention to the places we call home.