So what do you do if you work downtown and you need to stretch your legs a little bit but it is real cold outside?
Well if you can make it two blocks then you can walk quite a ways sheltered from the wind and the cold. And, as a bonus, if you take your camera and take pictures every now and then you will have your own security guy. You don’t get the same one the whole way, they just kind of daisy chain you from one to the other.
You enter the Philtower building, shown above. It was built by Waite Phillips (The same guy who lived in and then donated the Philbrook Museum to Tulsa before he and the Mrs. bugged out for California.) While there check out the ornate lobby shown below. There is a little room right off the lobby that has a display of the original drawings and such. Check it out. Also, if you have time check out the Philcade right across the street to the south. It is ultra ornate. There used to be 27 shops on the ground floor. Now its pretty much all office space.
From the Philtower you can go north through interconnecting doors all they way to the Midcontinent building. This is where your first security guy appears. He just kind of follows you around as you take pictures. The lobby is even more ornate the then Philtower. There is also stained glass depictions of downtown Tulsa and some paintings. One by Wilson Hurley (one of my favorites).
Go down the escalator, your new friend will go down with you. There is the below right display there. The Midcontinent building is actually one building cantilevered over another building with like a 1/16″ gap or so in between. Fascinating techhnically. Led to lawsuits that are still going on. Even more fascinating.
Let me ask you, don’t you think that the display is begging for a geocache? Something magnetic and hidden? Yeah, I do also. I have a feeling that my friends wouldn’t agree. Maybe later.
From there, head north through the tunnel. Your new friend doesn’t follow you. Hang a left at the parking garage and wind your way over to the BOK bank (not the tower, the one in the old Farmers Exchange building. You come out right by the vault. Even I knew not to take pictures of the vault.
On the way you pass some production studios and video conferencing centers and you pick another buddy. Nobody is going to mess with you on this walk, if you are afraid to walk downtown alone, you are on the right path.
And then you go under Williams Green all the way to the Adams Mark Hotel parking garage. Here you have to walk about 100 ft in the cold. But covered and out of the wind.
Go into the Hotel, up the escalators, hang a hard 180 degree turn to the right and go through the skyway to the Williams Complex. You know, where the ice rink used to be. Now its a trade floor, pretty empty now since the Enron debacle.
Now you can join the crowd that goes around and around the expansive lobby of the building.
At the far eastern end of the lobby is our new City Hall. Go check on Mayor Taylor. Why not, I’m in her Mayors Million Mile challenge. I already have about 64 miles. I could ask why she is still stuck at 55 miles. We could have coffee.
Nope, no can do another friend tells me. Public access to the new City Hall is limited. You have to have business with the city or be talking to a particular person. Otherwise, you have to work there. My friend is very nice. I say OK, she is just carrying out policy.
You have walked for about 15 minutes. I don’t know how many miles. If you want to walk a lot , walk around and around the old ice rink. Everybody else is. Personally, the sun is out, the wind is down, I’m tired of my friends, nice as they are. So I just walk back on the sidewalks and streets.
Civic Arena – Nice on the inside, Ugly on the outside. Being remodeled to a convention center with lots of meeting rooms.
Tulsa Police Headquarters
