Prycer Consulting

When I joined the staff here in 2004, our name was Old City Park. Consequently, I spent a lot of time on the phone explaining to people the following:

• No, you can’t bring your frisbee.
• No, we don’t have a swimming pool available for your birthday party.
• Yes, you do have to pay admission even though you’re a Dallas taxpayer.
• The “museum” is all around you, as soon as you walk through our gates.

In 2006, we changed our name to Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park.  Of course, name changes are never easy, and we still get asked all the time why we changed our name. My short (somewhat snarky) answer has always been: “Why would anyone want to go to an old city park?” And then people generally get it.  Changing our name has solved many, many problems.  We don’t get the above questions any more.  But, of course, there are other challenges.

Changing vocabulary is hard.  There are still lots and lots of people out there that still use our old name or just say “the park.”  I never correct many of our long time supporters (after all, some of them have supported this organization longer than I’ve been alive.  They can call us whatever they want), but if you got to know us post-2006, you better be not be calling us a park.  As we began working with our new developer friends, I had to have a conversation about  how they referred to us, emphasizing “history museum in park-like setting.”  Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that people that primarily think of us as a park aren’t going to respect our mission of preservation and education. For years, I’ve been working to eradicate the word park from our DHV vocabulary.  But now I’m starting to have some second thoughts.

Yesterday was the 3rd Annual Dallas Jazz Age Sunday Social.  This 1920s themed lawn party uses our grounds to their full potential.  It’s certainly a day when we’re more park than museum.  Thirteen hundred people showed up yesterday, the largest non-Candlelight event attendance we’ve had in 5 years.  Though most people explored the museum, the prime attraction was sitting on our lawn, enjoying the first real spring day in Dallas.  We closed at 5.  At 6, we had to kick people off their picnic blankets. It was glorious.  Matt, our partner for the event, uses the word park all the time–and he certainly used it from the stage yesterday.  Sometimes I inwardly flinch, but I’m trying to get over it.  Because he brought us 13oo visitors yesterday.

As the neighborhood around us changes, we’re going to have to rethink museum access.  Today, 9,000 people live in the urban core, and 45,000 people live in one of the surrounding neighborhoods.  More stunning, there are 5,500 new units under construction right now. Before I ever joined the staff, we offered a neighborhood membership option giving people after-hours access to our grounds.  We are the largest green space in downtown, and we’re fenced–this is something worth paying for.  In the coming months, we’re gong to be pushing the neighborhood membership option hard, in a way we never have before.

As I continue to ponder our options for long-term sustainability, I’m beginning to think that our land might be our greatest asset.  We will always be a history museum, first and foremost, but I’m becoming more accepting of the word park.  We’re not going to tear down our fences. We won’t become downtown’s largest dog park.  As we ponder ways to increase access, we still have to protect our buildings.  (as fabulous as Klyde Warren Park is, that can’t be our future.  Our sweet wooden buildings would die.)  But the word park is an important part of our history, and it’s an important part of our future as well.

I’m still conflicted about the word park.  We are so much more than just a park.  But, our historic land, so close to our urban core, certainly makes us special.