Photography: Scissortail Park

Today I visited the new Scissortail Park in downtown OKC. Keep in mind that I am arranging these photos in reverse order because it will make more sense to you viewing them. Thus, your ride-along with me starts on the south side of the Scissortail sculpture that has stood over Interstate 40 near Downtown OKC for some years now. It’s supposed to remind you of our state bird, the Scissortail.

As we cross the bridge over the highway, you’ll see places where people have attached padlocks for some whimsical reason, something started by some unknown individual sometime after the bridge and sculpture were built. In this batch, there is also a very ornate cross.

We enter the park from the south side, so you are looking north across the new park. Robinson Avenue is to the right, and farther north along that street several new buildings are under construction. The camera is turned just a tad west to see the pond, and maybe you can make out the grassy hump in the middle of the park.

I couldn’t resist pulling together this panorama shot, standing on a bench near the SE corner of the park. To our left is a plaza with some oddly designed lights standing atop curved poles of varying random sizes. We sweep our gaze across the Downtown OKC skyline to the new construction proceeding, with workmen perched in cherry pickers way too high in the air. The park itself isn’t actually finished, but the city sponsored a concert here (Kings of Leon) a couple of nights ago to celebrate the grand opening.

We take the promenade across the pond and I turn to face back at the new building construction again, so you can see it’s three buildings going up all at once. We have a new convention center, two buildings on the right, and an Omni Hotel to the left. All of this is part of the 4th iteration of our MAPS development plan. That bikeway around Draper Lake was part of MAPS 3.

Heading farther across the bridge, we come around and up that grassy hump in the center of the park. We turn to look back whence we came, from the south. It’s a substantial rise, but it also shows us the old Santa Fe Railroad Station. It was turned into some kind of museum a long time ago, and is now the HQ of our city transportation and parking authority.

Turn around and face back NNE and we see down the same hill a nice grassy slope for sitting, with a wide stretch of flat grassy space, and beyond that the stage for public acts, such as the Kings of Leon concert the other night.

Coming down the hill and along behind that stage, we can stand on the NE corner of the park and look westward along the new (and still unfinished) OKC Boulevard. All along the outer edges of the park are these odd stainless steel pillars. You can also see the stage from the backside with some construction equipment. I’ll come back sometime in the next six months to see what gets vandalized. We have some really thuggish punks in our state’s capital. I didn’t show their handiwork on the Scissortail Bridge, but the benches have been partially disassembled and trash stuffed into the internal cavity. I figure that grassy hill will be a popular target right away.