On your left rises a colossal fortress of beige concrete, distinguished by its sweeping, windowless brick walls and the distinct, dome-like curve of the arena that looks a bit like a landed spaceship. This is the Fort Worth Convention Center.
To build this behemoth, the city had to make a hard choice about what kind of place it wanted to be. Before the concrete was poured in nineteen sixty-eight, this land was the heart of Hell's Half Acre. It was a notorious district of saloons and brothels where outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once roamed. Later, it evolved into a thriving Black business district. But in the name of progress, fourteen entire city blocks were leveled to the ground. It was a massive urban renewal project that didn't just clean up the vice... it erased a community.
The design came from a group of local architects, including Preston M. Geren, a major force in the city's mid-century skyline. They went with a mid-century modern look that leaned heavily into brutalism, a style of architecture characterized by raw, imposing concrete and massive, blocky forms. It was meant to look futuristic, hence the arena's nickname, the flying saucer, but it also feels a bit like a bunker.
Despite its fortress-like appearance, or perhaps because of it, this place became a temple for rock and roll. Elvis Presley played here in the seventies when fan mania was at a fever pitch. During one show in nineteen seventy-four, a woman who was nine months pregnant actually charged the stage while Elvis was singing, screaming that she just wanted to touch him. Security caught her, of course, but the energy in that building was always volatile.
Later, the band U2 chose to play here specifically to snub Dallas. At the time, Dallas had financial ties to South Africa under Apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation, and U2 refused to perform there. So, they brought their massive Joshua Tree tour to this oval arena instead. It was here that blues legend B.B. King joined them on stage, a moment captured in their documentary Rattle and Hum.
It wasn't always perfect, though. For years, the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition held its finals inside that cavernous arena. You had the world's best young pianists trying to project delicate concertos over the constant, low roar of the air conditioning system. It was a space built for rodeos, not Rachmaninoff.
Yet, the building's sheer stubbornness has been its saving grace. In March of two thousand, a massive tornado tore through downtown, shredding glass facades nearby. But this windowless concrete saucer? It barely had a scratch. It stood firm while the modern glass towers shattered.
Now, the city is looking to reinvent this space yet again. Plans are in motion to tear down the iconic saucer and replace it with something transparent and new, finally removing the last major trace of that nineteen-sixties concrete overhaul.
If you look just past the convention center, scan the skyline for the spires of a church. That is St. Patrick Cathedral, one of the few survivors from the old neighborhood that this giant replaced. Let's head that way.
