Stephen: I'm Stephen Pike of Gowling WLG. I'm here in Toronto, Canada and I hope, like you, we're looking forward to the virtual running tour of Dallas that we're about to start. Like many of you I've been running in the ABA Business Law Section fitness group at our in person meetings in Chicago, Vancouver, New Orleans and Washington. This is a virtual tour today which should be a lot of fun. As you know Gowling WLG has 19 offices in Canada, the UK, the EU, Middle East and China and many of my colleagues are participants in the Business Law Section Virtual Spring Meeting. We'd like to welcome you to our virtual run in Dallas. Enjoy it and enjoy the virtual Business Law Section Spring Meeting. While the format is virtual, the content is original, authentic, relevant and insightful. Enjoy the run.
Eduardo: This is one of the stops at Dallas Running Tours and as you can see we're at Pioneer Plaza. This Plaza is important because it is one of the biggest attractions in downtown Dallas. As you can see I'm here with our 6 feet tall steer and we have 49 of them. As you can see we're still in Pioneer Plaza and the nice thing about this Plaza is all the details that go into each of the sculptures. You can see all this engraving in the cowboy's boot and you can see here how the spur moves. You can see the horse and the cowboy, the hat, everything. This 49 sculptures represent the cattle drives that either were coming from Mexico, or South Texas, all the way up into the trains so they can load the cattle into the train and ship it North. Pioneer Plaza is located in the corner of Griffin and Young and one of the cool things about the Plaza is this map in this corner. This map represents the cattle drives. As I was saying, either from Brownsville or Mexico. They would start going North and Dallas is located in one of the few places where cattle could cross the river, the Trinity River. So they would come up from Brownsville, like I said, through Lockhart, Waco, all the way to either Dallas or Fort Worth. Once they got to Dallas or Fort Worth they would load the cattle into the trains. As you walk around the Plaza, as you can see, there's many, many, many, many details. Some of the details are on the sidewalk and you can see the name of the big ranches that are around the City. So a lot of these ranches are very famous for cattle. Matador is one of them. Spur, like I showed you before, and as you continue walking you'll be able to see all the big important ranches that we had. There you go. You can also see our little Dallas trolley, tour bus.
This is another stop in Dallas Running Tours. This used to be an obelisk with four different statues. This was a monument to the Confederate, or the Confederacy, so there was a big obelisk in the middle and there was President Johnson, Stonewall Jackson, General Lee and after all the social unrest that has happened in the last few years, the City of Dallas decided to move this monument into an actual permanent location inside a building. We're right beside a cemetery, downtown Dallas. This is the biggest cemetery in downtown Dallas and it's actually the biggest park which is right by the stop that we had before which was Pioneer Plaza.
This is the building that they used whenever they were shooting RoboCop, right back in the 80's. It's a cool building. It was made by a very famous architect, and there's a couple of buildings here in Dallas that that architect made, so we're very, very proud of Dallas City Hall. As you can see is an inverted pyramid and the funny thing about this building is that when it was being built Major Johnson, at the time, didn't like it because he thought that the building was going to tip over. What the architect didn't have in mind was those columns in the middle that I'll show you here in a second. Those were not part of the building but Major Johnson actually asked the architect to put those as support for the building. What the architect didn't tell Major Johnson was that those staircases are actually not anchored to the building. So they're separate structures not doing anything at all. We're still at City Hall and I didn't mention the name of the architect because I wanted to wait until we were in the middle of the building so you could see how the building tilts towards you, and the architect wanted to do that because it's an inverted pyramid. Right? So I. M. Pei, which is the name of the architect, wanted to do the building and whenever a different architect decided to do the library, which is the building that I just showed you previously, what they did is they built that building at the same degree but instead of coming towards the street it's actually going away from the street. So if you want to think about it, it's like two huge Legos coming together, supposedly.
This is the J. Erik Jonsson Library. This is the building that is right in front of the City Hall building. So they're supposed to be made out of the same material, same degrees, just one is going out, the other one is going in.
This is a great site. It is called The Eye by Tony Tasset. Some people think that this eye is actually from the artist. That it's a model from the artist. The artist, Tony Tasset, has never confirmed or denied if it's actually based on his eye. This sculpture was supposed to go through the US on a tour but I think it only went to Chicago for a couple of months and St. Louis, and then the owner of the Joule Hotel, which is the hotel across the street where you can see that pool over there, decided to build this little park. I had to pause the video there because somebody was trespassing <laughter> but if you come to Dallas this is definitely a sight to see.
Hello. We're on Thanksgiving Square Park. This is another beautiful park downtown Dallas and this park was also created right after J. F. Kennedy was assassinated and it was a public project. So the park was created for a place for people to come together, and give thanks and forgive each other, and there's a little Temple right beside us. I'll show it to you here in a second but it's a non-denominational Temple. So if you're a Christian or a Muslim or Jewish, whatever religion, you can come here. You can use the Temple. It's an open space to welcome anybody and the park has been going through many, many stages. Right now it just went through a renovation. Before that it was home to a lot of homeless people and drug use. But now it's getting cleaner and it's getting better and it's a really nice place where you can come from your office here downtown, sit down, have lunch, meditate a little bit. It's a really cool place to be.
So this is a different shot of the Temple and as you can see it's a spiral. In between the walls, the white walls that you see, there is stained glass. So around noon, 1:00pm, 2:00pm, if you're here inside the Temple, and the sun is shining, you can see all those different colours from the tempered glass and different coloured glass. So all that light coming through the glass in different colours on the white walls. It's very, very soothing and very, very special. So you can see how those people are actually going up the spiral and maybe into the Temple. Yes, they're going into the Temple. So there are two ways of getting to the Temple. Either through that spiral or through this ramp right here and this is the park that is below street level. So it's also below street level. It's kind of quite down there. It's a really nice place to meditate and another small Temple. That's the entrance to the second smaller Temple.
So this is the best part about the park, I think, and we'll talk more about that rink here in a second. But again, this is a pretty peaceful place to just come and be and reflect, be at peace. So this is probably the highlight for this park and at Thanksgiving Square and, as you can see, this is a normal Rockwell piece of art and, obviously, it has the golden rule; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The whole concept about the park, as I mentioned before, was to have a place where you could come and be at peace with yourself. So the whole theme was to just forgive each other, be at peace with each other, and then if you come this way you'll be able to see the ring. The cool thing about this ring, if you go in the middle, and you think of something that you want to be thankful for and then you say it out loud, something really special happens. Thank you for my family. But for you to know what happens you have to come to Dallas Running Tours and I'll show you.
One of my favourite streets in Dallas is this street right here, Flora. This is our Arts District. It's a little bit less than a mile but this is where we have a lot of museums, sculptures, centers, the Opera House, the symphony, the DMA which is the Dallas Museum of Art, and this is right downtown Dallas, also. We have the Asian Museum. We have many, many, many, many things. Restaurants, museums, galleries. It's a really nice, nice street to run.
So we're still at Flora Street, our Arts District, and this is the Wyly Theater. If you're running in front of the Wyly Theater, and actually you're looking at the building, it kind of gives you the impression that the Theater accordions are either opening or closing just because of the shape of the building. The nice thing about the building is that it's just a black box. It's just a huge 7-storey tall black box. Anything inside moves so you can actually really do anything that you want with the building. It's a beautiful building. It's fairly new. I think 2011, that's when we got it, and that's when this whole street started to flourish. Obviously we have the Wyly Theater here. We have the Opera House that was also around the same time that Wyly Theater opened up. We're in Texas so everything is bigger in Texas, right? A lot of families donate money to have their name upon buildings. I think they donated about $120 million to just get the name on this building. But this is the Opera House. Obviously beautiful building. At night sometimes there is concerts, they have an amphitheater in the back, and then during summer time you can do Shakespeare in the Park and then if you look at the actual ceiling, those blades actually move. So whenever it is really, really sunny outside they try to shade you but at the same time the air flows through them so it creates a little bit of a current. So even if it's summer time, you're underneath that shaded area, it's usually anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees. Then lastly, this building right next to the Opera, which is where the Symphony plays. This is also one of the other buildings that I was talking to you about earlier, made by that famous architect, American architect, I. M. Pei, which is the one who made City Hall and some other buildings in some other cities. The Weather Center in Colorado. The Petroleum Tower in China. He's a really well known architect. So this is another of his creations. The same type of building. Same type of material. Very angular. A lot of glass, concrete, cool building and one of the joys of Dallas, also.
The nice thing about this City is that we started with the DMA, the Dallas Museum of Art, and it's the same street. The Dallas Museum of Art is almost a mile away from here but the street ends, or begins, with Booker T. Washington, which is the high school for performing and visual arts. This is where all the gifted children that like art, dance, sculpting, painting, anything like that come and then right in front of the high school we have the Moody Performance Center. Again, if you look at the building that is right beside the Moody Performance Center, is the Wyly Theater and then front of that, that would be the Opera House, right next to the high school. So it's a really cool, cool, cool street to run because you get to see a lot of art, a lot of people. Whenever there's a play or some thing, festivals, a lot of stuff comes and plays here in this street.
So we're right in the middle of Dallas, downtown Dallas, and uptown. This is Klyde Warren Park where people just come and chill. We're actually on top of a highway. This used to be an open highway, and the government decided to cover it and build a park on top of the highway, connecting downtown and uptown which is genius.
This is the Adolphus Hotel / Magnolia Building. Adolphus, Magnolia. Adolphus, Magnolia. I hope you can hear because there is a lot of parties going around because of St. Patrick's Day but we have two buildings. The one on the left side is the Magnolia Building where you can see the Pegasus on top of the building and the one building to the left is the Adolphus Hotel. These two buildings are pretty important. The Adolphus Hotel, being that it was the tallest building West of the Mississippi, at the time whenever it was built, the early 1920's. Then, of course Texas being Texas, and everything needing to be as big as possible, the Magnolia Building which at the time was the tech cycle company, decided to build the tallest building right next door to the tallest building at the time.
When you come to Dallas and do the Dallas Running Tours you'll see that around the City there's a bunch of little parks like this one. One of the good things that Dallas does very well is the government partners with businesses, and businesses donate the land, and then the government maintains the land. They use that land for public access, parks and recreation. So this is one of them. So if you're downtown Dallas just make sure that you're always looking around because there's a bunch of little parks around downtown.
From this corner you can also see Reunion Tower. We'll be heading to the Reunion Tower and to the J. F. K. Memorial Park. We are right by the J. F. K. Memorial Plaza and also the big Old Red Museum, which is right here. So this is the West End Historic District which is downtown Dallas. Highly recommend it for you to come because everything is close. Obviously we're going to go to the John Neely Bryan Cabin here in a second and Dealey Plaza where J. F. was assassinated.
We are right in front of the J. F. K. Memorial Plaza and we're at Founders' Plaza. Behind me you can see the first official house of Dallas. This house was actually by the Trinity River but they actually picked it up and put it here, in Founders' Plaza, because by the river everything flows every year. This is supposed one of the first settlements, or the first house, that happened here in Dallas.
This is the J. F. K. Memorial Plaza. The President was assassinated about 200 yards away from this Plaza. We'll show you here the next site but after the assassination obviously the City was in mourning and they decided to do the memorial for J. F. K. There's a couple of different places where you can see monuments to his name.
The Old Red Museum, which used to be the court 100 years ago. It's right by the new court which is being built right now or remodeled. So right now I'm standing by the Old Red Museum, behind me, and this is the corner of Main and Houston. This is where President Kennedy was coming down right before the assassination and the building that you see there in the back, that's the Book Repository where Lee Harvey Oswald was hiding. So this is what I was talking about. The President was coming down Main and then it took a right on Houston and then another left here on Dealey Plaza. This here is the Book Repository right here and that's where Lee Harvey Oswald was hiding. So I'll show you how and where he shot the President from.
Alright, so we're in the corner of Elm and Houston and this is the Book Repository. There's only one window that is open and that's where Lee Harvey Oswald was hiding. If you can see next to the top, on the right side, there's a white square. That's where he was kneeling. Something that you have to think about is that this signage here wasn't there in the 60's, and that tree was also pretty low, but that's the window where Lee Harvey was hiding from and where you see the X, that's where the first shot happened, allegedly, and there's a second X down the street. Some people say that there were two shots. Some people say that there were was only one shot and then here, that's the grassy knoll. There was about 100 people there when the assassination happened and after the FBI interviewed all of them, half of them said that there was one shot, half of them said that it was two shots. So, again, that's where the second theory of many shooters comes in, one versus two shots. This is the site of the second shot, a little bit down the street, so that's the second shot. First shot is up there and then Book Repository, grassy knoll, Dealey Plaza, big Old Red Museum and the Reunion Tower.
Angie: Hey, everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the tour of the City of Dallas and I just want to thank you all for coming along, as well as thank our partners at Dallas Running Tours, for helping us out with this event. I'm going to lead you through a quick cool down stretch. My name is Angie and let's go ahead and get started. You've earned this cool down. I want you to bring your feet nice and wide, hands on the hips. We're just going to do a little hula hoop. That's it. Nothing crazy. Maybe you haven't done this since you were younger and that's okay. You really can't forget. You really can't mess it up. You're just going to hula hoop those hips in one direction and then we're going to switch. That's right. Just kind of ironing out those hips. Kind of getting that hip a little bit more lubricated on each side. Very helpful after running. Alright.
Let's start to incorporate some arms as well. We're going to roll the shoulders up. You can let the hips just kind of hang out for a second and let's work in that breath. So inhale, squeeze your shoulders up to your ears, and as you exhale let those shoulders slide down the back. Let's do it again. Inhale, roll up, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and exhale, let that neck nice and long, drawing the shoulders away from the ears. Good. A few more on your own. Beautiful and then since we already have the feet wide here let's go ahead and heel toe the feet out, even wider. Point the toes out. Okay. I like to point them out so that they're facing kind of 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock. We're going to stretch those arms out into a big T. Take a deep breath and as you exhale bend the left knee, slide the right hand to the inside of the left leg. Right. Stretch that left arm up. Deep breath in and as you exhale bend that left arm and just kind of circle that elbow up in the air. Okay this is going to open up that thoracic spine. Alright. That chest. The rib cage. You might even feel the side of the lower part of your back, getting a nice little stretch here. Just a few more circles. Any direction is fine. Then on your next inhale you can come up to stand, stretch those arms out again. As you exhale, left arm reaches down to the inside of the right leg. Go ahead and breathe. Alright inhale, lengthen the crown of the head forward and then as you exhale bend the right elbow, draw those little circles. Alright. Opening up the right side of the chest, right side of the rib cage, feeling that low back. That left leg's also getting a nice little stretch here too. One more breath. Deep breath in. This time as you exhale just let your head hang down, over between your legs. Shake the head yes and no. Sway side to side. Good. On your next inhale, slowly start to come up. Tuck your chin in towards your chest. Roll all the way up, vertebrae by vertebrae. And shake it out. Good.
Notice we've kept the feet wide the whole time. All we're going to do is we're going to pivot over towards the right side. All of your toes facing that right foot. Okay. We're going to bend that right knee and then gently start to straighten your left leg. You're just going to slide that left foot back. So you can start to feel a stretch on that back quad there. Breathe. Hands can be on your hips, alright, and then just start to squeeze those elbows back and towards each other. Take a deep breath in through the rib cage. Let it all fill up. Exhale, let it go. Nice work. Go ahead and let that left heel come down. Your left toes can point out just a little bit. Start to straighten that right leg. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale just gently let the chest come down towards that right thigh. Right. It doesn't have to be low. We want to keep the back in neutral. Just breathe. These are good stretches to do after running. Inhale, let the chest lift up and we're going to just spin our feet to face the left side. Okay. Kind of making a little stretch sandwich, we're going to keep our right heel on the ground first. Square our hips. Left leg is straight. Deep breath in and then exhale, just bring the chest down. Good. Roll those shoulders back. We tend to kind of want to curl in here. Alright, so let's just keep the front of the chest nice and open. Think of elongating those collar bones. On your next inhale go ahead and lift up nice and tall and start to bend the left knee. This time start to slide the right leg back. Alright. Finding that gentle stretch in the front of the right thigh. Giving that quad a little bit of love. Breathe. Nice work. On this side we're going to do something a little different with the upper body. Just interlace your fingers together. Press your palms forward. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale lift the arms up. Good. Breathe through the entire ribcage. Back of the rib cage. Sides of the rib cage. Let everything fill up. One more deep breath and as you exhale you can let those arms go and just bring the feet together.
We're going to do two more quick stretches. Inhale, bring your left knee up and towards your chest and as you exhale find that figure 4 stretch. Hands can be on your hands. Right knee is soft. If you need to hold onto a wall, or something close by, go ahead. I like to take my ankle a little circle here in both directions. Just to kind of iron anything out in the ankle joint, pressing my thumbs into my calf muscle. I can get some nice release there. Good. We're going to stand up nice and tall and switch sides. Inhale, bring the right knee up. Exhale, bring it over the left knee, and again, circling that ankle, either direction, pressing my thumbs into my calves, just a little pressure and release. Always feels nice. Beautiful. Okay, shake it out.
One more thing. Just with the breath. Place your hands on the lower part of your rib cage. Take a deep breath in. Really feel the ribs expand and as you exhale let everything go. That's it folks. We hoped you enjoyed the tour and we hope that you join another running tour with us again soon. Have a great one! Bye.