Bricktown and Automobile Alley

Photo © Steven Wilson

Urban revitalization isn't just about OKC's downtown core. A stone's throw from the burgeoning city center are two Oklahoma City neighborhoods with histories that stretch back to the early 1920s: Bricktown (above) and Automobile Alley (right). Both are getting new leases on their previous lives (as centers for freight operations and the auto industry, respectively). Today Bricktown'and its water-taxi-navigable canals'is home to restaurants, nightclubs, and the corporate headquarters of fast-food giant Sonic. Automobile Alley is similarly dotted with shops and restaurants, and, like Bricktown, has seen many of its concrete-and-brick buildings become rental apartments and condominiums.