![]() When the University settled into its current surroundings in 1911, the campus was a sparse 56 acres on the city's periphery. TCU's arrival in 1910 was central to Berry's becoming in the 1940s a bustling traffic conduit and business hub. Long before West Berry's mid-century heyday - when it was home to Cox's department store, Kings Liquor and the Hi-Hat Lounge - the street was little more than a country lane. It is a success story in which everyone involved is both a beneficiary and a contributor. By working toward a common cause, TCU, Fort Worth, businesses and nearby residents have redefined an area once left for dead. West Berry's reemergence is a story of partnership. The neighborhood is starting to resemble the urban village that TCU and city leaders desire. Tucker '56 joined with a group of Berry Street stakeholders who had decided it was time to roll up their sleeves and fix the place.Ī little more than a decade later, a new West Berry is coming into focus. In the mid-1990s a TCU contingent led by Mills and then-Chancellor William H. "We could provide a safe campus by putting up fences and really retreating into ourselves, or we could become more a part of the community and help the community rid itself of some of the eyesores and behavior we didn't like," said Don Mills '72 (MDiv), TCU's vice chancellor for student affairs. The trappings of urban decay - vacant storefronts, substandard housing, rising crime - were on the eastern fringe of the campus, forcing the university to make a choice. Instead, prospective students were offered more circuitous paths to University Drive and Hulen Street and away from the corroded south Fort Worth artery.īut it gradually became clear to TCU leaders that even if the neighborhood's decline was somebody else's fault, it was everybody's problem. That attitude was evident at TCU, where for years admissions materials didn't mark Berry Street on maps for visitors. No one was looking when West Berry Street died.īerry's death was slow and subtle, and for a long time the street's condition was easier to ignore than to address. ![]()
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