Sweet Cherry Street

Southern Living, Apr 2000 by Ford, Gary D

And here is Thompson African Imports," says Patricia Dickey, as she strolls one Friday beside another of the varied businesses on Cherry Street near downtown Tulsa. She pauses, points at businesses across the street, and smiles. "Cherry Street is the only place in Tulsa where we have an African import shop next to a printer and right across from a car wash."

Patricia, a spokesperson for the Cherry Street Association, is right. Here, people can find art, antiques, and designer interiors and still get their car washed, their clothes cleaned, and their business letterheads printed. "Upscale, but not uppity" is the unofficial slogan of this street, with its offerings of basic goods and services and fine shopping and dining.

Officially it's 15th Street, but a seven-- block area between Peoria and Utica Avenues has returned to its first name. Now, visitors come to pluck the fruits of fine shopping and dining up and down Cherry Street.

Residents of the nearby Swan Lake, Maple Ridge, and Yorktown Street neighborhoods, as well as University of Tulsa students, gather inside and outside Saint Louis Bread Co. to start their day over steaming cups of coffee and morning newspapers. Diners breakfast on freshly baked muffins, strudels, and cinnamon rolls. (Later, lunch and dinner crowds enjoy sandwiches on a variety of breads, along with soups and salads.)

Shoppers slip into Jared's, Inc. Antiques, a business Jared Bruce pioneered on this street in 1983, before revitalization began. Jared's, with pressed-tin ceilings and sponged walls, features Continental furniture. "But now we're getting even more diverse, even some Art Deco," says Jared. "Tulsa has some of the finest Art Deco architecture in the country, but there was little interest until a few years ago in Deco furnishings."

Also trendy in Tulsa is shabby chic. England & Harp stands as "probably the best-known cottage-style furniture store in Tulsa," says owner Heather Harp Howland.

One could fill his or her bedroom with the fine linens from T. A. Lorton, send a child into ecstasy with toys from White Bear Antiques & Teddy Bears, and cover floors with antique rugs from Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iran at Cherry Street Oriental Rug Gallery.

First Edition Book Store, where helpful owner Della McCulloch presides, presents a wonderful array of rare and first-edition volumes emphasizing art and Americana subjects,

Shops and restaurants have settled into what were old, peeling buildings-- from a medical warehouse to former residences to a school. Offices and Jason's Deli are quartered in the old 1909 Bellview School, later renamed Lincoln School. Leonard Rosenberg attended here before he was known as Tony Randall. So did William Boyd, every boomer boy's childhood hero, Hopalong Cassidy.

It gets busy here at noon, when professionals on their lunch breaks visit their favorite restaurants, including Bourbon Street Cafe, Full Moon Cafe, and Hideaway Pizza. Today, many favor Chimi's, a Mexican restaurant jammed with diners in an it's-Friday-payday mood. That cheerfulness sweetens all of Cherry Street.

Gary D. Ford

For more information: Gary Sparks (president, Cherry Street Association) 13 36 East 15th Street, Tulsa, OK 74120; (918) 582-0229. Web site: www. cherryst.com.