Have a few bike parts just sitting in your garage? Maybe a few vintage frames that you picked up on Craigslist that are gathering dust? Oak Cliff Bicycle Company will host a bicycle swap meet at Saturday’s Sylvan Thirty market, with plenty of tables for you to hock your wares to fellow two-wheeled enthusiasts.

There’s no fee to set up, but feel free to bring a tent, table, or chair.

For more information, check out Oak Cliff Bicycle Company’s blog.

OK…is anyone else exasperated with all this streetcar bickering? When we published an article on the topic in May, many OCers seemed enthusiastic about the proposed 1.6-mile line that’s planned to link Union Station with Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

Longtime Oak Cliff resident Katrina Whately said she’s excited about the streetcars. “It will be good for the area,” Whatley said. “People who usually don’t come into Oak Cliff will start to. The greatest payoff, however, will come when and if they carry the line to the Bishop Arts District.”

Christine Erdeljac, co-owner and manager of Jonathon’s Oak Cliff on North Beckley Avenue, said she’s thrilled about the streetcars. Christine and her husband Jonathon formerly worked on McKinney Avenue, and said they saw firsthand how streetcars can impact businesses and neighborhoods.

“We learned that they bring tremendous tourist traffic,” Christine said. “They provide additional public transit and create a point of interest that will generate more business.”

This morning, the DMN reported that the streetcar project “has cleared its federal environmental hurdles.” DMN transportation writer Michael Lindenberger said “The Federal Transit Authority issued a ‘finding of no significant impact’ last week, the North Central Texas Council of Governments said Tuesday.”

Whoa! Stop the streetcar. I thought these lil’ electric-running trolleys were far more environmentally friendly than cars and buses? What are these “environmental hurdles” all about?

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We just got word from new proprietor John Paul that the former La Carreta will soon be a new restaurant, opening toward the beginning of October.

Paul would not divulge any details yet, as he said he and his chef are still finalizing the menu, but I plan to meet with them next week to get the scoop! Will keep ya posted.

In our July 15 Oak Cliff People, reporter Alana Harrison told us about two Kidd Springs neighbors who gave birth shortly after eating at Norma’s Cafe on West Davis Street.

“Pregnant women come in here almost every day,” Norma’s general manager Pam Spell said in Harrison’s story. “We’ve had women tell us their doctors would send them over from the hospital to eat here, and then go back to deliver.”

Well, considering the weather and the fact that I’m now two days past my due date, I decided to have lunch at Norma’s today, hoping that a little home cookin’ would help get things going.

Interestingly enough, I was approached by no fewer than three people as I was chowing down at the lunch counter. Each time the Norma’s patron asked me if I was there because of “that story in Oak Cliff People.”

“Yeah, something like that,” I replied.

For Summer Berman, it was the pork chops and mashed potatoes that sent her into labor on June 10. And pancakes, hashbrowns, and sausage had Diana Palchik packing her bag for the hospital just a few hours after her meal.

Me? I had the chicken-fried chicken, mac ‘n’ cheese, black-eyed peas doused in Tabasco, and a tossed salad. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too much longer.

UPDATE: After 24 hours, still no baby. Here’s hoping the leftovers do the trick!

Sadly, Decanter restaurant and wine bar in the Bishop Arts District closed its doors for good yesterday. SideDish’s Nancy Nichols received a note from owner Najam Jaffri saying, “I wanted to let you know that I have decided to close Decanter Restaurant and Wine Lounge in the Bishop Arts District, as of today. We could never implement our original concept, and staffing, weather, and economy were other factors. Shop owners at Bishop Arts are great people, and I will miss them.”

(Hmm…not exactly sure what he means by the  ”weather factor.” Any guesses?)

Decanter, which opened in December 2010, took over Cafe Madrid’s space. Chef Tony Gardizi served up fresh seafood such as seared ahi tuna and tapioca — not to mention his signature slow-cooked pork belly with English-pea waffles and asparagus ragout.

On the upside? Jaffri and Gardizi are keeping their team of two together to do pro-catering. Nichols also reported that Jaffari said he and Gardizi will be opening a new restaurant in November, before Thanksgiving.

From dog park to dumping ground? How can the city help keep Oak Cliff beautiful? Photo: Jonathan Braddick

According to Jonathan Braddick of the North Polk Street Beautification Project, the empty patch at Polk Street and Turner Avenue that was the home of FIDO Oak Cliff’s first Pop-up Pooch Park has become an overgrown dumping ground again:

In only a matter of two months can a city owned vacant lot go from a novel pop up dog park back to being a dumping ground for the lowliest people’s trash. Dumping has always plagued this area of N Polk St from Canty to Kings Highway. That’s why we started the N Polk St Beautification project to clean it up to give it purpose.

We made an agreement with the city to adopt the land, starting with one at 620 Turner Ave, and bring purpose back to it. We’ve accomplished that goal and are making plans for the next piece, but the city needs to be a consistent partner in this revival. The picture below shows what that pop up dog park looks like this evening.

Guillaumes’ Gourmet Cafe will soon open at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center, serving up fresh salads, pepperjack turkey sandwiches, chicken and cheddar-potato-bacon soup, and crawfish bread, replete with a full-service coffee bar.

Louisiana chef Saul Williams will head up the eatery. In a press release distributed by Pegasus News, Williams said he wants to give the cafe a bistro/coffeehouse atmosphere. The cafe will have at least two bistro tables and chairs for those who want to eat in the cafe.

“We did some renovating to make it more eye-appealing,” Williams said to Pegasus News. “With an art gallery and a studio, you gotta have some attitude. I had the concept of a little cafe, grab-and-go, but it had to have personality.”

The Oak Cliff Cultural Center, located near Texas Theatre, opened last year, replacing the Ice House Cultural Center. For more than a decade, the Ice House provided Oak Cliff and the surrounding communities with diverse art and cultural experiences. The newly renovated OC Cultural Center, with its art gallery and multi-purpose studio, will continue Ice House’s tradition of cultural service and aims to begin a new era of artistic and cultural opportunity.

Not to mention the big bonus — Guillaumes’ cafe!

Let’s say you’re a film student or liberal arts student or a student who is a fan of film and has parents constantly insisting that you get a job. In any of those cases, you should contact the Texas Theatre, as they’re looking for the few, the proud, the unpaid interns:

Friends, we are looking for 2 part-time Interns to assist us in some of the day to day operations at the Theatre as we have recently become (shall we say) massively swamped. This will count as college credits for folks in school and it’s a great opportunity to learn the inner workings of film programming and the business of movies. if interested, please email Jason@aviationcinemas.com today!

I’m glad these guys have become, as they describe, “massively swamped.” And I have a feeling that these positions are going to go fast, so get to e-mailing!

Just about all of Oak Cliff People‘s readership lives in DISD’s District 7, which is represented by Eric Cowan. The exceptions are you folks in Wynnewood North, who live in Lew Blackburn’s District 5, which sprawls all the way from West Dallas to Wilmer-Hutchins.

If you’d like to see these boundaries redrawn, you’re in luck. DISD’s Board of Trustees is starting a series of public hearings on that subject tonight. Details are after the jump.

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Not too long ago, I was discussing something I saw in the Wynnewood North Neighborhood Association’s newsletter with a member of our sales staff. A reporter inserted himself into our conversation and said, “We should create a product that takes all of the information from all of these Oak Cliff neighborhood newsletters and puts it in one place.” I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before I replied, “We already have a product like that. It’s called Oak Cliff People.”

In our efforts to report on all of the community news in North Oak Cliff, the neighborhood associations’ websites are an invaluable resource. Well, some of them are. Others leave a little to be desired. In that vein, here are our completely subjective, inaugural (and perhaps final) rankings of North Oak Cliff neighborhood websites:

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