New York City has its Empire State Building, the iconic skyscraper from atop which King Kong swiped at attacking biplanes in the 1933 film before hurtling to his demise. Los Angeles has the venerable Griffith Observatory, the scene of James Dean's knife fight in 1955's Rebel Without A Cause and where swooning lovers swayed among stars in 2016's La La Land.
And Dallas has — well, Dallas has issues.
Dallas City Hall, the brutalist-style building that once doubled as a dystopian corporate headquarters in the 1987 sci-fi cult classic RoboCop, is hurting. Designed by acclaimed architect I.M. Pei, the famously imposing edifice faces deferred maintenance and repair costs of $50-$100 million, city leaders say.
The site, with its grand plaza, was conceived as an assertion of civic pride under the lingering cloud of a presidential assassination perpetrated on the city's watch. But if one strategy floated as a possible fix comes to pass, a structure once intended to be forward-looking and bold could tumble into the past.
"The building is a mess of our own doing," said Reagan Rothenberger, a member of the Dallas Landmark Commission and author of a letter submitted earlier this year asking city officials to begin the process of designating Dallas City Hall as a landmark. "We have failed to demand the maintenance of this building appropriately."
