Bud Kennedy: Renewed east side deserves more attention

Two lawmakers from Congress sat side by side in east Fort Worth this week, celebrating the rescue of a National Register historic property that nearly met its doom.

The mayor came, too.

So did the mayor pro tem.

But only one of eight local TV news stations sent a reporter.

If you’re proud of east Fort Worth and the legacy of the Masonic Home and School, and you wanted to know more about its $10 million rebirth as the future All Church Home for Children, then you had to catch it on one fleeting WFAA/Channel 8 newscast, or read it in the Star-Telegram.

It was the same treatment two weeks ago, when only two TV stations mentioned the rebirth of a historic Polytechnic Heights storefront as Texas Wesleyan University’s new bookstore and community center.

If I lived on the traditional "east side" — everything east of Sycamore Creek — I’d wonder what it takes to make news.

Too often, the east side makes unwanted news: bodies found, test cheating at charter schools, cocaine busts cleaning up a marketplace known as the Fish Bowl.

With the time and space devoted to Tarrant County news dwindling sharply in recent years — replaced by coverage of every Dallas sneeze by Michael Hinojosa or Angela Hunt — we now see almost no news about the hardworking east-side neighborhoods between downtown and Arlington.

Did you realize that Polytechnic High School might be on the verge of a complete realignment and maybe a new purpose after 102 years?

Did you realize that the All Church Home, a children’s charity older than the more famous Edna Gladney and Lena Pope homes, will grow by 50 percent when it expands to the east side and the old Masonic property on U.S. 287?

Did you realize that Texas Wesleyan University had been on the east side for 21 years when Texas Christian University set up shop on the south side?

Did you realize that the east side is home to four of the eight local English and Spanish TV news stations, yet not one of the four ever brags about east Fort Worth?

Did you realize that the east side has more natural beauty than most of Tarrant County put together, from the Cross Timbers woods to the Tandy Hills prairie?

"It’s very frustrating," said Mayor Pro Tem Kathleen Hicks. She represents parts of both the east and south sides.

"Even with the downturn in the economy, we have a lot of positive things happening. But we can’t get that word out."

The east side is more stable than it has been in decades, with the return of small retail stores and particularly small restaurants like those on East Lancaster Avenue and the new AJ’s Chicken and Waffles on Brentwood Stair Road, owned by gospel radio host Antonio Johnson.

"Fort Worth always showed me a lot of love, and it just made sense to put my first restaurant on the east side," Johnson said Thursday, bragging about his banana-nut waffles and sweet potato pie. "People tell me this was a vibrant area. Looks like it’s becoming one again."

U.S. Reps. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, and Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, might agree.

At the All Church Home event, almost a miraculous save for historic preservation, Burgess reminded guests that he also came to town recently for the groundbreaking of the new VA Outpatient Clinic on the south side.

Even in a slow economy, he said, "every few days, I’m down here with congresswoman Granger, opening something new that’s great for Fort Worth."

All sides of it.