DALLAS — Dallas proper may be lacking for beaches, but for one day in July of 1984, it had a pretty glorious one right in the heart of the city's downtown.
That day, the lamented Dallas rock radio station The Zoo teamed with Coors Brewing Company to transform the six-acre concrete plaza in front of Dallas City Hall into a pop-up beach. The giant circle fountain in the plaza provided the water for swimming, and 42 tons of sand were trucked in and dumped alongside it for a day filled with sandcastle-building, volleyball and tanline competitions for prizes.
The event was seen as an opportunity to bring people to Downtown Dallas, and to hopefully spark interest in the I.M. Pei-designed City Hall building, which had opened six years earlier.
It sure seemed to have accomplished that aim: An Associated Press story on the seven-hour party estimated that it drew some 12,000 people to the plaza. The AP also reported that the party raised $15,000 for the stated charity mentioned in each of its promotions, the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
"It’s something unique," then-34-year-old Linda Jebavy told the Associated Press on the day of the event, fresh from a dip in the City Hall fountain, which had been converted into a waist-deep pool for the day -- complete with six SMU lifeguards posted along its edges to keep swimmers safe. "We don’t have a good beach in Dallas."
In recent years, other private, makeshift beach options have popped up within city limits, but don't hold your breath on public ones making a comeback anytime soon -- and certainly not at City Hall.
Over the years, the city has said the damage done from all the trucked-in sand to the fountain in particular "exceeded the public benefit" of the event. Furthermore, swimming in the fountain is explicitly prohibited these day -- a violation written into Section 31-1 of Dallas City Code that would draw a citation today.
For one day in 1984, though, that beach oasis on City Hall's plaza made a splash Dallas will likely never forget.