WSJ article - let's play "find the innacuracies"

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Well, they were misleading about the naming of Ladybird Lake/Town Lake... it's not "known by the locals as Town Lake".

They got the name of the Hike and Bike trail wrong...

Broken Spoke was George W. Bush's favorite alltime nightspot? I never heard that. Wasn't he a non-drinker all the time he lived in Austin, anyway? What would he be doing at the Broken Spoke, or at "nightspots" in Austin?

And did they imply that the Continental Club was right across the street from Fonda San Miguel? I think that's an editing problem... they clearly meant it was across the street from their hotel (San Jose).

And Red's Indoor Range is "in Convict Hill"? I think they meant in Oak Hill. It's somewhat near a street named Convict Hill, and maybe near the hill itself. Kinda funny that they mentioned going to the shooting range as the very last thing you do before driving to the airport to catch your flight home. Sounds like a good way to get stopped by bomb sniffing dogs/machines.

Overall, very typical media article. One thing you learn if you've ever been personally involved in something that makes the "news" -- they never get it exactly right, and in fact sometimes they are way off, and they don't care. After all, they are just going to turn around and write/report about something completely different the next day, and the day after that, etc. Depth and accuracy is not a strong point...

I still and will always call it Town Lake. After 46 years of calling it that, I totally forget it has been renamed. So if your over 20, you probably still call it Town Lake.


The Hike & Bike Trail has always been just that to me. Sometimes calling it the Town Lake Hike & Bike Trail.

I don't drink, but I use to go to the Broken Spoke all the time on Sat & Wed nights, for the dancing, even after I got married. The wife & I would go.

Oak Hill, use to be Otisville, before that it was Convict Hill and where the Limestone for our Capitol building(the capitol was going to be all limestone, only the foundation wound up being limestone) was extracted from, by the prisoners. The used car lot there on 290/71 right before the "Y" is where the last Limestone was cut from. Use to be a train track from there to the capitol building.

[hound 109]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Ditto, I doubt I will ever be able to think of it as anything but Town Lake......

Correct....only a noob would call it anything but Town Lake.

[eichlerfan]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Ditto, I doubt I will ever be able to think of it as anything but Town Lake......

We just moved here last May, and even we call it Town Lake.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by hound 109

Correct....only a noob would call it anything but Town Lake.

Agreed. I wish the politicians would stop renaming places, things and streets.

Frankly I didn't read past the opening paragraph of the article because it was obviously going to being another lightweight hokey "my trip to Austin" write-up by someone who doesn't know the city at all.

Every 3rd car has a "keep Austin weird" sticker? Oh brother, give me a break. Wasn't worth continuing.

Steve

[capcat]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Ditto, I doubt I will ever be able to think of it as anything but Town Lake......

Same here.

[atxcio]

I am well aware people still refer to Ladybird Lake as Town Lake, I just had a problem with the way the article stated it. When they say "Ladybird Lake, known by the locals as Town Lake", that just sounds wrong to me. Like it's a nickname given by the locals, which it is obviously not.

If they said something like "Guadalupe Street near campus, known by the locals as The Drag" -- now that makes sense.

Also, unless they have since corrected the article, they called the trail around Ladybird Lake the "Hill and Bike Trail".

[Trainwreck20]

"Hill and Bike Trail".

Lol...although, having run on there for many years, I know where every little hill on that durn thing is....