The Oklahoma Natural Gas Company Building is a historic building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at 624 South Boston Ave. It was one of the first local Art Deco buildings built in the new Art Deco style, along with the Public Service of Oklahoma Building. This choice by the relatively conservative utility companies made the style acceptable in the city, with many Art Deco buildings built subsequently in Tulsa. The building was designed by Frank V. Kirshner and Arthur M. Atkinson. It was built of reinforced concrete, and clad in buff brick, except for the lower two stories, which are clad in limestone. The verticalness of the building is emphasized by piers rising the entire height of the facade with windows placed between the piers.
This building was spared from demolition in 1982, when ONEOK (the successor to ONG) abandoned its plan to replace the structure with a new high-rise headquarters building. Instead, ONEOK took over a high-rise then under construction by Citgo at Fifth Street and Boulder Avenue. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 10, 1984, for architectural significance and as a representative of the tremendous growth Tulsa experienced during the 1920s.
Famous quotes containing the words oklahoma, natural, gas, company and/or building:
“I know only one person who ever crossed the ocean without feeling it, either spiritually or physically.... he went from Oklahoma to France and back again ... without ever getting off dry land. He remembers several places I remember too, and several French words, but he says firmly, “We must of went different ways. I don’t rightly recollect no water, ever.””
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, hypocrisy—both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others; and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Shielded, what sorts of life are stirring yet:
Legs lagged like drains, slippers soft as fungus,
The gas and grate, the old cold sour grey bed.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Travelling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.”
—Fanny Burney (1752–1840)