{"id":871925,"date":"2026-06-16T20:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/871925\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T20:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:30:20","slug":"save-dallas-city-hall-rallies-the-troops-with-robocop-screening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/871925\/","title":{"rendered":"Save Dallas City Hall rallies the troops with “RoboCop’ screening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Texas Theatre marquee lit up on Saturday night, turning a \u2018RoboCop\u2019 screening into a public call to save Dallas City Hall. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Preston Barta<\/p>\n

Over the weekend in Oak Cliff, the future of a 48-year-old building got pulled into the present by a cyborg cop. The Texas Theatre hosted a benefit screening of 1987\u2019s \u201cRoboCop\u201d on June 13, and what started as a throwback to the movie and its deep Dallas roots became something much more. The film that put\u00a0I.M. Pei\u2019s Dallas City Hall<\/a>\u00a0on the silver screen as the headquarters of the sinister dystopian megacorporation that serves as the film\u2019s antagonist<\/a>, OCP, came back to town with a mission: serve the public trust, protect the innocent and maybe save a building.<\/p>\n

Two RoboCop cosplayers set the tone in the lobby, posing for photos and showing off near the front of the theater before the lights dimmed. Folks browsed merch tables stacked with Save Dallas City Hall shirts, posters and 3D-printed City Hall models. The mood felt like a reunion and a rally at once.<\/p>\n

A building worth fighting for<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the projector rolled, the organizers made the stakes clear. Sarah Crain, executive director of Preservation Dallas<\/a>, reminded the crowd that \u201cthere\u2019s still hope in this effort to save Dallas City Hall,\u201d and that \u201cthis fight is absolutely not over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Arts & Culture newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n

THANK YOU!<\/p>\n

You’re all set.<\/p>\n

CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t speaking in abstractions. The Save Dallas City Hall Coalition<\/a> has several pending legal claims, and that work, she said, is about to ramp up. Attendees were nudged toward a QR code to fund the coalition\u2019s educational, advocacy and legal efforts, and another to contact their city council member. The ask was direct: sign up to speak at the next council meeting, because this could be the last time council considers residential feedback before deciding the building\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is behind you when you speak are the people of Dallas,\u201d Crain said to the room.<\/p>\n

Filmmaker and Dallas VideoFest founder Bart Weiss<\/a>, who helped organize the night, captured the emotional shift in the air. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been living through this for so long with a sense of dread, anger, anxiety by ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we are together as one.\u201d <\/p>\n

The official program featured an introduction by Christopher Gonz\u00e1lez, a \u201cRoboCop\u201d film scholar and chair of SMU\u2019s English department, who framed the movie as more than a camp classic. Weiss echoed the point: the film warns \u201chow technology can be misused by evil people,\u201d and asked whether that might still be relevant today.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA Vision for Dallas\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A short archival mini-doc, \u201cA Vision for Dallas,\u201d shared the building\u2019s origin story. After President John F. Kennedy\u2019s assassination in 1963, Dallas was looking to rewrite its reputation. Mayor J. Erik Jonsson \u201cwanted the greatest city hall in the world,\u201d and he hired an internationally renowned architect to deliver it. Pei\u2019s response wasn\u2019t a generic tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not an office building,\u201d the documentary said. \u201cThis is a custom-made building for the operation of the city of Dallas.\u201d <\/p>\n

The film placed City Hall alongside Pei\u2019s other masterworks, like the East Building of the National Gallery of Art and the Louvre Pyramid, and recalled that New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it \u201cone of the most important public buildings in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opened in 1978, the concrete landmark was built to last a century. Today, city leaders are weighing relocation and redevelopment against hundreds of millions of dollars in restoration costs.<\/p>\n

\"\"RoboCop cosplayers appeared in the lobby before the show. <\/p>\n

Quiet in the theatre, loud at City Hall<\/p>\n

Then came the film itself. And every time City Hall appeared as OCP\u2019s looming corporate fortress, the crowd erupted, filling the room with a tangible sense of city pride. There\u2019s something poetic about a roomful of Dallasites cheering for a building their own city might tear down. The dystopian backdrop of 1987 had become the beloved icon of 2026.<\/p>\n

The post-screening Q&A, moderated by Weiss, brought three of the film\u2019s local talents to the stage.<\/p>\n

Yolonda Williams played Officer Ramirez; it was her first film role at 22. She credited it with launching her career, including her own Dallas-Fort Worth lifestyle and entertainment TV show, \u201cFun on the Run,\u201d on CW33. Angie Bowling, cast at the last minute, played RoboCop\u2019s wife, Ellen Murphy. John Davies, who played Officer Chessman, recalled grueling filming schedules. <\/p>\n

\"\"A post-screening Q&A at the Texas Theatre brought together local \u2018RoboCop\u2019 talent and preservation advocates for a night about movies, memory and Dallas City Hall.<\/p>\n

The night ended where it began, with a building and a choice. Williams left the crowd with a charge that doubled as the evening\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cSave City Hall,\u201d she said. \u201cSilence means it\u2019s gone. Don\u2019t be silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about a 40-year-old movie shot in your hometown. It outlasts the studio, the trends, the cynicism. Fandom, architecture and civic memory all met under one marquee in Oak Cliff, and for one night, the people of Dallas felt like they got their building back. Pei built it to endure. Now the city gets to decide if it will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Theatre marquee lit up on Saturday night, turning a \u2018RoboCop\u2019 screening into a public call to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":871926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[9600,5229,13239,1596,141257,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-871925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-activism","tag-america","tag-city-hall","tag-dallas","tag-history-nostalgia","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116761686929932436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}