Ок-Лоун: История и современность района Далласа

Oak Lawn is a neighborhood in Dallas, Texas (United States), defined in Dallas City Ordinance 21859 as Planned Development District No. 193, the Oak Lawn Special Purpose District. The unofficial boundaries are Turtle Creek Boulevard, Central Expressway, the City of Highland Park, Inwood Road, and Harry Hines Boulevard. It is over 12 square miles (31 km2) in area. Officially it is bounded by the City of Highland Park, the North Central Expressway, Stemmons Freeway, Woodall Rodgers Freeway, and other roads. The district is within the boundary defined by the City of Dallas law, excluding any existing planned development districts within.

Oak Lawn is one of the wealthier areas of metropolitan Dallas, with the population consisting mainly of urban professionals. The area is peppered with upscale townhouses, condos, apartments, and duplexes. Along the Uptown portion on McKinney Avenue and along Turtle Creek Boulevard, there are many new high rise condominiums and apartments. It is also a very diverse neighborhood with well established areas of older, single family homes. For most of the 20th century the southern portion of the neighborhood near the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Harry Hines Blvd was known as "Little Mexico". St. Anne's Catholic school served as the center for the community. With the redevelopment of the neighborhood beginning in the 1980s Little Mexico vanished. Only a few structures of this original community remain for most have been replaced by high rise office buildings, luxury hotels, and condominiums. As of 2010, St Ann's Catholic School, which had closed, is now an upscale restaurant. Oak Lawn became a magnet for the counterculture movement in the late 1960s due to its inexpensive apartments and its proximity to Turtle Creek Park (formerly known as Lee Park and Oak Lawn Park).

The United States Postal Service operates the Oak Lawn Post Office at 2825 Oak Lawn Avenue; ZIP Code: 75219. The Federal Bureau of Prisons South Central Region Office was previously in Oak Lawn. It has since moved to the U. S. Armed Forces Reserve Complex in Grand Prairie, Texas.

The Consulate General of the United Kingdom in Dallas was located in Suite 940 at 2911 Turtle Creek Boulevard. In April 2005 the British government announced that it was closing the Dallas consulate in the summer of 2005; its territory was transferred to the consulate general in Houston. It was one of 19 British diplomatic missions shut down around that time period. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom said that the consulates and embassies closed as a way to decrease costs. The Consulate General of Mexico in Dallas is also located in Oak Lawn. Alfredo Corchado of The Dallas Morning News said that as of 2009, in terms of activity and size of the area Mexican population, the Dallas consulate is considered to be the third most important Mexican consulate after Los Angeles and Chicago. The consulate moved from 8855 North Stemmons Freeway to 1210 River Bend Drive in January 2009.

Holy Trinity Catholic School, age 3 through 8th grade. Dallas Christian Academy, prekindergarten through 12th grade. The Walt Whitman Community School (WWCS), an LGBT oriented private school, was established in 1997 in Oak Lawn. It closed in 2004.

The Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library serves the Oak Lawn area. In addition to its regular library holdings, it has the only circulating, non reference collection of LGBT materials in the US.

Oak Lawn is considered to be the epicenter of Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex's gay and lesbian culture. Cedar Springs Road, between Oak Lawn Avenue and Wycliff Avenue, has numerous businesses, retail establishments, restaurants and night clubs catering to the LGBT community. The area has some of Dallas' most renowned gay bars and nightclubs, most of which are located along, or close to, Cedar Springs Road. Oak Lawn is contiguous with the Dallas Design District and less than two miles away from Downtown Dallas. The area also hosts some of the larger city festivals including the annual Halloween street festival, Dallas' Gay Pride parade, and Easter in the Park at Oak Lawn Park (formerly Robert E. Lee Park). In 2014, Dallas's Oak Lawn was voted the number one gayborhood by Out Traveler. In October 2018, Dallas made history when it became the first Texas city to get state recognition for its Oak Lawn LGBT neighborhood. There is a large concentration of Hispanic owned businesses, restaurants, grocery stores, nightclubs, and retail establishments on the Maple Avenue corridor between the Inwood Road and the North Dallas Tollway.