SUBJECT:
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
San Antonio since HemisFair
INTERVIEW WITH: Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
DATE: 19 July 1996
PLACE:
INTERVIEWER:
Mr. Holmesly's office
Sterlin Holmesly
TAPE I, Side 1
H: Interview with Bill Lyons, July 19 , 1996, in my office .
This is Sterlin Holmesly.
L: My name is Bill Lyons. I 'm with Casa Rio and Schilo's
[restaurants]. I was born in San Antonio, fourth genera­tion,
and have been involved with the Riverwalk through our
family businesses since ... directly, since 1986.
H: And before that, ' 86 is when you bought Casa Rio?
L: No, that's when I moved downtown from another business.
H: Okay. So do you remember when Casa Rio was the only
restaurant on the Riverwalk?
L: It was the only restaurant on the Riverwalk when I was
seven years old.
H: Yeah.
L: In 1946. And the first week of testing food I got so
tired of Mexican food I never thought I wanted to eat it
again, but . . .
H: [laughter] You helped test the menu?
L: We went down every night after the cooks had been
cooking and sampled, for a straight week, every evening. L:
And to try to develop the taste that my grandfather
wanted.
H: Okay. And that taste has prevailed?
L: Has prevailed ever since. And he really modeled that
restaurant out of the Original Mexican Restaurant, which was
started in 1899 on Loysoya Street. The same plate is still
our base - base menu item.
H: Is that what you call your Tex-Mex?
L: Well, yeah, I guess that's what you call it. It 's the
regular plate that we serve and that they based their menu
on - The Original.
H: That's rice and beans and enchilladas and taco?
L: Chili and tamale.
H: Yeah. Well, tell me about how the Riverwal k has
changed. Let's go back to ' 68, the World's Fair, when the
Riverwalk was extended. And that seemed to be the impetus
that really got a lot more businesses in to face the river,
rather than the street, even though the ... I know David
Straus started this movement in the l ate '50s and early
'60s. But now it ' s hard to walk on the Riverwalk there ' s so
many people. And I can remember when there was absolutely
nothing there but Casa Rio.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 3
L : Well , until around Hemi sFair my grandfather starved to
death most of the time. Because people were afraid to go on
to the Riverwalk because of security reasons . The Riverwalk
was off-limits to military personnel in the early years.
And there was just not much interest because there were no
L : businesses t hriving on the Riverwal k . So it was just
kind of a dead place . But '68 was the milestone that really
turned many peoples ' heads to see a potential benefit in .. .
to further developing the Riverwalk.
H: And now the question in ' 96 - is it overdeveloped?
L: Well , that's a question that you would rather ask than
- is it underdeveloped?
H: Right .
L: And that remains to be seen . I think if we can main­tain
some of the ambience that has been there in the past
and continue to be sensitive to those people that have
traditionally used the Riverwalk, then I think we're in a
"plus/plus . "
H: Okay. But there've been some complaints - the noise -
the city recently passed a noise ordinance to remove outside
speakers, and what's your view on that? Was i t getting too
noisy?
L : I would think for some it was . Activity begets acti­vity,
and for years I think many operators on the River had
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 4
been trying to figure out how can we get local people and/or
young people to frequent the Riverwalk? We were tourist
oriented pretty much. And these new devel opments, I think,
brought that other ... those other two groups to the River­walk.
And we wanted it, but then we got it and we say, "Is
it too much?" And it's different than what it's been . But,
I t hink, if we're careful and try to assimilate the new L:
group and not alienate the old group, then I think
we're all going to be way ahead. And t he Riverwal k can
still handle more people, even though it gets awfully
crowded on some Saturday nights.
H: Well, have you seen an increase in local business at
your place?
L: We don't know .
H: Can't measure it?
L: We really don 't know. We ' ve had a lot of loyal
supporters over the years that are locals, some people that
do a lot of entertaining down the r e . But locals usually
don't like to get into a crowd . And they don ' t like to have
to pay for parking .
H: Right.
L: So those two factors have, I felt , limited the River­walk's
use by the locals. But that has def initely changed
since South Bank and Presidio Plaza have opened .
Bill Lyons (Tape l of 1)
H: I see a lot , t o me , obvi ously local peopl e over there .
Some of them I know, but I know tourists don ' t .. . aren ' t
wa lking down the Riverwalk carrying a suit coat and wearing
a t ie to go to lunch.
L: Very true.
5
H: The wa y a lot of folks do. What about the young? You
s a i d the young people are coming. Are some of them too
young to b e in t he nightclubs? I ' ve heard some horror
s t or ies about kids getting s i ck, uri nating in the river, and
H: things like that.
L : Yeah, I think that there are several businesses that
have kind of positioned themselves to attract the very young
drinking c r owd . And they ' re there, basically, to get
intoxicated.
H: Uh-huh.
L : And t hey have catered .. . with prices and the kind of
atmosphere that attracts that group.
H: These are the cheap happy-hours . And are t hey careless
about checking I Ds or . .. ?
L: I have no i dea exactly how they ' re monitored. But the
feeling has been: they need to sel f - monitor their operation
to prevent excessive drinking. And to try to just maintain
a standard of composure, not only in their establishment,
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1 )
but, then, as those people become a part of crowd on the
Riverwalk.
6
H: Tell me about Schilo's Delicatessen . It 's been i n
business since 1917? Is that corr ect? Almost eighty years?
L: That's correct . It started in Beeville and then
shortly thereafter moved to San Antonio . Then Prohibi t i on
hit and they had t o quit. It was, initially, a bar, so when
Prohibition hit they had to think of a way to make a living,
they started t he plate lunches and started serving food
items. And then that tradition has continued ever since -
the plate lunch, the sandwich, the soup.
H: Yeah, the dark bread and split pea soup .
L: Pumpernickel bread and split pea soup.
H: And it seems to me like you turn those tables over
several times at lunch.
L: Uh ... we have to! [laughter] Our lunch crowd i s our
main crowd. We've developed a little breakfast bus iness and
some evening business. Some evenings gets good if there are
good conventions in town.
H: Is that non-smoking room ... i s that an addition? I
don't remember that being there .
L: The non-smoking room was par t of the old Kerr ' s and we
cut through that wall.
H: Oh, the curio - okay.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
L: The old Kerr's Curio that was established back,
probably thirty to forty years ago. And between Kerr 's and
Casa Rio, you kind of had the tourist connection in San
Antonio. There was no El Mercado. There was no place to
buy products that were manufactured in Mexico, unless you
just went to some little individual store over in the West
Side. So Kerr's and Casa Rio really developed, or started,
that ''Mexican Connection" for the downtown.
H: Well, is Kerr's completely gone now?
L: Yes.
H: Out of business?
7
L: Out of business. He retired, had no children or family
interested in the business.
H: There's a yogurt shop there and something e lse .
L: Yes. Nanette Richardson Art Gallery.
H: Nanette Richardson, yeah, that 's right .
L: And she has done very well after movi ng off of Alamo
Plaza.
H: Well, you came .. . you said you came downtown in ' 86 from
the what - the wholesale food business?
L: Well, food brokerage.
H: Food brokerage.
L: Yes.
H: And you run both Casa Rio and Schilo's?
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
L: That's correct.
H: Are you the owner?
L: We own and operate.
H: Own and operate .
L: And we owned and operated the boats for forty- five
years.
8
H: Speaking of boats, I remember coming to San Antonio in
- oh, my freshman, senior trip - I mean the high school
senior trip and going on the river, and you could rent
canoes and paddleboats. I particularly remember the canoes
because my best buddy managed to overturn one - complete
with a girl . And they got soaking wet up to about their
waists . Then came the barges - that was '49 . When did your
family start running the barges?
L: I 'm not sure when they actually took over the boats.
But it had not been a prosperous endeavor as they thought it
L: would be after the river was WPA'd. [Workers Progress
Administration]
H: Yeah. In the '30s .
L: ... back in the '30s. They thought the river was go ing
to take off, but it didn ' t take off . And I know Jack White,
who had been mayor, ran the boat operation, but the best
that I can ... story that I can get from our family i s that
my grandfather said, "You know, I ' d like to do the boat s to
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
enhance the restaurant operation ." And they said, "Well,
just take it." And he started operating the boats with no
payment to the city and was just given the few canoes,
probably that's what you ' re talking about.
H: And the paddleboats?
L: The paddleboats ... I believe he put the paddleboats on
the river. I don't think there were any paddleboats prior
to my grandfather.
9
H: Uh-huh . How do you compare ... I ' m s ure you remember the
... what some people say are the "good old days," when li fe
was simpler and there was not much .. . How do you compare
San Antonio today to the San Antonio before HemisFai r? How
has ... Hemi sFair , obviousl y, impacted your family enormously,
with the Riverwalk, but there's also there ' s been economi c,
social , cultural ... I ' ve been told that for the first time
all of San Antonio got together to put on HemisFair; that
all segements of the community participated in that . How do
you think your life has been affected by the HemisFair and
H: what followed?
L: Somehow that was the magic for downtown . That started
a more positive attitude about what the downtown and the
Riverwalk could become . Personally, I feel like that I try,
or make an effort, to cling to what brought us this far.
And to try to not lose sight of what San Antonio has repre-
Bill Lyons {Tape 1 of 1) 10
sented to those that have flocked here, and many of which,
are very frequent v i sitors . So I keep trying to look back
and say, "What made the Riverwalk popular? Why is downtown
a nice, comfortable place to be? And let ' s not, as we grow
and progress , let's try to make sure we don't lose what
brought us to t he party."
H: Uh-huh. Not become another Bourbon Street or whatever .
L: I kind of f eel we can't - you can ' t run a restaurant or
you can't run a city that ' s goi ng to appeal to everyone , but
if you can have some focus on what has made you successful
and try to maintain and enhance that focus , to me it ' s a lot
easier than trying to reposition yourself constantly within
the marketplace or with the type of people that would be
attracted to this area to live here .
H: What about culturally and socially? I t seems to me
there's been a great change in the way people - Angl os, the
Hispanics and the Blacks - relate to each other now. Of
c ours e , Civil Rights movement was thirty-some odd years ago ,
but San Antonio never seemed to have a big conflict over
rights or services. It rather quietly integrated the L :
schools and transportation and r estaurants and such .
Do you remember the days when, say, Black people, were not
served at the Casa Rio?
L : No, I don ' t remember those days.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 11
H: Or were there ... ?
L: I don't know. There could have been. But I think one
of the true unique features of San Antonio has been the way
we have taken the ethnic diversity and very peacefully put
it together in a neat marriage. And maybe we're just lucky
because the Mexican population within the community has been
always as strong as the Anglo community.
H: Uh-huh.
L: And maybe we have been forced to recognize each other 's
social and cultural aspects and have just learned to get
along with each other and understand each other. In doing
that, somehow, I think we have a little broader perspective
about life and living and growing together. And, I think
that has helped us be the fr iendl y kind of community that we
have been noted for. And I get very disturbed when I hear
columnists try to use ethnic or try to use minority probl ems
as the issues that we need to focus on. We need to focus on
things like educat ion and stayi ng in school and family
values - that's what we need to focus on as a community, not
our differences in ethnic o rigin . Because I think somehow
we have done it very beauti fully and that has given us a
character that has been appealing to t he outsider.
H: Right .
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
L: And has also attracted many people to live in this
community.
12
H: You mentioned you like to hold on to the things that
made us what we are - the Riverwalk included . I have hear d,
and I don't know i f this is accurate or not, that you turned
down a l o t of money for the l and on which Casa Rio and
Schilo's sits?
L: We've turned down three times!
H: Three t imes? What do they want, a hotel?
L : Hotels!
H: And you said, this is where Casa Rio and Schilo ' s is
L : Well, we keep looking and tal king, and we say to each
other, this is j ust our family. We say, "Someone has got to
continue to cling to what makes San Antonio unique . " And
evi dently old, h a l f-fa lling down struct ures have been a part
of that uniqueness. And we ' re going to do our part to main­tain
it . Schilo's actually sits on a cedarpost foundation .
And those old buildings are tremendously hard to keep up to
codes - fire codes, health codes, ADA codes . But there's a
certain character and charm that when you l ose it , it ' s gone
forever .
H: And you want to maintain that .
L : And that ' s the decision we made .
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 13
H: Well, you know, Schilo's, if you sit in certain booths
L: when the bus goes by, you get a little bounce of f the
street.
L: Well, and don't ever put a marble on the table or it'll
roll right off and hit the floor.
H: Right. Yeah. Just like ... well, you 're not as bad as
the Liberty Bar where the walls and floors and - both sway
and l ean . But it does have its own characteristics, as well
as the food. But as far as you know your family intends to
stay put and keep those two businesses going.
L: That's our intention. And the last big offer we had
for a two hundred and f ifty room, suite hotel , we really got
together and said, ''Where are we going to go i n the futu r e?"
And we decided to invest, for us, a big amount of money i n
remodeling those properties. And said, we're going to stick
with what we've got.
H: Well, that, at l east in my opinion, is a communi ty
service.
L: Well, we hope so!
H: [laughter] Is there anythi ng that we haven't touched
on that you'd like to talk about? Your experiences? You ' re
a fourth generation San Antoni an. Business, personal , what
is a day in the life of Bill Lyons? You ' ve got breakfast ,
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 14
lunch and dinner at a couple of places. Do you work all the
shifts?
L: No. I am not directly involved with the businesses,
other than being available every day. We have good managers
L: and we expect them to operate and take charge of and
take care of those operations. So that I don't have to be
there day in, day out, shift in, shift out. It's too hard a
business. [laughter] It'll wear you out!
H: Right. I can certainly understand that. Do you still
go over and sample the menu as you did when you were seven
years old?
L: Pretty regularly.
H: But not after ... not every day?
L: Not every night.
H: [laughter] Okay. I think that covers the basics. But
I more than welcome any comments you'd like to make.
L: Well, the only thing I ... not only, but I guess there
are several t hings, probably, that we could talk about if
they would be of interest. But as we continue to grow and
try to maintain a certain composure, there is a difficulty
when people are coming to the Riverwalk as new operators and
do not understand what we have tried to develop along the
Riverwalk . And I think the city and Conservation Society
and the Daughters have all recognized the historical aspects
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 15
and value that this community possesses. So when you get a
new operator, they really have no sense of history; they
have no sense of what we have, what tone we have tried to
set. And on top of that, then, they're having to pay a
tremendous amount of money to locate a business on the
Riverwalk. And to make a business really profitable, and to
L: pay some of the high costs of establishing a business,
alcoholic beverages can become the means of accomplishing
that financial goal. And I think things l ike t hat could
force us into change if we're not careful.
H: Excuse me. Would it help if the city r econstitutes the
old Riverwalk Advisory Committee and gave it some powers to
as it were , give an introductory course in the Riverwalk to
new businesses and show them some of the h i story? And
obligations that go with it.
L: It seems that there needs to be some more . .. better, in­depth,
working relationship with new operators. What form
that takes ... I don ' t know whether it would be a River walk
Commission or a sub-Committee, sub-River Committee of the
present Historic Design and Review Commissi on, but there
needs to be some way to try to acquaint new operators with
the various aspects of the Ri verwalk.
H: Yeah. So, this is how you are expected to operate,
you're required to operate, because of t he history and this
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
tradition, the ambience, and you will real ize profit from
that.
16
L: And I think, yeah, I think you're right . And greed is
a tremendous motivator. And if it 's unchecked, it can get
you into a lot of trouble. [laughter]
H: Right .
L: Another thing you mentioned earlier that I don't think
we have today, that happened in ' 68, you said, just when we
L: started, that the whole community pulled together.
Well, for some reasonm we have gotten away from a consensus
and a consensus of building capability that we used to have .
Whatever happened in '68, we need to recapture so that
we're not having special interests driving or taking us in a
certain direction and not having full community support or
not being in line with what the political part of our
community is saying. Somehow we need, I think, to
restrengthen the private sector's involvement . The public
sector or the political sector has seemed to gain more and
more control, and we don ' t .. . we ' re not able to build a
consensus. We've seen that in some of our water issues;
we ' re seeing ourselves tearing down buildings that are
perfectly functional and then building new buildings that
. .. for a function that then becomes not a function. And
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
we're making some mistakes, and it ' s costing the taxpayers
precious dollars as we make each one of those mistakes.
17
H: Well, I think there ' s been some examples of ... a certain
number of people just don't believe city government or
county government or the business establishment anymore.
We've seen that on the two Applewhite water elections; we
saw it on fluoride; we saw another flare-up just this week
on the one- percent for public art, where there is, to me,
where you were talking about the lack of ability to build a
consensus, and I think this loss of trust or suspicion
contributes to that .
L: And I don't know where that has come from. But I think
it has developed over a number of years, it didn ' t happen
overnight.
H: Right.
L: And if - we can ' t somehow recapture that spirit of
togetherness and single-mindedness, then we're going to make
a lot more mistakes. And I would hate to see any of those
mistakes be around the Riverwalk. Because the Riverwalk has
gotten to be too important of economic generator for this
community. And I think it can continue to be if we take
care of the basics: keep it clean; keep it safe; keep it a
good value; don't exploit every visitor that comes to town,
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 18
but let them leave town with a few bucks i n their pocket and
if we do that I think we can continue to grow in that area.
H: Well, the Riverwalk, obviously, is the heart of
downtown. On the east we have the RiverCenter shopping mal l
and on the west El Mercado, but the cent ral business
district is still mostly boarded-up shops . Do you think
eventually downtown is going to be hotels and financial
institutions and tourist oriented businesses, do you think
retail is ever going to come back on Houston Street and
Commerce Street?
L: Well, I keep t rying to figure out why we lost it in the
first place .
H: Malls.
L: And the malls - what does the mall offer? it offers L:
convenience and free parking and safety.
H: Air conditioning.
L: And air conditioning . And if we can re-create some of
those aspects in the downtown area I think that the downtown
could revitalize i tself r etail-wise . But I think that
probably the key that's going to have more effect i s going
to be whether we can es tablish some downtown - more - a
larger downtown resident population.
H: Uh-huh .
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 19
L: And if they're here then their use of the goods and
services within the downtown are going to cause retail to
have a new beginning. I see things right now like some art
group or art businesses in the downtown, they now get
together to have a show, collectively, all on the same
night, where they used to compete fiercely. Now they have
said - if we want to benefit downtown and ourselves, we need
to bring the locals, we need to have that continuity to
sustain our business. And so they are doing their best to
bring locals down. And there'll be five, six of those art
galleries now will have a show once a quarter and they're
all open and they're all attracting the downtown people and
the residents are going from one gallery to another gallery
to another gallery. I think some of those things can turn
us around. Some of the transportation issues downtown and
the crowds on some of the - at the bus stops. I know mother
before she died said, "I will not go back downtown and get
L: in those crowds on those corners where those big bus
stops are. And be blown away by diesel fumes as I'm walking
down the sidewal k. " And I think there's some thoughts now
to go back to what we have back prior to the Downtown
Improvement District and to do some kind of transfer point
on both the east and west edges of downtown so that we can
keep the heavy buses out of the central core.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 20
H: Right. And the bus riders don't want to be downtown
anyway, they're going somewhere else. You mentioned the
Downtown Improvement District which recalls the Tri-Party
attempt to revitalize downtown which supposedly was a
transportation initiative that didn't work. I was sorry to
see that we didn't wind up with some true transit mall type
like Portland or Denver has. In Portland the transit malls
saved downtown, it did. And they've added light rail and
everything - it really works. And downtown Portland, you
see people all over downtown at ten and eleven o'clock at
night. The whole downtown is like the Riverwalk with
numbers of people, sidewalk cafes and such.
1: It's interesting to look at our community and others
and see that has a section or even an individual business
locates itself that there then is a traffic pattern t hat is
altered and changed and as we've seen things like La Mansion
and Holiday Inn, then we see businesses a long the traffic
corridors to and from those new entities, we've seen
businesses do better and survive . And so I think there ' s a
L: critical mass, who knows where that mass is , that could
turn downtown, again, back into a very, you know, very
active and vital community or community activity for our
locals, not just our tourists. And when or what it will
take, who knows?
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 21
H: I think there's one part of that critical mass that has
been, to a degree, ignored. And that's the people who work
downtown every day. When the malls were setting up in the
suburbs and downtown businesses started losing business ...
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, ABOUT .. MINUTES .
TAPE 1, SIDE 2.
H: ... downtown business that sought out the twenty to
thirty or forty thousand people who were down here five days
a week and say, you know, "We can meet your needs on
clothing or whatever." Have you ever heard of anything like
that?
L: No.
H: The people still come to town to work. But I don't
think anyone has done the demographics or the studies to
say, "Hey, we're here! We're a few blocks away, come see
us."
L: Why that hasn't happened I don't know . I have
struggled with the suburban malls and have found that I am
much more comfortable doing, like my Christmas shopping ,
downtown. And it's not as crowded, they've got just almost
as good a variety, there are some very unique shops downtown
L: that are clustered - the anti que shops and all the
different art shops.
H: And you can walk to them.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 22
L: And they're here and it ' s undiscovered, to this point .
But I think we've gone through a per iod of time when the
local s saw the downtown fade away; or what caused them to
view it that way, maybe, was the tourism - that as the
tourism built up, the locals saw downtown as not for them .
H: Right.
L: But for the outsider. And so the retail faded, but
everything else continued to grow. The Riverwalk grew, the
bus inesses along the Riverwalk, and maybe there was a
transition that we lost and have not recaptured the l ocal
group. But we need to try to get them back downtown during
the fall months and the spring months when the lei sure
traveler and all those out-of-town f amilies aren ' t, you
know, here en masse and when the weather is nice. And then
I'd just constantly think that now al l of downtown needs to
be very conscious of parking for their customers, if they
expect the locals to be here .
H: I haven' t seen a count i n a long t i me . How many
businesses are on the Riverwalk?
L: I have no idea.
H: I belong to the Paseo del Rio and I've never seen a
number out of it.
L: When we have an operator ' s meeting with the Paseo del
L: Rio Association, there can be f ifty t o sixty people
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
atten d t hat meet ing, which would say to me that, you know,
there are probably forty active, fairly active, businesses
now on the Riverwalk - that would include the hotels , t he
major hotel s .
H: Where do you think the expansion will be? Will it be
nor th along the Riverwal k, is it moving t hat way?
23
L: Well, I thi nk once the tunnel is completed, then
possibly the River Authority will be able to lessen some of
t he res t rictions as far as building a long the river i n the
main channel. When that happens , then I think the ability
to develop closer to the water will hel p us move north . And
I see us moving north, not south .
H: Yeah . That ' s what I ' ve heard . Maybe, eventually, move
as far north as Jones Avenue, devel opment a l ong t hrough
there. And then there ' s some who would like to see water
taxis or water buses so people could park, say, on the near
northside of d owntown, get on a barge and r ide to work,
a l most to work.
L : We, over t he years, tried to develop mor e transpor­tation
use by the boats and basically conti nued to find that
t he boats were too s l ow f or most needs , as far as t r anspor­tation
was concerned. I f s omeone wanted t o use it f rom an
office building to go to l unch or go for a qu ick shop a t
RiverCenter Mall and get back, it was too slow and too
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 24
inconsistent. So the boats have been more just a sight-L:
seeing function rather than a transportation function.
And over the years we've tried water taxis and having
drivers carry and be able to make change and pick up people
anywhere along the Riverwal k. So the transportation aspects
of the boats, to me, is questionable. Plus, people don't
like to stay on that boat more than about thirty, thirty­five,
forty minutes at the most. It gets hot i n the summer,
they need to go to the bathroom, they get claustrophobic,
who knows? [laughter ] So, I wonder how the transportation
aspect of the boats i n particular might develop?
H: Yeah. I guess they'd have to be much more like a bus
line. I mean, certain stops at certain times, and on-time,
and as you say, faster.
L: And that will be difficult. Because what people today
like about the boats is the relaxed, slow, nostalgic, kind
of atmosphere that they present.
H: And you really don't have a destination when you get on
them.
L: No.
H: Or ...
L: It's just a way to escape.
H: Yeah.
L: And to cool off a l ittle bit from the hot street .
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1) 25
H: That is still terrific - to be able to drop off the
street, down on the Riverwalk in the summertime and get some
relief and some greenery.
L: It's like there's a transition as you go down those
steps. It's very hard to explain, but it's very real.
H: You can see it and feel it, entirely different.
Anything else?
L:
H:
L:
Oh, I could go on for awhile!
Go ahead!
[laughter]
I can't think of anything in particular!
We've covered a couple of pretty good subjects!
H: Yeah.
[laughter]
[laughter ]
L: I guess the water issue and just how to maintain a
quality of water within the river . As we have changed the
flood control system, we have also changed the natural flow
of the river. And you don't get t he same fresh water circu­lation
that you used to get , so that's an i ssue that I think
is going to have to be dealt with.
H: Recycled water for the r i ver?
L: Something. Because Fred was even talking about, you
know, punching holes somewhere down Loysoya, Alamo, in
there. The tunnel, I think, i s kind of almost r ight unde r
like the Hilton or something, coming through.
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1}
H: For the purpose of the tape, let me explain, that's a
big drainage tunnel, underneath the city, for the floods,
and there's some talk of storing water there and then
pumping it up for the river - if it ever rains again!
26
L: That flood control measure that that tunnel provides is
going to be the encourager for some other d evelopment and L:
has the potential ability to recirculate water to keep
fresh water in the river when there's not much flow. But
what they're also talking about is somehow tapping in to
that source of water mid-river, or in the horse shoe part of
the river, to freshen up that area. Because the circulation
now goes straight down the main channel and does not make
the loop ...
H: Oh, it doesn ' t make the l oop?
L: ... like it used to .
H: Oh, okay.
L: Then the old Joske well was ... they forced them to close
that down. That was a source of fresh water right there at
the Commerce Street bridge, so that is no longer a source of
fresh ...
H: This flood tunnel , it seems to me they ' ve been working
on it forever. Wasn't it supposed to have been through a
couple of years ago?
Bill Lyons (Tape 1 of 1)
L: It was supposed to have been through t hree or ...
[laughter] three years ago, I think.
H: Well, when is it going ... ?
L: And it's not finished yet.
H: What's the latest finish date you've heard?
27
L: I've heard sometime in '97. I think that equipment got
down in that blue shale and there was no integrity to that
blue shale and they just had a lot cave-ins and problems
keeping that equipment operating .
H: Yeah. Well, Bill, I appreciate you taking time to sit
down and talk about this. And if something pops up you want
to talk about some more, we can always add to it .
L: Well, thank you. I enjoyed i t .
H: Good.
END OF TAPE 1 , SIDE 2 . ABOUT .. MINUTES.