Deep Ellum News

Dallas' Deep Ellum gets an unexpected new amenity: valet parking

Valet is coming to the neighborhood.

Courtesy photo

Dallas' once-grungy Deep Ellum entertainment district will now offer what is surely an unanticipated new amenity: valet parking.

The valet service will be open on Thursdays-Sundays beginning May 11, and is not connected with any one business, ergo, it's open to anyone visiting Deep Ellum who doesn't want to park their own car.

The service is one in a series of new measures introduced by the Deep Ellum Foundation (DEF) to ease access and walkability for visitors to the area's 100-plus restaurants, bars, breweries, nightclubs, shops, apartments, offices, and hotels.

The valet stand will be located at 2625 Commerce St., between Twisted Root and DOT's Hop House, and is the result of a partnership between DEF, the 501c3 that advocates for the neighborhood, and the owner of the parking lot, says DEF executive director Stephanie Hudiburg.

"This has been a priority we've been trying to do for a few years," Hudiburg says. "Originally, we were trying to find a way to do it on the public right of way, by using metered parking on the streets. But the parking lot owner is working with us to offer a program that serves the entire district, right in heart of district."

The lot is the large plot that stretches across a block from Commerce Street to Main, making it accessible to pedestrians from both streets.

"This particular lot is owned by a property owner who also owns retail, bars, and restaurants, and wanted to offer a holistic customer experience that benefits other businesses as well," she says. (FYI, it's Asana Partners.)

The valet stand will be in operation Thursdays-Fridays from 6 pm-1 am, and Saturdays-Sundays from 1 pm-1 am. At launch, it will cost $25, although there are hints that the price may increase down the road.

The valet is one part of a larger program to make it easier for people who want to visit Deep Ellum, Hudiburg says.

Other parts of the program include:

closing down the main streets on weekend nights to pedestrian traffic only, from 10 pm-3 am
new bicycle corrals on Main Street, and a new bicycle pump installed at 2626 Main St. in front of the Patagonia store
freshly painted crosswalks, at the intersections of Main & Crowdus, Elm & Crowdus, and Elm & Good Latimer Expressway

There are also 1,000 new parking spaces, and a new/additional dropoff spot in the neighborhood's Rideshare Flow Zones, a program it introduced in 2019 modeled after DFW Airport in which zones have been designated as drop-off/pickup rideshare zones for visitors coming via services such as Uber and Lyft.

The zones are 1 to 2 blocks away from core activity in Deep Ellum, with the goal of improving traffic flow and emergency vehicle access in the area, and are in play during the busiest nights and weekends.

The new zone is at 2551 Elm St., in front of Elm & Good at the Pittman Hotel and will launch on May 12.

It joins the five existing rideshare drop off/pick up zones:

Good Latimer Expressway northbound between Main & Commerce
Commerce Street eastbound between Crowdus & Malcolm X Boulevard
Pryor Street southbound between Main & Commerce AND extended zone on Commerce between Pryor & Henry
Malcolm X Boulevard northbound between Indiana & Junius
Swiss Avenue westbound between N. Hawkins & Good Latimer Expressway

The Deep Ellum Foundation has created an entire page dedicated to getting around the neighborhood with charts and maps and such, rendered in a pleasing purple-teal-chartreuse color scheme.

transportation traffic deep-ellum

Movie Review

Podcaster lets creepy noises get under her skin in Undertone

Photo courtsy of A24

Nina Kiri in Undertone.

While the horror genre is still capable of producing some innovative filmmaking, most of the output tends to fall back on jump scares and other tropes to deliver their terror. So when a film like the new Undertone tries something different, it should be applauded for the effort, even if it’s not as successful in its execution.

Evy (Nina Kiri) is a podcaster who co-hosts a show called Undertone, which focuses on paranormal videos and sounds they find on the internet. Her co-host, Justin (Adam DiMarco), lives in London, so - for kind of contrived reasons - in order to make the time difference between them work, Evy records at around 3 am her time. Evy - who lives at home with her bedridden, dying mother - is the skeptic of the two, consistently debunking clips that Justin presents to her.

Her doubts are tested when Justin brings in a series of 10 audio clips that purport to be about a boyfriend recording his girlfriend as she talks in her sleep. The audio begins in a lighthearted manner and quickly turns creepy and then sinister as unexplained things start happening. Evy senses that what she’s hearing is bleeding into her own world, especially when inexplicable actions take place in her mother’s bedroom.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Ian Tuason, the film is effective early on when it introduces the story concept. Making great use of sound design, Tuason essentially puts the audience inside Evy’s head, where every little sound is heightened. Setting the podcast sessions in the middle of the night ups the anxiety level for both her and the audience.

However, as the film goes along it gets a little tedious watching Evy listen to the audio, even as Tuason attempts to keep the film dynamic by moving the camera around her. The premise of the story - progressively going through 10 clips - and Tuason’s framing of shots that focus as much on the background as they do on Evy seem to promise more interesting results than actually transpire.

What ultimately holds the film down more than anything is its lack of different viewpoints. The only other person who’s actually seen is Evy’s mother, who is unable to speak. Evy speaks to Justin, another friend, and a doctor over the course of the story, and while each broadens our understanding of Evy somewhat, none of them make her a truly three-dimensional person. Getting a little more information about her history might have helped the story work better.

Kiri does her level best to vary her acting in the various podcast scenes, and even when they start to get repetitive, she remains compelling and watchable. It’s difficult to judge the other actors based on audio alone, but knowing that DiMarco also starred in season 2 of The White Lotus helps to visualize him and his acting style.

Undertone does well in creating a spine-chilling mood, but it needed something beyond that to become a truly great horror movie. Tuason shows some promise as a filmmaker, especially in the way he uses the camera to create tension, but a more complete story will serve him better the next time around.

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Undertone is now playing in theaters,

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