Nestled between Cherry Street and the Pearl District is a square-mile neighborhood in midtown Tulsa revitalizing itself as the city barrels toward its Route 66 centennial celebration.
The Forest Orchard neighborhood was platted more than 100 years ago — bounded by the Mother Road to the north, the Broken Arrow Expressway to the south, South Peoria Avenue to the west and South Utica Avenue to the east. Neighbors changed the name last May to the Neon Quarter to give it a fresh “glow up.”
“We’re not wanting to scrape this whole neighborhood and make it be some generic, cookie cutter kind of thing,” said Kimberly Norman, board secretary of the Neon Quarter’s neighborhood association. “We want to maintain the character and just glow it up.”
While the Forest Orchard name may have fit the neighborhood’s character in the past, Norman says it no longer works. The neighborhood has a large community of young professionals with a mix of single-family homes and multi-family properties — all within a mile of downtown.
Erik DeLeo, another neighbor who has since moved, came up with the Neon Quarter name.
“He bought a four-unit apartment building in this neighborhood, he lived here and he saw the great potential in the neighborhood, but he felt like the Forest Orchard name was tired,” Norman said. “It really wasn’t representative of where the neighborhood’s at and the people that live here — the energy and the vibe.”
Toni Moore is president and CEO of Hospitality House of Tulsa, a nonprofit that provides lodging to families while their loved ones are hospitalized. She says it was time for the neighborhood’s name to change.
Located at 1137 S. Victor Ave., Hospitality House has been located on the perimeter of the Neon Quarter for two decades.
“As we began to think about what this neighborhood really represents and what it represented when Route 66 was at its height, it really just made sense to kind of bring it into more of a modern yet historical naming,” Moore said.
Beyond the modern moniker, Norman says the Neon Quarter is a reference to the area having the city’s largest concentration of neon signs along Route 66. And it will pay homage to the Mother Road, hosting the newly renamed neighborhood’s first birthday party May 30. That follows the Route 66 Capital Cruise, where the city will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most classic cars in a parade.
“We’ll have an event in the park for the neighbors. After the cruise is over, they can come. We’ll have food, a DJ and activities for the kids,” Norman said.
Throughout the year, Norman says the neighborhood will host events at Forest Orchard Park, including yoga and an art exhibition.
“This is how we engage the neighborhood and really build relationships and community,” Norman said.
Hospitality House to expand footprint in Neon Quarter
The Neon Quarter’s “cornerstone partners” include Hillcrest Medical Center and the newly built Chick-Fil-A off the Broken Arrow Expressway, among other businesses, Norman says. Moore says Hospitality House of Tulsa is preparing to expand its footprint to the open lot at 1318 S. Troost Ave., west of Chick-Fil-A.
Moore says the organization has run out of space in its current facility and maintains a waiting list.
“We’re now positioning ourselves for visioning our next step of a bigger building and all the amenities that it needs,” Moore said.
For families in need of lodging to visit hospitalized loved ones, proximity is crucial. At that location, Moore says, they will be five minutes away from 10 hospitals.
“One of the things that we must answer for those patients and for their families is what I call ‘five minutes to patient bedside experience’ … you find that right there at 13th and Utica,” she said.
Moore says the Neon Quarter provides a safe environment for families, and she hopes Hospital House’s care permeates the rest of the neighborhood.
“We provide that home away from home for them to be able to stay close to their loved one and receive every human decency need that is met with short-term housing or lodging — that is a good night’s rest and meals surrounded by a community that is supportive,” Moore said.
Hospitality House hopes to bring in enough donations to acquire the property within the next few months.
“We’ve been raising money now for about a year and a half. We’re at 73% of our land acquisition goal, so we’re closing that gap and hope to have that finalized in the next few months,” Moore said.
Norman says she wants folks in the Neon Quarter to find shared community and humanity among one another.
“There’s a lot in the world that feels really heavy,” Norman said. “You know, there are really good people still in this world that care about other people … We can believe, think, look differently, but still come together around this shared commonality — which for us is this neighborhood.”
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