Lakewood, Dallas

The Lakewood Theater opened in 1938 with "Love Finds Andy Hardy"

Lakewood is a neighborhood in East Dallas, Texas (USA). It is adjacent to White Rock Lake.

About

Lakewood boasts the historic Lakewood Theater, which shows classic films and hosts many contemporary musical and comedy events, and the popular Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens . Surrounding the Lakewood Theater is an entire neighborhood of trendy restaurants, shopping venues, and historical landmarks such as the Dixie House Cafe.

One of the year's highlights is the massive Lakewood Fourth of July Parade and Celebration.^[1]

Each fall, the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for Lakewood Elementary with its Fall Home Festival and Tour.

Lakewood is also home to Lakewood Country Club. Built in 1912, Lakewood Country Club’s three-story clubhouse overlooked a woodland that rolled and tumbled pleasantly over this fast growing East Dallas neighborhood. The Club’s founding fathers knew that the land at the corner of Gaston and Abrams would be a perfect spot for Dallas’ second 18-hole golf course.

History

Lakewood Boulevard includes many 1920s and 1930s mansions and estates. Most are in the Tudor styles by Dines and Kraft or Mediterranean-Hollywood styles by Clifford Hutsell. This is the former home of the "Mayor of Lakewood" Jim Young and "First Lady" Barbara Young.

Lakewood proper is surrounded by a collection of old-fashioned neighborhoods, generally developed from the early 20th century to the 1950s, including Lakewood Heights, Junius Heights Historic District (Bungalow Heaven), Parks Estates, North Stonewall Terrace, Caruth Terrace, Wilshire Heights, Mockingbird Heights, Mockingbird Meadows, The Gated Cloisters, Hillside, Lakewood Hills (formerly Gastonwood-Coronado Hills), Hollywood Heights, and Belmont; among others. Commonly, people outside these neighborhoods group them together under the heading of Lakewood, The M-Streets, or Old East Dallas - which are overlapping regions in the near-eastern part of the city. Historic Swiss Avenue (Mansion Row) anchors the area towards Downtown.

Currently, there are a large number of Historic and Conservation Districts reflecting prodigious numbers of Craftsman, Prairie-Four Squares, Tudors, Spanish and Mediterranean Eclectic and Early Ranch homes, many of native Austin stone. The homes range from two-bedroom bungalows to massive estates on acreage. There are also duplexes, four-plexes and very small apartment complexes.

Some of the older homes are being torn down in favor of much larger, more expensive homes.

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Government and infrastructure

The United States Postal Service operates the Lakewood Post Office at 6120 Swiss Avenue.^[3]

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Public schools (DISD)

Woodrow Wilson High School

The Dallas Independent School District serves the Lakewood area. The area is within Trustee District 2^[4] In 2008 Jack Lowe represented the district.^[5] The current representative is Mike Morath. Besides his business and university accolades, he was an International Baccalaureate Diploma graduate in another city. The Lakewood area schools are implementing IB.

Public schools serving the Lakewood subdivision include Lakewood Elementary School (K-5), William Lipscomb Elementary , J.L. Long Middle School (6-8), and IB World School Woodrow Wilson High School (9-12).^[6][7][8][9] Lakewood Elementary, J. L. Long Middle School and Woodrow Wilson High School all received the top rating and met standard from the Texas Education Agency for 2014. Lakewood had four areas of distinction, J. L. Long three and Woodrow Wilson four. ^[10]

Lakewood Elementary is currently ranked 37th in performance by schooldigger.com out of over 4100 elementary schools in Texas

Woodrow Wilson High School is the first in Dallas to begin offering Pre-International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme classes for 2010-11 Freshmen. It was one of four IB candidate schools in Texas. After a successful site visit by International Baccalaureate Organization in November 2010 the school was accredited as an official IB World School by the Geneva, Switzerland headquarters in March 2011.^[11] In 2014, it graduated its first IB Diploma class.

J. L. Long Middle School was certified as a candidate school for International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme in May 2011. It was fully accredited in 2014, uses IB MYP curriculm and teaches Mandarin Chinese, in addition to three other languages.^[12] Less than two dozen public middle schools in Texas are official IB schools.^[13]

Gallery of public schools

• 

  Lakewood Elementary School

• 

  J.L. Long Middle School

http://www.dallasisd.org/domain/546

Private schools

• Lakehill Preparatory School
• Saint Thomas Aquinas School
• Zion Lutheran School
• Holy Trinity Catholic School
• Dallas Academy

Preschool programs

Lakewood Early Childhood PTA serves the area.

Public libraries

The Dallas Public Library Lakewood Branch is located at 6121 Worth Street, 75214.

Postal services

The United States Postal Service operates the Lakewood Post Office at 6120 Swiss Avenue, 75214-9998.

Popular Events

Entertainment

The Shakespeare Festival of Dallas debuted in 1972 in the Bandshell at Fair Park before moving to its current home at Samuell Grand Amphitheatre — appropriately in Samuell Grand Park — in 1989.

Media

Advocate Magazines is the local magazine that covers a variety of neighborhood topics and has served the community since 1991.

Notable residents

• Herbert Marcus^[14]

References

External links

• Lakewood Neighborhood Association
• , a community magazine serving the Lakewood neighborhood
• Lakewood Service League
• Lakewood Early Childhood PTA and Home Festival Fundraiser
• Headlines about Lakewood and East Dallas from The Dallas Morning News
• J. L. Long Middle School
• Woodrow Wilson Alumni
• Woodrow Wilson High School
• http://www.dallaseasthomes.com/ Maurice Kerins, Realtor;