Page 5 - May 23

In the five years since its doors have been open to the public, The Outsiders House Museum has brought fans of “The Outsiders” from across the globe to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to explore where the 1967 book was written and where the 1983 movie was filmed.
Danny Boy O’Connor, executive di- rector of The Outsiders House Mu- seum, hasn’t officially started flying lessons but plans to. He dreams
of owning a small aircraft that will fit his 6-foot-6-inch frame and allow him to find and document more film, music and pop culture locations through the Delta Bravo Urban Exploration Team (find it on Facebook). In the meantime, he’s been flying often with friend and fellow Oklahoman Casey Karney, the owner of this 1982 Beechcraft Bonanza.
In short: Tulsa has become an in- ternational destination for tourists. Leading the way in terms of name recognition is the center dedicated to creativity explored through the career of Bob Dylan, widely consid- ered one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Dylan wasn’t born in Oklahoma so why is a center devoted to studying the Nobel Prize laureate for literature in Tulsa? Because the legendary singer-songwriter, now 81, chose Tulsa from among the suitors of roughly 100,000 items Dylan created or has collected throughout his seven-decade career. When a Vanity Fair writer asked why he chose the city for his archives, Dylan explained: “There’s more vibrations on the coasts, for sure. But I’m from
Grammy-nominated recording artist Danny Boy O’Connor re- located from Los Angeles to Tulsa after he saved the one-story bungalow northeast of downtown Tulsa from destruction in 2016, then he spent the past five years restoring the house to how it appeared when director Francis Ford Coppola turned the Crutchfield neighborhood into a movie set for filming in 1982.
Acknowledging Tulsa has a rich history, O’Connor said he’s
thrilled to have had a front seat to the rebirth of the city’s art and culture scene.
“Tulsa is going through a renais- sance period, it’s finding its second wind,” he said. “On the heels of the Guthrie Green and the Woody Guthrie Center opening, in the last five years I’ve seen the Gathering Place completed, Buck Atoms open on Route 66, a lot of revival along Route 66 and then last year the Bob Dylan Center and The Church Studios.”
MAY 2023
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 3