Things to do in Tulsa

Culture · Immediately north of downtown, across the railway

The district known as Black Wall Street until the massacre of 31 May and 1 June 1921, with the Greenwood Rising history centre, the Black Wall Street mural on Greenwood Avenue, and the sidewalk plaques marking the businesses that stood there.

Local tip: Go to Greenwood Rising first and give it two hours, not one — it is a serious, well-made history centre and it changes how you read the rest of the city. Then walk the Greenwood Avenue plaques under the highway overpass and notice that the interstate was routed straight through the neighbourhood in the 1960s. That is part of the story too.

Nature · Riverside Drive, along the Arkansas River

A hundred-acre riverside park given to the city by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and opened in 2018 — boathouses, a skate park, sports courts, gardens and a playground of genuinely absurd ambition.

Local tip: It is free, it is enormous, and it gets very busy at weekends. Go on a weekday evening. The Chapman Adventure Playground is the headline but the paddle boats on Peggy's Pond and the trail down to the river are the better hour.

Landmark · Downtown, inside the Inner Dispersal Loop

One of the largest concentrations of Art Deco architecture in the United States, built on oil money between the wars — the Philtower, the Philcade, the Tulsa Club, and Boston Avenue Methodist Church, which is arguably the finest Art Deco church anywhere.

Local tip: Walk it at dusk when the Philcade's lobby lights are on — the ground-floor arcade is open and almost nobody goes in. The Tulsa Foundation for Architecture runs walking tours; take one rather than trying to identify buildings from a phone.

Food · Midtown — 15th Street, and Peoria south of 31st

The two walkable restaurant and bar strips that carry most of Tulsa's independent food scene, with a Saturday farmers market on Cherry Street from spring to autumn.

Local tip: Cherry Street is the better weekday dinner and the market is genuinely good; Brookside is where the city goes out on a Friday. Both are five minutes from Maple Ridge, which is why midtown rents hold up better than the rest of the city.

Nature · West bank of the Arkansas River, south-west Tulsa

Around 300 acres of oak forest, sandstone and genuinely technical singletrack inside the city limits, with river overlooks at the top and no development at all.

Local tip: It is properly rocky and rooted — this is real mountain-bike and trail-running terrain, not a park path, and people underestimate it. Go early in summer; there is no shade at the ridge and the humidity is serious. Parking at the main lot fills by nine on a Saturday.

Nightlife · Tulsa Arts District, north of downtown

A 1924 dance hall with a sprung maple floor, the home of Bob Wills and Western Swing in the 1930s and a legendary punk stop since the Sex Pistols played here in 1978. Still an active mid-size music venue.

Local tip: The floor really is sprung and you can feel it move when the room is full — stand near the middle rather than at the rail. The Woody Guthrie Center and the Bob Dylan Center are both a two-minute walk, which makes an afternoon and an evening out of one parking space.