Jake James has had a full size antique airplane installed above his future convenience store/deli on Montgomery Street in Fort Worth in 2006.
Editor's note: This report was originally published in September 2006. Jake James, 72, was killed in a two-car crash on the Jacksboro Highway late Wednesday.
FORT WORTH — After a rather bumpy takeoff with the city of Fort Worth, Jake James on Wednesday finally got his plane in the air.
Mind you, the single-engine two-seater is not airworthy, especially after city code officers made James cut off the top of the cockpit and trim the vertical part of the tail.
Then there are those things on the back that look like turbine engines but actually are small trash cans.
But James, 66, an accomplished hairstylist who knows little about airplanes, never wanted to fly the turquoise-and-red-trimmed aircraft.
He just wanted to hoist it on top of a 20-foot steel pole as part of a remodeling effort to turn an old gas station on Montgomery Street near the Cultural District into a convenience store, deli and one-chair hair salon.
And there is where the problems began.
About two months ago, James parked his plane outside the long-closed Shamrock station on Montgomery Street across from the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Before then, the plane had hung from the ceiling of a theater James owns near the courthouse square in Tyler.
It was okay for the plane to hang in the lobby of a Tyler theater, but it was not okay for it to be parked on the lot, which James recently bought.
The city’s code compliance department, alerted by a man who lives near the old Shamrock station, quickly fired off two letters to James, a former salon operator in Fort Worth who moved back nearly two years ago after 21 years in Tyler.
"You can’t park a plane there," James said he was told by the Fort Worth code officers. He was cited for "improperly storing things outside," and was told he had about 10 days to cart off the aircraft or be fined $2,000 for each day that he was in violation.
James did as he was told. Then he got a city sign permit three weeks ago that allowed him to return the plane to Montgomery Street, with the understanding that he would tether the 2,000 pounds of metal and flying parts on top of the pole within 90 days.
He didn’t act fast enough.
"The city started on me again, those code boys," James said.
Before long, another city official, this time from the sign regulations division, was back at the old Shamrock. He was joined by David Berning, the resident who first complained about the plane.
Berning calls the plane "junk, salvage."
James disagrees.
"To me, it’s art, and I’m in an art-cultural district," he said.
James’ art, however, was 9 inches too tall to meet city specifications. So James sawed off part of the tail and the top of the cockpit.
Alex Southern, with the Fort Worth Code Ordinance Department, said it appears James has now satisfied all requirements to keep his plane where it is, although some neighbors are still "pretty irate" about it.
On Wednesday morning, James, with his nearly constant companion Molly, a large, well-coiffed poodle, watched a crane lift his plane to its newest resting place.
Up the street, Berning and his wife, Karen, seemed resigned to the fact that the craft with trash-can turbines will be a permanent part of their neighborhood’s landscape.
"If it meets the code requirements, so be it," David Berning said.
It might even make sense if James is hoping a conversation piece will bring in business, said Karen Berning.
"If he’s looking for a landmark to get people to come," she said, "I guess an airplane on a stick will do it."
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