Photo Credit: Breonny Lee
BY Taylor Adams Cogan
Deep Vellum wasn’t selling its translated literature. Cane Rosso wasn’t even slinging its Neapolitan pies yet. Twisted Root was there, pulling in crowds to the somewhat quiet Commerce Street for their excellent burgers with rarer protein options for the time.
In 2009, there was a lot more to come for Deep Ellum. If you were to ask someone to guess what all that would include, it might not have been a church.
But for Rachel Triska, the work she’d do in such a place ended up being what she had dreamed of pursuing since she was 15.
Rachel helped start and run Life in Deep Ellum from 2009 through 2021, where they made a campus at Taylor Street and Malcolm X Boulevard designed to be a destination for the neighborhood – those who went for Bible talk and those who never wanted to touch a book of verses.
“I never imagined I’d get to start doing that work at the age of 26, and it was such a gift. You think you have these crazy dreams of building a faith community that’s integrated in the neighborhood – that’s meaningful whether they share your faith or not,” she says.
Life in Deep Ellum – known as LIDE to some – aimed to make their physical space “the social, spiritual, artistic, and economic benefit” for the neighborhood, which led them in how they invested their time and resources, and resulted in an art gallery, a popular coffee shop, work space for lease, and, a place to worship.
“One of the things that I’m proud of is that we created a space for people to gather, Mokah [Coffee & Tea],” she says. “I loved the way that people from the City would tell me, ‘Rachel, you have no idea the conversations that happen here, and the kind of decisions that were being made.’ … You didn’t go to LIDE during the week if you wanted to get a ton of work done.”
Part of her leadership at LIDE meant she had a place on the Deep Ellum Community Association Board from 2010 to 2016, then the Deep Ellum Foundation Board, where she’s served as secretary for a number of years.
“Early on, it was huge because there were so many decisions about how Deep Ellum was going to be developed, so to be someone who was coming in not as a business owner, not as property owner, but someone who I felt like my responsibility was to really have a pulse on where the community voice was,” she says. “I was able to speak with a community voice versus someone who had a vested financial interest in the neighborhood. It brought me a lot of joy to be able to do that.
“People call Deep Ellum the soul of Dallas, and with all of the revitalization, we never wanted Deep Ellum to lose its soul. Sitting on the Foundation, the feeling in the room is we have to honor the roots of this community and make sure the board is representative of the community.”
Rachel says, “It’s just magic” when she thinks about her dream of working in a community coming true in a place like Deep Ellum. While it’s remarkable to her, she admits the neighborhood has countless stories of people being able to do what they dream. For her, that dreaming first happened as she grew up in Southeast Texas, near Davy Crockett National Forest.
“I grew up shooting rifles and clay pigeons, fishing, playing in creeks, and wearing Wranglers, so Deep Ellum was not on my radar growing up,” she says. “I encountered it for the first time in college. It was this wild, different world that felt so far removed from my own lived experience. I never imagined that would be the place where I would spend so much of my career.”
She had never been to an art gallery before she explored our neighborhood, yet she would be the one launching the Umbrella Gallery in Life in Deep Ellum. At her first show, she was wondering how people are supposed to even behave in an art show. Today, the thought makes her laugh as it feels like a second home for her to be around the arts.
“Before I was in Deep Ellum, I wouldn’t ever describe myself as a creative, and I think Deep Ellum awakened that in me,” she says. “It brought out this whole side of who I am that I don’t think I’ve ever known.”
In fact, Rachel, who now is the CEO of VolunteerNow, credits who she is today in large part to how Deep Ellum shaped her. It helped her see the world in ways she had never seen while growing up. She still spends time in the neighborhood and is dedicated to continuing to serve it by being on the Foundation Board. Her main goal is to see the district thrive in the best way it can.
“I think Deep Ellum, at its best, has always centered on the arts and culture. We’ve intentionally wanted to see a lot more people living in Deep Ellum – I want it to be truly urban, truly walkable, where people can live, work, play, and enjoy the city. And it’s everything they want and need; it’s right out their front door because we don’t have that for a lot of neighborhoods in Dallas.
“The biggest thing for me is, I never would’ve dreamed that a neighborhood, that a place could make you who you are. I would not be who I am today without the Deep Ellum neighborhood. I’m just eternally grateful for the gift of being able to be part of that community.”
