- HISD Selling High School for Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice at S. Shepherd [The Leader via Culturemap]
- Westview Business Park at Beltway in Spring Branch To Be Completed Soon [Houston Chronicle]
- Online Skycam Lets You Track Progress of Downtown’s $67M SkyHouse Apartments [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- For $26,000 a Month, This Moroccan-Style Manor Could Be Yours [Prime Property]
- Capital Grille Opening Second Houston Steakhouse with Location in CityCentre Four [Culturemap]
- Sugar Land Decides To Study Red Light Cameras [abc13]
- Brass Shavings Found in Well Forces Oak Ridge North to Implement Water Restrictions [Courier of Montgomery County]
- Fake Houston Neighborhood Names Have Got to Stop [Keep Houston Houston]
Photo of Buffalo Bayou: Alex Luster via Swamplot Flickr Pool
The owners of Houston House must be thrilled. Maybe they can market the east side apartments as having a “Manhattan view.” As in a view of the building across the street.
I take issue with Keep Houston Houston’s article about “fake” neighborhood names. Those names might be new, but they are real. Will they gain traction? Who knows.
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The bigger thing is: why do neighborhoods get new names? It’s not just random. Often the new names are chosen as part of a conscious effort to shake old preconceptions and reputations. Tell someone you live in Montrose and they might answer “oh, that’s where the gays live… Um, are you gay?” Tell them you live in Lower Westheimer and the response is different. That’s a fairly mild one. Large portions of Alief are being rebranded as the International District. It’s important because the negative connotations of Alief were scaring away investment. The International District always had international flair, but nobody could see past “Alief”
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This isn’t a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to Houston. The South Bronx in New York is transforming itself into SoBro, hoping to capture artists – and in fact some are coming!
Nabe name issue = same issue as people re-pronoucing road names. Anyone who has lived here more than 15 years knows they are pronounced San Fill-i-pee (“San Felipe”) and Ker-ken-doll (Kuykendahl).
@ZAW
I guess that’s why I tell people I live in Montrose; I have zero problem if people associate me with gay folks, but I’d rather not be associated with the filthy abomination that is Westheimer.
Sawyer Heights…Upper Kirby….Washington Heights…I guess when you have a city with no hills they add “Heights” or “Upper” to the northern portions of an area. Coming soon;? Montrose north of W. Gray, will all the new construction, will be Montrose Heights, and Clinton Dr. will be Upper EaDo.
@Dana-X – while I could be mistaken, my understanding of the “Heights” names were that the “Heights” area of Houston sits at the highest, albeit by only a couple of feet, elevation in the city.
ZAW. Alief didn’t start getting rebranded as the International District till about 3 years ago, as a matter of fact, no one that lived there knew anyone was calling it something other than Alief. It wasn’t until they put those idiotic balls in the medians that anyone local knew someone was calling it something other than Alief.
The Super Neighborhood is still called Alief. Hong Kong City Mall was transformed from a pasture to a Mall over a decade ago, that huge strip center at Wilcrest and Bellaire is almost as old.
Maybe in 40 or 50 years people may latch onto the name International District in favor of Alief, but then they’re going to wonder why the Library is still called Alief Regional Library, and the school district is still Alief Independent School District, or why the community center is called Alief Community Center. Or why there’s a animal hospital called Alief Animal Hospital. I have a strong suspicion Alief will always be called Alief, no matter how many weird balls they put in the medians.
And I’d also rather just call it Montrose and have people ask me if I’m gay than call it Lower Westheimer and have the 15 minute discussion about where it is, and the end result being that I tell them it’s the new name for Montrose and I’ll still be asked if I’m gay.