As of rush hour yesterday, a reader tells Swamplot, the Downtown Aquarium’s Ferris wheel at 410 Bagby St. was missing something — namely, the whole wheel bit. Workers were observed dismantling the spokes earlier in the day at the freeway-side restaurant-tainment complex. According to the restaurant’s website, the wheel is out for winter maintenance and won’t be spinning again until March 1st.
From Memorial Dr. headed west under I-45, here’s an evening snapshot of the newly unemployed support posts:
Bagby at Buffalo Bayou
“Downturn or not, Houston was so lacking in new development, ALL of what is getting built needed to be built . . . we were sooooooo far behind. The building boom allowed Houston to catch up to where it should have been — so these other delays/cancels are good for now. The pent-up demand will fill up what’s already in the works, and the delays/cancels can get after it at another time. What Houston has developed in the last several years has transformed the city, for the better. During the slowdown, we can catch our breathe and savor/enjoy the successes of the recent boom, and regroup and prepare for the next great haul.” [
While much of the 1906 structure that 
“Biology has words to describe the relationship between parking and driving. ‘Arms race’ and ‘co-evolution’ fit pretty well. If you find a creature that has evolved to devote a lot of its energy to producing toxins, you’ll find some other creature that has evolved to survive those toxins — the two are in an arms race with each other, and have co-evolved these capabilities. One becomes a little more toxic, the other becomes a little more immune to that toxin. Other organisms can’t invade that relationship because they aren’t toxic enough or immune enough. From this perspective, large parking lots and heavy reliance on cars can be seen as Houston’s defense mechanism. Houston is immune to walkability because driving and parking have co-evolved to such extremes here. There’s no stable strategy to provide a path from where we are to where the new urbanists want to be.” [
A reader surveys the scant leftovers of the 
” . . . I think the real opportunity to expand affordable housing is in Houston’s ‘donut of despair’. The area between 610 and the Beltway (except around the Spring Branch area) is full of acres and acres of empty land. With a huge push from the City, these areas could be redeveloped into truly affordable neighborhoods with homes in the $150-250k range.” [
“I am a real estate agent in the Heights-Montrose area. While sales are down a bit in volume, prices are still slowly rising. Correct: 2014 was a banner year, the likes of which may not be seen again for another few years. We are seeing price reductions on listings that were speculating the continuation of the rapid price increases — however, when the prices are brought down, they still sell. Here inside the Loop, we are quite busy, and the good stuff under 500k is moving nicely.” [Freddie, commenting on 
