WHAT THE HISTORIC FREEDMEN’S TOWN ACROSS THE TRACKS FROM THE WOODLANDS LOOKS LIKE TODAY 
Houston-based photographer Marti Corn’s newly-published book The Ground on Which I Stand documents the history and visuals of Tamina, an unincorporated community still occupied by the descendants of freed slaves who settled in the area immediately east of I-45 and the Missouri Pacific railroad from what’s now the Woodlands back in 1871. Corn tells Mark Murrmann that Tamina’s 1960s-and-70s enclosure by affluent suburbs, and the community’s complex relationship with those developments, is part of what drew her to photograph the area. The book of portraits includes stories compiled from 15 families (both relatives of original founders and late-comers to the area); collected family photos supplement Corn’s original snapshots. [Texas A&M University Press; previously on Swamplot]
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WHAT MONTGOMERY COUNTY’S ROAD BOND REFERENDUM SCANDAL COULD COST 
In the wake of last week’s indictment of 2 Montgomery County commissioners, a county judge, and a political consultant married to the county treasurer, Judge Craig Doyal has been suspended without pay this week, though the involved commissioners are allowed to keep serving for now. If the group is convicted of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act (having allegedly held closed-door sessions about a $280 million county road bond referendum that voters approved last year), the commissioners may be removed as well, writes Andrew Schneider this morning. University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus tells Schneider that the case, convictions or no, could also have broader implications for the county: “If the perception is that the government can’t handle it, then the voters may lose faith in the individuals involved, and [in the future] decide to simply not vote in favor of [these kinds of] bonds.†Schneider reports that upcoming funding needs for Montgomery county road projects are estimated at around $6 billion. [Houston Public Media] Photo of Alan B. Sadler Commissioners’ Court Building at 501 N. Thompson St. in Conroe: Montgomery County Attorney’s Office
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FIBERGLASS PEAR TRAIL JUST FOLLOWING IN PEARLAND’S HISTORIC FRUIT FAKEOUT FOOTSTEPS 
“The only relationship that pears have to Pearland is that the early developers were trying to entice people to move to the area by claiming that there were pear orchards. (But there is a Figland St. in Pearland.)” [marmer, commenting on Re-Pearing the Pearland Brand] Illustration: Lulu
Most of the square box just left of center in the above photo was officially leased by Amazon yesterday, reports Cara Smith for the HBJ. The deal is for roughly 100,000 sq.ft. in the Beltway Crossing Northwest business park, located on the other side of 249, Greens Bayou, and an AMC Theater from Willowbrook Mall (as seen in the access map and intended eventual site plan from developer Panattoni). The agreement on the park’s Buildnig 5 was reportedly made official within 24 hours of the commissioners court’s Tuesday vote to approve a larger-than-normal tax abatement deal for a different Amazon facility — the proposed 855,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Pinto Business Park (catty-corner across Beltway 8 and I-45 from Greenspoint Mall). But building permits naming Amazon as the occupant of the Willowbrook site at 11720 N. Gessner Rd. date back to at least 2014.
Here’s a shot of the Pinto site — the park’s 971 acres lie in place next to the Houston National Cemetery (the yet-unoccupied eastern end of which is visible on the far right in the south-facing aerial below):
SALVATION ARMY DONATION CENTER WILL SOON TAKE YOUR GLASS RECYCLING, TOO 
The first 2 of 10 planned locations for a new city-backed glass recycling pilot program will open this weekend. In the wake of the elimination of glass this March from the city’s single-stream contract with Waste Management, glass hoarder and reseller Strategic Materials is opening up a collection point at Sharpstown Park (at 6600 Harbor Town Dr., across from Sharptown Dental Clinic and the Sharpstown Country Club), and not at the Sharpstown Park Apartments on Bellaire Blvd. as accidentally initially advertised). That drop spot will be accessible during normal park hours; the company is also opening a 24-hour drop site at the Washington Ave Salvation Army Family Store  & Donation Center, across Hemphill St. from the Salvation Army Adult Rehab Center and across Washington from Darkhorse Tavern. If the first 10 spots work out, the city says that more locations could eventually be added. [City of Houston] Photo of Salvation Army Donation Center at 2208 Washington Ave: Vincent M.
- 13215 Binnacle Way [HAR]
This morning the city announced that it’s giving protected historic landmark status to the Mecom Fountain, in the wake of this year’s partial tuscanization of the 1960s mod landmark (and subsequent crowdfunded reversal thereof). All that bright blue primer has been cocooned over, and full de-restoration was scheduled to be finished by the end of last month.
Also getting the same protective status bump today: the 1883 house at 2120 Sabine St., formerly the First Ward home of state representative August von Haxthausen, who in the late 1800s ran Houston’s German language newspaper the Texas Deutsche Zeitung. That house got its own (more permanently) colorful restoration in 2015 — below are some close-up photos of the newly-technicolor wraparound porch from a previous listing of the property on HAR:
 from Future Off-Era Restoration Attempts... "Pin It")
Johnson Development, the company behind that sugar-company-themed master-planned community in Sugar Land, announced yesterday that it has officially handed over the land for the project’s refinery-centric Imperial Market mixed-use district to the folks who will develop it. The 26 acres freshly sold are along Oyster Creek just north of the crossing of Hwy. 90 (visible on the far left of the rendering above, which faces south). That’s Kempner St. running directly alongside the proposed development and crossing the creek as well; a pair of former railroad bridges currently upstream of Kempner are shown replaced with car and pedestrian bridges respectively.
Plans for the development incorporate structures from out-of-use former facilities of the Imperial Sugar Company. The refinery’s silos (instead of becoming an art space) are marked to host a couple of fast-casual restaurants; the 1925 char house, where huge quantities of carefully burned animal bones were once used to whiten and filter cane sugar syrup, will become a boutique hotel. Both structures are more prominently visible in the southeast-facing view below — the boxy brick char house appears to the left of the single-pour-concrete silos:
The spot formerly known as Hughes Hangar appears to be ditching the airport theme following the closure earlier this year of both the nightclub and its across-the-parking-lot companion The De Gaulle. Remodeling of the area between the 2 buildings has been underway as well — above is the ex-bar’s former back patio, now an open lawn shielded from view of Washington Ave.
The space appears to be reopening as an events venue; the new name is Hughes Manor, and the new logo (shown here) is also similar to the old:
- 7615 Emerald Meadow Ct. [HAR]
In other de-tree-ment news along Brays Bayou, a reader further upstream sends some photos of recently cross-hatched stumps now dotting the Valero-inhabited corner of Stella Link Rd. and N. Braeswood Dr. The top shot looks east past the gas station and the Church’s Chicken roosting within; the second shot looks south down Stella Link Rd. toward the former Pilgrim dry cleaners, which these days accepts clothing only as donations to the Shriners Hospital. A neighbor on NextDoor says that the 5 trees (mostly of just-over-15-inch diameter) appear to have been trimmed all the way down to the toes in mid June; at least 4 separate 311 complaints have been made on the matter since then.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
The commute northward along Almeda Rd. from the corner with Hermann Park Ct. is much less shady of late, reports a reader in the area who snapped these photos last week. The tipster says that some 15 trees have been cut up and shuffled around by the Marquis Lofts (the ones at the edge of the Med Center, not the ones that once hosted a James Harden rooftop photo shoot). Most of the trees appear to have been directly alongside the road, though a few of the felled were reportedly rooted on the other side of the sidewalk. (That’s the formerly bankrupt and bank-rupturing Mosaic condo highrise in the distance, north across MacGregor and Brays Bayou in the shot above.)
Below is a graphic closeup of some of the arboreal aftermath (a warning here to those uncomfortable with the sight of sap and shredded cellulose):
RE-PEARING THE PEARLAND BRAND 
The Pearland Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is now selling sponsorships for the 4-ft.-tall decorated fiberglass pears it plans to place around the city to generate enthusiasm from tourists and boost the organization’s branding efforts. Executive director Kim Sinistore tells Amy Bishop that the group “would like to bring pears back to Pearland in the landscaping.†The Pearland city government’s account of the area’s history, however, largely glosses over the importance of pears, instead playing up the historic importance of figs to the region (particularly after the settlement’s  near-destruction by the 1900 Galveston hurricane, and second near-destruction by the storm of 1915). A donation of $4000 gets your name and logo onto a plaque by the themed pear of your choice (on a first-come-first-serve basis), along with other perks; sponsors can also go in on a pear with a friend and split the price. [Houston Public Media, City of Pearland] Photo of Shadow Creek Ranch Nature Trail, one of 5 planned pear deployment zones: City of Pearland
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO CUT THE COST OF THE FREE ASTRODOME MISCONCEPTION 
“No one voted to tear [the Astrodome] down. We voted not to spend money to refurbish it. Big difference. The only way forward is a multi-option vote: Tear it down, fix it up, or keep paying to do neither. Spell out the costs of each, so voters won’t assume doing nothing is free.” [Memebag, commenting on Count Wants To Fill In the Astrodome’s Flood Levels with Parking; previously on Swamplot] Illustration: Lulu
Experimental ice cream shop Cloud 10 Creamery looks to be collecting building permits for a space at 711 Heights Blvd., one of the 1920s bungalows prepping for a second career in retail (as shown above) as part of the Heights Mercantile development. The project, which straddles 7th St. and its bike trail companion between Yale St. and Heights Blvd., hit a potential snag last year when the city didn’t approve a variance request that would have lowered the number of required new parking spaces. But the updated site plan below shows the workaround — the Golden Eagle Binder & Tab Co.’s former spots at 717 and 724 Heights, which were purchased by the developers last May, are depicted as additional parking lots:
