Houston History

Art
02/05/13 9:30am

‘The Galleria Is My Idea of Hell’ and Other Houston Stories

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Houston History
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Since 2011, Houston Arts Alliance has been curating Writing & C/Siting Houston, a series of personal stories from local writers about their favorite Houston places: secret hike and bike trails along Buffalo Bayou, family-owned businesses in Midtown, Hindu temples in Sugar Land. Novelist and essayist Miah Mary Arnold and UH professor William Monroe will be the first in 2013 to contribute their stories to the series, giving a reading tomorrow night. Joining them will be essayist Phillip Lopate, who describes the city in “Houston Hide-and-Seek” as “a decentralized octopus gobbling up all the land around it.”

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Art
02/01/13 3:30pm

Bert Long, 1940-2013

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Houston History, Public Art, Third Ward
3 Comments

Houston artist Bert Long passed away of pancreatic cancer earlier today. He was 72. This photo shows one of Long’s most recognizable pieces: “Field of Vision” is located across the street from Emancipation Park on the corner of Elgin and Bastrop, next door to the Eldorado Ballroom. Born in the Fifth Ward, Long worked as a Hyatt Regency executive chef before pursuing an arts career. “Bert would walk in anywhere. He’d do anything,” Long’s friend James Surls tells the Houston Chronicle. “He was unabashed and unafraid.”

Photo: Allyn West

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Comments
01/30/13 12:53pm

Comment of the Day: The Ideal City

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Houston History, Master-Planned Communities, Quicklink
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE IDEAL CITY “If you really want to give people a taste of American liberty, why would you build a master-planned community, where decision-making is taken away from the residents? Build a normal town with democratic institutions of government — a city council, school board, zoning commission, etc. Lay out the town on a grid — that way, no neighborhood is closed off and people grow up there with the feeling that everything in life is within reach. The centerpoint is trickier — do you go with the traditional town square with courthouse, or does the typical imposing courthouse create too much sense of the power of government? The grand centerpoint in the rendering looks a little fascist to me; too much ‘bow down before this.’ Maybe center things on an avenue instead of a square or circle and that way diminish the power of any icons. The courthouse can be consigned to a side street. Actually, the original layout of Houston did a pretty good job of conveying American ideals.” [Mike, commenting on Could Glenn Beck Bring Independence to Texas?]

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Fourth Ward
01/28/13 4:15pm

A Few Freedman’s Town Rowhouses To Be Relocated, Rehabbed

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Historic Districts, Historic Preservation, Houston History, Land Development, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, Renovations
11 Comments

A City of Houston rep tells Swamplot that 3 of the 10 Freedman’s Town shotgun houses on Victor St. between Gillette and Bailey will be relocated in the Fourth Ward. (The photo shows a shingle-stripped one up on a trailer and ready to go.) A permit to demolish them was granted in 2011, but the city rep says that the owners have since agreed to donate some of the houses to the Fourth Ward Redevelopment Authority, which says it has plans to move them to a lot they own at 1414 Robin and rehab them into low-income housing. Swamplot reported this morning that the West Gray lot where the rowhouses are now located has been pegged for a 5-story mixed-use midrise called Dolce Living.

Photo: Chris C

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Attractions
01/24/13 10:00am

A Montrose Mary’s Memorial, Maybe

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Houston History, Montrose, Proposed Developments, Public Art, Restaurants, Signage
23 Comments

At a Neartown meeting two days ago, Kirk Baxter presented these two drawings for a Mary’s memorial, according to a HAIF poster, celebrating the 30-year heyday of the Westheimer bar for Montrose’s gay community. Some 300 memorial services were held here over the years. Mary’s was closed in 2009; the building where it sat since the early ’70s opened this weekend as the coffee shop Blacksmith.

The drawings show a kind of replica Mary’s installed near Waugh and Hyde Park; two of Mary’s original doors — donated to the project by Blacksmith owner Bobby Heugel — would sit underneath tiles reclaimed from the original roof.

Nothing about the memorial has been approved or decided yet, says the HAIF poster. During the meeting several other potential locations were brought up: a spot behind the original building the regulars called the Out Back, and across the street, facing the building, in front of Half Price Books.

Photos: HAIF user trymahjong

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Downtown
01/11/13 2:07pm

What Being Inside the New Houston Club Might Look Like

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Highrises, Houston History, Interiors, Proposed Developments, Renovations
1 Comment

Welcome to the new Houston Club: this rendering shows Gensler’s renovation plans for the lobby near the top of the 50-story One Shell Plaza, where the city’s oldest social club is merging with the not-as-old Plaza Club and moving in. Since 1955, the club met at 811 Rusk (shown at right); but Skansksa bought the 18-story building last year, hastening the move. Swamplot reported in early January that much of 811 Rusk’s contents are being auctioned off tomorrow — the less club members will have to drag up 49 floors to their new fancy digs:

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Houston History
01/08/13 1:06pm

Kick a Building In Memoriam

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Quicklink
2 Comments

KICK A BUILDING IN MEMORIAM Former New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable liked Houston. In 1976, she called it “the city of the second half of the twentieth century.” It’s the first half of the twenty-first century now. Houston’s status is no more cemented than it was then, but Huxtable’s is. She passed away yesterday at her home in Manhattan, at the age of 91. [New York Times]

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Demolitions
01/04/13 3:00pm

Mayor Parker Announces the Death Sentence for Downtown Macy’s Building

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Downtown, Houston Architects, Houston History, Retail
21 Comments

Yesterday morning, Macy’s announced that it would be closing its store Downtown at 1110 Main this spring. But what’s going to happen to the building? Mayor Parker, who knows a thing or two about demolition, said yesterday afternoon that Kenneth Franzheim’s former Foley’s is coming down: “Macy’s is losing the lease, and the owner of that piece of property wants to build something else,” she told KUHF News. The owner in this case would be 1110 Main Partners, an entity connected to Hilcorp Ventures, whose president, Doug Kelly, told the Houston Chronicle yesterday that the company has “no specific plans to announce” about the site. Well, announcing plans is one thing:

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Freeways and Toll Roads
01/04/13 10:28am

The Grand Parkway Ancient Burial Site, Up Close and Personal

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Geology, Houston History, Land Development, New Constructon
5 Comments

Last month, Cite magazine editor Raj Mankad hiked 8 miles through the Katy Prairie to see the prehistoric human remains found during the construction of Grand Parkway’s Segment E for himself. He brought back a few photos and an essayist’s-eye-view of the archaeological saga:

It appeared as if TxDOT had aimed the 15-mile-long highway segment directly at the burial ground. The highway was suspended, figuratively and physically, like an unintentional monument honoring the burial grounds, like Texas was trying to tell anyone in an airplane or spaceship to LOOK HERE. . . . What I saw were several pieces of plywood, propped up on five-gallon paint buckets, covering what I presume to be the human remains and the tools, buffalo teeth, and other objects found with them. The plywood was weighted down with rocks. . . . To my amateur eyes, the excavation looked makeshift and tenuous, not systematic or professional.

Photos: Brett Sillers

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Clear Lake
12/21/12 10:31pm

Hakeem Olajuwon Launches New Showcase Clothing Store in Former NASA Moon Institute

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Houston History, Openings and Closings, Retail, Shopping
19 Comments

Former Houston Rocket Hakeem Olajuwon quietly opened the doors this past week of a brand-new flagship store for his new clothing line, DR34M. It’s conveniently located just off NASA Pkwy., inside a mansion built during the Depression by a Texas oilman — used later for more than 20 years by NASA for its Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The 17,000-sq.-ft. Italianate mansion by the Clear Lake shore was completed in 1930 by Houston city hall architect Joseph Finger for Jim West, whose family sold it to Humble Oil when he died in 1941. Since then, it has been owned by the Pappas restaurant family and Rice University. And in 1969, during the Apollo missions, the nearby Johnson Space Center moved its moon unit here; it stayed until 1991.

Olajuwon, who has made a lot of investments in Houston-area real estate since his 2002 retirement from the NBA, bought the West Mansion in 2006. He had plans to subdivide the sprawling 41-acre estate to sell off to developers, according to news reports. Later reports indicated the mansion would be razed, or that a retirement village would be built around it. But since early this year, workers have been making  extensive renovations to the building, inside and out:

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Demolitions
12/07/12 3:03pm

Strip Club Where Anna Nicole Smith Met Her Billions Gains Houston’s Approval To Take It All Off

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Houston History, Houston Landmarks, Mangum Manor, Nightlife
13 Comments

The city of Houston granted a demolition permit yesterday to a company called Magnolia Services, allowing it to demolish the Pleasures Men’s Club, aka Pleasures Cabaret, off Highway 290 at 34th St. As aficionados of Houston history (as well as lurkers on the website of the shuttered strip club) will no doubt recall, Pleasures was the latest incarnation of Gigi’s Cabaret, where in 1991 the former Vickie Lynn Hogan, fresh off stints working at Walmart and Red Lobster, gave a fateful lap dance to her future husband, octogenarian oil (and breast) man J. Howard Marshall II. The rest, as they say, is history. As was Marshall, only 14 months after the wedding.

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Comments
12/05/12 1:44pm

Comment of the Day: Also, Paving Over Their Ancestors

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Construction Problems, Freeways and Toll Roads, Houston History, Quicklink
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: ALSO, PAVING OVER THEIR ANCESTORS “Yes we do know what people were doing 10,000 years ago. Basically it’s the same thing we are doing today. Making and raising children, trying to feed our family, and working to have safety, shelter, and clothing.” [Bill, commenting on Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead]

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Construction Problems
12/04/12 2:02pm

Grand Parkway Will Pile on the Dead

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Freeways and Toll Roads, Houston History, Quicklink
16 Comments

GRAND PARKWAY WILL PILE ON THE DEAD An agreement between TxDOT, the Harris County Historical Commission, and 5 Native American tribes over what to do with the prehistoric human remains unearthed in the prairie highway’s path will allow construction of the Grand Parkway Segment E to continue — with only a bump in the road: “Under the agreement, TxDOT will fill the excavated areas and cover them with rip rap, creating a permanent burial site near where the road would cross Cypress Creek, about three miles south of U.S. 290.” The reburial might confuse future anthropologists, though: “[UH professor of anthropology Kenneth] Brown expressed frustration over TxDOT’s handling of the site, saying crews saved some artifacts but ruined the area for richer study. The agency’s crews scraped and sifted mechanically instead of digging by hand. ‘When you scrape, you will find things, but you won’t be able to see how they were associated,’ Brown said. ‘That is a shame because we do not know what people were doing 10,000 to 14,000 years ago, and we won’t know now.'” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of gravesite: abc13

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Avondale
12/03/12 12:17pm

A Sterling Example in Avondale Historic District

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Historic Districts, Homes for Sale, Houston History
18 Comments

The asking price of a property in the Avondale (West) Historic District has been dropping $500 per day since its latest relisting on Thanksgiving Day. A pre-holiday hiatus had capped a 2-year sales effort at several price points by various agents and agencies. The 1910 home and grounds are described as part of the estate of Ross Sterling, a former governor of Texas (1931-32) and founder of Humble Oil, which later became the far humbler ExxonMobil.

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Houston History
11/26/12 11:48am

Landmark Lower Westheimer Felix Mexican Restaurant Sign Comes Apart in Ebay Auction

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Houston Landmarks, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Signage
22 Comments

No bids yet on the sleepy sombero man in front of the hacked cactus removed from the sign in front of the former Felix Mexican Restaurant at the corner of Westheimer and Grant last year. And no bids on the other formerly east- and west-facing portions of the popular sign, which the space’s new owner, Uchi, put up for auction separately on eBay early this morning. The starting bid for each disassembled segment is a hefty $1,500, but Uchi doesn’t appear to be in this game for fish money. Proceeds are promised to the LULAC National Scholarship Fund; the former restaurant’s namesake, Tex-Mex pioneer Felix Tijerina, served as LULAC’s national president for 4 terms. The “Orders To Go” flyer from the original sign hasn’t shown up in any online auction yet.

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