COMMENT OF THE DAY: SIGHTS UNSEEN 
“Pictures don’t sell homes. People don’t buy sight unseen. At best, high quality photos will give you a few more showings (by people who were enticed by the photos, thus not likely your buyer).
List a property in Montrose, and take 6 photos of various homeless people, old-man armpits, and urinals, and it’ll still sell in a day.” [Cody, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Back Carpet] Illustration: Lulu
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WHAT TIME THE EXPLOSIONS DOWNTOWN WILL WAKE YOU UP 
A rep from Metro confirms that the booms of the controlled demolition of the former Foley’s at 1110 Main St. will begin booming between 7:10 and 7:20 this Sunday, September 22. (That’s 10 minutes past sunrise, for all you morning people.) And if you’ll be driving Downtown to find parking and get yourself in implosion position, note that the street closures that Swamplot reported yesterday will begin at 6 a.m. [Metro; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Foley’s: Jim Parsons
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ROLLING OUT A NEW PIECE OF THE FIFTH WARD 
“Did y’all know that Montrose used to be within the 4th Ward, or that Midtown and EaDo used to be mostly within the 3rd Ward? The neighborhood that the original commenter referred to (south of I-10, west of Bringhurst) needs to be rebranded because it actually is different in character and is affected by different factors than what exists north of I-10.
And I really hate to say that because it’ll pick up some cliched cutesy-ass name at some tremendous expense to the community in consulting fees. But as I can see from the comments on this thread, the results would amply compensate for the expense and embarrassment.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day Runner-Up: Throwing Out Some Numbers on the Fifth Ward] Illustration: Lulu
LA FENDEE TRYING TO FEND OFF ENDING 
Reports of La Fendee’s demise — and Tacos A Go-Go’s emergence — here at 1402 Westheimer might have been hasty: A tweet from freelance writer Amber N. Ambrose suggests that the owners aren’t going gentle into that goodbye: “Man on the phone says they’re ‘fighting it.'” And a manager tells Swamplot this morning that the stories about the restaurant’s closing “aren’t right,” though declined to elaborate. [Twitter; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Trip Advisor
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO WORK AROUND THE HOUSTON HEIGHTS DRY ZONE 
“Can someone explain to a non native Houstonian how this ‘private club’ thing works? So you can’t sell alcohol in some areas, but you can if you’re a ‘private club’? So what’s to stop anyone that wants to open any regular type of place that sells booze to call themselves a private club?” [Cody, commenting on Putting the Finishing Typefaces on the Heights General Store] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: THROWING OUT SOME NUMBERS ON THE FIFTH WARD “The 5th Ward as a whole is light years away from a full gentrification, but the part south of I-10 and west of Bringhurst is about 60% there.” [LRS, commenting on What’s That Cooking on Bringhurst and Clinton?]
TACOS A GO-GO GOING IN NOW THAT LA FENDEE’S ENDING Culturemap reports that La Fendee, the Mediterranean restaurant at 1402 Westheimer in Montrose, will be closing by the end of the month and will be replaced soon thereafter by another Tacos A Go-Go. This new spot — right across Westheimer from the former Wendy’s that’s being renovated into Doc’s, the Austin sports bar — would be the 3rd location in Houston. Elsewhere, the Tacos a Go-Go owners have said they plan to open Retrospect Coffee at that artfully abandoned gas station near HCC in Midtown. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Trip Advisor
COMMENTS OF THE DAY: SELLING THE BEAUTY OF NORTH SHEPHERD 
“I can tell you for certain, that most typical national retailers would have a hard time jumping into the Shepherd/Durham corridor without some serious handholding. Regardless of what the demos might look like in the surrounding neighborhood, it’s tough to sell non-locals on being surrounded by cheap auto malls, pawn shops and tax-preparing locations.” And later: “At a previous job I was managing the Texas expansion for a large national retailer. Circa 2006 or so my Houston-based broker brought me a site in the neighborhood of Shepherd & Washington. I visited the site and told him no way. It was across from a pawn shop and had general junky retail around it. He eventually talked me into it. I took it to my boss. He rejected it and my broker and I had to talk him into it. We took it to my boss’s boss. She rejected it. My boss, my broker and I had to talk her into it. We sent it for approval to our local Operations manager. He had to be talked into it. When it went up for approval before the Real Estate committee, there was a big fight and only after much cajoling was it narrowly approved.
When that store finally opened, it was the #2 performing store in the chain.
It’s tough to get people to look outside the box, but sometimes it can be very rewarding.” [Drew J, commenting on Comment of the Day Runner-Up: Drying Out North Shepherd] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE COMING FLOOD OF FLOOD INSURANCE PREMIUM HIKES 
“If flood insurance becomes as expensive as predicted by the Chron article, it would make large parts of Houston financially uninhabitable. Folks owning property in the Heights now have even more reason to be pleased with themselves.” [Chef, commenting on Headlines: A PAC for the Astrodome Plan; A Kibosh on Free Rail Rides to Texans Games] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: MAKING HISTORY “I always thought the idea of a historic district was to preserve historic bldgs, not make new bldgs look like fake historic bldgs.” [infinite_jim, commenting on A Few New Views of the 33-Story Apartment Building Hines Wants To Build in Market Square]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE CAR LOT TOLLWAY 
“I know that this suggestion wouldn’t be popular, but I would really like to see a toll road run down the N. Shepherd corridor from I-45 to Memorial & Allen Pkwy.
It’d be perfect for that.” [TheNiche, commenting on The Coming North Shepherd Transformation] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: DRYING OUT NORTH SHEPHERD “In a perfect world, the ‘dry’ restrictions from the Shepherd/Durham corridor would be removed, yet the residential areas to the east would stay dry, and Shady Acres over to Ella would also be dry, except on 19th and 20th. This would spur commercial development onto the more high traffic streets, and let the others with their 18′ wide pavement and drainage ditches stay residential. But hey, it’s Houston, so not gonna happen. I think commercial businesses from out of town still are unaware of the income growth around the Heights and are using old demographic numbers. A new strip center took the place of one of these used car lots up at 22nd and Shepherd last year. It has yet to be more than 50% leased out. I think it holds a precious metals buyer and a pay by the month cell phone store. It’s going to take a few more years, and some better income surveys before there’s a rush to develop this corridor.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on A Guide to North Shepherd’s Auto Parts]
HIGHLY VISIBLE BILLBOARD REMINDS HOUSTON DRIVERS OF THE INVISIBILITY OF HOMELESSNESS 
You can’t miss it: Just south of Downtown, this pristine billboard went up recently above the northbound feeder of I-45. Its lonesome assertion, “Even the pigeons don’t see me,” is attributed to the “voice of the homeless.” What gives? Glasstire’s Paula Newton explains: “[I]t’s meant to raise awareness about homelessness. The billboard is a project by artist Jessica Crute in conjunction with a group show at Deborah Colton Gallery called Collective Identity. Crute [is] president and founder of a young non-profit organization Voice of the Homeless.” [Glasstire] Photo: Glasstire
BATTLESHIP TEXAS BACK IN ACTION 
The leaky ol’ boat is taking on a new role in national security: This week, it has become the training ground for a 6-ft.-long drug-sniffing robot tuna. A group out of Boston has designed the BIOSwimmer, described in the Sugar Land Sun as a “highly maneuverable, unmanned underwater vehicle that is equipped with a sophisticated suite of sensors.” Already having served dutifully in 2 world wars, the veteran ship is now helping to protect our ports: “The test team is planting packages of mock contraband of varying sizes in tight, hard-to-reach spaces on the battleship’s hull and putting the BIOSwimmer through the paces to see if it can successfully detect them.” [Sugar Land Sun; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A GUIDE TO NORTH SHEPHERD’S AUTO PARTS 
“North Shepherd is a complete car continuum from south to north. Start with new cars: Tommy Vaughan Ford at 11th. Just north of there are the used car lots, one after the next. Keep going for repair shops and auto parts stores. Continue on for the pick-a-part places (BYO tools).” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Coming North Shepherd Transformation] Illustration: Lulu
