COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SECRET CHICKENS NEAR DOWNTOWN “There are at least 2 coops very close to downtown, but they are hidden enough that you would never know they are there unless you walk right next to them. As recently as 2009, there were a couple roosters (from yet another, third location) that would roam the streets almost daily. I guess someone complained. This all happened less than 5 blocks from downtown.” [eiioi, commenting on Chicken Ordinance Has Hens for Houston Seeing Way Too Much Red]
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YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY 
Has Midtown become too hip even for the federal government? The Social Security Administration is leaving, having lost its lease at the low-slung building at 3100 Smith (shown at right), reports CultureMap’s Whitney Radley: “Once a sort of wasteland, the surrounding neighborhood teems now with development, restaurants, bars, mixed-use complexes and multifamily units . . . . speculation that the building might be prime space for a restaurant or even torn down to make room for a mid-rise, is rampant.” [CultureMap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SAYING GOODBYE TO THE SLEEPY INNER LOOP “This complaining about what urban core growth will do to traffic and parking (make it worse / more difficult) is long past repetitive. It IS the middle of a growing, thriving city folks. Easy traffic in areas like the Heights and Montrose was an accidental luxury offered as a result of those areas having stagnated at low densities for so many decades until they were rediscovered by the market at large. Having a good connected street grid helped too (compare to major thoroughfare-and-cul-de-sac suburbs where congestion is nightmarish as soon as the subdivisions and strip malls are finished). But now the urban core is desirable, more investment, more people with disposable income, and yes, cars. Are we somehow supposed to be different from congested Los Angeles (which has much better transit and pedestrian infrastructure, by the way)? Will congestion in our central neighborhoods hurt your fondness for Houston? I seriously doubt it. We’re a great city. And if it bothers you enough to leave, three others who are quite willing to live with the traffic will replace you. And if we ever improved walkability and transit service enough, it would be six more people.” [Local Planner, commenting on Stealing a Glance at Proposed Alexan Heights on Yale]
THE ART GUYS GO TO THE LIBRARY 
A Swamplot reader says that the eponymous live oak (shown at right) in “The Art Guys Marry a Plant,” acquired by the Menil Collection in 2011, has been uprooted from Menil Park. Art Guy Jack Massing “didn’t want to say where the tree has gone,” reports the Houston Chronicle: “‘We’ve got it all taken care of,’ he said.” Instead, he wanted to talk about the Art Guys’ 30 years of working together; they’re planning “12 Events:” a year of once-a-month “behaviors” beginning on January 23 with a marathon autograph session at the Julia Ideson Library on McKinney: “They see signatures as something both basic and profound that’s evolved from the simplest mark making — drawing a line — into a legally-binding expression of identity. ‘People say they can’t draw, yet they have a signature. It’s a way of drawing your identity with a linguistic connection so you can be relevant in the world,’ Massing said. ‘It’s simple and basic, and yet incredibly profound.'” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Robert Boyd
A FAKE STREET FOR REAL ESTATE SHOPPERS IN SPRING 
Opening in February, reports CultureMap, is a 10,000-sq.-ft. real estate “park” where a dozen lavishly turned-out showcase homes, ranging in styles from “The Midtown” to “The Calais” to “The Ashby Manor,” are presented for your perusal on a private cul-de-sac near I-45. Think of the immersive, don’t-mind-if-I-do shopping at IKEA blown up to the scale of Disney World — except at MainStreet America there will be fireworks and Christmases and tailgating parties and almost everything will be for sale: “Do you like the paint color, the metallic faux technique on the ceiling or the graphic wallpaper accent in the bedroom? The details are available and so are the prices. In fact, you can make the purchase on site. If that couch, occasional table or rug is what you are looking for, swap that credit card and have them delivered. Floral arrangements? Yes, those are for sale as well. Mirrors? Check. Artwork? In stock. Window treatments? You bet.” Admission for adults is only $10; children aged 5-17 can get in for half that. [CultureMap] Photo: MainStreet America
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S IN THAT WONTON? “. . . The gates these days on apartment complexes are an elaborate way to keep the Chinese restaurant menus off the door handles. However, the Chinese restaurants are getting more crafty, employing some Ninja tactics and Trojan Horse ploys. The war goes on.” [commonsense, commenting on Hanover Reaping More Rice Village Property, Garden Gate Shutting]
A NEW MOON TOWER PHASE 
It just takes awhile to remake a potty-mouthed wild-game hot-dog shack, but East Downtown’s Moon Tower Inn has finally reopened after 15 months — with some historical upgrades to the decor at 3004 Canal: “The new tap wall, kitchen and brewhouse are made from shipping containers and reclaimed building materials. For example, [Co-owner Brandon] Young says that the metal siding used to be a barn on the Stephen F Austin University campus, and there are wooden planks from a Louisiana slaves’ quarters.” [Eater Houston] Photo: Marty E.
BREAKING UP WITH THE ART GUYS Will the newest installation at the Menil Collection be a hole in the ground? The Art Guys were told last week that the museum intends to remove the live oak they “married” in 2009 in “The Art Guys Marry a Plant,” a public ceremony at the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden at the MFA,H. The museum acquired the tree in 2011 and held another public ceremony when it was planted in Menil Park on Branard St.; the little site (shown at right) backs up to the bamboo grove walling off the park from the Rothko Chapel and Barnett Newman’s “Broken Obelisk.” [Houston Press] Photo: Robert Boyd
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A BIG DIG FOR EAST DOWNTOWN “What needs to happen to connect Downtown with the East End/EaDo is TxDOT needs to put 59 in a tunnel from just south of 45 up to Commerce Street. Above ground create a mile long linear park. Instead of the elevated freeway discouraging pedestrian activity, a underground freeway below with a fantastic linear park above would draw in visitors in hordes. Who wouldn’t want to be around or live near a mile long urban park jewel? The value added is enough in itself to justify such a project for the betterment of the city.” [Thomas, commenting on Adding to Convention Center District Easy as 1-2-3 . . . 4-5-6-7]
ONE FINAL FIESTA FIESTA 
It’s adios for the 60-year-old Heights market — Bridgewood Properties is building a 4-story senior-living complex in its place — but there will be one more flicker before the lights go out: Bridgewood President Jim Gray tells the Leader he pushed back the start of construction “so that the Houston Heights Association could hold its annual Candlelight Dinner & Auction … the Heights’ premier social function.” Gray adds: “It seemed like the right thing to do.” [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN PENNZOIL MADE A DENT IN THE SKYLINE “That compliment was a little tongue-in-cheek… she was referring to Houston as being entirely a car and freeway-based city. But she was ecstatic about Pennzoil Place (said it had the biggest impact on a city skyline since the Empire State Building), and made that comment in a review of it. Huxtable was the first newspaper architecture critic, and now a bunch of papers have one (Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, etc.). Will the Chronicle ever?” [Mike, commenting on Kick a Building In Memoriam]
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]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DRIVES ME UP A WALL “It’s just like a Houstonian to symbolically defy gravity by parking.” [Nathan, commenting on Parked High on the Wall of Kirby Building, Mini Cooper Still Gets Ticket]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S MISSING DISTRICT OF GOOD-ENOUGH OLD BUILDINGS “I think the general feeling on this one from historically/architecturally sensitive people like myself is that while it’s not the greatest building ever built in Houston, it’s a lot greater than what is on at least 100 of the blocks downtown. This is where you get to the difference between Houston and a city like San Antonio, which still has a significant historical flavor in its downtown. Most historic buildings are not great, they’re average. If you only preserve the landmarks, most of your historic stock gets wiped out and you lose that historic dimension in your city. San Antonio does not allow its historic buildings to be torn down, and thus maintains a vibrant historical (and walkable) downtown core, while leaving plenty of room for new buildings. Houston started out with roughly as many early 20th century buildings as San Antonio had, it just didn’t preserve them.” [Mike, commenting on Houston Club Building Will Be Demolished, Say Auctioneers]
UP IN THE PINES TO STOP THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE 
Three hours north of Houston in Cherokee County, reports Brantley Hargrove, protesters interfering with a 485-mile section of TransCanada pipeline being built to carry diluted bitumen south to refineries on the Gulf Coast faced some resistance of their own: “[An] 18-wheeler bearing a cherry picker to pluck protesters out of trees slowed as it approached a shouting, sign-wielding crowd. Several young men leaped in its path. One fell beneath the truck. The others screamed and pounded the hood with their fists. A deputy rounded the front of the truck and drove the protesters back, loosing clouds of pepper spray. [A 75-year-old woman], standing off to the side of the road, caught a gust of the burning mist.” Separately, TransCanada’s website notes its plans for the Houston Lateral Project (shown in red on the map), a 47-mile spur that will come close to Beltway 8. [Houston Press; Gulf Coast Project] Map: TransCanada
