THE SECRET HOMELESS CAVES UNDER DOWNTOWN 
Officers on HPD’s Homeless Outreach Team show teevee reporter Robert Arnold a secret den favored by a portion of Downtown’s homeless population — tucked under the Louisiana St. bridge over Buffalo Bayou. Dubbed “the caves,” the not-tall-enough-to-stand-in space snakes along the bridge, further back than Arnold’s flashlight can shine. Layers of occupied and unoccupied sleeping bags, clothing, and trash cover the surface, and Arnold describes the scent as “thick and unrelenting.” Arnold’s report doesn’t specify how many people are living in the warren-like hideaway, but from the pictures he shows, it’s easy to imagine dozens. “We’ve had whole families in here,” explains police sergeant Stephen Wick. [Click2Houston]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: SANDWICHES TOOK THEIR IDENTITY A point of History: Quiznos “Q†logo established in 2004. NewQuest Properties was founded in 2001, and has only had its current logo. [Houstonian, commenting on What To Expect at the Sign of the Q]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RICE MILITARY MARCH “I walk around in Rice Military and between the old homes, new townhouses, ditches, curbs, overgrown lots, old pea-gravel concrete, newer brick-u-luxe pavers, electrical and cable boxes, new mailbox clusters, construction vehicles, and general chaos, there is hardly any contiguous sidewalk in any block in any direction.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Where the Sidewalk Takes a Little Break]
THE LANIERS DOWNSIZE 
Heriz, Aubusson, and Kerman rugs; antique music boxes; Dresden porcelains; sterling silver tea sets; antique Limoges dinnerware; Roger Clemens-autographed baseballs; Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Alexandra Knight handbags; Manolo Blahnik alligator pumps, and a few lightly worn outfits from Yves St. Laurent, Bill Blass, and Prada are among the items you may expect to find at the upcoming garage sale being thrown by Port Commissioner Elyse Lanier and her husband, former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier. The occasion: the recent sale — after almost 3 years on the market — of their 13,386-sq.-ft., 11-bathroom River Oaks estate (pictured) at 3665 Willowick for more than $6 million, a bit more than half their original asking price, and another notch below the just-under $7 million they resigned themselves to when they dropped the asking price for the last time late last year. Why the sell-off? “I just don’t have room to fit it all,” Elyse Lanier tells society reporter Shelby Hodge. The Laniers will take only a subset of their stuff into the 2 apartments they’re combining on an upper floor at the Inwood Manor highrise on San Felipe. They’re jettisoning too much to fit into the Laniers’ old 3-car garage; the sale will take place at the Houston Design Center instead. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
MEDITERRANEAN TWINS IN BAYOU PLACE 
Two replacement restaurants operated by a single owner are now set for the Bayou Place spot Downtown left vacant by Mingalone Italian Bar & Grill when it closed a year ago. Little Napoli Italian Cuisine is moving from its place up the street to share a kitchen with Kabobs Grill Mediterranean Cuisine in the space at 540 Texas Ave. [b4-u-eat; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Mingalone
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN THE BULLDOZERS HEAD FOR SHARPSTOWN “. . . The Heights used to be pretty shady too. Times change. Neighborhoods change. Sharpstown’s day in the sun is coming, but it’s still a ways off. It’s not hard to look at the wave of redevelopment that has poured out from the center of Houston and realize Sharpstown is the path of growth. Back in the 80′s West U houses were being bulldozed by the dozen. Soon lots of folks were priced out of West U and the bulldozers turned to Bellaire. Now they are turning south all the way to the South Loop. Meyerland is in play too. Right now the primary western barrier is the edge of the Bellaire HS zoning map. As Meyerland continues to improve though, the childless pioneers who don’t care about school zones will be the first to start the gentrification process in Sharpstown. Eventually . . . critical mass. If the neighborhood associations were smart, they’d start their own tax district and ear mark all the proceeds for demolition of the junkiest properties. Demo some junk. Demo some more junk. Hold the land as it appreciates. Sell it to a developer who has a plan to build that you like (not just the highest bidder). Pour the land sale money into more demolition. Rinse. Repeat.” [Bernard, commenting on Headlines: Selling the Astrodome in Pieces; Felix Mexican Restaurant Sign Mystery]
BLAST BEGINS TOTAL HOUSTON TAKEOVER OF BALLY TOTAL FITNESS 
Today’s the day all 18 remaining Texas locations of Bally Total Fitness — including 9 in Houston — are scheduled to switch over to control by their new owner, Blast! Fitness. Before it bought 39 clubs in 9 states from the struggling chain in a deal announced earlier this month, Blast was an operator of only 15 gyms in 4 northern states. Last year, Bally sold 171 clubs nationwide to LA Fitness, but held onto all of its Houston locations. Blast says it’ll honor all Bally memberships; transferred Bally members will also still be able to work out in the 60 remaining Bally clubs in other states. [Club Industry] Photo of Bally Total Fitness at 9801 Katy Fwy.: MetroNational
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DELINEATING THE HOUSTON-KATY BORDER DMZ “I always thought George Bush Park was an appropriate boundary between what should be called ‘Houston’ and what should be called ‘Katy.’ However, this requires suffering a weird ‘interzone’ considering the feeder roads and Park Ten. Still, Park Ten has a feel of neutrality to it. Might still work.” [Katied, commenting on A Peek Inside Houston’s New J. Crew No. 2]
A PEEK INSIDE HOUSTON’S NEW J. CREW NO. 2 
That topless mannequin will likely have a coverup before tomorrow’s grand opening of the J. Crew inside CityCentre. A Swamplot reader snapped this peekaboo photo of the store’s innards yesterday, through a gap in the window paper. The only other J. Crew store in Houston is in the Galleria (there’s also one in the Katy Mills Mall). Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BEWARE ALSO THE KEG PARTY AT THE HARRINGTONS’ HOUSE ON SATURDAY “Loved the article, or should I say press release, in the Kingwood Observer about the river beach party hangout for teens. It should really help build awareness of, and traffic to, the spot. Great marketing effort!” [PaulP, commenting on Headlines: Fire Station Rehab; Hermann Park Apartment Building’s Loose Python]
AMAZON.COM PURCHASES WILL NO LONGER BE TAX-FREE FOR TEXAS 
Amazon.com and the State of Texas were able to work out a deal to cover that little $269 million bill for uncollected sales taxes the comptroller’s office sent the online retailer last September. And the result may benefit brick-and-mortar stucco-and-Styrofoam retailers throughout the state. Beginning July 1, Amazon will begin charging sales tax on all online purchases shipped to Texas. The company has also promised to invest at least $200 million in Texas, create at least 2,500 new jobs here over the next 4 years, and cough up an undisclosed payment. Early last year, Amazon had threatened to shut down its distribution center outside of Dallas. [Star-Telegram] Photo of Irving distribution center: Kati Drisc/Texas Tribune
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED “This is awesome! This is what makes Houston entertaining. With no zoning rules in place, our residential landscape is essentially open to a free for all when it comes to building. Residents have little or no protection against what can go up right next to them. SO what do you do to protect your current neighborhood, you get creative and fight back. Just as the developer has as much of a right to build there, the community also has the right to reject or stop it any legal way they can.” [MericaRulz, commenting on A List of Gentle Ashby Highrise Protest Methods]
A LIST OF GENTLE ASHBY HIGHRISE PROTEST METHODS 
A settlement of its lawsuit with the city earlier this year guarantees that developers of the 21-story residential highrise planned for the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet (at right) next to Southampton will be able to receive building permits. But Culturemap editor Clifford Pugh reports that neighbors still opposed to the project have approved and sent a letter to the developers of the highrise at 1717 Bissonnet that includes a laundry list of the proposed tactics they plan to take to stop the project from being built — or to make things difficult for the company, Buckhead Investment Partners, if it proceeds with the project. Among them: filing their own lawsuit against the developers; appearing at the businesses and homes of the project’s investors and lenders (“as soon as we can identify [them]â€), contractors, and other service providers to demonstrate opposition; monitoring and reporting construction violations; picketing the building’s leasing office whenever it is open; sending regular communications to tenants “to let them know that they are not welcome in our neighborhood”; challenging the permits of the building’s restaurant tenant; boycotting the restaurant and — if it’s a chain — all of its other locations; appearing at the homes of the restaurant’s owners, investors, and chef to demonstrate opposition; and (possibly worst of all:) posting “unfavorable reviews” of the restaurant online. [Culturemap; more from the West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia Update, 10 pm: The most recent draft of the “open letter” has been toned down a bit, reports the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. The new draft makes no mention of the homes of the project’s investors, lenders, contractors, and service providers, or its restaurant’s owners, investors, or chef; says the leasing office will be picketed only “regularly”; and (most notably) drops any suggestion that area residents might post negative restaurant reviews online.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT THOSE TRAVEL WRITERS ALWAYS SAY ABOUT HOUSTON “Another colorful replay of the ‘ugly, random, full of food’ description. Any reputation is better than none at all.” [Dana-X, commenting on A New York Post Reporter’s Lost Houston Weekend]
A NEW YORK POST REPORTER’S LOST HOUSTON WEEKEND 
“Exhausted and content, I retired to the patio at El Gran Malo, a cool but divey tequila bar on a superbly awful corner facing a shoot ’n’ stab gas station, a Mexican restaurant and other assorted random Houstonia; I went here because every chef I encountered during my visit told me that this was the spot. I absolutely had to go, they said.
So I went and I drank tequila, because that’s what I saw everyone else doing. A lot of it too, apparently — by the end of the night, I vaguely remember being on the other side of town stalking a food truck selling lobster that may or may not have actually existed. Which was fine — it would be days before I was in a position to eat a proper meal again.” [New York Post] Photo of El Gran Malo: Almost Veggie Houston
