08/28/14 1:15pm

White Stripes on Parking Spaces at Shoppes at Memorial Heights Shopping Center, 920 Studemont St., Memorial Heights, Houston

White Stripes on Parking Spaces at Shoppes at Memorial Heights Shopping Center, 920 Studemont St., Memorial Heights, HoustonWas it something you said? A couple readers have informed Swamplot that the stenciled nametags that appeared recently apportioning every single parking space in the lot in front of the Shoppes at Memorial Heights shopping center to one of the resident businesses at 920 Studewood St. have just as suddenly been covered over. Stripes of white paint have now been painted on top of the stenciled signs throughout the parking lot. Which means that next time you’re visiting Hair Desire, Absolve Wine Bar, Urban Cleaners, or (more likely, apparently) Beer Market Co., you will no longer have to check underneath or behind your car to make sure that you’ve parked in a space appropriate to your shopping-center visit.

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Here Come the White Stripes
05/07/14 1:15pm

Yard Signs in Near Northside, Houston

Yard Signs in Near Northside, HoustonA couple of weeks after a flyer was distributed to residents near a lower section of the Near Northside north of Hogan St. and west of Main suggesting they oppose an application for minimum-lot-size restrictions in the area, a bunch of properties there have begun sporting signs that announce their residents’ support for the initiative, a reader who goes by the name Triton informs Swamplot.

And Triton sends along this on-the-street report:

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Vote Yes or No
02/24/14 3:30pm

Prince's Hamburgers Sign, North Shepherd Dr. at 15th St., Houston Heights

Prince's Hamburgers Sign, North Shepherd Dr. at 15th St., Houston HeightsSomeday, your Prince’s (hamburgers sign) will go. If you hail from the kingdom of the Heights, today appears to be that day. Swamplot reader Rachelle Varnon sends in the above photo, taken just a short while ago, of the old N. Shepherd Prince’s Hamburgers sign as it sits, mounted on a royal coach for a northern journey. “I saw a bucket truck by the old sign [pictured at left] at 15th and North Shepherd today on my way to lunch,” she writes. “By the time we returned, the sign was down.

Where’s it headed?

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Neon Royalty
12/18/13 12:45pm

Installation of Red Line Signage, Preston Station, Main St. Line, Houston

For 10 years, you’ve known it as Houston’s only light-rail line, so what did it matter that we called the Main St. line? But in advance of 2 separate advance lines opening up next year, it’s got a color too: The Red Line. You can see workers installing signage with the “Red Line” designation in the photo above. When was that photo taken?

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Metro’s New Colors
10/18/13 3:30pm

Haven’t decided yet what you think should happen to the Astrodome? The preservation-minded folks at Our Astrodome hope that seeing this 26-ft. bedazzled semi just might do the trick. Starting Monday and running up to the elections on November 5, when voters will decide whether to approve — or not, and, as most suspect, doom the Dome to a more thorough demolition than what’s already happening — that $217 bond measure that would fund a renovation of the stadium into convention space, the tricked-out Dome Mobile will be rolling around town to spread the word about Proposition 2 and the world’s first domed stadium.

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09/16/13 11:00am

Retail on the Morningside side of Hanover’s Rice Village mixed-use complex seems to be filling up: A reader sends this photo of signage for Cyclone Anaya’s, the Mexican kitchen named for the Mexican wrestler. It appears that the local chain restaurant will go in a few doors down from the walk-thru pizza window of Coppa Osteria, now open on the corner of Morningside and Dunstan, and, as this photo shows, right next to Chris Leung’s not-quite-ready Cloud 10 Creamery.

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09/13/13 11:00am

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

08/05/13 5:00pm

A reader sends this photo, taken Saturday morning along the southbound Southwest Fwy. feeder, of what the Chase branch in Westwood has been hiding from you all these years — or the branch signage, at least: The original logo of the Texas Commerce Bank, which was established here at 9525 Bissonnet back in 1974 and which merged with Chase in the ’80s. The more up-to-date signage must have fallen off or been removed, notes the reader, who was a little moved to see that well-preserved and clean-cut Helvetica: “It brought back a lot of memories.”

Photo: Swamplot inbox

07/25/13 10:45am

Across town from the new “Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper” signs popping up in River Oaks and Vermont Commons to oppose the proposed 17-story Hines office building, another crop of anti-development placards is objecting in free verse to the Morrison Heights complex of apartments and condos that’s currently under construction near Houston Ave. and White Oak. Eschewing both the bold imperative of the San Felipe signage and the cartoon menace of the Ashby Highrise hatred, these seem to prefer the rhetorical oomph of puns and wordplay and rhyme. And what, exactly, is the development that has received this poetic ire?

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07/23/13 4:00pm

These understated “Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper” signs started going up about knee-high this weekend in River Oaks and Vermont Commons to protest that shiny 17-story office tower that Hines is proposing to build nearby. Though these signs — spotted at the corner of Spann and Welch and San Felipe and Spann, catty-corner from the proposed site — might be lacking the services of an imaginative cartoonist like their yellow precursors across town in Boulevard Oaks, their message still comes through, directing the onlooker as well to a recently launched website for all things skyscraper-stopping:

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06/17/13 3:00pm

Here come more billboard double entendres: The Baytown Sun reports that Buc-ee’s is building a big ’un on the I-10 feeder and John Martin Rd. later this year. And, apparently, the proposed 60,000-sq.-ft. convenience store, gas station, and jerky trafficker will get top billing: Part of the deal — a Chapter 380 Agreement — involves a waived height restriction for the store’s beaver beacon, so Buc-ee’s can raise one 100 ft. into the air. In return, Baytown will get a bit of room to put its own name up there too. (This will be the first time, the Sun reports, that Buc-ee’s will share its sign.) The store’s planned for about 18 acres on the southwest corner of John Martin Rd. and I-10 near the San Jacinto Mall. The Sun reports that it’s expected to open in 2014.

Photo of Lake Jackson Buc-ee’s: Judy Baxter [license]

05/16/13 11:00am

STREAMLINING DOWNTOWN PARKING SIGNS Downtown District rep Angie Bertinot tells abc13 that the organization counted more than 100 “different unique” parking signs mucking things up for drivers hoping to avoid getting towed or ticketed — and in response city council decided yesterday to get rid of as many as 6,000 of them and replace them with a single, easier-to-read, simpler-to-understand version that Mayor Parker says might eventually be the standard all over Houston. (The redundant triptych shown here on Travis St. near Leeland would be one the city would likely address.) The switcheroo is reported to cost about $1.3 million during the next year. KUHF also reports that the old signs will be used for an art project. [abc13; KUHF] Photo of signs on Travis St.: Allyn West

04/29/13 3:00pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: STAKES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD “I always have fun explaining to out of town guests what those signs are. For my benefit, I hope they stay up for a while longer, at least until the building is finished and their predictions come to pass. As an aside, I do feel bad for the lawn people who have to mow around them each week . . . they are unsung heroes in this drama.” [JD, commenting on The Last Stand of the Ashby Highrise Impediment Apartments]

04/29/13 11:00am

Hey! What happened to that neon sign at Huston’s Drugs? Artist Chris Bramel, who’s working to renovate the former pharmacy on Washington in the Old Sixth Ward into a space where he can live and work, explains: “The sign was claimed by the original owner and he’s going to hang it at his house or ranch.” To deal with the emptiness, Bramel is having a replacement sign built for him, he says, “and I will have that thing lighting up the street every night.”

Photos: Allyn West