GIANT NEON COCKROACH THAT HAUNTED SOUTHWEST FREEWAY, ERADICATED AT LAST 
Bubba, the cockroach enshrined in an enormous neon sign for Holder’s Pest Control, which stood guard for years along Westpark next to the Southwest Freeway, will not return to the Houston skyline, the company reports. The 8-ft.-by-16-ft. sign was taken down in 2004, after Holder’s relocated. But after almost 8 years of residence in a company warehouse, the sign was “cut up and hauled off for recycling” earlier this year, reports Travis Alford. That menacing, old-fashioned cockroach is no longer a part of the brand identity of the company now known as Holder’s Pest Solutions, and it won’t be coming back. Holder’s just-unveiled new logo instead features a gentle curve at its top that references instead a much more modern feature of Houston: the Astrodome. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Holder’s Pest Control
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Signs
In time for campaign season, Mayor Parker announced yesterday that the city would begin cracking down on bandit signs placed on public property by fining violators under an existing city ordinance that — as far as she knows — has never been enforced. Political candidates will be given 24 hours’ notice for each violation before being charged $200 a pop, she said. Collected funds will be used to defray the cost of removing the signs — which reached $450,000 in 2009.
A reader sends in photos of several signs posted near the corner of Spring and Goliad streets, in the shadow of the 45 overpasses not too far north of Downtown. And there they are, like halved pears, stripped skinless, golden in heavy syrup. Our tipster wants to know who the artist is. (And really, don’t you?) Also, if this qualifies as . . . graffoetry? Grafauxetry?
More First Ward sign findings below:
It’s just about summertime, and all you fans of fresh West University produce know what that means: Yes, it’s well past time to set up those security cameras to monitor your vulnerable front-yard fruits. “The camera and fruit-thief deterrent signs have returned,” notes the reader who sent in these photos of this ripe “either peach or nectarine” tree on Tangley, west of Buffalo Speedway. But the security effort actually appears to be a bit more subdued than last year. The bilingual warning signage featured on the tree and a few of its neighbors last season has been replaced with a smaller and simpler handwritten “Camera” warning.
Swamplot’s West U fruit scout says there’s another sign on the other side of the tree “that says something like ‘Don’t even think about it.’” No photo of that? Explains the source: “I was in a hurry and, of course, wanting to stay out of the camera’s wily view.”
- Previously on Swamplot: West U Fruit Tree Warning Update: Bilingual Protection, The High-Security Fruits of West University
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Ever wonder what’s behind all the political endorsements made by so many vacant lots in Houston? Why is it that the weedy site shown above at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Center St., near the future West End Walmart, for example, appears to be supporting Jenifer Rene Pool in her bid for an at-large city council seat? Among the empty lots of Washington Ave, there seems to be a lot of support for another candidate for the same position, Eric Dick. What’s up with that? Political consultant Greg Wythe, who’s long studied the demographics and political opinions of Harris County’s human population, has begun a new website devoted to exploring the campaign preferences of Houston’s vacant properties — as expressed by the various signs and banners they’re regularly festooned with.
“I guess I am behind the times on marketing strategies,” admits real estate agent Robert Searcy after snapping these pics of the latest offer posted on Bellfort St. near Broadway, just a mile north of Hobby Airport.
Photos: Robert Searcy
Upset at New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s oh-so-cruel insinuation that Houston isn’t much of a tourist town, local talk-show host Michael Berry has responded with an ad on this billboard, carefully situated at the scenic crotch between the Southwest Freeway feeder road and the Westpark Tollway near Chimney Rock, surrounded by a number of fine automotive repair establishments. It’s been 13 days since your outrageous insult, Senator. Apologize now or it’s just going to get worse. Sure hope it doesn’t have to come to that, but don’t think we won’t resort to putting a bunch of those inflatable gorillas on top of the Downtown Aquarium to get our point across — if we have to. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
The New York sculptor behind those new splashy welcome signs on JFK Blvd. outside IAH passed away over the weekend after a short bout with liver cancer. Dennis Oppenheim explained the inspiration behind the Radiant Fountains sculpture and light show to the Chronicle‘s Douglas Britt last August: It was a sign he had seen as a child from the Bayshore Freeway in Oakland, California, which featured an animated version of the famous Sherwin-Williams “Cover the Earth” logo.
It was the world globe and then a bucket of paint dripping on top of it, and this captivated me. I told them [the Houston Arts Alliance] quite frankly that I would be extremely satisfied if I accomplished something like that, because it really did capture the ongoing traffic. I also said that it would be nice if these works were so … whatever … that people would turn around and come back to see them again.
- Dennis Oppenheim, creator of Bush airport sculpture, dies [29-95]
- Artist Oppenheim to create splash with light fountains [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston, IAH’s New Welcome to Houston Sign: We Hope Your Splashdown Was Pleasant
Video: Andrew Vrana
Sculptor David Adickes is almost ready to plant this giant concrete-on-steel sign on property he owns along Chester St. on the south side of I-10, just east of Patterson. You’ll be able to get your best view of it when traffic comes to a standstill on your way downtown. Just needs a few more finishing touches, like a figurine or 2 or 8 to accompany that little guitar player hanging out between the O and the U. And hey, you’re right! If the Hollywood sign were 15 feet shorter, came down from the hillside, grew an ego, and stood by the freeway, it would kinda look like this.
- Sculptor David Adickes Loves Houston [Houston Modern Luxury, via HAIF]
- Sculptor Brings a Little Hollywood to Houston [MyFox Houston]
- David Adickes coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Imelda Bettinger [license]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WOULD MAKE A MORE PROPER HOUSTON WELCOME “All that said, I still regret that we didn’t put up two enormous inflatable gorillas, standing on either side of JFK Blvd., like the statues of [Isildur] and Anárion flanked the river Anduin in The Lord of the Rings.” [RWBoyd, commenting on Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF HOUSTON “This is the kind of thing that every kid who lives here will remember 40 years from now. ‘Remember that weird light show thing they had at the airport?’†[Cap’n McBarnacle, commenting on Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston]
Backsplash from a stream of strange particles falling from the sky, or is that just some mucky stuff bubbling up from underfoot? Either way, what better way to say, “Welcome to Houston”? The night lights are now on at “Radiant Fountains,” the new collection of pipe-assembly sculptures by New York artist Dennis Oppenheim, commissioned by the Houston Arts Alliance, working with Houston Airport Systems — whose offices are nearby — under the city’s 11-year-old “percent for art” policy. Recently completed on JFK Blvd. near Rankin Rd., they’re meant to greet newly arrived passengers from IAH. Andrew Vrana from Metalab — the local architecture firm that coordinated the installation — captures an early glimpse of the splashy action on video:
“Closer inspection,” reports one of 2 readers who sent us photos of these heartwarming signs found on Studewood just north of Fitzgerald’s, “reveals these to be re-purposed campaign signs…Bill White ‘welcomes’ and Jessica Farrar ‘hearts’ Walmart, apparently.” Okay, so what have people been doing with the Rick Perry and Fernando Herrera signs?
- West End Walmart coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
BANDIT BILLBOARDS BANISHED By order of a U.S. district judge, 59 Houston-area billboards will be taken down over the next 12 months by the receiver in charge of the now-bankrupt company that erected them in violation of city ordinances. Approximately half of the billboards are between I-45 and 290 outside Beltway 8; none of them are on Highway 59. All were constructed recently outside Houston city limits but inside its “extraterritorial jurisdiction.” [Mayor’s Office; map (PDF); more detail from the Chronicle]