COMMENT OF THE DAY: UPPER MIDTOWN “Talking of rimshotting onto the popularity of neighboring areas did anyone else notice that the Alexan Height[s] apartments became the Midtown Heights after changing hands despite the fact that they are at I-10 and Oxford. Exactly how big is Midtown these days?” [Jimbo, commenting on Watch for Cottage Cheese Dropping from Heights]
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Well,
There is Midtown proper (which is pretty much the Midtown Management District and/or Midtown TIRZ)
Then there is the concept of being close in town. It’s marketing. Outsiders moving into town that are looking at apartments through websites will see the name Midtown and it may influence their decision.
Then why not Uptown Heights? It would give the impression of being close to downtown whilst simultaneously conveying an image of exclusivity.
Jimbo,
You me UpHe? LOL
UpHe…you funny kjb!
I dont care what you call it EMME….too many renters!
Well, it is kind of in between the Heights and Woodland Heights… kinda. So, Midtown Heights is pretty accurate. -spew-
@kjb_ UpHe is hilarious.
Wait! Wait!
Brad,
It can be called: MiHe!
It would sound like a little girl making a coy laugh!
I think Bagby is obsessed with me. It’s been awhile since I had a stalker and I think she is my first online stalker.
I like UpHe better. It sounds like upheaval!
There is a building at i10 and shepard that also says midtown. always thought that to be odd.
kjb… MiHe!!! That is great. Or maybe MiHei (pron: Mai-Hai)?
Margo, I know that building. It’s some sort of office building. I’ve always wondered the same thing.
Bagby is still trapped inside by the floodwaters that filled her fancy newly curbed Cortlandt on Saturday whilst the rest of us stayed dry with our ditches EMME. Have some sympathy.
I’ve always noticed this place and it drives me nuts. I live in the real Midtown and find it insulting when other places tarnish the name of it. Just wait for neighborhoods around UH to start calling themselves the Heights.
CrapHe?
Midtown, Uptown, Left Town, Not-Quite-Heights, UpChuck WhangDoodle…all these wannabe names just confuse players of the Neighborhood Guessing Game! Makes one want to go to Beaver’s (in the real Sixth Ward) for a MiHei Mai Tai.
I went to Beaver’s last night for the SNAP sponsored YAPPY hour, but the City of Houston wouldn’t let us bring our dogs. Stupid old outdated regulation we need to get changed.
Maybe everybody should have put sunglasses on and carried a stick, then no one would have complain about the dogs.
Of course someone with a chihuahua seeing eye dog would be funny too!
HA! kjb, we considered that. The Health and Human Services officer sat in her car in the parking lot from 5:00 – 8:00 documenting each dog that came into the parking lot. Someone contacted Mayor White’s wife, she responded, and poof, the officer disappeared. Coincidence?
Jimbo- thanks for the tax dollars to curb my street. I appreciate it. You can keep your ditches. Hopefully you dont injure anything on the hike and bike or we will have to hear about how the train tracks never caused you to roll your ankle!!!
Bagby said, “Hopefully you dont injure anything on the hike and bike or we will have to hear about how the train tracks never caused you to roll your ankle!!!”
That’s a good one!
Seriously though, did your street flood the same, worse or not as bad this past weekend?
I was going to ask the same question EMME.
I’ve done plenty of work to the east of Studewood in the Woodland Heights area for street flooding improvements.
I know some studies happened west of Studewood, but the best information is from homeowners. Especially if they know about when it happen (general month accuracy is good enough). As an engineer, we can do a log of modeling on our end, but on the ground info from homeowners is the best information you can get. They help make the fancy modeling mean something by corroboration.
The homeowners gave us more info than we can handle, but it also resulted in a very well done project. They were great during the construction which is a trying time for homes and businesses when streets are torn up with deep trenches in them.
I would be curious about the same thing. It seemed much higher on Cortland, at least at the intersection with 9th, than anywhere else. Of course the project is not finished so maybe that is to blame. Having said that they clearly dropped the grade of Cortlandt by several inches whilst doing the work, is that something deliberate kjb, and if so is it intended to allow water to collect? At the end of the day you’re welcome for the curbs. I will be very happy to keep my ditches. It gives a whole bunch more grass out front that the kids like playing on.
…and this has nothing to do with anything, but it kind of reminds me of how many of my fellow Robindell – ers (Robindellians??) myself included claim to live “off North Braeswood, in the Meyerland area.” For some reason, none of us ever claim to live off Bissonett in the Sharpstown area, although we are equidistant between the two. Hmmm…..
If they dropped it in one spot and haven’t made a place for that water to go, it could be a problem.
The best thing to do is to contact the design engineer (not the construction contractor). You can ask the contractor who the engineering firm is. Complaining to the city council member and the Public Works and Engineering department down at the city usually will help also (more calls the better).
My guess is that the immediate flooding could be do to the construction sequencing and they aren’t finished.
I know in Woodland Heights we lowered some segments of the road to allow the water to move more freely to White Oak Bayou versus pooling up and causing problems to motorist, bicyclist, and pedestrians.
If the work is in an area of an active HOA or Civic Club, they are good resources to contact the city. Most of the time the city will shift the complaints to the design firm for the project which is fine.
I know for Woodland Heights we did public meetings before the project started to identify what’s happening and what to be ready for. The cooperation with the residents was nice for the contractor and we got several thanks from the residents.
Honestly, it was about the same as the last heavy rainstorm that trapped me in the parking lot of Spanish Flowers. No better, no worse…but I do like it better because so many park their cars on the street on our block.
@Brian — What, precisely, is “the real Midtown”? Do you refer to the one in NYC, or are you talking about a newish name for what used to be considered the eastern side of the Fourth Ward and the western side of the Third Ward?
@GoogleMaster – I’m referring to the Midtown in Houston. I see the point you are making… but don’t forget that Houston also has Hyde Park, Uptown, etc. However, calling something the same name within the SAME city in order to capitalize off of it irritates me. It’s not like people moving to Midtown in Houston believe they live in Manhattan.
@Brian — my point is that Houston’s “Midtown” is a relatively recent renaming of an area — actually parts of two areas — that already had a name. So saying you live in the “real Midtown” strikes me as funny. To me and other people who have been in Houston for awhile, you live in either the Fourth Ward or the Third Ward, depending on how far east you are.
.
This conversation reminds me of the people on HAIF who bought townhouses near Baldwin Park and complain about the bums. I want to tell them, Sweetie, the bums were there for YEARS before your crackerbox came along.
.
A large part of the commercial part of what is now called “Midtown” (I’m talking roughly Bagby over to San Jacinto) was, not too long ago, a vast wasteland of junkyards replete with the requisite Rottweilers and Dobies behind razor-wire-topped cyclone fences. This was before AmStaffs became so popular.
GoogleMaster,
The ward names is just a throwback to a different time when wards were used as political divisions. Midtown came about with the construction of US 59 and Spur 572. This created a defined area and activity pattern that disassociated it with the old names of 3rd Ward and 4th Ward.
It’s been Midtown for a long time now and has been codified through the creation of the Midtown Management District under the Midtown TIRZ.
@GoogleMaster – You can count me as one of those that bought a townhouse near Baldwin Park… and I love it! My neighbors are doctors, nurses, lawyers, architects, programmers, etc. Also, I wouldn’t quite call the homes around there “cracker boxes”.
I’m proud to be in an area that is being revitalized… and where 15 years ago was a wasteland of drugs, warehouses, and barbed wire (as opposed to a forest/field that was plowed over with concrete to create another suburban “oasis”).
As for the homeless… yes they were here a long time ago… but that doesn’t mean I can’t push for and complain about better housing and treatment for them (as well as a better neighborhood). Using your logic, should areas that become decrepit just be abandoned and forgotten about?
kjb wrote, “Midtown came about with the construction of US 59 and Spur 572.”
Not to be argumentative, but that isn’t accurate. I lived in the “Midtown” area starting in summer 1966 (remember La Maison and the Family Hand?… yipes!) and it wasn’t called Midtown.
It was broken down old flop houses, body shops, garages, and worse. There was even a fuel dragster team garaged on Helena between Dennis and McGowen.
Now, or course, the moniker has been properly applied. The use of nearby “Cool” area names to market a property is rampant, though. I live at Union and Taylor off the Old Sixth Ward, but people refer to the area as the Heights all the time.