These five structures made a choice to work, a choice to sacrifice, to put themselves on the line for years, to represent you, this city. That kind of commitment and effort deserves and demands your respect. This is your team.
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Commercial Structures
- Apartments, 1409 Indiana St. 77006
Residences
- 1510 Driscoll St. 77019 (photos)
- 1509 Morse St. 77019
- 6224 Burgoyne Rd. 77057 (Briargrove; garage; photos)
- 1748 Oak Tree Dr. 77080
Photo of 1509 Morse St.: HAR
1509 Morse’s facade looks, to me, like Ye Old Village Shoemakers Shoppe! (you know the tale where the fairies work their magic overnight, making shoes and saving the day?)
I applaud the HO’s add-on, maintaining the home’s facade in deference to the neighborhood’s history.
And I hope the big live oak will be saved if not this home’s brick countenance.
I say knock ’em all down. We live in 2010, not 1930. If a building has become functionally obsolete, it should be replaced.
I shed fewer tears over what’s knocked DOWN in this city than what goes back UP: French châteaux, Italian palazzi, Spanish villas, and two-dimension Victorian and Arts & Crafts facades grafted onto suburban track house boxes.
Where’s the architecture of OUR time? We don’t need more zoning or historic designations or deed restrictions–we need an architectural review–independent of the city government. When I built infill houses in downtown Atlanta in the 1990s they called them NPUs (Neighborhood Planning Units). And you could not even apply for a building permit without your project having passed through the NPU first.
One person’s obsolete is another person’s dream house. And thank goodness for that. This world would have no history if everyone felt like you do.
Ever been to Europe? Russia? China?
Hey, PYEWACKET2, actually, yeah, I HAVE been to Europe. In fact, I’ve lived there. Munich. And I’ve been to pretty much every other country on the continent as well. In some cases multiple times. I studied Art History and Architecture in college. And I restore vintage buildings for a living.
Every property that gets knocked down by a developer COULD have been bought by a homeowner and restored instead. But if it wasn’t–if nobody was willing step up and put their money where their mouth was–then it must not have been worth the effort. So why boo hoo about it? Just because it’s old doesn’t make it valuable or more worthwhile than something new, right? Is a ’76 Ford Pinto worth saving? It’s old.
Old houses are going to be demolished. Period. The more important question is what we replace them with. And that’s a question that get largely ignored or drowned out in the general wailing and gnashing of teeth about “saving the Bungalows”. Most builders and developers couldn’t give a rats ass about what they build–as long as it makes them maximum profit. And that’s the free market and that’s fine. That’s what architectural review boards and neighborhood planning units are for–and Houston doesn’t have either. So, what we’re doing is knocking down houses that were only marginally interesting but fairly well built and replacing them with generic, completely uninteresting boxes–that are poorly built. And in 30 or 40 or 50 yrs, all of those will be knocked down and replaced with something else.
No biggie.