12 Comment

• Darby Mom October 10, 2012 at 10:15 am

  Bereft of care and dignity in their old age, they take up too much space/land, they shelter vermin/cancer, and their bones have weakened. Rest in pieces, nothing reclaimed, forgotten.
• Rodrigo October 10, 2012 at 10:56 am

  How much would it have cost to repair the busting-out support on 1031 Tulane? I would be apprehensive about parking my car there, but then I don’t drive a box.
• commonsense October 10, 2012 at 11:02 am

  A pathetic sight that’s not so rare
  Heaps of garbage everywhere
  Lead, asbestos, junk hardware
  Neighbors are a true nightmare
• Ian October 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm

  Coming soon to Tulane: 6 two-story 25×60 houses for $500k each.
• miss_msry October 10, 2012 at 3:23 pm

  That’s a lot of ground; are they building a gated community, or some sort of hi-rise?
• Practically_Yours October 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm

  It seems a silliness to mourn
  The past’s detritus, junk like this –
  To think of years a house has seen,
  Compared to what its present is.
  –
  Yet somehow I long to restore
  The leaning pillars, rotting wood,
  To shore beneath a sagging floor,
  To think that all that can be, could.
  –
  It’s not to be, this will be razed,
  Built up again in fashion new,
  O Soul, someday your turn will come,
  To be rebuilt – plumb, level, true.
• Chris Litherland October 11, 2012 at 12:21 am

  Commonsense, why do you hate the history of this city so much?
• commonsense October 11, 2012 at 9:39 am

  I do not hate Houston history, I hate people who pretend every old house HAS history. These homes were the tract homes of their time, so nothing special, they are currently functionally obsolete, and they are a hazard to the environment and health of the people who live in them (asbestos, lead, etc.) Keep one or two for posterity and mow the rest of them down to make way for natural city evolution, new construction jobs, increase in property values.
• HTX REZ October 11, 2012 at 9:52 am

  Coming soon to Tulane – 6 residents making a significant investment in a unique neighborhood mix.

  Leaving Tulane – 3 houses purchased for next to nothing, with even less invested in them in the recent past.

  I would have loved to see these 3 traditional heights style houses scoopped up, heavily renovated, and returned to former (and sometimes never before seen) glory — it would be preferable. BUT these houses went to market, stayed there for months, and WERE below dirt value…no takers.
• Purdueenginerd October 11, 2012 at 10:14 am

  I agree with commonsense on this one(rare!)

  As for repairing a column like that, a couple of thousand. But I do structural repairs in industrial facilities; not residential
• Chris Litherland October 11, 2012 at 11:47 am

  I would take tract housing from the 1920’s any day of the week over new 3 story garaged Montrose condos.
• movocelot October 11, 2012 at 9:04 pm

  Why do we champion this house?

  Because it’s ridge is still straight
  despite a lost column,
  And rafter-tails punctuate
  a steady decorum.

  Six columns of brick
  still happily work
  To take up the slack
  of the one that’s berserk.

  We’re charmed by its dated
  asbestos roof tiles,
  and the green-painted facia
  underlining its style.

  Shuttered dormers on axis,
  proudly facing the road,
  Though forlorn, they remind us:
  Everything grows old.

  And so we are torn
  about what to do.
  This picture is past;
  what’s next is “Just Do (it)”