Here’s a view of the Wedge International parking garage at 777 Clay St. from across Polk St. taken yesterday. It’s not particularly notable — until you realize what’s no longer visible. For years, while a surface parking lot stood on the lot in the foreground, this was the scene of Houston’s most spectacular grid of auto headlights and taillights — changing daily, and screened from their cliff-like views at each level only by low, light-looking barriers of steel cables. (A closeup side view of the scene from last week, with a few levels already partially masked by new chain-link fencing, is shown at right.)
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Construction began last month on a 16-story parking garage at 1311 Louisiana St., so yes, the extraordinary-but-ordinary view was already doomed. But 777 Clay garage parkers won’t get such a clear view of its towering new neighbor as it goes up — and passersby won’t be able to see any of the cars anymore — because all levels of the existing garage except for the top have now been screened with mesh-wrapped chain-link fencing.
- Previously on Swamplot: Downtown’s New Highrise for Cars Is Going Up!, A Downtown Parking Highrise?
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Ooooh, cryyyy. Boo-hoo.
That Wedge International garage is the one where some guy commited suicide just a couple/few years ago by trying to drive his car through the steel cables. When that didn’t work, he hung over the edge overlooking this adjacent surface lot and waited until the blood drained from his slit wrists enough that he fainted and fell to his death.
That is true, actually. In fact, about half way through the course of his descent, one of his arms got caught in the wiring of a lower floor and thus torn off.