Having finished with the Memorial Villages, Robert Boyd’s latest bikeride documentary takes us through the neighborhoods lining Gessner, south of I-10:
The houses here were built mostly between 1959 and 1965. The lots tend to be small compared to those in the Villages (just east of these subdivisions). In fact, if you go immediately south or west, the lots and the houses tend to be larger. This is where Memorial starts to become the more familiar kind of Houston suburb–similar houses on same-sized lots, with developers reusing floor-plans and exterior designs.
As usual, Boyd is on the lookout for anything unusual:
I had a Steve Reich album on my IPod as I rode (Sextet, Piano Phase, and Eight Lines played by the London Steve Reich Ensemble–I recommend it highly), and it occurred to me that a neighborhood like this is like a Steve Reich piece, where there is a comfortable, rhythmic sameness with tiny changes as you go along. The tiny changes wouldn’t have even caught my eye while riding through the much more heterogeneous Memorial Villages, but here they stand out.
After the jump: A few more pix of Boyd’s West Memorial picks!
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Yes, that is marble on the front of this house at Barryknoll and Frostwood:
On Overcup, a new house that runneth over:
A 1992 PoMo on Perthshire:
And a trompe l’oeil construction tarp at the Memorial City Mall, at Gessner and I-10:
- Houston Streets 14–Frostwood & Memorial Forest [Boyd’s Blog]
- Previously in Swamplot: A Brief Tour of Slightly Odd Spaces in Spring Valley, Spring Valley on Two Wheels, Memorial North: Hilshire Village and Spring Valley Bike Tour, Farnham Park Neighborhood Watch: Beware of Bicyclists Bearing Cameras, Sculptures and Vultures: East Hunters Creek Village Bike Tour
