03/05/19 12:00pm

Thanks again to our sponsor today: The Classic — located at 5922 Washington Ave, at the edge of Rice Military. Swamplot appreciates the support!

An unabashedly American restaurant, The Classic has something for everyone. This fresh American bistro is perched just east of Memorial Park. And it’s brought to you by Benjy Levit — the restaurateur behind Local Foods and Benjy’s.

The Classic is a no-rush, no-fuss neighborhood spot that pivots neatly from brunch to date-night cachet. Enjoy The Classic’s wide-ranging all-day menu — featuring subtle flavors and techniques that have traveled here across oceans and generations. In the light-filled interior you’ll find a touch of retro.

Check out The Classic’s menu and hours, reviews, pics of its interior and dishes, or make reservations on the restaurant website.

Sponsors make Swamplot possible. To learn how to become one, lookie here.

Sponsor of the Day
03/05/19 11:30am

THE HOUSTON HURRICANE POLLUTION-SNIFFING NASA FLIGHT THAT NEVER TOOK OFF A week and a half after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, as damage to smokestacks, pipelines, and chemical storage tanks were still being assessed, flooded Superfund sites went unmonitored, and clouds of benzene and other chemicals assembled in the skies over the city, the crew of a California-based airborne NASA chemical lab offered to help figure out the state of affairs — by diverting its specially equipped DC-8 from a planned trip to Oklahoma to take measurements in Houston instead. But EPA and TCEQ officials vehemently passed on the offer. An email response from TCEQ air toxicologist Michael Honeycutt noted that “state data showed no sign for concern,” report the L.A. Times‘s Susanne Rust and Louis Sahagun. “We don’t think your data would be useful for source identification while industry continues to restart their operations,” wrote Honeycutt, who the following month was appointed to head the EPA’s Science Advisory Board by President Trump. David Gray, the EPA official in charge of the Harvey emergency response, agreed. Citing emails from Texas officials “stating unambiguously that they do not want NASA to use the DC-8 for any data acquisition,” Michael Freilich, the director of NASA’s Earth Sciences division, called off the mission. [L.A. Times] Photo of Atmospheric Tomography Mission DC-8 interior, September 2017: NASA

03/05/19 8:30am

Photo of Battleship Texas: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
03/04/19 4:00pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: A BIG BLOW TO BAYOU BIKING “. . . Have been riding Ant Hills since 1994. People who do not frequent this stretch of bayou may not know its beauty or usefulness but will be an irreplaceable loss of being able to enjoy the outdoors in Houston if allowed to go forward.” [Turning_Basin, commenting on New Overflow Pools Coming To Clear Out Trees, Anthills from the South Side of Buffalo Bayou] Photo of Terry Hershey Park: Save Buffalo Bayou

03/04/19 3:00pm

This street- and car-front spot now occupying the ground floor of the Chase Bank building parking garage at 2900 Weslayan, just down the road from Central Market, smelled like pancakes this morning, an actual human reader (and photographer) tells Swamplot.

And so it is likely to continue throughout the day and week: Baggy’s Grill, which opened for business here over the weekend, serves breakfast all day. You’ll also find burgers, sandwiches, and some Greek dishes on the menu. The new restaurant takes over from the shuttered Weslayan Café.

Photos: Youngcatherine

Breakfast in the Air
03/04/19 1:00pm

TRUE ANOMALY IN LOCAL ROBO-JOURNALISM New sour-beer hotspot True Anomaly Brewing Company, which opened last month in the former electrical warehouse at 2012 Dallas St. just west of the main East Village campus in East Downtown (and possibly in the path of the planned expansion of I-45) “seems to be a welcome addition to the neighborhood,” declares a writeup appearing on the Houston Chronicle website. But this is not your average new-place-opening report — well, at least not yet. A note at the bottom indicates the report was “created automatically using local business data” (presumably from the Eater Houston story and 3 Yelp reviews noted in the text), “then reviewed and augmented by an editor.” The source: Local-story bot purveyor Hoodline, “a collaboration between experienced local reporters and innovative data scientists and engineers, combining the latest computational methods and tools with journalistic insights, news judgment, and thoughtful design to develop a new form of news reporting.” Hoodline has been quietly feeding stories and listicles to both ABC News and Hearst Media since last year — but you can skip the middlemen and soak up the company’s regular stream of assembled and ready-for-publication Houston auto-stories directly from this link. [Houston Chronicle; Eater Houston; Hoodline] Photo of True Anomaly Brewing Company: Charles W.

03/04/19 12:00pm

Our thanks go to today’s Sponsor of the Day: The Classic — located at 5922 Washington Ave, at the edge of Rice Military. Swamplot appreciates the support!

An unabashedly American restaurant, The Classic has something for everyone. This fresh American bistro is perched just east of Memorial Park. And it’s brought to you by Benjy Levit — the restaurateur behind Local Foods and Benjy’s.

The Classic is a no-rush, no-fuss neighborhood spot that pivots neatly from brunch to date-night cachet. Enjoy The Classic’s wide-ranging all-day menu — featuring subtle flavors and techniques that have traveled here across oceans and generations. In the light-filled interior you’ll find a touch of retro.

Check out The Classic’s menu and hours, reviews, pics of its interior and dishes, or make reservations on the restaurant website.

Help Swamplot readers discover Houston’s best! Become a Sponsor of the Day.

Sponsor of the Day
03/04/19 8:30am

Photo of former Mt. Carmel Baptist site in Fourth Ward: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
03/01/19 5:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE WATER WILL ALWAYS COME AND MOVE STUFF AROUND “I hope these detention pools make a difference but I doubt they will: Less likely since the rooted greenery is being removed. Flood events will always tear up a riverbed and its plants. The best thing to do is to let the vegetation grow up until the next flood event — that’s the cheapest most efficient tactic. If a future flood event takes people’s back yards away then that’s just tough for those homeowners. In spots, Buffalo Bayou is a lovely, primeval place to take a canoe trip. In spots it’s a trash heap. It’s always interesting though!” [movocelot, commenting on New Overflow Pools Coming To Clear Out Trees, Anthills from the South Side of Buffalo Bayou] Illustration: Lulu

03/01/19 4:00pm

WHEN THE CAR’S JUST TOO NICE FOR THE GARAGE “It takes a little bit of maneuvering,” explains Nick, the proud owner of a blue-and-orange McLaren Senna and the reworked 1954 William Floyd bayou-side home just north of Woodway Dr. whose living room he parks it in. “I usually leave 2 cars in here. I usually have to come in,” he explains to globetrotting carhound Alex Hirschi, “drive one into the kitchen and then bring in the other one. If you would have came here last night you would have found there was a purple Porsche sitting right here and the McLaren was pulled in there — because it was raining.Video: Supercar Blondie via KHOU 11

03/01/19 2:00pm

Time’s almost up for a whole mess of trees lining the south side of Buffalo Bayou between Eldridge Pkwy. and Dairy Ashford (pictured at top), where the Harris County Flood Control District plans to construct the first 3 of a series of overflow basins. Removal of vegetation across the bayou from Nottingham Forest’s southern border is scheduled to begin within a few weeks; construction company Lecon has the $1.8 million contract to build the “linear stormwater detention compartments,” which are meant to accommodate a temporary visit of up to 90 acre-ft. of bayou water during a flood.

The trees and basins will be carved out of Terry Hershey Park. The district notes that some trees and vegetation may be preserved — forming a buffer “where possible” between the basins and private property to the south. Large sections of the popular Anthills Mountain Bike Trail, which the district notes “were built on publicly-owned land without written permission and without compensation to the public” will be cleared, though a portion that sits between the 2 westernmost basins will remain.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Under Detention