04/04/17 12:00pm

2211 Norfolk St., Upper Kirby, HoustonMosaic Dermatology Logo

Today’s Swamplot sponsor: Mosaic Clinic Dermatology. Thanks for supporting this site!

Who says it’s difficult to get an appointment with a dermatologist? Mosaic Clinic Dermatology has 2 locations with easy freeway access: in Upper Kirby at 2211 Norfolk St. Suite 405 (pictured above) and in the Tanglewood area (convenient to the Galleria) at 5757 Woodway Dr. Suite 185a. (Plus there’s a third office with easy access from Midtown and Montrose, at 902 Fairview St. Suite 1.) At Mosaic Clinic Dermatology, same-day, next-day, and Saturday appointments are available.

Mosaic Clinic Dermatology is an award-winning, highly rated general dermatology practice that also offers several specialized treatments for skin conditions — such as acne and eczema — as well as a range of cosmetic procedures and products. It’s also convenient for skin cancer screenings. Mosaic Clinic dermatologists will even see you for acne emergencies before big events; poison ivy; and other urgent skin rashes that itch, bleed, or spread. Both male and female doctors are available for appointments.

To find out more, check out the Mosaic Clinic Dermatology website, where you can also learn about a number of the treatments available at the clinic. You can make an appointment at any of the 3 locations from this page — or call (281) 941-5556 for immediate assistance.

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Sponsor of the Day
04/04/17 10:00am

Down House, 1801 Yale St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Down House Ventures, the legal entity behind Treadsack’s oldest Heights-area technically-a-private-club, has filed for bankruptcy this morning, lagging just a few days behind last week’s Bernadine’s and Hunky Dory filings. The company preemptively included Down House in a Facebooked list of Treadsack restaurants that would stay open for now despite the legal and financial question marks now hanging over the company, given the sudden mid-winter departures of side-by-side restaurant and bar duo Foreign Correspondents and Canard and the details of payroll and tax issues subsequently dredged up; D&T Drive Inn and Johnny’s Gold Brick were placed on the still-truckin’ roster as well. This morning’s filings also look to have included a motion asking for funds to pay current Down House employees, as Craig Malisow reports was granted in the case of last week’s Chapter 11 initiates.

Photo: Down House

Going Down in the Heights
04/04/17 8:30am

uptown

Photo of Uptown: Jan Buchholtz via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
04/03/17 4:30pm

Zone D'Erotica, 2626 West Loop South, Galleria Area, Houston, 77027

The always-open pink-and-purple site of adult accessories shop Zone d’Erotica, which has long served as a retina-searing guidepost to westward-bound Galleria traffic, is currently listed as for lease on the website of retail real estate brokerage The Retail Connection, a keen-eyed reader noted this morning. The trapezoid-heavy building is tucked on a trapezoidal plot of land between the yellow-bedecked corner Shell station and the austere gray facade of Dillard’s, and served as a Luke’s Hamburgers in a past life before making the Zone transition well over a decade ago (presumably with the aid of Houston’s lack of zoning laws). Just down the road along the Galleria’s Westheimer Rd. edge, a younger, prettier pad site (built recently as part of the Galleria’s ongoing makeover and reconstruction) has now been filled in with the likes of Michelin-starred dim sum joint Yauatcha, which opened last week.

Photo: The Retail Connection

Westheimer Zone-ing
04/03/17 1:45pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOR IF YOU GAZE LONGINGLY AT TRENDY DEVELOPMENT, IT GAZES ALSO BACK AT YOU Looming Townhomes“All you ‘trendy people’ in Spring Branch need to bear in mind that even though your property values have risen dramatically, legacy homeowners don’t just immediately convert or turn over into ‘trendy people.’ That’s a process that takes time — [and] once it happens, you’ll feel nostalgia for the way things were. The newcomers won’t be ‘trendy’ — that term has positive connotations and you’ll reserve it for yourself. You will speak of them in derogatory tones, using words like yuppie and hipster. You’ll complain about how they’ve overrun your neighborhood, creating parking SNAFUs, cyclist-disrespecting traffic, and drunk drivers. You’ll complain about how closely packed the new townhomes are, even though you live in one; and about how loud the bars are, even though you bought a house next to one that had been there for 20 years. You’ll complain about how your property taxes rise 10 percent per year every year, and simultaneously protest new public housing, even though your unrealized capital gains are being subsidized by state statue — and you’ll demand even more subsidy! You might even vote for Dan Patrick. You’ll vote for localized prohibition and think that it’s ‘weird,’ kind of like living in Austin would be, except you don’t live in Austin and aren’t as weird as them — which is a terrible thing because they aren’t very weird either. You will have been co-opted by the powers that be. This is understandable. You were trendy, and will fall in line with somebody, sort of thoughtlessly, and complain relentlessly. That’s what it is to be trendy. It’s what you always wanted.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: Send the Trendies Outside the Loop, Please] Illustration: Lulu

04/03/17 1:00pm

Friday’s knockout of the last walls standing of the Town & Country III office building by CityCentre can now be added to Swamplot’s small but smashing video collection of doomed structures taking a light swing at their demo crew on the way down. To be fair, the semi-controlled collapse of the midrise’s final walls looks to have been much less of a surprise than last fall’s award-winning Corporate Plaza parking garage acceleration incident: while footage of the Town & Country toppling does show the cloud of dust stirred up by the pullover, it captures no contemporaneous cloud of suspense regarding the fate of the operator and nearby construction workers. (The video above also captures commentary from some onlookers in CityCentre Five, who’ll likely have a similarly clear view of the next few teardowns on the docket.)

Video: Swamplot inbox

CityCentre Grab and Smash
04/03/17 11:30am

Bus Shelter April Fool's Day, Bissonnet St. east of Montrose Blvd., Museum District, Houston, 77005

Bus Shelter April Fool's Day, Bissonnet St. east of Montrose Blvd., Museum District, Houston, 77005 Shots of Orwellian wall ornamentation and conspiracy theorist headgear were turned up by a reader’s surveillance of the Bissonnet St. bus shelter east of Montrose Blvd. by the Museum of Fine Arts early Saturday morning. The setup looks like one of the series of bus shelter makeovers purportedly planned around town by a vigilante redecorator — though perhaps because of heightened citywide gag tolerance spurred by April Fool’s Day, this round seems to have significantly outlasted the pre-dawn tiki hutch installed in front of the Public Storage on W. Gray back in February.

Eyes on the scene sent a few further monitoring reports on the decorations throughout the day, including notes of edits to the display from various passer-bys:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Museum District Surveillance
04/03/17 8:30am

spire-club

Photo of Spire Houston: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
03/31/17 3:30pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SEND THE TRENDIES OUTSIDE THE LOOP, PLEASE Inside and Outside the Loop“Ridiculous that all trendy restaurants must be packed in the same area. Move out of the Loop and dominate. Spring Branch north of I-10 for example has Heights-y demographics but the restaurant dollars go elsewhere for the most part. Take a risk like some are already doing and venture out. The old Hollister Grill location is getting a trendy new restaurant and one of the bartenders from Anvil (I think it is) is opening up shop on Long Point Rd. Karbach’s already has a new restaurant on Karbach Street in Spring Branch. Sheesh people. Move outward!” [Spring Branch, commenting on Hunky Dory and Bernadine’s Are Not Dead Yet] Illustration: Lulu

03/31/17 11:45am

HUNKY DORY AND BERNADINE’S ARE NOT DEAD YET Patio, Hunky Dory Tavern, 1801 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston HeightsIn a statement posted simultaneously yesterday to the Bernadine’s and Hunky Dory Tavern Facebook pages, Treadsack’s management team says the twin restaurants at 1801 N. Shepherd (along with the company’s remaining establishments: Down House, D&T Tavern, and Johnny’s Gold Brick) remain open — and that it’s hoping customers will support the decision by continuing to eat there:We’ve filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for Hunky Dory and Bernadine’s so we can restructure our debt and continue to operate. This was a very difficult decision, and not one we came to lightly, but the chance to save the businesses that all of our employees have worked so hard to build and so many of you, our guests, have supported, made it a risk worth taking. We love these restaurants and will continue to fight for them.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Hunky Dory

03/31/17 10:00am

Houston Raised Me Mural, Kingspoint Rd. at Kleckley Dr., Houston

Need even more evidence of Houston’s street-art surge? Or just want to compare pigment choice between school- or developer-commissioned and more opportunistic murals? Cameraphone photographer Marcos Antonio has been documenting decorated walls around town since last summer, updating his website with new posts frequently even since spreading word of it on Reddit yesterday.

His catalog is not as extensive (nor as detailed) as the one on Where + Wear + Well, but the site does include a map tie-in, and includes a few sites further from the Inner Loop, such as the wall near the corner of Kingspoint Rd. and Tanner Park Ct. above.

Photo: Marcos Antonio

A Mural Tour