Simply smashing houses.
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- Rice University Report Finds That Half of Houston Area Isn’t Affordable [Prime Property]
- UH Documentary Presents Origins of Downtown’s OKRA Charity Saloon [Culturemap]
- Feral Pig Population Increases Across Texas [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Please Stop Hosting Art Parties at the Galleria and Other Temples of Commerce [Houstonia Magazine]
- All the Houston References On Drake’s New Album, from the Galleria to Warehouse Live [Rocks Off]
- The Art Guys Sum Up Their Repeated Crossing of Westheimer and Hillcroft/Voss as ‘Brutish’ [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- How Much It’ll Cost You To Heat and Cool That $15M Timberwilde Lane Mansion [Mission Air Conditioning]
- Cracking Down on ‘Astroturfing,’ the Business of Fake Online Reviews [Christian Science Monitor]
Photo of Jim Sanborn’s sculpture outside the University of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Library: Molly Block via Swamplot Flickr Pool
- 1121 Arthur St. [HAR]
Last week, the city and the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to build almost 14 new miles of hike and bike trail — from I-45 to west of 288 — along Sims Bayou. The project, construction for which could begin as early as November, will cost about $7 million, and it will connect 7 city parks: Reveille Park, Stuart Park, Law Park, Sims Bayou Park, the County’s Hill at Sims Park, Scottcrest Park, and Townwood Park.
The first stretch to be built will be a 10-ft.-wide 3.1-mile span from I-45 to Stuart Park on Bellfort, just a few miles from Hobby Airport. Also included in the trail construction? The usual swag: Picnic tables and pavilions, benches, drinking fountains, lighting, and parking lots.
- Mayor Parker/U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers Announce Plans For New Hike And Bike Trail Along Sims Bayou [City of Houston]
- Sims Bayou [Bayou Greenways]
- Previously on Swamplot: Fine, Parks Board Tells Idylwood Residents, We Won’t Build a Parking Lot If You Really Don’t Want One, No Parking: Idylwood Residents Want Parks Board To Move Proposed Hike and Bike Lot Somewhere Else, Parks By You’s Feel-Good Campaign To Build More Bayou Parks by You, Enormous Plan To Build Bayou-Side Parks: The Movie
Photo of Sims Bayou: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN IT RAINS, IT’S RECOUPED 
“I live close to Buffalo Bayou. I lost two cars during a heavy rain in 2009. The water came up too fast to save the cars. By the time I found out they were flooding they were in a couple feet of snake infested water. The insurance company paid up right away and didn’t raise my rates. These people should have no problem if they have insurance.” [jgriff, commenting on Headlines: Putting the Creek in Cross Creek Ranch; Flooding the Omni Hotel Parking Lot] Illustration: Lulu
DITCH REPAIRS, BRIDGE REPLACEMENT TO CLOSE STRETCH OF SAN FELIPE FOR NEXT 2 WEEKS 
San Felipe St. near Mid Ln. and the Loop is going to be out of commission for about 2 weeks, according to the Harris County Flood Control District: After tonight’s rush hour subsides, workers will move in to remove concrete from the sides of the eroding and underperforming drainage ditch, shown here, and install closed culverts. And that means the 50-year-old bridge on San Felipe will need to be demolished and replaced. The area to be closed is near the new Liberty Kitchen spot and the luxury apartments under construction on Briar Hollow Ln. [HCFCD; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HCFCD
GOOD FIRST WARD COFFEE SHOPS ARE HARD TO FIND 
Houstonia Magazine’s Nick Panzarella likes what he sees — er, drinks at Paper Co., a reincarnation of Taft Street Coffee that’s moved in behind that Marfreless-like blue door at the Ecclesia Church on Elder St. But this door — though just around the corner from the artist lofts at the old Jefferson Davis Hospital, it opens up to a permashaded no person’s land beneath I-45 — seems to give Panzarella some pause: “Its location, being tucked into a dead end on the edge of the First Ward, is its largest drawback.” [Houstonia Magazine; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Here’s a plan that looks to plug in to Metro’s still-under-construction Southeast Line and redo about 8 blocks along Scott St. in the Third Ward between UH and TSU. Though the plan, drawn up by LAI Design Group and dubbed “University Place Redevelopment,” is provisional, it appears to have in mind something like what the rendering above shows: A reshaped streetscape on Scott St. that would combine apartments, restaurants, shops, offices, and community buildings.
The first phase appears to call for a strip center facing Scott between Holman and Reeves, with 289 1- and 2-bedroom apartments and a parking garage in the rear:
So much for total environmental control, huh? The Foley’s, then Macy’s, at 1110 Main St. is no more, succumbing to a helluva lot of dynamite early Sunday morning. Completed in 1947 and designed by Kenneth Franzheim, the 10-story, 791,000-sq.-ft. building was the last department store Downtown. It’s still not clear what will be going up once the retail rubble is cleared from this block bound by Main, Travis, Dallas, and Lamar, though an employee at Hilcorp — which is connected to 1110 Main Partners, the entity that owns the property — has told Swamplot it’ll be “a regular looking office building tower over 20 stories high.â€
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Why not revel, for a moment, in the glorious dust?
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Here are soon to be yet another crop of fine examples of things no longer present:
- Toll Brothers Buys Up 600 Acres in Montgomery County To Build Luxury Homes [Prime Property]
- Belle Communities Building Rental Condos for Residents 55 and Older Near Tomball Pkwy. and Louetta [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Dickinson Invests in Street Improvements To Accommodate Population Growth [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- What Fulshear’s Cross Creek Ranch Development Does Right When It Comes to Its Environment [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Environmentalists Think Harris County Keeping Public in the Dark on Buffalo Bayou Restoration [KUHF; previously on Swamplot]
- Potentially Deadly Fungus Infecting Stressed 100-Year-Old Ghirardi Oak Tree [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Buffalo Bayou Flooding Strands, Damages Cars in Houston Omni Hotel Parking Lot [Click2Houston]
- Bing Maps Does Not Know Where Downtown Houston Is [Macrosoft]
Photo of GreenStreet after Foleys’s demo: Jon Morris
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SIGHTS UNSEEN 
“Pictures don’t sell homes. People don’t buy sight unseen. At best, high quality photos will give you a few more showings (by people who were enticed by the photos, thus not likely your buyer).
List a property in Montrose, and take 6 photos of various homeless people, old-man armpits, and urinals, and it’ll still sell in a day.” [Cody, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Back Carpet] Illustration: Lulu
- 16350 Clearcrest Dr. [HAR]
WHAT TIME THE EXPLOSIONS DOWNTOWN WILL WAKE YOU UP 
A rep from Metro confirms that the booms of the controlled demolition of the former Foley’s at 1110 Main St. will begin booming between 7:10 and 7:20 this Sunday, September 22. (That’s 10 minutes past sunrise, for all you morning people.) And if you’ll be driving Downtown to find parking and get yourself in implosion position, note that the street closures that Swamplot reported yesterday will begin at 6 a.m. [Metro; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Foley’s: Jim Parsons
The wraparound porch of this updated 1928 bungalow in Lancaster Place lands on the side of the home on the far side of the former Fiesta Mart site 3 lots to the west, where the announced 8-story Finger apartment project (The Susanne) is about to go up. The recessed porch’s overhang shades the bedrooms that line up along the driveway, but the living and dining side of the property appears to get plenty of light — for now at least –Â from the west and apartment-free south. The home appeared on the market Wednesday; it has a $520,000 asking price.
