10/26/12 8:30am

Photo of Greenway Plaza: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

10/25/12 5:09pm

There’s a new red sign stretched above the fading film posters in the storefront windows of Audio Video Plus at 1225 Waugh. It reads “Closeout Sale.” The Mecca for movie buffs has been closed for the last few days. Today, the heavy shutters securing the store’s entryway were drawn tight and the parking lot was even more empty than it usually is during business hours. The coming event, referred to as a “Customer Preview” sale in a note taped to the storefront, is scheduled for this Friday and Saturday, from 11 to 7. Is this the end of the line for the longtime specialty renter-retailer, or just a little flushing of the VHS archives?

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10/25/12 3:13pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SPRINGWOODS VILLAGE WAS A LONG TIME COMING “So Exxon’s development of Kingwood lacked the office space and subsequent development of Greenspoint lacked the neighborhood? Finally combining the two? Houston: Stamped out by Exxon, one experiment at a time.” [iMidget, commenting on Comment of the Day: Big Oil Town]

10/25/12 12:38pm

A midcentury non-mod, this rambling Riverside Terrace property has added on a few times over the years, expanding its footprint on a street of mostly brick, mostly two-story homes dating back five or six decades. Its lawn-eating circular driveway serves an attached front-loader garage and sits behind a sculpted berm off the sidewalk. Brays Bayou is a block north and Parkwood Park is down the slightly curving street. Inside, the time-altered floor plan’s formal spaces have informal counterparts. There’s a media room, miscellaneous “extra” rooms, and a bar (at right above) big enough to entertain the neighbors — possibly all of them at once. Listed mid-month, the 1950 home (remodeled in 1998) is asking $555,000.

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10/25/12 8:30am

Photo of new Kroger at 1440 Studemont: Candace Garcia

10/24/12 11:07pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: BIG OIL TOWN Has anyone dubbed ‘Exxonville’ for Springwoods Village yet? If not, I want to take credit . . . Sounds like Utopia . . . I hope Oil and Gas continues to be strong in the near future . . . policy in current and future government administrations can play a big part in that. On that note, I would be hesitant to move in to a community that has the potential for government to have such a large and direct influence on. Imagine massive layoffs due to changes in policy . . . Not saying that all households will be linked to ExxonMobil . . . but I am sure it will be packaged to be the ideal choice to work at the new campus . . .” [J.R., commenting on Headlines: Christian Louboutin Boutique for Houston; Illegal Dumpers Caught on Camera]

10/24/12 2:58pm

DEMOLISHING HOUSTON’S GRISLY PAST “Houstonians just don’t celebrate death and the past the way New Orleanians do,” writes John Nova Lomax in his recounting of 4 creepy tales from Bayou City history. “In fact, we tend to simply forget all the awful and weird things that have happened here over the last 176 years, and mercifully so, because there have been an enormous number of terrible episodes.” It’s much easier to forget, of course, when the gruesome settings themselves are summarily disposed of. The “Houston Heights House of Horror” — a 3-room shack at 732 Ashland St. that was the scene of a noted hatcheting in 1910 — by 1937 had been torn down and replaced. Its substitute is gone now too; a warehouse that’s home to a company called SemaSys now stands in its place. And down in Seabrook, condos occupy the site of the famous warehouse-like “Mansion on Todville Rd.” (in photo) where in 1984 a group of housesitting youngsters murdered its owner, child predator Bill List. [Houston Press] Photo of atrium, 3300 Todville Rd., Seabrook: Carl Guderian [license]

10/24/12 1:31pm

Wraparound porches on two levels add a little more living space to this by-the-park, by-the freeway 1920 home in Woodland Heights, outside the Houston Ave. boundary of that vintage neighborhood’s historic district. The garage-free property relisted with a new agency yesterday at $325,000 — after 4-months of  toe-testing at $345,000. Its crisply painted exterior trim gives way to the interior’s stained wood, one of a few elements retained or accented in a 2005 remodeling by one of several previous owners this millennium.

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10/24/12 8:30am

Photo of apartments at 3788 Richmond Ave. (previously on Swamplot): Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool

10/23/12 5:01pm

A reader wants to know what’s happening on the south side of Memorial Dr. between Birdsall and Knox St., just east of Westcott: “In mid-September a garden store opened in the warehouse-type building and then shut down just a few weeks later. Just last week a demolition crew tore down the warehouse [see photo above]. Also last week, there was a crew salvaging some building fixtures from the abandoned restaurant building next door (used to be La Mia). Will this building [on the left in the photo] go next? Any idea of what the site is being used for? There has been a lot of development in the area recently (Black Walnut Cafe) and more is on the way (a storage facility and older apartment complex on the north side of Memorial is about to be torn down for multi-family housing).”

Photo: Swamplot inbox

10/23/12 3:58pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE CASE FOR TAKING DOWN TIMBERGROVE “. . . The Timbergrove houses East of TC Jester are not particularly well built, and they don’t really lend themselves to expansion. The slabs are undersized as well, so building up is very difficult. I would love to update and add to our house, but by the time everything is done, we could almost build a modern house with more room, better infrastructure, and lower operating costs. And that’s after adding something that will really be just a tacked on space that’s not well integrated. Tear downs make a lot of sense under those conditions.” [Ross, commenting on New Timbergrove Manor Cottage Puts Some Skin in the Real Estate Game]

10/23/12 3:05pm

HILLCROFT HOUSTON CELL PHONE SNATCHING THROUGH THE ROOF Here’s a view from earlier today of the ceiling inside Rizwan Siddiqi’s Cell Phone Wholesale shop at 3633 Hillcroft. Shortly before 4 this morning, a thief dropped into the store and grabbed as many as 80 smartphones before climbing back out the way he came, through the roof. Surveillance video shows the phoneburglar missing on his first attempt to jump back into the plenum space, hitting the display case before crashing back onto the floor. A tall stool placed on top of the case eventually allowed a gentler exit. The shop is carved out of one side of the Valero In-N-Out store at the corner of Windswept. [abc13] Photo: Phillip Mena/Click2Houston