Hey, wasn’t there one of those first annual art fairs at the George R. Brown just last month? Art retailer and barkeep Bill Davenport teases out the differences between that one and the smaller Texas Contemporary Art Fair that took place over this past weekend:
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Eastwood’s original Rufus Cage Elementary School would become a landmarked “community facility” under a plan announced today by Mayor Parker. The 1910 2-story brick schoolhouse at the intersection of Telephone Rd. and Baird St. last served as a schoolhouse in 1983; under Parker’s plan, the city would buy the building for $100,000 in credit from HISD, which the school district could use to acquire a city property or right-of-way to be named later. HISD’s trustees approved the sale earlier this month, but city council will have to vote on the plan too. After taking ownership, Parker says, the city would pursue a landmark designation for the property and “work with the neighborhood to seek proposals for conversion of the building to another use.” The schoolhouse, a small auditorium, and a warehouse sit on a triangular 28,700-sq.-ft. lot.
- Mayor Annise Parker Announces Plan to Preserve Historic Rufus Cage Elementary School [Mayor’s Office]
- Previously on Swamplot: HISD Looking for Cage Match in Eastwood
Photo: Candace Garcia
Okay, swatters. Got any weekend war stories to share? Add accounts of your latest battles in the comments section below.
- Swarms of mosquitoes spotted across the Houston area [KHOU]
- Mosquitoes swarm, but relief is on the way [Houston Chronicle]
- Mosquitoes seem to be swarming Houston [Newswatch]
Photo: Christine Tremoulet [license]
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Houston’s impending parking lot, and other clearings to come:
THE CASE FOR A GHOST ASTRODOME 
“I’d say let’s be radical! Let’s strip it bare back to its frame and have out-of-towners wonder why it is so. It will minimize maintenance costs while keeping the footprint of the building. Thus, by only making it useless it may be the only way to save it. That way, we’ll buy some time to see how it can truly, purposely be reused AND don’t lose it to circumstantial interests along the way.
The ethereal nature of its bare structure will capture everyone’s attention. I imagined that for the people involved in its construction process, the shell in itself wouldn’t mean much, just another day at work, putting together bolts and plates. But to us looking at it 50 years later, facing the prospect of demolition for lack of good options, this shell becomes both haunting and evocative, that memory of a brighter future and at the same time, the challenge of not forgetting.” [Archinect] Photo: Save the Astrodome
Just 6 months after a companywide audit of worker IDs resulted in the loss of 269 of its 489 employees, Champion Window has decided to shut down its entire manufacturing division — axing an additional 135 workers. The largest manufacturer of vinyl and aluminum windows in the South Central U.S. was served with a grand jury subpoena last November over its hiring practices; a subsequent investigation by federal agents revealed that a large number of the company’s employees had no legal authorization to work in the U.S. Champion will shift its manufacturing operation from its Houston plant at 12427 Duncan Rd. near the Willowbrook Mall to its parent company, Dallas-based Atrium Windows and Doors, in December. Recently, Champion filed suit against 2 former top executives, alleging their “negligent disregard” for whether job applicants had authorization to work in the country “nearly crippled” the company’s operations.
- Champion Window to close Houston plant, cut 135 jobs [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston firm on track after losing 269 undocumented workers [Houston Business Journal]
- Champion Window sues former CEO and CFO over hiring practices [Ultimate Woodlands]
- Background [Champion Window]
Photo: Champion Window
Have a look around this little 25,637-sq.-ft. castle on a 5-acre lot at the edge of the Champions Golf Course. The master suite alone measures 3,000 sq. ft. Construction began in 2005, but last year the property was taken over by the lender, Encore Bank, before the final touches could be completed — like the elevator connecting the 3-car underground garage to the rest of the house. The MLS listing announced the bank planned to auction the home by November 5th to the highest bidder. But it was scooped up before then — for $3.5 million — by someone who could truly appreciate its fine marble and plaster finishes: the founder of a drywall contracting company and his wife. Wayne and Karen Martin tell the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff they plan to finish the home and landscape it with “European-style” gardens and reflecting ponds. “There’s a lot of history in that place. It’s phenomenal,” Martin tells Sarnoff.
But they don’t plan to move in.
Today let’s just hit this one place, ’kay?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DESIGN SHOPPER “Call me crazy but I believe architectural style and design matters. This is why I’ll be doing my grocery shopping here and not at my boring Garden Oaks or Heights Kroger.” [MericaRulz, commenting on Meanwhile, on the Former Site of the Wilshire Village Apartments]
A few memorial photos, from a reader who’s been marking the death and burial of the former J.B. Earthman funeral home at 5740 San Felipe at Bering, across from T.H. Rogers Elementary:
When you use the city’s brand-new pay-by-phone parking setup to pay for a metered space — introduced by the mayor this morning — what are you giving up? Well, an extra 35 cents to the system’s vendor, Parkmobile, beyond the parking fee. Plus you’re telling city officials — and parking enforcement officers — where your car is parked, its license plate number, and a good way to reach you. But city Admin & Regulatory Affairs spokesperson Chris Newport tells Swamplot that’s all: “No credit card or email information will be accessed. We retain the plate/phone number parking transaction history to allow us to verify someone paid for parking in the event of a complaint regarding a citation that may have been issued in error.”
What if you’ve got a few outstanding tickets?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DOWNTOWN IN THE DARK “. . . Yes, before the recession the downtown buildings were ablaze all night. It was striking, if quite wasteful. Nowadays we can enjoy the contrast. The Houston skyline darkened at night continues its daytime conversation with sky, light, color and atmosphere. Our glass skyscrapers are our mountains — they reflect the changes in light and color and haze and brightness every day of the year. Dark at night, the effect is a continuum instead of a contrast. It’s subtle, and it’s nice.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on What the Wells Fargo Tower Downtown Is Really Trying To Tell Us]
From photographer Candace Garcia: recent construction pix of the Montrose H-E-BMarket, designed by San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects (with a little local help on the roof design), and going up at the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, across from Fiesta. Scheduled completion date: uh, sometime soon?
A reader who goes out dogwalking in Montrose just west of Audubon Place at 5:30 every morning is hoping other Swamplot readers can help figure out out if there’s any particular reason why the lights on top of the Wells Fargo Plaza building at 1000 Louisiana recently began broadcasting in color:
During the drought, that is, all summer, there was a string of lights on top of the tower were always white. Then, [2 weeks ago], they went pink! Or maybe red. It was hard to say.
[One day last week,] they were all white, except for one small red section. [Then 2 days later,] they were red when I first saw them, but then they flashed to the white with a red dot configuration.
