COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU CAN LOVE THE BAY YOU’RE WITH AND STILL HARBOR SHIP CHANNEL FANTASIES 
“I know that Galveston Bay is the economic engine of the Houston area, but it’s fun to ponder what 42 prime bayside acres could be other than a barge staging area, or what the bay woulda/coulda been had oil not been discovered nearby. Coulda been San Francisco, got Can Cerisco.” [JoeDirt, commenting on Kirby To Lease New Ship Channel Barge Parking Area, Pay for Barge Collision Oil Spill] Illustration: Lulu
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT HIGH HORSE WON’T KEEP YOUR FLOORS DRY 
“Wonder how many areas will sue to get out of the high risk zones, only to get flooded years later, have no insurance, and cry foul. Note to those who are able to sue or survey themselves out of a flood zone… buy the insurance anyway! If you are [put] in a high risk zone, right or wrong, you are close enough to warrant the protection.” [Rex, commenting on A Quick Tour of Spots Where FEMA Will Expand Its Flood Hazard Zone In January] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DOES ‘EAST RIVER’ ERASE BAYOU HISTORY, OR DRAW IN NEW STUDENTS? “‘East River’ . . . that does sound like a lame sort of urban infant suckling at Mama NYC’s teat. But really, a 2-word name with each word having a strong, apropos and simple meaning is positive. It is the east part of Houston, and it is a river (called a bayou). But not just [any] bayou — the womb of the city. In the 1840s-60s, the west of the Allen’s Landing section was nothing but a well-wooded open sewer and hideout/hangout for the various characters and scoundrels of Vinegar Hill. [But] east of Downtown it was a river, with masted ships and energetic influx. We should be familiar with every bend of it, but [the bayou’s history is] mostly unknown. ‘East River’ can serve as an introductory directional appetizer for those unknowers who are already here, and those yet to appear.” [Dana-X, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Ongoing Rewrite of Houston’s East Side Story] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ANY NEW NAMING EPISODES WELCOME AMID THE ENDLESS EAST HOUSTON RERUNS 
“The news calls everything between Downtown and Baytown ‘East Houston’ — so when West U is called ‘Southwest Houston’ for one day, I get a pettiness-fueled satisfaction out of it.” [tempeh, commenting on West U Shelter-In-Place Order Just Lifted Following This Morning’s ‘Southwest Houston’ Shooting] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DON’T ACT SO SURPRISED WHEN YOUR OUTER LOOPS GROW UP AND TAKE YOUR JOBS 
“I can understand the desire to keep jobs Downtown, as our freeway infrastructure was always designed for funneling traffic to Downtown but not through it (which has definitely backfired on us in recent times). Same for those toy trains we’ve just spent a fortune on for the past decade — the more jobs located downtown, the better the chance of seeing population gains and redevelopment in the surrounding areas as well. However, none of this is reason enough to double down on generation-old infrastructure . . . [and] really, Shell’s offices are nowhere near the ‘burbs of Katy. It’s in one of the largest office markets in the entire city that has been around for a long time now.” [joel, commenting on Shell’s Downtown Operations To Shed Offices, Scurry Over To Larger West Houston Campuses] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FLUSHING OUT CONTRIBUTORS TO HOUSTON’S UNEQUAL SEWAGE DISTRIBUTION 
“Resources should be allocated based on ‘worst first’. It’s very likely that areas of wealth are also areas of redevelopment and thus, improvement — whereas poorer areas are stagnant and don’t get the same type of improvement because there is no investment out there. I know when I’ve tried to invest in a rough area, the city shit on my face. So I’ve backed down quite a bit. My guess is that people smarter than me stopped well before I did.” [Cody, commenting on Houston’s Poor and Minority Neighborhoods Literally Deal with More Shit, City Data Shows] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO EASE HOUSTON INTO THE ZONING ZONE 
“Another example of the city’s zoning-style regulations that have been built up over the last 20 years or so. They couldn’t get people to vote for zoning, so they are building a zoning apparatus slowly and in small pieces.” [Anonymous, commenting on The Setback Setbacks at 1403 McGowen St.] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SECRET INGREDIENTS IN ANY GOOD BEDROOM COMMUNITY RECIPE 
“The idea that The Woodlands is a mecca because of some secret sauce is absurd. Places like that can only exist in the vicinity of a larger city. The Woodlands has maintained itself as a high-end housing community, which is of course an achievement that took careful planning, but it’s entirely unsustainable without nearby cities to absorb the lower service economy sector/poorer individuals that any city needs and will have regardless. A similar point can be made about West U, which recently made some list about wealthy cities.” [MrEction, commenting on Avoiding the Lonely Drive to Work; Houston Olympics Speculation] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WATCHING FOR SIGNS OF A 380 TURN FROM TURNER “Mayor Parker threw a lot of candy to developers in the form of 380 agreements and the massive downtown residential housing initiative. No new 380 agreements have come up before council since Mayor Turner took office. If big new projects like the Halliburton site or Tarkett site do not get 380 agreements, it will be pretty clear that there has been a big shift in power in the Mayor’s office away from developers.” [Old School, commenting on Houston Housing Authority Authority Resigns In Wake of Briargrove Mixed-Income Kerfuffle] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MORE HOUSTON CHANGES, THE MORE IT STAYS THE SAME 
“The problem is that Houston is in a constant state of flux. The Houston you know at 20 is unrecognizable at 50, no matter what year you were born. There is no classically recognizable Houston or Houstonian — the only thing most Houstonians share as a character trait is a mutual lack of interest in the past. When I wrote a novella about Houston, I made it ground zero of a global amnesia plague. Seemed appropriate.” [AMP, commenting on Novel Approaches to Houston] Illustration: Lulu
Some yellow and white stripes have appeared recently at the northwest corner of Shepherd Dr. and Richmond Ave., just north of the similarly colored Subway signage. The upside-down Vs mark the spot where Honey Art Cafe is setting up shop in the former home of Ace Cash Express, next to Cigar Emporium in the retail strip bookended by Mattress Overstock and Accents By Phillipe. Longtime readers may be interested to note that the storefront is being painted up and built out by art duo Lulu Lin — which includes the same Lulu whose doodles and digital paintings often jazz up Swamplot’s Comments of the Day.
The pair is pulling their Houston Art Lessons business out of its River Oaks Shopping Center home to expand both the size and scope of operations under the new name; on top of regular classes, plans for the new space include gallery shows, artsy food and drinks, and meetups for creative types. The cafe is also looking for a leg up from the local Internet — the duo’s Kickstarter campaign, which is offering sweets, art, and classes in trade for some help with buildout costs, is running from now through early September.
Sweetening Up S. Shepherd
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON HEIGHTS HISTORY IN THE MAKING 
“. . . They probably looked around and saw hundreds of 3k-plus-sq.-ft. Faux Craftsman, Faux Victorian, Faux Colonial, Faux Historic, etc. ‘bungalows,’ that have replaced (or bastardized) most of the real Craftsman, Victorian, Colonial, historic bungalows and realized that the Heights ‘style’ is all fake anyway, so why bother replicating more Faux? They instead designed a building that represents its own era, 2016. . . . Don’t fret, in 100 years, this will be ‘historic’ too.” [John M, commenting on Once Bashful Heights Post Office Replacement Retail Now Willing To Step Up to the Street, Learn To Like Sidewalks] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: START SAVING WATER EARLY FOR LOWER FLOODING RETURNS 
“Like I said before, the real solution is engineering and good land cover practices upstream. By the time the flow gets to [the Bay], there is no real answer. Just like your child and your 401k, the earlier in the life cycle you contribute, the more impactful that contribution will be further down.” [Rex, commenting on Comment of the Day: All Houston Floodwater Backs Up in the Same Drain] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW GREENSPOINT COULD TURN OVER A NEW LEAF 
“A 50 percent occupancy rate created because a company moved a slew of employees to a shiny new corporate megacampus is a good thing.  . . . This is just a good composting of office space. The piles of old office space will turn into new low cost space that will hopefully attract some diversification for the Houston economy.” [Old School, commenting on Comment of the Day: Don’t Try To Lump All That Empty Houston Office Space Together] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DON’T TRY TO LUMP ALL THAT EMPTY HOUSTON OFFICE SPACE TOGETHER 
“ . . . Worth mentioning that 50 percent [vacancy] in Greenspoint versus 26 percent in Houston as a whole tells me a much different story than the one they are telling: that the damage may be regional and dependent on location. I’m sure it’s down all over, but Houston is a big market. It’s irresponsible not to recognize regional differences in an article like this.” [MrEction, commenting on Levy Park’s Transformation; Moving On from the Bayport Cruise Terminal Boondoggle; previously on Swamplot] Illustration: Lulu
