To the following Houston residences: You are ordered to report for final duty immediately.
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: SHOPPING CENTER PARKING LOT OF THE APOCALYPSE “This is how I imagine the end of the world begins.” [Justin, commenting on For the Glory of Old Navy: Purple Martins’ Majesty Meets 59 Feeder Road Shopping Center Parking Lot]
THE 5 PLACES IN HOUSTON WHERE YOU’RE MOST LIKELY TO RUN INTO PEDESTRIANS The intersections of Milam and Dallas, Milam and Prairie, and San Jacinto and Congress St. Downtown; Westheimer and McCue near the Galleria; and Bellaire and Corporate Dr. just inside Beltway 8 in Asiatown rank as the top locations for auto-pedestrian accidents, according to a Chronicle review of city records. A grand total of 2,204 collisions involving cars and people traveling on foot have taken place in Houston since 2008, resulting in a total of 174 pedestrian deaths. The deaths were concentrated differently, “along the U.S. Highway 59 corridor near West Park and along Interstate 45 North and I-10 East,” with 43 percent of them taking place on freeways or major highways. [Houston Chronicle]
An enormous flock of Purple Martins has gathered in and around the parking lot of the Fountains Shopping Center facing the Southwest Freeway in Stafford, where they’ve taken up a noisy nighttime roost on nearby power lines and the allée of oak trees that leads through the concrete expanse to Rack Room Shoes and Old Navy. This is likely the same group that hung out in Sharpstown or the eastside KBR campus in previous years, on its way to Brazil; it appears to be the birds’ first window-shopping experience at Mattress Giant.
Only a few days after it sold, the 1961 Tanglewood home and bomb shelter on Brown Saddle St. featured on Swamplot back in January has been put back on the market. Only this time, the listing doesn’t mention the shelter or the abandoned pipeline slicing through a portion of the property — or really anything about the building itself. No more interior pics, either. The low-slung modern structure is now tagged as “not liveable” and won’t be shown — though the agent does fess up to having a key. The asking price? Only $550K more than what the property sold for earlier in the week, when the home and its interior were touted as sales features. At 38,263 sq. ft. (that’s actually been marked down a few thousand sq. ft. from the earlier sale), the lot is advertised as the biggest in Tanglewood.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Oh, look: A few pieces on the earth.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SALVAGE VALUE “I am not attached to the nice appliances, wood floors, etc. . . . but they have a very large and easily accessible resale market . . . its not being sentimental it is just not wasting money on something that can easily be resold. A mod house like this has a very small market. Only a select few like this style of house, and even fewer are willing to pay for them.” [Marksmu, commenting on Battle Over Swank Sugar Land Supermod Won By Komatsu Excavator]
When he isn’t busy rebuilding the entire block of Colquitt between Greenbriar and Morningside, Houston architect Scott Ballard puts his mind to work solving difficult domestic problems. F’rinstance: how to enjoy indoor sports in the comfort of your home more . . . oh, unobtrusively? Ballard’s wife “wasn’t thrilled” about the ping-pong table he and his kids parked in the family’s living room a couple years ago, he tells the Chronicle‘s Ken Hoffman. A few sketches, hired guns, and failed prototypes later, and — presto! Ballard came up with the solution: The Ping Pong Coffee Table. And it’s for sale!
What’s to see at the Wichita St. Mystery House estate sale today and tomorrow? The usual household stuff . . . but “tons” of it, according to the Craigslist ad. You know, several refrigerators, an uninstalled “apple and desert rose” jacuzzi bathtub, and an uninstalled elevator. Sadly, all contents of the well-turreted home at 2309 Wichita (as well as its neighbor at 2306) must go. The home Charlie Fondow just couldn’t stop adding onto and renovating for more than 3 decades is still listed for sale at $325,000, but teevee reporter Isiah Carey — who calls the persistent builder’s distinctive creation the Castle of Third Ward — says he’s heard that “the bank is ready to get rid of it for much less in a short sale.”
- Estate Sale (288 and Southmore) [Craigslist]
- 2309 Wichita St. [HAR]
- THE CASTLE OF THIRD WARD NOW ON THE AUCTION BLOCK! [InSite]
- Previously on Swamplot: Wichita St. Mystery House Goes on the Market Today: Your First Peek Inside, Charles Fondow Leaves His Wichita St. Mystery House Unfinished
Photo: Candace Garcia
This single-story warehouse building at 2202 Dallas St. will be the home of a new craft brewery founded by Houston food-truck veterans the Eatsie Boys. The 5,000-sq.-ft. building at the corner of Hutchins is near the site of Dynamo Stadium and a short walk to Minute Maid Park, but the brewery will be named after the empty and forlorn former home of the Astros further south: 8th Wonder Brewery. When the lease was signed in April, there was a different name behind it. But “Heady Brewing Company” ran into a few trademark issues, so they’re going with the Dome. The buildout should be complete at the end of this year, with the first 8th Wonder beers appearing around town in 2012.
Fox26’s Isiah Carey reports that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be investigating a Royal Oaks resident’s complaints earlier this week — that security guards at the west-side neighborhood’s front gate had been refusing entry to visitors who were black. David Williams, who’s been renting a 3-bedroom home on Stuart Manor in the northern reaches of Royal Oaks, says he saw a note in the gatehouse informing security guards that “David Williams . . . is not allowed to have any company,†and that a guard told him “We personally don’t have a problem with you, but we’ll lose our jobs [if we let your friends in].” Williams also says that a group of people in a golf cart banged on his garage door on Memorial Day, used racial epithets, and said “You’re not going to move into our neighborhood.” Williams’s African-American guests have been getting through more recently, but community officials at Royal Oaks still have not returned Carey’s phone calls.
- Royal Oaks Subdivision Under Investigation and Man Claims Racist Reception from Royal Oaks [MyFoxHouston]
Photo: Fox26
LONELY AT THE TOP Metro president George Greanias will receive a “more stringent punishment” than normal for his first-time offense: viewing “sites of a sexual nature” on his personal computer, using the transit agency’s internet connection. Board chairman Gilbert Garcia praised Greanias’s performance in improving “transit services, morale, and community relations” in his 15 months on the job but said “the community must have confidence that the New Metro will be open and transparent.” Greanias will be suspended from his job for the next week without pay. [Hair Balls]
STUCK IN MCDONALD’S 
A second family is suing a second area franchisee over playground injuries caused by a metal fastener at a McDonald’s PlayPlace. Last weekend 2-1/2-year-old Alexis Durant caught and gashed her lip on this exposed bolt in a plastic slide in the I-45 feeder road McDonald’s at Pine Dr. in Dickinson, claims attorney Jason Gibson. Last year, another Gibson client sued the owners of the McDonald’s on Uvalde Rd. just south of Woodforest Blvd. after claiming their 6-year-old son cut his head on a screw sticking into a plastic slide tunnel. McDonald’s USA declined to comment on the lawsuits, but issued a statement saying “The safety of our youngest customers is our top priority.” [Click2Houston] Photo: Click2Houston
Pardon us as we air the city out just a little bit.