A last fleeting glimpse — a reader snapped this shot of the permanently closed Paradise Motel at 8405 Hempstead Rd., between the junctions with W. 11th St. and Washington Ave and just northeast of Hines’s Somerset Green development. A rent-a-fence is now up around the 6-building complex, which sits next door to Custom Duct and across the railroad tracks from Non-Ferrous Extrusions metal fabrication. The hotel opened in 1963, back in the pre-290 days when the Hempstead Hwy. was the primary route to Austin.
- Hempstead Rd. [West Houston Archives]
Photo: Gail Garcia via Swamplot inbox
Industrial District Motel
Sorry to see this crappy place close. It’s one of the few reminders of what Hempstead and Washington were, once upon a time – the way west. I’m sure it’ll just become a new location for a yuppie warren or hipster bar.
I saw this over the holidays while taking scrap metal to the recycler down the road, who is still open, in his messy shack in front of the crappy new housing stock they’re building in a warehouse district. Must be a recent closing; a couple weeks before that, the fence wasn’t there and there were about four cars in the lot.
I am going to put together a coffee table book called “When Houston Sucked” that will document Houston’s former lack of glory. There will be photos of a half empty Town and Country Mall. A picture of the 10k running route map in the old downtown YMCA that warned women not to run on the bayou trail under Memorial Drive at night. A map showing the work of serial killers and arsonists in the Heights. And lots of pictures of strip malls and garden style apartment complexes. All the yuppies, hipsters, and millenials need to understand that Houston used to really suck so they can feel guilty about the ugliness we lose every day in Houston.
Old School, agreed! I was born in this town 46 years ago and it is has vastly improved. One Saturday night we were on our way home from Busch Gardens and the car broke down at I-10 and Taylor. My Mom said we are near the Heights and made us pray.
Back in 1980 I went to work at Port-A-Kamp at 12th and Hempstead. My new boss told me never to drive that way on Hempstead as it was so scary that “the dogs went around in pairs”! Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
I always laughed at that misnomer.