SQUATTING AT THE SAVOY 
The news that Downtown’s old Savoy Hotel has been sold and will be converted into a Holiday Inn seems to have inspired some nostalgia in the Houston Chronicle’s Craig Hlavaty. Going back over the hotel’s past as housing for law students and even boarding for Lee Harvey Oswald, in town one day to apply for a job at nearby Conoco, Hlavaty also finds evidence that the supposedly vacant building was anything but: “In 2004, someone named “squatterkid” was posting on a Houston architecture forum about living inside . . . even getting phone calls there from people expecting to make reservations at the long dormant hotel. The number was still listed. At the time, he said that there was still electricity running in the place, too. The squatter, who went by Sean when he spoke with the Houston Press in 2007, said he and some homeless folks made the hotel their home using the leftover furnishings.” You can read more from “squatterkid” here. [Houston Chronicle; HAIF; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
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I remember those HAIF threads well. Like it was YESTERDAY not Nine Year Ago!!!!
I wonder how history would have been changed if Conoco had hired Lee Harvey Oswald that day.
Trespasser Boy
OMG, I was just thinking about ‘squatterkid’ when I read the earlier article about repurposing The Savoy. He posted photos of the ‘bouncy room’ he had created there by piling dozens of old mattresses into one room and presumably bounced to his heart’s content. There were great photos of Downtown at night that he took from the roof of The Savoy including the neon sign on the roof. I remember he stated he preferred to squat in major cities only and had a goal of doing so all across the U.S. He also posted pics of his squatting experiences in San Francisco, which were fascinating. He posted pics and commentary on his adventures on the Houston Architectural Information Forum (HAIF). It was my first exposure to the concept of ‘Urbex.’ I do remember he said that the power was still on in the hotel and that the lone old-fashioned black phone would ring occasionally. He included photos of that, too, sitting on the old check-in counter. I thought it was amazing, personally.
I wish they would keep the original sign, placing the new ‘Holiday Inn’ letters on top to reading Holiday Inn Savoy Houston.
JFK or J.A.K? or Jack as was the nickname of the president who wasn’t shot in Dallas or anywhere…..it was a fake news reel……he was like most of our celebs, a Forest Gump mind who we voted Prom King…..truth be told, we are civil without the prom kings telling us to be so or showing us how “rich” they are…….BTW Friendswood Development was and always will be a Houston company, never a city but a former arm of Exxon, they built Kingwood and own all the land that makes up lakemont as well as the fighting branded hoods around it which were and will be rebranded Lakemont as well……..since Grand Mission is a faux estate wanna be, Parkway Lakes was ajoke and it should all be Lakemont…….like they did in Kingwood…..the enclaves of homes are named lakemont whatever, but keeps the signage down as well as the confusing way all the random development looks like when they piggy back on top of a veteran development company just to make fake profits for homes they give away…….yes, DAD is aware of the hand shake and a smile BS, time to actually work again, all are welfare babies and playing ‘poor’ me victim lines and it is way old……
Ah yes, HAIF in the good ol’ days before they went around inexplicably banning their top contributors and indeed the entire nations to which they’ve happened to have moved. That was nice.