Tag: 77004

Midtown
04/06/11 9:27am

The Great Houston Street Life Simulation

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Streetscapes
24 Comments

Urban-design nerds, street-festival fans, and earnest neighborhood do-gooders will converge on a block of Holman St. near LaBranch this Saturday to play a little game of make-believe: They’ll be imagining what it might be like if Houston had some sort of street life. From 10 am to 10 pm, they’ll be hanging out on a Third Ward Midtown block quickly made up to look as if it did: with painted-in bike lanes, instant street trees in planters, a pop-up cafe in a portable building parked on the street, food trucks, and maybe even a farmers’ market. And they’ll be smiling pedestrian-friendly smiles.

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Buying and Selling
04/05/11 10:37am

This School Is Not for Sale

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Quicklink, Schools, Third Ward, University of Houston
2 Comments

THIS SCHOOL IS NOT FOR SALE The head of real estate for HISD tells Texas Watchdog’s Lynn Walsh that Jack Yates High School is not being sold, no matter what she’s heard. The Third Ward institution is wedged between a Texas Southern University parking garage and UH’s Robertson Stadium; rumors had HISD selling the 1958 campus to one university or the other. [Texas Watchdog] Photo: Nick Juhasz (license)

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Buying and Selling
03/31/11 10:07pm

Comment of the Day: How Much for That Riverside Terrace House with the Turrets?

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Comments, Home Design, Quicklink, Riverside Terrace
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW MUCH FOR THAT RIVERSIDE TERRACE HOUSE WITH THE TURRETS? “. . . how does one set a price point for a house like this? I’m not one to persist in preserving things just because they’re kooky, but in this case it was one individual’s personal vision that has entertained and piqued local interest over the years.” [Claire de Lune, commenting on Charles Fondow Leaves His Wichita St. Mystery House Unfinished]

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Home Design
03/30/11 3:56pm

Charles Fondow Leaves His Wichita St. Mystery House Unfinished

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Houston Landmarks, Renovations, Riverside Terrace
13 Comments

Houston’s longest-running home renovation project may never be completed, but work on the extraordinary 31-year-long effort has come to an end. Charles Fondow, the retired VA nurse and dedicated do-it-yourselfer whose ongoing home-improvement efforts in Riverside Terrace have intrigued and astounded neighbors and passers-by for decades, passed away earlier this month at the age of 64. Fondow began fixing up and adding on to his 2-story brick home on Wichita St. near Dowling shortly after he purchased the termite-ridden former duplex for $35,000 in 1980. Three years later, after Hurricane Alicia knocked a couple of trees onto the roof, he got the inspiration to add the property’s first 2 turrets — one modeled after a courthouse he had seen in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the other a Russian-style onion dome. Later, Fondow began work on more additions to the property, including among many other features 2 giant decks, an elevator, a tall glass atrium, and a separate apartment in back.

“I would really love to get it finished before I die,” he told Houston Press reporter Jennifer Mathieu in 2001.

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Comments
03/03/11 11:07pm

Comment of the Day: It’s All Happening at the University of Houston!

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Proposed Developments, Quicklink, University of Houston
7 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: IT’S ALL HAPPENING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON! “. . . You do realize that over the last two years, UH has opened up over 2,000 NEW rooms on campus, right? There’s a two year old graduate level loft building and a brand new all freshman dorm. Additionally, the Moody Towers will be getting a much needed rehab soon. The dining facility there has already been turned into a ‘fresh cooking’ concept that is getting rave reviews. AND, in the best news of all category, the Cougar Place apartments are in the process of getting razed right now and will be replaced with new housing. On the academic side, UH has added new space for the Honors College, MD Anderson Library, a new Cemo Hall, a Social Work Bldg rehab, expansion for the theatre school, architecture school improvements, a new home for PBS and the communications department, a new science bldg, and the school is currently building a massive bioscience/health science facility that will house a free eye clinic through the optometry school. This doesn’t even begin to mention the plans for the old Schlumberger property!” [doofus, commenting on UH: Fundraising for Robertson Stadium Replacement Halfway There]

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Comments
02/11/11 11:32pm

Comment of the Day: The Shops Around the Corner

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Montrose, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail, Third Ward
24 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SHOPS AROUND THE CORNER “Where I live, in the Montrose area, I will soon be within a three minute drive of TWO Whole Foods, a brand new HEB, an updated Kroger, another supernice Kroger on West Gray, a Randall’s, a Fiesta, etc. Three of these will be within a 10 minute walk from my house. I’d wager that there are few (no?) other neighborhoods in America offering this kind of variety and abundance. Meanwhile, my fellow Houstonians who happen to live in the 3rd Ward have no real shopping options nearby. They have to drive 10 or more minutes to perhaps suboptimal grocery stores and fresh produce. But there is a plethora of fried and fast food options in their neighborhood. So, when deciding where to eat quickly, McDonalds or the Navy Fried Seafood store seem to be the first choices. I think what Superhouston is implying is a possibly causal relationship between poverty, [poor] health, and a lack of fresh food. The connection is complicated, multi-dimensional, and definitely worth talking about.” [Matt, commenting on Where the Grocery Stores Aren’t]

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Attractions
01/24/11 6:17pm

Warwick Towers Survives Dinosaur Attack

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Condos, Museums, New Construction
9 Comments

Note: Now there’s video! See below.

All is back to normal at the Warwick Towers condominiums across from Hermann Park after last Friday’s frightening flying dinosaur episode. For Houstonians more accustomed to tracking dinosaur migrations below the earth’s surface, the appearance of a full-scale ankylosaurus dating from the early 1960s hovering high in the sky above its recent home at the Museum of Natural Science must have been a harrowing sight:

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Buying and Selling
12/07/10 2:25pm

Riverside Terrace Assisted Living: Whatever It Is, You Should Be Against It

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Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Riverside Terrace
12 Comments

Passed on to Swamplot: an “anonymous call-to-arms of sorts” distributed to the front doors of a few residents on the Hwy. 288 edge of Riverside Terrace. A reader who received the crooked yellow flyer complaining about the encroachment of businesses into the area tells Swamplot “I would find it hilarious if it didn’t make me so angry.” Our tipster notes in the author of the double-sided note an apparent “disjunction between the things that irritate them (‘Speed Racers’ and ‘sexual deviants’) and the alleged causes (businesses, like Denny’s).”:

I don’t even know how to respond – I thought about creating another flyer, actually using my name, and systematically debunking each of their complaints, but that would probably just get my house egged.

At issue: a future “assisted living facility” apparently being planned for 2323 Prospect St. The author of the flyer doesn’t exactly know what’s going in there, but writes adamantly that it can’t be good:

What kind of services are being provided and to whom these services are being provided is unknown at this time. Will this pending facility provide services for the released mentally fragile, released prisoners, sexual deviants, homeless or for drug rehab? Whatever! This business is not safe for you, your family, our block, our neighborhood and our community.

The complete flyer:

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Freeways and Toll Roads
11/08/10 1:21pm

Self Directed: A Modern House Angled for 288’s Best Freeway Views

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Home Design, Houston Architects, New Construction: Residential, Third Ward
26 Comments

A little Midcentury Modern, a little Galveston: Except here, there’s a view of the oil-stained freeway and Downtown’s skyscrapers in the distance, instead of oil-stained beaches and faraway platforms. UH architecture professor and Renzo Piano Building Workshop refugee Ronnie Self‘s house for himself and MFAH museum shop book buyer Bernard Bonnet is perched on the edge of 288, just north of 59, on the Third Ward’s western freeway frontier. All the living space in the 1,600-sq.-ft. box (HCAD scores him with an extra 256 sq. ft. for that open-air central stairway, but not for the ground-floor utility room) is raised 8 ft. above ground level on a tapered slab, just high enough to peek over the sound wall. Which means that even when 288 fills up with water, Self’s house will still stay dry, above it all.

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Comments
09/15/10 5:47pm

Comment of the Day: The Ends of an Era

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Museum District, Quicklink, Retail
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ENDS OF AN ERA “Sorry to hear this, I used to shop for groceries there long ago when I lived at 4900 Caroline with a bunch of other Rice students. It was at this store that I purchased the raw ingredients for my legendary ‘Chicken Butts in Wine Sauce.’” [Reeseman, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: MiniMax Axe]

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Comments
09/13/10 2:10pm

Comment of the Day: Appreciating Architecture in a State of Distraction

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Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Museum District, Quicklink
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: APPRECIATING ARCHITECTURE IN A STATE OF DISTRACTION “Sad to see the area lose some of its deco history. That being said, I shop at the Walgreen’s next door once weekly, and I’ve never even noticed this building.” [Superdave, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: MiniMax Axe]

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Art
09/07/10 11:19am

The Handwriting No Longer on the Wall: TSU’s President Paints Over an “Eyesore”

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Historic Preservation, TSU
20 Comments

Texas Southern University President John Rudley is now saying he gave the order to paint over 2 murals in Hannah Hall created 40 years ago by longtime TSU art professor Harvey Johnson. An earlier official statement issued by the university — and an abc13 story last week — had claimed the whitewashing had been a “mistake.” But Rudley fesses up to the Chronicle:

Rudley said the murals, which covered two walls in the Hannah Hall administration building, had become eyesores.

“When I bring dignitaries to campus, I can’t have them seeing that kind of thing,” Rudley said. “All art isn’t good art.”

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Critters
07/21/10 1:51pm

Letting It Go in Riverside Terrace

by
Gardening, Landscape, Riverside Terrace, Streetscapes
39 Comments

A reader writes:

There is an overgrown 12 foot wide city-owned “alley” behind my house in Riverside Terrace that due to weeds and trees is no longer navigable by anything larger than a “mini hydraulic excavator.” I know this because Centerpoint drove one back there when they put in my new gas meter in October.

My busy-body retired neighbor informs me that I am responsible for maintaining the alley by keeping the weeds and grass down, though when I look a few houses down in both directions from my house, I see a forest – and no one other than my neighbor complaining about it.  So I quit mowing it 2 months ago, much to her chagrine.  I’d like to treat it more like a green belt. Occasionally I’ll see a screech owl hunting back there during the late evening from its perch on my wooden fence.  IMO the more trees, the better.

Am I really legally bound to mow back there?  Mowing that small strip of grass would equate to another 2 pints of sweat lost, according to my experiences this past month.”

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Condos for Sale
07/09/10 1:51pm

Filling Il Palazzo

by
Lofts for Sale, Museum District
20 Comments

That’s no flood — just a meandering pattern on the terrace of this two-ish bedroom condo in Il Palazzo on Calumet. This 1,914-sq.-ft. space on the 5th floor of the Museum District building with the light Mussolini-era styling went on the market over the last weekend, for $425,000. The patio view is to the south, but there’s so much more to look at inside:

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Montrose
06/11/10 11:35pm

Swamplot Street Sleuths: Gotta Fight for Your Right

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Nightlife, Renovations, Riverside Terrace
9 Comments

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Answers — of a sort — to your questions:

  • Montrose: Alas, none of our readers were able to identify concrete plans for the uh, seminal Montrose nightclub at the corner of Westheimer and Yoakum, which closed last year. But some of you were happy to pass on rumors about Mary’s: “Last I heard it was being purchased/leased again and will become a new Montrose hangout paying homage to the original, but that was about two months after it closed,” reports kjb434. LandGuy points out that the next-door parking lot between Mary’s and Burger King is owned by someone else; however HCAD records indicate the owners of Mary’s still also own the lot directly behind the former club, facing California St.
  • Riverside Terrace and beyond: Can anyone snap photos of your home? “If you are in a public space, you can photograph anything you like. There may be restrictions around military installations or FBI buildings, though,” declares roving pic-snapper RWB. But watch out for overzealous security guards and cops, he warns. RWB has some experience in that department; but not so much as Downtown electric shuttle entrepreneur Erik Ibarra — who, sadly, did not weigh in to this discussion. (Ibarra founded REV Eco-Shuttle in 2008, shortly after he and his brother received a $1.7 million lawsuit settlement from the city. Six years earlier, sheriff’s deputies had entered their home near Park Place, seized their film, and arrested them after Ibarra’s brother took photos — from his own and public property — of a drug search being conducted at their next-door neighbor’s home.)

    Lauren offered a link to this handy guide to photographers’ rights. But a couple readers were certain the would-be design stalker was casing, not admiring: Says montrose: “They were just seeing if anyone was home before they robbed the joint. Nobody wants to take a picture of your house.”

We’ll post the next set of reader questions next Tuesday. Send us what you’ve got before then!

Photo of 1022 Westheimer Rd.: Swamplot inbox

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