COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RICE MILITARY MARCH “I walk around in Rice Military and between the old homes, new townhouses, ditches, curbs, overgrown lots, old pea-gravel concrete, newer brick-u-luxe pavers, electrical and cable boxes, new mailbox clusters, construction vehicles, and general chaos, there is hardly any contiguous sidewalk in any block in any direction.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Where the Sidewalk Takes a Little Break]
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Tag: 77007
These signs, in versions specially designed for both taller and shorter readers, are now posted on the north side of the recently revamped Buffalo Bayou trail just before it ducks under Memorial Dr., a reader informs Swamplot. Just in case the message isn’t clear: This trail is a bike route. Two sets of double signs are posted, for trailgoers in each direction.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
This home’s walls have ears. And eyes. And behind all the portraits lining them, a lot of nail holes for new owners to fill. Located at the corner of 9th St. and Tulane in the Houston Heights, this little casa is part of a small enclave of Spanish Colonial homes that rose on the block a decade ago. Inside you’ll find 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and enough wall space to field a collection of collections.
Photographer Karen Dressel documents the dramatic final moments of the former Shepherd Drive Methodist Church on the corner of Blossom St. in Magnolia Grove, which hit the dirt earlier this week after 57 years of relative motionlessness:
You’ll have the remainder of this month to say goodbye to another piece of the old Washington Ave: The Guadalajara Bakery at 4003 Washington announces, through a sign posted in a front window, that it’ll be closing down on February 29th, after 45 years in business. The Houston Press‘s Katherine Shilcutt reports that new building owners have plans to turn the breakfast-taco spot on the corner of Leverkuhn into a bar, and gave the bakery 30 days to vacate; the Chavez family has no plans to reopen elsewhere.
- Openings & Closings: January 2012 [Eating Our Words]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LICKED CLEAN BY MILLIONS OF COCKROACHES “Roaches? I didn’t leave them out. I just didn’t see any — as in, not one. No living creatures at all, except us humans. The place smelled clean, like fresh water. I wonder where those roaches went…. and (ugh) what they were eating down there in the ’80s.” [Lisa Gray, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Cockroaches Found That Cistern First]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE COCKROACHES FOUND THAT CISTERN FIRST “Back in ’83 until about ’85 my buddies Colin Mazzola, Keith Tashima and myself would go down an open hatch into that thing — they closed it up sometime around ’86 or ’87 — this was back when jogging around the North side os Allen Parkway (near the celemetaries) was a little sketchy — people hanging out in the park near/under the Memorial Dr underpasses — anyway, what Lisa Gray left out was the 10 million roaches down there — we couldn’t hang out there for long — you couldn’t sit down or hang — BUT it was really cool and I remember being totally amazed that the City had an underground aqueduct/storm sewer overflow (yes it flooded and was impossible to go down the ladder) that was open and pretty much abandoned.” [David Beebe, commenting on Poking Around in Buffalo Bayou’s Abandoned Basement]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HOUSTON MUSIC UNDERGROUND “it sounds really really cool, but aside from asking Pauline Oliveros to re-record her Deep Listening album i can’t think of a single thing that would make good use of an abandoned cistern.” [joel, commenting on Poking Around in Buffalo Bayou’s Abandoned Basement]
POKING AROUND IN BUFFALO BAYOU’S ABANDONED BASEMENT 
Lisa Gray finds echoes, art, and a few dramatic rays of light in the giant abandoned 1927 underground reservoir near the Buffalo Bayou at Sabine St., under the planned site of a new outdoor performance pavilion: “The question now, of course, is what to do with the Cistern. [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy] Hagstette says that everyone now agrees it won’t be used for parking or storage. But what should it be? How should the public have access to it? And how will it be paid for? (The Cistern was discovered after the Buffalo Bayou Project had budgeted all its Shepherd-to-Sabine money for other projects.) When we reached the far end of the Cistern, we left the ledge, walking down concrete stairs to the muddy floor. The silty red mud, Shanley explained, was composed of iron and other minerals that long ago settled out of the reservoir’s water. Every now and then, a drop of condensed water from the ceiling would hit the soft mud, and the tiny sound would echo. Shanley shone his flashlight on the ground, examining the droplets’ marks. ‘It’s like the surface of Mars,’ he said.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Site plan for Water Music Place on top of reservoir: Buffalo Bayou Partnership
The folks at the Chick-fil-A rising at the corner of Spring and Sawyer in the First Ward (across from the Sawyer Heights Shopping Center) aren’t quite ready to take your order, but judging from this photo it looks like they might be sometime soon. The fast-food drive-thru is going up on the site of the former Riviana Foods warehouse at 2222 Shearn St., which was demo’ed last fall. Now if they’d just add a second Starbucks somewhere near the giant parking lot, comments Twitter photographer knittykat (there’s one inside the Target already), the area would truly fulfill its destiny as stay-at-home mom mecca of the Heights.
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Chicken and Rice
Photo: Twitter user knittykat
WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE? 
“For the last couple of months, the gray building on the corner of Houston Ave. and Summer St., on the same block as Dharma Cafe, has been under construction — mainly on the interior. Any word on what this will be?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Another reason for checking Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Reports on a regular basis: You might find your home listed on it. Two years ago today, the city’s neighborhood protection department took out demo permits on the houses at 1315 and 1317 Shepherd Dr. at the southeastern tip of Cottage Grove, listing them as dangerous buildings; they showed up on Swamplot the next day. But in a lawsuit filed this week, Bellaire Bead Shop owner Katie Koenig claims she was never informed about the impending demolition of her 2 houses, where she stored her bead inventory. Koenig says she only discovered the houses had been torn down when she tried to visit them sometime around January 8th, 2010; she also claims she was injured on the property after tripping over fencepost stumps left after city crews came back later and partially removed a 6-ft. privacy fence she had had built surrounding the houses.
“People are always peeing on my street, so I bought a Q-Beam.” With that informative epigram, blogger Jay Rascoe takes his focus off his usual guns and tacos beat for a wee bit in his new Tumblelog, OneBlockOffWashington. There he catalogs his growing collection of caught-peeing, caught-puking, and caught-in-a-ditch videos shot from his home perch, which is, apparently, a block off Washington Ave. Rascoe’s frequent late-night interactions with would-be sidewalk urinators wandering back from club visits are frequently aided by the million candles’ worth of halogen in a pistol grip he points at perpetrators. But some of his most entertaining street-scene captures use only available light:
WHAT’S BEHIND THOSE BOARDED-UP WINDOWS? 
Sawbuck Realty doesn’t appear to have a separate “historic home, likely teardown” template for the home-listing videos the company’s website automatically generates. Which might explain some of the strangeness of this curious autoplay “tour” of the property at 1915 Shearn St. in the First Ward. From the script: “. . . with great space and fresh air for your peace of mind. Which make this home an ideal purchase for buyers who value privacy and comfort.” [Sawbuck Realty, via Swamplot inbox] Photo: HAR
A reader who happened upon an outing of Blink stations at Memorial Park sends in this photo evidence that the commercial electric-vehicle chargers are multiplying. Two Blink stations at the nearby Houston Arboretum had been installed by the September 8th rollout of a city-wide drive-electric program. A total of 200 Blink-brand stations are being installed in the Houston area.
- ECOtality Announces the Expansion of The EV Project into Houston [Ecotality]
- Previously on Swamplot: More Jolts from Buffalo Grille Coffee, Houston EV Incentives: Free Jolt for Your Volt, Toll Relief for Your Leaf, Wired To Drive: Where Houston’s New Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Will Go
Photo: Swamplot inbox
