Note: Story updated below.
Feel like taking a quick 16-ounce shower after your turn sweating or just watching the action at the Jamail Skatepark? It looks like Matthew Geller’s pipe sculpture at the Sabine Water Pump Station in Buffalo Bayou Park — counterintuitively named Open Channel Flow — is now will soon be open for pumping.
Here’s architect Joe Meppelink of Metalab and family taking a ceremonial first spritz over the weekend:
A reader sends in this photo, wanting us to
check out this newly built house in the first ward. On the dirt road aka Winter st. just east of White.
Who would build a house with the train running through their front yard?1?
Only in Houston.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A reader sends in this photo from the corner of Union and Henderson Sts. in the Old Sixth Ward, one block off Washington Ave. And comments:
Anyone in the market for a FREE house? This caught my eye on my way home [yesterday] and made me laugh out loud. I knew it was a rough sellers market but wow – FREE?
Sorry about the ghost images in the picture – I got so excited about a FREE house that I forgot to roll down the car window before snapping the shot!
The home dates to 1890, and was sold in October of last year. This past April, the city historical commission denied the owner’s request for a “certificate of appropriateness” to tear it down.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Arne’s Warehouse Store — that 5-building, 2-story maze of party decorations, pet supplies, and small appliances tucked into the embattled warehouse district at the base of the Heights just west of the First Ward — reopened yesterday, almost a year after being hit hard by Hurricane Ike. How hard?
The building that houses Arne’s inventory and staff offices suffered the brunt of the damages – two of its walls were blown down – and the warehouse roof was torn off by the strong winds of the storm, as well. The interior of the store, which is made entirely of wood, and all the products inside got wet, so all goods were purchased by other vendors, thrown out or destroyed. . . .
Although most of the store was in a workable condition, Arne’s was forced to close because it could not function properly without the inventory section. The necessary repairs were made to the warehouse, and the office building was rebuilt.
Photo of Arne’s, 2830 Hicks St., after Hurricane Ike: Paul McRae
And now, a view of the scene at the former Westcott Bar by the entrance to Memorial Park, where Swamplot’s Rice Military correspondent is ready at the camera. The address: 6603 Westcott, at the corner of Durford.
That banner at the front is announcing a new location for the Onion Creek Coffee House.
Two more views:
Alison Cook likes the recently opened Block 7 Wine Company:
The new venture, located in a smartly rehabbed appliance store on Shepherd just south of the Washington strip, combines retail wine sales with a wine bar that also functions as a restaurant. There’s a short, well-edited menu that will soon be expanded but which already looks and tastes promising.
The place looks smashing: airy and crisp and cool, all gunmetal greys and silvers, with black notes for ballast, a shimmer of glassware and a few bright pops of color.
I admired the vintage store fittings salvaged from the original appliance business and repurposed as a check-out desk, as well as the reasonable by-the-bottle prices and the distinct personality of the list, which does not try to be all things to all people.
Speaking of which:
From my window table, I could see Soma, the Japanese fusion and sushi spot on Washington at Shepherd, and I trembled to think of the ravening scenesters that might soon invade my little idyll.
Photo of checkout station, Block 7 Wine Co., 720 Shepherd Dr.: Alison Cook
The new owners of this townhome on Reinecke St. in Rice Military “obviously are having some difficulties,” writes reader CK, who snapped this photo of a sign next to the front driveway:
Judging from its debut in this morning’s demolition report, it’s looking like the end of the line for the classic 1960 steel-and-glass home at 6040 Glencove St., near Bayou Bend and Memorial Park.
What’s going away?
The house had the kind of wide-open spaces that modernists love, and its floors were marble Рcool, [original owner Andr̩] Crispin says, under bare feet in the summer.
At 4,600 square feet, the house was large for its era, plenty big enough for the Crispins’ four children and their grand-scale entertaining. When Crispin and his wife hosted musical events, 200 to 300 guests thronged their dramatic living room. There, those guests could admire the wall of glass 14 feet tall. It offered a view of the untamed back yard, a rolling ravine filled with sassafras trees, rabbits and armadillos.
The home was designed by Houston architect Talbott Wilson, 2 years before his firm created the Astrodome. Its current owner, David Mincberg, was appointed by Mayor White earlier this week to serve on the board of commissioners of the Houston Housing Authority. Mincberg bought the property last spring from an owner-broker who employed an innovative marketing plan: the Midcentury Modern came free with purchase of the dramatic 1.35-acre homesite.
What did Mincberg end up paying?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BATHTIME IN COTTAGE GROVE “I took a look at the flood map which gave me the first inclination of worry. I guess hurricanes don’t give me the biggest concern since they’re not as frequent… *knock on wood* – I guess I’m just trying to get a feel for how often you might find water in your house. One of my friends lived in the Heights and would have a couple inches of water in her house everytime it rained reasonably hard and I’m just trying to avoid that situation. Once again, any insight or other experiences people have had or heard of in Cottage Grove would be great!” [Ryan, commenting on The New Inner Loop Townhome Poster Child]
That plan by the owners of Otto’s Bar B Q and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. to shut down the restaurant, sell the land, and retire on the proceeds didn’t end up going so well after all, the Houston Business Journal‘s Allison Wollam notices. The 58-year-old restaurant
was slated to be demolished to make way for the sale of the high-profile Memorial Drive land, but the restaurant has now fully reopened after the owners were unable to find a buyer for the property. The hamburger side of the two-sided restaurant has remained in business, but the portion selling barbecue closed for a time. A sign on the door says the barbecue side of the restaurant celebrated a grand reopening on April 15.
But word of the reopening seems to be spreading slowly. The once-bustling parking lot of the restaurant, for example, was only sparsely populated during lunchtime on a day earlier [last] week.
The owners, June and Marcus Sofka, were told they might be able to get as much as $150 a square foot for their property when they listed it with Cushman & Wakefield at the end of 2007. But a real estate broker tells Wollam the 1.3-acre Otto’s property at 5502 Memorial Dr. and the 17,000-sq.-ft. shopping center the couple owns next door might be worth a little less than half of that today.
Photo: Flickr users Bob & Lorraine Kelly
More action in the ongoing battle over the Washington Ave. Spec’s: Responding in kind to the lawsuit filed against his company by the Harris County District Attorney in March, the owner of Spec’s has filed his own complaint against the city of Houston and Harris County.
The new countersuit claims that by granting the store permits, the city had agreed to allow the Spec’s at the Washington and Westcott roundabout to sell alcohol — even though the property was less than 1000 ft. from Memorial Elementary School. According to a city ordinance, only establishments earning more than half their revenue from food sales are allowed to sell alcohol within 1000 ft. of a school.
Spec’s owner John Rydman says the city agreed to issue the permits to sell alcohol at the store
even though the proximity to the school was noted on the application. He said he renovated a building and entered into a five-year lease at a cost of $2 million based on the assumption that the permits were valid. . . .
In a previous interview, Rydman said he knew of the potential problem and would not commit to build out the property or to sign a lease unless the city agreed to a variance. When the permits were granted, he said he thought all obstacles had been cleared.
The Harris County Attorney’s office contends that the granting of the permit was a simple error — and Spec’s officials knew it.
Meanwhile, a Swamplot reader writes in with a few pointed questions about the roles of the building’s owner and leasing agent in the dispute:
Some vocal residents of the First Ward are happy to learn that plans to move a recycling facility to the Harris Moving & Storage location at 1904 Spring St. (pictured above) have apparently been halted. A staff member in the office of newly elected councilmember Ed Gonzalez has indicated to a neighborhood group that Mayor White’s administration has agreed “not to pursue” the relocation.
The 24-hour drop-off recycling center currently operating at at 3602 Center St. (just east of Heights Blvd.) will now apparently stay where it is. Admiral Linen, operators of a facility next door to that location, had wanted to purchase the property from the city.
The Solid Waste department’s plan would have resulted in a recycling center directly adjacent to the not-quite-finished MKT/SP Hike and Bike Trail along Spring St. between Houston Ave. and Taylor. A group of First Ward residents was upset at that plan, and was further angered when the department’s director referred to their neighborhood as “an industrial area” in a neighborhood meeting.
THE NEW INNER LOOP TOWNHOME POSTER CHILD “Density hasn’t been kind to Cottage Grove, a small neighborhood with narrow streets, few sidewalks, poor drainage and scarce parking for the owners of its many new homes and their guests. Like many neighborhoods inside Loop 610, Cottage Grove in recent years has experienced a flurry of construction of large townhomes that loom over 80-year-old cottages next door. Two or three dwellings crowd sites where one house stood previously. Streets are cluttered with vehicles parked every which way. Water stands in the streets after heavy rains. ‘It was shocking to see this jewel of a neighborhood in this condition,’ said former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, a senior fellow with the nonprofit Urban Land Institute who toured Cottage Grove two years ago. ‘It was about the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, to be honest with you.’†[Houston Chronicle]
HAIF poster Htowngirl, who lives near the new Ei8ht nightclub at the corner of Roy St., complains about . . . uh, parking difficulties in her neighborhood. And posts a few photos of an early Sunday morning scene from a few weeks ago:
The parking for Ei8ht in the neighborhood is already horrendous, I can’t even imagine what it will be like when Taps, Busty LaRoue’s, and this new “country” bar open…
Sample of the parking issues… I live a few blocks off Washington, near Ei8ht…the scene outside my house at 3 AM Sunday Morning a few weeks ago. Drunk suburbanite 21-year-old drove into our ditch.
Still there in the morning…
The foundation for Open Channel Flow — a 60-ft.-tall public artwork built from steel water pipe and featuring a pump-it-yourself outdoor shower — is now in the ground at the Sabine Water Pump Station. Over the fence to the south is the new Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark. When the structure is complete, sweaty skaters — or really, anyone on the north side of Buffalo Bayou Park who’s looking for a quick wet thrill — will be able to stand over the 6-ft.-diameter stainless steel drain cover, yank the rubber handle on the adjacent pump, and get doused by “the equivalent of a few cups” of water, released from the showerhead hanging 30 feet overhead.
But dude: Don’t forget about the blinking light! A strobe at the very top of the structure will flash with each pump. Which will cue bored office workers viewing from Downtown to mark another notch in their cubicles.
