09/15/14 12:00pm

Designs for Overpass on Harrisburg Blvd., East End, Houston

Designs for Overpass on Harrisburg Blvd., East End, Houston

Metro has posted the latest designs for the enormous Hughes St. overpass along Harrisburg Blvd. on the far-east segment of the East End rail line. The $27-to-$42-million bridge is meant to carry cars and Green Line passengers over the Union Pacific East Belt freight rail line that runs north-south just west of Hughes St., between the soon-to-open East End line’s between the future Altic and Cesar Chavez stations. The posted design concepts, Metro notes, combine a “garden” wall and a wall noting a few 4-digit numbers important in the history of the neighborhood with a ribbon of white LED lighting above and blue accent lighting underneath and along the columns:

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At the End of the Green Line
07/14/14 2:00pm

Harrisburg Crossing, 4300-4500 Harrisburg Blvd. at Lockwood, East End, Houston

Former Historic Houston Salvage Warehouse, 4300 Harrisburg Blvd., East End, HoustonUpdate, 3:30 pm: A spokesperson for H-E-B informs Swamplot that the company has no plans for a Joe V’s Smart Shop in this area. Separately, a rep from Lovett Commercial indicates that the plans and declaration posted on its website that a Joe V’s Smart Shop is coming to the center are “outdated,” and that no grocery store is currently planned for that site. We’ve updated the story below accordingly.

This row of metal warehouse buildings at 4300 Harrisburg Blvd. was used for a time recently as a temporary home for the Historic Houston salvage warehouse and more recently as a spraypaint-covered tribute to the deceased graffiti artist known as Nekst (see video below) — will be torn down to make way for a new grocery store from H-E-B, according to site plans posted online by the property’s developer. The 5.34-acre site, which stretches between Oakhurst St. and Eastwood St., sits just east of the Maximus Coffee plant east of Downtown, and just north of Eastwood. This should be the first new grocery store built on a light rail line, but it won’t be a conventional H-E-B. Instead, the plans show it’ll be a Joe V’s Smart Shop, the Texas grocery chain’s low-cost, low-selection, high-volume, low-touch warehouse-style market.

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No Ice
10/17/13 10:05am

That no-tracks land along Harrisburg Blvd. between 66th and Cowling on the East End Line is supposed to look something like the underpass that these new renderings depict. Right now, though, Harrisburg isn’t passing under anything — but lying in wait instead between the nearly completed eastern and western sections of the line that stop here dead in their tracks. Though Mayor Parker announced more than 2 years ago that the East End Line would get $20.6 million in diverted funds to build the Hughes Underpass below the Union Pacific East Belt freight rail line, construction hasn’t started. Why? Well, it appears that Metro hasn’t selected a company yet.

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10/14/13 11:00am

We hardly knew ye: The Sonic Drive-In at 7001 Harrisburg and 70th has quietly closed and covered its windows with solemn gray-painted plywood. The place had been situated among other chains and franchises and bus terminals near the recently installed big yellow bumper at the end of the forthcoming East End Line, catty-corner from the Magnolia Transit Center and a few blocks north of the Gus Wortham Golf Course (and perhaps the potential future Botanic Garden).

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05/07/13 3:45pm

This new build on the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Terminal Rd. has aroused the curiosity of a Magnolia Park resident: Though its utilitarian appearance and ballast-sharing trackside location suggest a storage facility — or maybe a roll-by gift shop for forgetful conductors — a neighbor on Terminal Rd. says he heard it’s going to be the new location of Players Ice House.

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10/03/12 3:28pm

It was inevitable that construction of the new East End Line would change the face of Thunderbolt Motors & Transmissions. No more head-in parking out front means customers may have a hard time replicating the closing image of the business’s (locally) famous teevee commercial, 2 versions of which feature a blonde urban-cowgirl type in a Caddy convertible waving her hat in the air as she pulls her (presumably backed-in) convertible onto Harrisburg from one of those spaces.

The 1977 original is shown above. In the commercial’s more recent remake, the head-in parking at 6847 Harrisburg is easier to make out:

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10/01/12 9:34am

Courtesy of a reader wielding a camera along Harrisburg Blvd., here’s a tour of a few standout elements you can expect to encounter in a stroll along the path of Houston’s new East End light-rail line, now that sidewalk coordination work between CenterPoint Energy, Metro, and the Greater East End Management District has been completed.

“Most of the poles,” the reader reports, “are now in the center of the sidewalk leaving 24 inches to squeeze by on either side.” Or maybe a bit more:

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03/15/12 9:38pm

In honor of “nearly” reaching what it describes as the halfway point in constructing the new East End light-rail line, Metro is releasing this rendering showing what it’ll look like when riders reach the track’s end. It’s a view of the station at the Magnolia Park Transit Center on Harrisburg at 70th St., the line’s easternmost reach. For the most part, the basic structure of each station will be identical steel constructions with glass canopies — much as they are on the existing Main St. line.

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12/20/11 11:39am

KITCHEN ETHICS: PERMIT OR NO PERMIT? “I’m not sure who to go to on this, but I live in Eastwood and am doing a total upgrade of my kitchen. I’m going back and forth on whether to go through the city permit process or not . . . am trying to figure out the pros and cons. We have guys doing the construction that will work with us either way on it. Any thoughts?” [Swamplot inbox]

10/28/11 11:09am

From those rockin’ dudes at Metro, moving to their own beat: a timelapse view of last weekend’s marathon Friday night to Monday morning East End Line construction project at the intersection of Harrisburg and Lockwood. (Traffic lanes and utilities had already been installed.) The beat goes on. . . .

Video: Metro

07/26/11 4:05pm

Harrisburg Blvd. and the East End light-rail line Metro is building along it will dip under the Union Pacific East Belt freight rail line between the future Altic and Cesar Chavez stations, Mayor Parker announced today. The city has committed $20.6 million of “existing money” to the build the underpass — in part by delaying other area improvement projects. The alternative, a longer freeway-style overpass, was opposed by many area residents and businesses.

Drawing: City of Houston

11/20/09 11:40pm

A big thank you to our photographers this week: russell.hancock, biggsbean, can-da-chee garcia, Lizard666, eg66tex, and xnomad. What’d they do? Capture an East End neighborhood on pixels for us.

And here is their work, all from within 500 ft. of the intersection of Harrisburg Blvd. & Wayside Dr.: Swamplot’s 5th group photo feature.

How does it look?

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11/17/09 4:14pm

WHAT ABOUT BOB? Dana Jennings reports from Eastwood, 2 blocks west of Lockwood, “where the light rail project is in high jackhammer mode.”: “Bob Street would be a good place to live. It’s short, like the name. Starts at Harrisburg and dead-ends into Garrow Street near the meandering, tree-lined Harrisburg hike and bike trail. Bob St. is just two short blocks lined with single story bungalows and front porches. Most need love and repair. . . . Talked to a young man, drinking coffee on his front steps, enjoying the morning mist. He was making sure I wasn’t up to no good. . . . Quiet little street with its own version of neighborhood watch, and with artists in the night, spraypainting dragons at the corner. Curiously, all homes face the street at a slight 15? degree angle. Lining up the porches to salute the rising sun? Wonder what the trendmaker builder of the time was thinking, back in 1910?” [The Next San Miguel de Allende]

10/22/09 4:50pm

Last week east ender Dana Jennings took photos of a small 1920 brick bungalow on Harrisburg near Caylor — next to a pipe yard, railroad tracks, a boarding house . . . and on its west side, the El Torito Lounge:

Some would say good riddance to El Torito. But I liked the painted sign out front with the flagrantly sexual old Bull leering and leaning on his pool cue. I’m going to miss him. He was a waymarker, a placeholder, a sign that oriented me in my travels. “Oh, there’s the bull on the purple bar….I’m on Harrisburg near the tracks, almost home.” That sort of thing. But the streetscape needs the light rail, so this loss is semi rather than bitter sweet.

Losing the bungalow to the backhoe’s claw is more painful.

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