VISTA BONITA APARTMENTS: STILL OPEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS! Where’s everybody going? Sure, the gas is turned off, but really, what’s the rush? “Most residents have moved, but those from about 20 apartments remain in the 144-unit complex near the Gulf Freeway and Airport Boulevard, [Vista Bonita Apartments owner Nanik] Bhagia said. Many of those who remain are close to finding apartments, but are embittered that Bhagia has given them such short notice. . . . Bhagia on Tuesday said residents don’t have to move out immediately — if they need more time, they can have it. State law generally affords tenants — depending on their lease — more time than a few days to move out. Bhagia’s notice to vacate is not a formal eviction process. But he could seek to evict tenants who don’t leave.” [Houston Chronicle; previously]
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Tag: 77017
VISTA BONITA APARTMENTS CLOSING MONDAY The owner of a rundown apartment compound on the edge of South Houston where a boy drowned late last month has decided to shut down the entire 144-unit complex rather than correct unsafe conditions identified by the city: “In a brief phone interview Tuesday, [owner Nanik] Bhagia repeated his pledge to refund November rent and security deposits. He said he also would pay residents’ application fees at new complexes, but ended the call when pressed for specifics. Some tenants have said the office often is closed, and they were not sure Tuesday how to take advantage of his offer. Bhagia later e-mailed the Chronicle to say that tenants ‘will be paid when they turn in the keys and do not take away any of our appliances. We are not running away.’ The child’s death prompted more scrutiny from city inspectors, who descended again on the property and issued dozens of new citations. Residents say Bhagia blamed conditions on Hurricane Ike, but the city has been issuing tickets for years.” [Houston Chronicle; previously]
THE CASE AGAINST GOING PAPERLESS At least 72 safety-violation cases against the owner of a run-down apartment complex just outside South Houston were dropped last year because the paperwork was lost, say city officials. A toddler drowned in the apartment’s pool earlier this week. “Randy Zamora, the city’s chief prosecutor, said an outside company hired to digitally scan some 7 million archived and pending tickets might have misplaced the documents. The error allowed [Nanik] Bhagia, who did not return telephone and e-mail requests for comment on Wednesday, to delay for a year facing a jury or making repairs to the Vista Bonita Apartments, 9313 Tallyho. . . . Police investigators said the boy may have reached the murky pool by stepping through a damaged fence or a faulty gate, both of which are violations of city code.” [Houston Chronicle]
Whispering, Cripple, Shady, or Straight: In Meadowcreek, every street is its own creek! The neighborhood has lots of great old houses, preserved marvelously in the area’s specially formulated air. These four homes are all on the Houston side of the neighborhood, and they’re all open for inspection this weekend!
Location: 5238 Cripple Creek Ct.
Details: 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,470 sq. ft.
Price: $172,900
The Scoop: 1968 Storybook Ranch with lots of brickish accents inside. Big Kitchen opens to Family Room with cylindrical corner fireplace. Lot next door is also available. On the market since the beginning of the month.
Open House: Sunday, noon-3 pm
Click this way to see more!
Houston’s lone professional tourists, John Nova Lomax and David Beebe, stop off at the Brady’s Island in the Ship Channel midway into their latest day-long stroll . . . through this city’s southeastern stretches:
The air is foul here, and the eastern view is little more than a forest of tall crackers and satanic fume-belching smokestacks, sending clouds of roasted-cabbage-smelling incense skyward to Mammon, all bisected by the amazingly tall East Loop Ship Channel Bridge, its pillars standing in the toxic bilge where Brays Bayou dumps its effluent into the great pot of greenish-brown petro-gumbo.
While Brady’s Landing today seems to survive as a function room – a sort of Rainbow Lodge for the Ship Channel, with manicured grounds that reminded Beebe of Astroworld — decades ago, people came here to eat and to take in the view. This was progress to them, this horrifically awesome vista showed how we beat the Nazis and Japanese and how we were gonna stave off them godless Commies. As for me, it made me think of Beebe’s maxim: “Chicken and gasoline don’t mix.â€
More from the duo’s march through “Deep Harrisburg”: Flag-waving Gulf Freeway auto dealerships, an early-morning ice house near the Almeda Mall, a razorwire-fenced artist compound in Garden Villas, Harold Farb’s last stand, colorful Broadway muffler joints, the hidden gardens of Thai Xuan, and — yes, gas-station chicken.
“There is nothing else like the Southeast side,” Lomax adds in a comment:
I see it as the true heart of Houston. Without the port and the refineries we are nothing. The prosperous West Side could be Anywhere, USA, but the Southeast Side could only be here.
- Sole of Houston: Deep Harrisburg: Lomax and Beebe Take on the East Side Again [Houstoned]
- Brady’s Landing
- Previously in Swamplot: Long Point, Long Walk, Long Story, Telephone Road Walking Tour: Not How They Sang It Was, Shade, Subs, Plexes and Suds: A Bissonnet Story, Lonely East Side Walking Tour, Walking on Bellaire
Photo of El Torito Lounge on Harrisburg: John Nova Lomax and David Beebe
On today’s knock-down docket: Portions of four businesses and six houses. Read ’em and weep—after the jump.
A three-bedroom, two-bath, 2700-square-foot house on a cul-de-sac. A half-acre, wooded, park-like lot. Overlooking the bayou. Designed by Houston’s own Frank-Lloyd-Wrightian architects, MacKie & Kamrath, and built in 1969. Lots of built-ins and stained glass.
At $259,000, is it a bargain?
It’s in Meadow Creek Village. Meadowcreek has some nice mid-century moderns. But yes, it’s on the southeast side of Houston, and it’s not too far from Hobby Airport or Pasadena. That bayou is Berry Creek, a tributary of Sims Bayou.
So some of you are probably imagining how nice this house would be if it were only in a different part of town.
How nice would it be? Read on for an estimate—and more photos.
