THE LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS PLAQUE AND THE MAHATMA GANDHI DISTRICT “Like all good Americans, we were pleased to learn that Sam Hopkins is finally getting some belated semi-official recognition in the form of a Texas Historical Commission plaque on a corner of Dowling Street in Third Ward, a thoroughfare named in honor of the Confederate-Irish barkeep who headed off the Yankees at the Pass in the service of the effort to keep Lightnin’ Hopkins’ forebears enslaved. (Pardon our “presentism,” but, man, history is just so damn ironic!) This is a good thing, of course–the plaque, not slavery–and temporary culmination of efforts that at least to our knowledge began with a long-ago suggestion by the late City Councilwoman Eleanor Tinsley (to whom it was most assuredly suggested by someone else) to rename a street or part of a street after Hopkins. Unsuccessful as it was, this always struck us as a sweet gesture, since Tinsley didn’t seem like the kind of gal who’d have listed her self as a friend on Lightnin’s Facebook page, if he’d lived long enough to have one. . . . But the plaque is not enough. Just recently, a small swath of the home turf on and around Hillcroft Avenue was designated as the Mahatma Gandhi District . . . Our understanding is that this designation–made visible by placement of small signs, in the shape of a Hindu temple and bearing Gandhi’s likeness, atop the regular street signs–was the result of a private fund-raising effort. . . . Can anyone apply to so designate a district? And if so, where is the Lightnin’ Hopkins District? A memorial sign on Dowling is good and appropriate, but it sort of ghetto-izes the man, who . . . “embodied the country-come-to-town spirit” of our big hick burg better than almost anyone we can think of, except for its namesake, the illustrious Illiad-spouting farmboy and drunkard.” [Slampo’s Place]
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Tag: 77036
WHEN BURGLAR BARS KILL Additional obstacle in last night’s fire at the Copperwood Townhomes, on Imogene St. at the northern edge of the Westwood Golf Club: “The burglar bars ‘slowed us down a little bit getting in,’ said HFD District Chief Tommy Dowdy. ‘If (the occupants) tried to get out through the window, it would have been a deterrent.’ Firefighters discovered the man’s body in a ground-floor apartment.” [Houston Chronicle]
DO NOT RESUSCITATE; MOVE TO HARWIN A reader who’s been intermittently monitoring the vital signs of the DNR European Cafe and Deli in Chelsea Market on Montrose reports that the restaurant has closed: “There is a sign out front announcing the impending opening of a new restaurant called ‘Chelsea Grill.'” Meanwhile, a notice on DNR’s listing at restaurant website B4-u-eat notes that DNR will be opening “soon” at 10400 Harwin Dr. [Swamplot inbox]
REDEVELOPMENT BRAWL AT THE SHARPSTOWN MALL Developer and former Sugar Land mayor David Wallace now says his firm’s $350 million proposal to redevelop the Sharpstown Mall — approved in early July by the Southwest Houston TIRZ over the objections of the mall’s owner and manager — isn’t likely to happen: “R.D. Tanner, a partner in the firm, resigned from the TIRZ board the day his company [Wallace Bajjali Development Partners] submitted its vision for the mall. The board voted to support his firm’s bid that same day. The board is tasked with overseeing the site’s redevelopment and distributing up to $20 million of public money to assist in that effort. The mall’s owner and manager — whose own redevelopment plan was rejected by the authority in May — filed suit last week, alleging that Tanner and the TIRZ board’s subsequent requests for information were “a subterfuge†to obtain “confidential, proprietary information†they could use to make their own bid. The allegations highlight a widespread problem in Houston: that developers on TIRZ boards are often able to make decisions about tax abatements — and the use of public dollars for economic development — that ultimately benefit themselves or their projects, according to Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, an advocacy organization that promotes openness and accountability in government.” [Houston Chronicle]
How’s the street surfing in your neighborhood?
Photo: Flickr user jarrod-drew, via The High on the Hog Blog
The same organization that campaigned successfully several years ago to place that statue of Mahatma Gandhi next to the herb garden in Hermann Park is now proposing another Houston honor for the slain spiritual leader. Abc13’s Sonia Azad reports that Houston’s India Cultural Center wants to rename the section of Hillcroft Ave. between Highway 59 and Westpark to Mahatma Gandhi Street.
Or should that be Mahatma Gandhi Avenue?
[City Council Member MJ] Khan says he will support changing Hillcroft’s name to Mahatma Gandhi Avenue, if that’s what the community wants.
“Our city is a very international city so I think it will help if we start branding that area,” Khan explained.
Store clerk Inder Buhtti believes Gandhi Avenue could curb crime and violence in the area.
He said, “Everything he wants he wanted in a peaceful way, not with guns or with bombs.” . . .
Spanish, Guatemalan, Chinese and Persian businesses in the area attract an array of customers. Azar Delpassand from Iran says the street’s name should reflect that diversity.
She said, “In here, this street, you have Arabic stores, you have Indian stores, you have Persian stores. So excluding others because of Indians, I don’t think (so). It’s not fair.”
Photo of Gandhi statue in Hermann Park: Keri Bas
FORGET IT, JAKE. IT’S ASIATOWN The Chronicle quietly debuts that new, more inclusive name for the pan-Asian strip along Bellaire Blvd. between 59 and Highway 6 formerly known as Chinatown: Asiatown. A recent email describing marauding, gun-toting, and noodle-slurping gangs in the area is wrong: “Janet Chiu, manager of Tan Tan, one of the purportedly robbed restaurants, said the tales caused business to drop by 20 percent. ‘It’s more Dead Town than Asiatown,’ she complained, voicing a strident denial that her cafe had been robbed.” [Houston Chronicle]
Tasty Bits blogger Misha catches up with Diho Square on Bellaire:
Where else do you find Sichuan duck tongues, sushi, babh mi, bubble tea, vegetarian pork kidneys and French pastries within steps of each other?
On this (extended) visit: Sichuan Cuisine, Shanghai Restaurant, and the Pine Forest Garden Vegetarian Restaurant. But the Jungle Café & Pâtisserie warrants his closest attention:
I must have passed it a dozen times, but never thought to look inside. If I had, I would have found French-style pastries inflected with pokemon graphics, the likes of which I have never seen in Chinatown before or anywhere else in Houston for that matter.
After the jump: a few more photos from the scene.
It looks like a number of our readers thoroughly enjoyed the photo tour of this week’s mystery house. Which is great, because now they’ll be able to enjoy the panoramic virtual tour that comes with the listing as well!
We tallied 3 guesses for Meyerland and 2 each for Montrose, Kingwood, and Humble. The rest of your votes dispersed individually to Tanglewood, Huntwick Forest, inside the loop off Stella Link, Greenwood Forest, Spring, Nottingham in Katy, Meyer Park, Westbury, somewhere within 15 miles of Champions, Glenbrook Valley, Sharpstown Country Club Estates, Atascocita, and Mission Bend.
The winner this week was the mysterious sgs, who made the case for Sharpstown Country Club Estates with this succinct comment, which we quote here in full:
sharpstown country club estates
Did sgs have previous knowledge of the property? It doesn’t matter — but we hope to persuade players who find themselves in that position in future contests to play the advanced version of our game: by sending us an email containing the listing and then submitting well-argued, misleading, and wildly inaccurate “guesses” to the comment pool. Won’t that make it more fun for everyone?
We did have one other participant this week who sent us the correct address . . . but sadly, could not be persuaded to post bald-faced lies about the property in our comments section. Maybe next time?
Picking the best comment this week was tough, because so many of them were especially entertaining. But the honorable mention nod goes to first poster Jeff, for this almost cinematic description:
What an odd house! (seriously…is that a cowboy boot hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen??) Looks like a hippie artist from Sedona took a hit from a bong and then proceeded to transform a 1960’s mod house into a slightly upgraded bachelor pad. The foosball table in the tv room looks like something I did once. Outdoors looks like the garage is in the middle of disrepair.
The character development in this treatment could probably stand some improvement, but the set design shows promise!
After the jump: what you’ve been waiting for . . . the reveal!
A shopping center tucked off Bellaire Blvd. just inside Beltway 8 hosts a particularly intriguing restaurant row:
Within feet of Fu Fu Cafe are something like 7 or 8 eateries offering a bewildering range of options in just a single shopping strip. The gelato shop is right next to a bakery that sells French desserts, Chinese pastries and rice cakes that look like guerilla hand grenades. A restaurant a few doors down serves Braised Lion Head, a Shanghai pork meatball specialty cooked with Napa cabbage I have never come across and have yet to sample (no, it’s not made with real lion meat, I checked). Noodle House 88, which Robb Walsh swears serves some of the best Indonesian food in the country, is in the very same strip. If Indonesian food doesn’t suit you, you can order sushi from the same menu. A new dim sum place opened just days ago and already looks packed.
But some of these food establishments aren’t so accessible for newcomers, warns the author of the Tasty Bits blog:
Tucked in at the end of the strip Paradise Cafe looks almost impenetrable to a non-Chinese American. Other than the name and descriptive signs such as “noodles” and “soups”, the only real clue as to what is inside is a magazine article pasted in the window showing a chef pulling noodles by hand. I got a blank stare when I asked for a to go menu, making me even more curious. For all I know the article could have been about the importance of keeping a tidy kitchen, but the promise of hand made noodles was too much to ignore, so I made it my mission to figure out what was behind the iron curtain.
Keep reading for Tasty Bits’ lowdown on Paradise Cafe noodles!
It’s high time for another street-walking adventure from the writing, singing, photographing, and drinking duo of quasi-professional pedestrians John Nova Lomax and David Beebe. Their latest challenge: a 14.5-mile walk along Bissonnet, from Synott Road (just past Dairy Ashford) to Montrose, which brings Lomax to this stirring conclusion on the sidewalk-transforming power of street trees:
By now, I’ve walked damn near the entire lengths of Bellaire, Westheimer, Clinton, Navigation, and Shepherd, and Bissonnet is nicer than all of them, for the simple reason that its sidewalks have far more shade. Westheimer has none between 6 and the Loop, save for a few landscaping fantasias at scattered corporate campuses; there’s none to be had on most of Shepherd unless you duck under a bridge (where you might sit on human turds); sun-baked Bellaire has none from Eldridge central Sharpstown, and the East Side streets are only a little better. Bissonnet, on the other hand, seems like a stroll through Yosemite.
Below the fold: local color.
Over at Houstoned, professional barfly John Nova Lomax and crooner David Beebe take a long, strange trip down the entire length of Bellaire Blvd.—on foot. Lomax’s conclusion:
If Westheimer is mainly about the fetishes, broken dreams and vanities of Anglo whites, and Shepherd is all about the needs of cars, Bellaire is a world market of a street, a bazaar where Mexicans, Anglos, Salvadorans, African Americans, Hondurans, stoners, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans and Thais go to shop and eat.
The report from western Chinatown:
Tall bank buildings are sprouting, with glass fronts festooned in Mandarin. Strip malls fill with Vietnamese crawfish joints, Shaolin Temples, and acupuncture clinics. As we crossed Brays Bayou, a huge temple loomed in the distance, and it didn’t take much imagining to pretend you were gazing across a rice paddy toward a Vietnamese village. A Zen center abuts one of the last businesses in town to carry the all-but-forgotten A.J. Foyt’s once-omnipresent name. A couple of ratty old apartment complexes have changed into commercial buildings, each unit housing its own business.
The rice paddies, of course, have left the neighborhood.
More highlights of their journey, as they walk east: live turtles in the water gardens outside the Hong Kong City Mall; front-yard car lots in Sharpstown; Jane Long Middle Schoolers rushing convenience stores; the “Gulfton Ghetto.” Plus, this illuminating report from Alief:
Alief Ozelda Magee, the town’s namesake, is buried right there, under a slate-gray monument with a touching epitaph: “She did what she could.†And hell, maybe she still is. The adjoining apartment complex, which is rumored to cover some of the graves here, is said to suffer from a poltergeist infestation.
- I am a Pedestrian Report: Bellaire [Houstoned]
Photo: Cruising down Bellaire, by flickr user corazón girl
