Just last week Swamplot ran an item about the ironworker who got canned for draping a University of Alabama flag at the Kyle Field construction site in College Station. But after spotting a Texas A&M banner hoisted onto the crane for the SkyHouse Houston apartment tower Alliance Residential’s Block 334 apartment building going up at the corner of Main St. and Leeland yesterday, Twitterer-about-town PoppyPetalled wonders if flying college colors on construction sites has become “a thing.” Here’s a longer view:
Marooned
The online and offline publications of the Rice Design Alliance have announced a design competition to “reimagine” the area surrounding the city’s 21-acre police, courthouse, and jail complex centered around 61 Riesner St. between the Sixth Ward and Downtown — within the virtual world of Minecraft. Models of a number of existing buildings in the area bounded roughly by Houston Ave., Washington Ave, Preston St., I-45, and Memorial Dr. have already been crafted in the video game’s distinctive blocky style for the venture (try this server address: 108.60.220.190:25565), including Kenneth Franzheim’s 1950 Streamline Moderne HPD HQ itself (above); the publication is still seeking help to model other existing structures, including the Ferris Wheel and Aquarium on the opposite side of I-45. But simply blockifying existing structures isn’t the focus of the competition; instead, 
Two men in casual business attire attempted to walk out of a basement service door of the JPMorgan Chase Tower at 600 Travis St. after midnight last night with the beach-scene painting pictured at right, which had been hanging in one of the building’s common areas. 
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Another change coming to the Rice Lofts, now that an entity connected to the Trammell Crow family has purchased the building from Post Properties, and apartment-management duties are being turned over to Greystar: The State Bar and Lounge, which spilled out onto the Travis St. side of the former Rice Hotel’s second-floor deck facing Texas Ave., is shutting down, sources tell Swamplot. Last call will be late Saturday night. Photo: 
