“It’s not really dead. While we’re asleep it will emerge from the scrap heap and continue to wander under the cover of night. Somewhere a husband will find it and attempt another violent execution, only to have the wife frantically call him home when it crawls back out the next day.” [mek ju, commenting on Giant Neon Cockroach That Haunted Southwest Freeway, Eradicated at Last]
Read more about: Comments, Houston Landmarks, Signs
Bubba, the cockroach enshrined in an enormous neon sign for Holder’s Pest Control, which stood guard for years along Westpark next to the Southwest Freeway, will not return to the Houston skyline, the company reports. The 8-ft.-by-16-ft. sign was taken down in 2004, after Holder’s relocated. But after almost 8 years of residence in a company warehouse, the sign was “cut up and hauled off for recycling” earlier this year, reports Travis Alford. That menacing, old-fashioned cockroach is no longer a part of the brand identity of the company now known as Holder’s Pest Solutions, and it won’t be coming back. Holder’s just-unveiled new logo instead features a gentle curve at its top that references instead a much more modern feature of Houston: the Astrodome. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Holder’s Pest Control
Read more about: 77057, Critters, Houston Landmarks, Signs
September 29, 2011 – 8:56 am
In time for campaign season, Mayor Parker announced yesterday that the city would begin cracking down on bandit signs placed on public property by fining violators under an existing city ordinance that — as far as she knows — has never been enforced. Political candidates will be given 24 hours’ notice for each violation before being charged $200 a pop, she said. Collected funds will be used to defray the cost of removing the signs — which reached $450,000 in 2009.
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Read more about: Landscape, Mayor Parker, Signs, Streetscapes
September 7, 2011 – 9:03 am
Political consultant and bandit-sign monitor Greg Wythe digs into campaign filings to assess a recent claim by at-large city council candidate Eric Dick — that many of the ubiquitous and often illegally posted signs advertising his candidacy throughout Houston are the work of “overzealous volunteers.” Wythe’s findings: At a sign distribution meeting held at the Captain Benny’s at 10896 Northwest Fwy. just south of 34th St. in mid-May, Dick’s campaign shelled out a whopping $22.36 to feed the overzealous crowd. But payments to a company hired to distribute the campaign’s signs amount to more than $5,000. [Greg's Opinion; background; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Empty Lot Primary
Read more about: City Council, Elections, Landscape, Signs, Streetscapes
A reader sends in photos of several signs posted near the corner of Spring and Goliad streets, in the shadow of the 45 overpasses not too far north of Downtown. And there they are, like halved pears, stripped skinless, golden in heavy syrup. Our tipster wants to know who the artist is. (And really, don’t you?) Also, if this qualifies as . . . graffoetry? Grafauxetry?
More First Ward sign findings below:
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Read more about: 77007, Art, First Ward, Graffiti, Public Art, Signs
It’s just about summertime, and all you fans of fresh West University produce know what that means: Yes, it’s well past time to set up those security cameras to monitor your vulnerable front-yard fruits. “The camera and fruit-thief deterrent signs have returned,” notes the reader who sent in these photos of this ripe “either peach or nectarine” tree on Tangley, west of Buffalo Speedway. But the security effort actually appears to be a bit more subdued than last year. The bilingual warning signage featured on the tree and a few of its neighbors last season has been replaced with a smaller and simpler handwritten “Camera” warning.
Swamplot’s West U fruit scout says there’s another sign on the other side of the tree “that says something like ‘Don’t even think about it.’” No photo of that? Explains the source: “I was in a hurry and, of course, wanting to stay out of the camera’s wily view.”
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Read more about: 77005, Landscape, Security, Signs, Trees, West University
Ever wonder what’s behind all the political endorsements made by so many vacant lots in Houston? Why is it that the weedy site shown above at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Center St., near the future West End Walmart, for example, appears to be supporting Jenifer Rene Pool in her bid for an at-large city council seat? Among the empty lots of Washington Ave, there seems to be a lot of support for another candidate for the same position, Eric Dick. What’s up with that? Political consultant Greg Wythe, who’s long studied the demographics and political opinions of Harris County’s human population, has begun a new website devoted to exploring the campaign preferences of Houston’s vacant properties — as expressed by the various signs and banners they’re regularly festooned with.
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Read more about: Landscape, Signs, Washington Ave., West End
“I guess I am behind the times on marketing strategies,” admits real estate agent Robert Searcy after snapping these pics of the latest offer posted on Bellfort St. near Broadway, just a mile north of Hobby Airport.
Photos: Robert Searcy
Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Signs, Streetscapes
Following up on this shocking reader-submitted photo of a TxDOT electronic sign spotted Friday morning from the northbound Gulf Freeway near the Galveston Causeway, a local investigative news team springs into action: “At last check, FOX 26 News was not able to locate any zombies on the mainland.” Keep tuned for updates.
Photo: Fox26 Viewer Amy
Read more about: 77554, Galveston, Hazards, Signs
January 25, 2011 – 11:13 am
The New York sculptor behind those new splashy welcome signs on JFK Blvd. outside IAH passed away over the weekend after a short bout with liver cancer. Dennis Oppenheim explained the inspiration behind the Radiant Fountains sculpture and light show to the Chronicle‘s Douglas Britt last August: It was a sign he had seen as a child from the Bayshore Freeway in Oakland, California, which featured an animated version of the famous Sherwin-Williams “Cover the Earth” logo.
It was the world globe and then a bucket of paint dripping on top of it, and this captivated me. I told them [the Houston Arts Alliance] quite frankly that I would be extremely satisfied if I accomplished something like that, because it really did capture the ongoing traffic. I also said that it would be nice if these works were so … whatever … that people would turn around and come back to see them again.
Video: Andrew Vrana
Read more about: 77032, IAH, Public Art, Sculpture, Signs
January 18, 2011 – 12:12 pm
Sculptor David Adickes is almost ready to plant this giant concrete-on-steel sign on property he owns along Chester St. on the south side of I-10, just east of Patterson. You’ll be able to get your best view of it when traffic comes to a standstill on your way downtown. Just needs a few more finishing touches, like a figurine or 2 or 8 to accompany that little guitar player hanging out between the O and the U. And hey, you’re right! If the Hollywood sign were 15 feet shorter, came down from the hillside, grew an ego, and stood by the freeway, it would kinda look like this.
Photo: Imelda Bettinger [license]
Read more about: 77007, Art, David Adickes, Public Art, Signs, West End
December 6, 2010 – 2:31 pm
“This is the kind of thing that every kid who lives here will remember 40 years from now. ‘Remember that weird light show thing they had at the airport?’” [Cap'n McBarnacle, commenting on Here’s Your Splashy New Welcome Sign, Houston]
Read more about: 77032, IAH, Public Art, Sculpture, Signs
December 3, 2010 – 2:35 pm
Backsplash from a stream of strange particles falling from the sky, or is that just some mucky stuff bubbling up from underfoot? Either way, what better way to say, “Welcome to Houston”? The night lights are now on at “Radiant Fountains,” the new collection of pipe-assembly sculptures by New York artist Dennis Oppenheim, commissioned by the Houston Arts Alliance, working with Houston Airport Systems — whose offices are nearby — under the city’s 11-year-old “percent for art” policy. Recently completed on JFK Blvd. near Rankin Rd., they’re meant to greet newly arrived passengers from IAH. Andrew Vrana from Metalab — the local architecture firm that coordinated the installation — captures an early glimpse of the splashy action on video:
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Read more about: 77032, IAH, Public Art, Sculpture, Signs
Comment of the Day: Growing Your Own Whole Foods Market, from Seed