Cutting classes in the Pasadena I.S.D. Plus: a little house trimming. It’s all in the day’s work:
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Tag: Demolitions
Self-taught Houston designer, cabinet-maker, boat-builder, and entrepreneur Robert Cohen passed away last weekend at the age of 91, a couple of months after the death of his wife, Jean, and a little less than 2 years after his singular creation, Meyerland’s ultra-fab Carousel House, was demolished.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE SMALL, STYLIN’ INNER-LOOP HOMES? “Gotta wonder how many of these homes will be standing a year from now. The danger in many in-loop neighborhoods is that one day you must face the fact that your home is a tear-down. I have a friend near Pershing Middle School in that situation. Plans on selling when the kids are grown, which is soon, but it makes every dollar for repairs and upkeep especially painful.” [finness, commenting on Small, Stylish, and Already Sold: Design-y Inner Loop Home Bargains You Missed]
Smokeout on Harrisburg. Plus a little more off the Inwood Oaks Apartments. A brief guide to the day’s destruction:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
A little Lower Westheimer streetfront clearance, a little freeway strip removal today. But that’s not all:
One lucky residence takes home the entire jackpot today! And the winner is . . .
COMMENT OF THE DAY: IT’S THE CIRCLE OF BUILDING LIFE, AND IT MOVES US ALL “Gosh, I guess [I] would get away from debating the merits of antiquated cross ventilation systems vs. central air conditioning (a/c won out by the way). Or whether or not our rent is sufficiently cheap for a slum lord to maintain a viable apartment for this month and into the future. Pause just for a moment, hands off the pocket books for a second, to look at these images and contemplate the inevitable humbling the passage of time brings and how buildings just like people grow old, decay and die. Soon Old Wilshire will be gone and we will have a brand spanking new baby building we can all play with and tickle. Now won’t that be fun!” [Dimit, commenting on At Home in Houston’s Wilshire Village Apartments, Back in the Day]
Note: Updated below.
So tell me, whatever happened to . . . those Wilshire Village Apartments? Houston photographer Sarah Lipscomb stumbled across a couple of classic interior shots of the then-new apartment complex while poking through old photos a few months ago with her aunt, Johnna Lee Muller.
Writes Lipscomb:
They didn’t have internet in those days but they got to smoke, read magazines and look at globes.
Another view of home entertainment in the early 1940s, Wilshire Village-style:
A few of the Wilshire Village apartment buildings have been leveled already. A Swamplot reader sends in a few photos from the scene near the corner of Dunlavy and West Alabama, taken this weekend and earlier today:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
We’re starting the week off right — by kicking these structures around:
