Spirited away by welcoming winds, they leave the future to us.
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Tag: Demolitions
Every once in a while you need to clear the past-due-date goods from the shelves.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
No longer in stock or on special order.
Remember the fire back in March at those apartments under construction on West Dallas next to the cemetery that destroyed the whole complex except for the parking garage? No big deal if you don’t, because you’d need to adjust your memory anyway. A reader notes to Swamplot that the surviving parking garage is now being demolished as well, months after the singed stick-frame structures around it at JLB Parters’ would-have-been Axis Apartments were carted away. So now you can remember the fire so bad they had to tear the whole thing down — though it took them a while to give up on the garage.
On Second Thought, Scrap That
Sawzall-wielding housecutters Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have been carving up 3 condemned homes (from Midtown, the Museum District, and the Third Ward) to gather the raw materials for their latest exhibition, which opens tomorrow in the Art League of Houston gallery, on the occasion of their being declared the Art League’s “Texas Artists of the Year.” Collected wall parts will be stacked in a “bowl-like structure” in the complex’s main gallery (see photo above).
Havel Ruck Projects
TRICON HOMES STILL TRASHING THE JOSEPHINE 
Demolition crews turned the Josephine Apartments into a dusty pile of rubble yesterday (as seen in Swamplot’s on-the-spot report), but Tricon Homes cofounder Tristan Berlanga threw in a little trash-talking of his own about the condition of the 2-story Art Moderne complex, which went down in a heap, original steel-frame windows and all: “This, in fact, was a building in very poor structural condition which would have been practically impossible to save, both for safety and economic reasons,” he says to the Chronicle’s Erin Mulvaney. He goes on to tell the reporter he doesn’t like to see buildings demolished, especially those with “architectural or historical significance,” but appears to lay blame for the building’s demise on a lack of city regulation: “Most cities have zoning laws and designated historical areas that help preserve buildings like this,” he says. “Without that, it is hard to do more . . .” Tricon plans to replace the 8-unit building from 1939 with 4 new townhomes, which are still being designed. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo:Â Swamplot inbox
We gather for destruction not the worst of what is out there, but what is most available.
PENNZOIL PLACE’S STICKY DAMAGE CONTROL PLAN 
Chronicle real-estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff has answers to a couple of questions Pennzoil Place tenants, visitors, and passers-by might be asking right about now: 1) Why is this iconic double-towered downtown office building at 711 Louisiana St. downtown now covered with small, round yellow stickers? and 2) If the building gets scuffed up during the implosion of the remaining hulk of the Houston Club Building across the street, how will property managers be able to distinguish new nicks and scrapes from all the old ones? [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Nancy Sarnoff
The 75-year-old art moderne brick steel-windowed structure at 1744 and 1748 Bolsover St. known as the Josephine Apartments is coming apart in a cloud of (watered down) dust this morning. The 8-unit structure at the corner of Ashby St. 2 blocks north of Rice University was designed in the late 1930s by architect F. Perry Johnston, but demolished by contractors under hire by Tricon Homes, which purchased the property earlier this year.
Boulevard Oaks Rubble
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
The earth must be turned regularly if it is to remain fertile.
