COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: BEFORE HOUSTON’S TREES LEFT THE BAYOUS FOR THE PLAINS “The Heights actually does sit on a rise above White Oak Bayou, which made it prime back in the day before any types of flood control existed. It’s hard to imagine these days, but when Houston was forest along bayou edges and grassland everywhere else, and people showed up in wagons, the ‘Heights’ area was like a little hill or knoll that was visible from anywhere else in town. You can still see this on topographic maps, and on I-45 headed south towards downtown, near North Main.” [Superdave, commenting on Comment of the Day: How Houston Neighborhoods Can Rise Above the Floodwaters]
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Tag: Topography
STEVE RADACK’S NEXT LITTLE IDEA “When people find out this is here — you wait!†commissioner Steve Radack tells the Chronicle‘s Chris Moran. He’s talking about his new $2.3 million soapbox derby park, set to open shortly at 28515 Old Washington Rd. in Hockley. It’s a 985-ft.-long, 46-ft.-high hill built up from Katy dirt, with 240 parking spaces. But Radack’s got more schemes in mind for the little ’uns: “His idea for the next publicly funded signature park scales back his ambition from four wheels to three. But it demonstrates no less imagination than a man-made hill made out of the bottoms of man-made lakes. Precinct 3 could one day be home to a tiny tricycle city, where kids can pedal down a Main Street between rows of dollhouse-size buildings.” [Houston Chronicle]