The Block Party’s Over

Organizer (and Free Press Houston editor) Omar Afra calls it:

This will be the last Westheimer Block Party. However, the next one will be the return of the Westheimer Street Festival. It may take 2 months or it may take 2 years but this festival has outgrown our singular capacity. There can only be a return of the Westheimer Street Festival. The streets must be shut down, the city must get behind the event, and I can no longer personally foot the bill. Our staff can no longer handle the capacity of the growing festival and squeezing all of these people into the same block is becoming hazardous. The streets must be shut down. We have an on camera commitment from Annise Parker, that if elected, she will support street closure if we can find financing for necessary portopotties, police, and clean up. She even shook my hand on it. But we need the community involved. So whoever is elected, we are asking for a big community turnout at the first city council open session the new mayor presides over. We need 500+ people to swamp city hall and show city officials that there is indeed a large constituency that supports arts and music. We will let you know when this transpires but we NEED your support. We love this community so much and want to see WestFest grow but it cannot in it’s current form. We will be forming a non-profit to meet this challenge which will be made up of only Jedi’s who have an unyielding love for arts and music. It is time to take BIG steps and we will do whatever it takes to shut down the streets. . . .

Photo of Behind Buildings performing at last weekend’s Westheimer Block Party: Ramon Medina [license]

18 Comment

  • At least they were honest and open for the reason it can’t go on versus just closing shop completely.

    A street festival would be nice. I works for the Pride events every year.

  • I’m probably about to get dogpiled for asking this, but it’s an honest question:
    Why Westheimer? Seems like there’d be better venues in town for a large decentralized crowd over the course of a weekend. Discovery Green and Elanor Tinsley Park come to mind. These would certainly be less disruptive to the nearby neighborhoods.

  • Why Westheimer?

    I would say that was obvious if people would actually take advantage of the bus routes nearby. But they don’t. They drive into the neighborhood and complain about the parking (see the 29/95 blog). They leave trash everywhere and expect the residents to pick it up. They have sex on the lawn and claim that it is in the “free spirit of The Montrose”.

    It would be great if this festival, and the Greek festival would go somewhere else and leave the neighbors alone.

    I think this is why the Westheimer Arts Festival moved in the first place.

    Oddly enough, the Pride Parade and Griff’s St Patrick’s Day party leave no mess. I wish these other two would take a hint.

  • “free spirit of The Montrose”

    Well, Montrose is much tamer cousin to the Montrose of the past. I learned this through older friends and good documentary that recently came out called “Montrose”.

  • “Oddly enough, the Pride Parade…leaves no mess”

    You have to be kidding.

  • PC,

    I went to the Pride events the first two years after I moved to Houston. After that, I just hang out with friends at the bars while the Pride events are going on because they are a chaotic mess.

    In reality, it’s extremely boring. I guess that’s because I grew up in south Louisiana where we had some real parades and street parties (and we know how to clean it up right after the event).

  • The Westheimer Arts Festival (now street festival) used to be about over-the-top craziness and weirdness, which made it a BLAST. I hope they bring it back to Westheimer. Having it in a park seems rational, but it’s too controlled and antiseptic.

  • Maybe those “neighbors” shouldn’t have moved to Montrose if they have a problem with things like music and street festivals. What do you want Montrose to become? A nice sleepy neighborhood with quaint houses?

  • Random thoughts on the subject.
    .
    I first went to the Fest more than 20 yrs ago with my grandmother, who loved it. We would park off Shepherd because artists began hanging their works on the fences of the car dealership that was on the corner where Randall’s is now. We would walk all the way to Bagby where the Fest ended, and back. Sometimes twice, in case we missed something.
    .
    Along the way, we would be entertained by bands, drag queens doing shows on boxes outside the clubs, and of course by the many folks who showed up to show off their tatoos, snakes,pink hair, ferrets and more, and of course – the art. She always bought something. She was in her 70’s at the time and loved every minute of it.
    .
    The Fest was destroyed when the suburbanites started moving into Montrose and were shocked that there was a Fest. They apparently could not bear 4 days of “inconvenience” out of 365 each year. The same types of folks who today are still trying to turn Montrose into Katy.
    .
    They lobbied for the city to stop closing the street and won. The Fest was never the same. Now we’ve got the lame ass and boring Bayou City Arts Fest.
    .
    I still partly blame Perry Homes for first building the crappy walled off townhomes that attracted these people in the first place.
    .
    It’s always been laughable to me that some Houston “leaders” continue to advocate for an Olympics in Houston with million visitors, when we apparently can’t even handle a local weekend street festival.

  • They lobbied for the city to stop closing the street and won. The Fest was never the same. Now we’ve got the lame ass and boring Bayou City Arts Fest.
    __________________

    And as I recall, Annise Parker sided with them. Now, however, well, she’s running for mayor. Anything to get your vote.

  • “The Fest was destroyed when the suburbanites started moving into Montrose and were shocked that there was a Fest. They apparently could not bear 4 days of “inconvenience” out of 365 each year. The same types of folks who today are still trying to turn Montrose into Katy.”

    Actually “The Fest” was destroyed when the art broke away from the festival.

  • It’s always been laughable to me that some Houston “leaders” continue to advocate for an Olympics in Houston with million visitors, when we apparently can’t even handle a local weekend street festival.
    ______________

    Actually they just wanted to build all the stadiums and that sounded good. They also wanted to attempt another “land grab” in Third Ward which was about as successful as the “land grab” in Fourth Ward altough of course some made millions in Fourth Ward.
    $24.5 million was spent to buy $6.5 million in land according to former city councilmember Michael Yarborough. Maybe Gene Locke should ask Annise Parker where the audit for Houston Renaissance and Houston Housing Finance Corporation is so we can all see where our $24.5 million really went.

  • Houston, and Montrose is way too lame these days to do anything like the old style Westheimer Street Fest.

    *

    But it would be a great way for the thugs in the HPD horse patrol to get out and tromp on some more innocent faces.

  • “But it would be a great way for the thugs in the HPD horse patrol to get out and tromp on some more innocent faces.”

    Or get at least run over the trash that hangs out around the Montrose/Westheimer intersection.

  • Or get at least run over the trash that hangs out around the Montrose/Westheimer intersection.
    __________________

    The trash was there long before the pretentious people and their pretentious townhomes. Squatters rights I guess you culd say. Such attitude.

  • “The Fest was destroyed when the suburbanites started moving into Montrose and were shocked that there was a Fest. They apparently could not bear 4 days of “inconvenience” out of 365 each year. The same types of folks who today are still trying to turn Montrose into Katy.”

    I am always curious where the people live who come into the neighborhood, pee on the houses, leave trash in the streets and then complain that the folks who live there are trying to make it like Katy.

    I guess that they all get back into their Chevy Suburbans and drive home to Sugar Land, congratulating themselves on how cool they are for visiting “The” Montrose.

  • I guess that they all get back into their Chevy Suburbans and drive home to Sugar Land, congratulating themselves on how cool they are for visiting “The” Montrose.
    ___________________________________________

    Plenty of them live in Montrose, just not by the Westheimer/Taft intersection. Others come from the Heights, Museum District (directly north of the museums and south of Richmond) and East End. As an attendee of the past several “Block Parties” I can tell you that a good percentage of the non-Montrose residents that attend are in the bands that are playing, and that figure is much larger than you think.

    Yes, sometimes their friends/parents come in from the ‘burbs, but most of the people are “locals” and/or performers.

  • Here’s the original Westheimer Street Fest circa 1985!

    http://twitpic.com/q4m3a