Yesterday’s City Council vote wasn’t even close — which means that Houston will no longer allow “attention-getting devices” on commercial property, effective January 1st of 2010. The ban excludes fake quoins, oversized Alamo-shaped parapets, and strip-mall turrets, but it pointedly includes the inflatable menageries that are so much simpler to put up and take down.
Houston sure knows how to destroy its architectural history! In honor of the passing of this singular era, which exhibited such a flowering of the local decorative arts — and in advance of the less-than-spectacular demolitions that are soon to follow, Swamplot presents this short photo salute to Houston’s soon-to-be lost commercial landscape:
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- City tries to take the air out of ‘tacky’ ads [Houston Chronicle]
- Big Monkey Business: The Blowup Over Inflatable Signs [Swamplot]
Photos: Flickr users monkeyjunkie (wrestler), mattgoldenphotos (cowboy, bear, dog, pumpkin, turkey, silhouette), Aaron Valdez (dinosaur), Shirlene Cooper (bather), helen.2006 (eagle), Ms. Pants (duck), and nakedgremlin (sumo wrestler)
I’ve almost wrecked numerous times going by that sumo wrestler above Knapp Chevrolet. Thank god they are being outlawed. -snicker-
Those inflatables are a lot more tacky than the billboards featuring Joel Osteen’s inflatable teeth.
Keep the up anyway. Most of the ones on 45 North aren’t in the city limits anyway. Same for 290 and some on Katy.