THE LOWEDOWN ON LOWER WESTHEIMER? Travel + Leisure “Best, Most, Least” linkbaiter Katrina Brown Hunt tries out a little practical joke on Montrose-bound gullible types in her brief writeup of Houston, ranked a slackin’ No. 26 in the magazine’s accounting of America’s Best Cities for Hipsters: “Like many cities, Houston gives nicknames to its trendy neighborhoods. Case in point: LoWe, short for Lower Westheimer, where you can hang out at Mediterranean-themed coffee shop Agora, dive lounge Catbirds, or El Real Tex-Mex within a historic 1930s theater.” LoWe? Further tourist-oriented insight: “Houston also has two seemingly incompatible draws, according to readers: it ranked well for both luxury shopping and for being affordable.” [Travel + Leisure, via Hair Balls]
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Low cost of living allows you to purchase the finer things. Houston is also a shopping mecca for upper class residents from Mexico, Central America, and South America. Just speak to retail managers at the mid-to-higher end shops in the Galleria. These shoppers easily drop $2000-5000 per store. The phenomenon has even spread to the Premium Outlets located on 290 and Fairfield.
Number 26?!?! You can’t swing a dead cat in Montrose without knocking some hipster off their fixed gear bike..
I would like to think that someone snarky informed the T+L writer that we totally call Lower Westheimer “LoWe”, and that uniquely Houstonian slang included “hop on the trolley!” and “streets ahead”.
Great. Thanks, Travel + Leisure for throwing that into the universe. Be prepared for the onslaught of LoWe usage by everyone but Houstonians.
LoWe? Are you serious? How about we call a moratorium on all these cutsie poo nicknames for neighborhoods okay? LoWe sounds like a Chinese dish made of some ighly suspicious ingredients you rather would not know about and sends your stomach roiling like the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane after you eat it. The food, not the Gulf of Mexico.
that should be highly suspicious….
JCK – haha, well a least I have gears on mine.
Why can’t we stick with the original “wards” for the inner city hoods? They’re pragmatic and have been around for as long as the city has.
I blame “LoWe” and the disappearance of the “wards” on real estate agents sneakily renaming hoods to erase any negative connotations prospective buyers may have.
Oh yeah – and I forgot to throw this in there…
How can you have a “lower” section of a street that runs east/west? Doesn’t “lower” indicate the southern end?
Now some of the locals can say they are “on the down LoWe”.
LoWe? Dumb. It’s simply one area of one road in a neighborhood that already has a name – Montrose.
I blame culturemap. Granted, I’ve never heard them use “LoWe”, but considering how hard they were pushing “SoMo” I have to believe it is them.
I am totally going out of my way to be “on the downLoWe” after work. Thank you, poster 9. You have changed my life.
This is not even an issue of how much you resist real estate abreviations– the point with this story is that NO ONE has EVER called it LoWe EVER. She just made that up cause she’s paid to say something………
Seriously has anyone EVER heard this before?
Catbirds is not a dive bar, its a classy nightclub.
I think the “Lower” implies lower street numbers as the mighty Westheimer becomes Elgin.
But seriously what a lack of fact-checking. LoWe is the most asinine, contrived-by-outsiders jargon I’ve heard applied to Houston yet.
And. Houston hipsters most definitely drive 1993 Honda Civics or Toyota Tercels; they don’t ride bikes. This isn’t Austin.
Yes, we don’t need LoWe, as we have a name already… We are part of the Free City of Montrose, and we should have T-shirts and all sort of paraphernalia available for sale at all our street festivals…
Hey you kids!
Get off my LoWe!
I completely agree, NO to LoWe. Hate those cutesy names. Whoever dreams them up should be shot.
When I lived in that area in 67-69, we just called it ‘off Westheimer’. Wasn’t even “The Montrose” then.
Now please join me in boycotting ‘EaDo’.
Actually, she is right. And Lower Alabama and Richmond are LoAl and LoRi. Very hip. I thought everybody knew this.
If you read the rest of the blurbs about the various cities (and if you’ve been to those cities) I think it becomes obvious that the entire article is a farce of hipsterness. Which is hilarious. I mean, they didn’t even include Asheville which is a joke in iteself. Until you realize that the most hipster thing you could possibly do is get hipsters all riled up about defending their turf and making yourself appear more hipster than a hipster. Hipsters should really be called Hypsters…as in I’m the more Hypocritical than you. Somebody out there is having a huge laugh at everyone that is getting worked up about Lowe and the joke is on you.
C’mon guys, give Katrina Brown Hunt a break. Like a true hipster, she just wants to say that she called it LoWe before it was cool.
bigintexas is so right!
It’s hilarious to see the responses on here thinking this story was trying to be factual.
The joke is on all of you. It was so clear in Gus’ post that this was article poking fun.
I guess what I always thought was right. Hipsters have no sense of humor (and they are all the biggest bunch of douchebags around).
“Doesn’t ‘lower’ indicate the southern end?”
Depends on the context. As stated above, “lower” refers to street numbers for a street.
To T+L’s credit, if you pit Houston versus Dallas in a face-off, Houston beats ’em in every category.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/americas-favorite-cities/2011/city/compare/dallas-fort-worth/vs/houston
If it’s west of Westheimer, but still in “Lo-We”, can we call it “We-We”?
We-we-we all the way home.
High five to anon for comment #15. Either you’re a fellow regular, or that inside joke is getting around. Yes, I roffled.