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The "Armpit of Houston"


Howard Huge

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I would say the north and south sides of the ship channel from the turning basin to independence parkway. Of course, this is due to the dirty industries. There are areas of town that I find equally as ugly (despite having no heavy industry), such as FM 1960 from the Hardy Toll Road to Champions Forrest, a majority of the Hardy Toll Road, majority of FM 2920, and Westheimer west of Fountain View until Westchase. I-45 south of FM 1960 until North Main, and again I-45 south until League City. They seem like such wastelands when you know just planting some trees here and there could drastically change the environment.

This is just Houston. You could extend the metropolitan area to include Texas City, La Marque, portions of Seabrook, Sawdust Road, Freeport, and so much more. Houston doesn't have one armpit. She's an ancient Indian Goddess with a thousand arms (strengths), with a thousand pits to match.

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I would say the north and south sides of the ship channel from the turning basin to independence parkway. Of course, this is due to the dirty industries. There are areas of town that I find equally as ugly (despite having no heavy industry), such as FM 1960 from the Hardy Toll Road to Champions Forrest, a majority of the Hardy Toll Road, majority of FM 2920, and Westheimer west of Fountain View until Westchase. I-45 south of FM 1960 until North Main, and again I-45 south until League City. They seem like such wastelands when you know just planting some trees here and there could drastically change the environment.

This is just Houston. You could extend the metropolitan area to include Texas City, La Marque, portions of Seabrook, Sawdust Road, Freeport, and so much more. Houston doesn't have one armpit. She's an ancient Indian Goddess with a thousand arms (strengths), with a thousand pits to match.

Good points.

I would say lets include the entire greater Houston area.

Also, I didnt really mean just aesthetically, I mean just the area in general, the population, blight, lack of good retail, smell, filth, crime, prostitution, all of it.

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and Westheimer west of Fountain View until Westchase.

 

Wait a minute.  In that stretch of road you've got the original Pappadeux's, Chacho's, House of Pies, a Barnes & Noble, REI, Texas Art Supply (nearby on Voss), Fogo de Chao, and numerous other small restaurants and bars.  There might be better stretches of road around, but that one's not the armpit.

 

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Wait a minute. In that stretch of road you've got the original Pappadeux's, Chacho's, House of Pies, a Barnes & Noble, REI, Texas Art Supply (nearby on Voss), Fogo de Chao, and numerous other small restaurants and bars. There might be better stretches of road around, but that one's not the armpit.

Maybe hes got REALLY high standards?
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Wait a minute.  In that stretch of road you've got the original Pappadeux's, Chacho's, House of Pies, a Barnes & Noble, REI, Texas Art Supply (nearby on Voss), Fogo de Chao, and numerous other small restaurants and bars.  There might be better stretches of road around, but that one's not the armpit.

 

I know, I live right around San Felipe @ Voss (The Palm is very good as well). I'm not talking about the stretch of Voss north or south of Westheimer. I'm talking about the ugly strip centers, the wide open river of concrete that is Westheimer, stretching out further to the store fronts with power lines running on both sides. Even though they have some nice restaurants on this stretch of road, it is also littered with cheap run-down retail and strip clubs that get renamed every 4-5 months.

 

Edit: If we want to talk about the absolute armpit it is without a doubt the Ship Channel from the Turning Basin to the San Jacinto Monument. I just pointed out areas in Houston that could certainly use all the help it can get. Nothing compares to the Ship Channel. The awful roads with pot holes the size of my car's engine, the smells, the sirens/train horns/truck horns/ship horns, the decaying houses and neighborhoods, the list goes on. 

 

And Howard, I don't have high standards. Well, I don't think I do.

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I know, I live right around San Felipe @ Voss (The Palm is very good as well). I'm not talking about the stretch of Voss north or south of Westheimer. I'm talking about the ugly strip centers, the wide open river of concrete that is Westheimer, stretching out further to the store fronts with power lines running on both sides. Even though they have some nice restaurants on this stretch of road, it is also littered with cheap run-down retail and strip clubs that get renamed every 4-5 months.

I know which one you mean...the strip centers are old and ugly, over head power lines, usually panhandlers, ground level ozone...but there really isn't anything inherently wrong with a street 9 lanes wide, personally

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I know which one you mean...the strip centers are old and ugly, over head power lines, usually panhandlers, ground level ozone...but there really isn't anything inherently wrong with a street 9 lanes wide, personally

It's not the fact it's so wide, it the fact that it's ugly and wide.  ;)

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I guess I really do appreciate modern art, cause I think each of the areas posted have their own beauty that sets them apart.

 

But then, I also find the sterile cleanliness, perfect symmetry of everything and just the absolute orderliness in a place like Irvine California unnerving. It is in no way organic, and while yeah they have trees and plants, every single one of them seems to be tended daily through some city code, all of the trees are of a specific height, and distance. It's so... clinical as to ruin the actual nature of it. 

 

Houston, no matter where I go, it has an organic feel to it, even the areas with fewer trees and the only green is the wanton grass that is growing in the cracked sidewalk. It has the feel that everything just grew where it was, because that's where it was able to take root.

 

Even out in the ship channel, pasa-get-down-dina, la porte, all that stuff, all those tubes and lights, and conduit, it's so straight and confusing, it looks like one of those knotted balls of yarn, untangling it you feel like you're solving one of life's basic mysteries. You know there's a pattern to all that stuff, but not in a million years (at least not without some serious engineering degrees) could you figure out how it all fits together.

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It's not the fact it's so wide, it the fact that it's ugly and wide.  ;)

Well, Bellaire is becoming eight lanes like Westheimer doesn't mean it will become ugly.

If Westheimer went under construction to make it look better and bury those lines, hope you don't mind greatly reduced traffic capacity (Bellaire went from 3 lanes each direction + turn lanes to 2 lanes each direction, no turn lanes) and construction for months (years?) on end.

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I know, I live right around San Felipe @ Voss (The Palm is very good as well). I'm not talking about the stretch of Voss north or south of Westheimer. I'm talking about the ugly strip centers, the wide open river of concrete that is Westheimer, stretching out further to the store fronts with power lines running on both sides. Even though they have some nice restaurants on this stretch of road, it is also littered with cheap run-down retail and strip clubs that get renamed every 4-5 months.

 

Edit: If we want to talk about the absolute armpit it is without a doubt the Ship Channel from the Turning Basin to the San Jacinto Monument. I just pointed out areas in Houston that could certainly use all the help it can get. Nothing compares to the Ship Channel. The awful roads with pot holes the size of my car's engine, the smells, the sirens/train horns/truck horns/ship horns, the decaying houses and neighborhoods, the list goes on. 

 

And Howard, I don't have high standards. Well, I don't think I do.

 

I guess I'm inured to some of the things you mention since that's common all over the Houston area.  Plus I've found that some of the best food is served at hole-in-the-wall, run down places in exactly those types of cheap strip centers.  That also pretty much describes most of Bellaire Blvd where the food is outstanding and the shopping is, to say the least, interesting.

 

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Well, Bellaire is becoming eight lanes like Westheimer doesn't mean it will become ugly.

If Westheimer went under construction to make it look better and bury those lines, hope you don't mind greatly reduced traffic capacity (Bellaire went from 3 lanes each direction + turn lanes to 2 lanes each direction, no turn lanes) and construction for months (years?) on end.

 

It's years.  And they're nowhere near being finished.  Even once they get the segment east of the beltway done, they've got pre-construction going on west of the beltway to near Dairy Ashford.

 

They did beautify west of the beltway in recent years a little (in the medians).

 

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Edit: If we want to talk about the absolute armpit it is without a doubt the Ship Channel from the Turning Basin to the San Jacinto Monument. I just pointed out areas in Houston that could certainly use all the help it can get. Nothing compares to the Ship Channel. The awful roads with pot holes the size of my car's engine, the smells, the sirens/train horns/truck horns/ship horns, the decaying houses and neighborhoods, the list goes on. 

 

And Howard, I don't have high standards. Well, I don't think I do.

I remember when I went with my dad to take one of the Ship Channel tours (don't ask why). We had to drive through some sketchy neighborhoods, be sent down a long road (Clinton) that looked like it hadn't really been maintained for at least a decade or so, bump across a few unguarded tracks, and then sent down a lonely stretch of road that paralleled one of the mainlines to get to the overlook. 

 

The air was thick and humid as the ship trudged through the murky lifeless water.

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I gotta agree, the ship channel hoods are the worst.

What about the area northeast of 610/59, Hirsch, Lockwood, Tidwell, Trinity Garden?

That area looks like a post nuclear fallout zone, no exaggeration. The high end retail over there is Popeyes and Fallas Paredes.

My aunt lived off of Manchester. Avenue Q and 103rd, I think it was. I know the Ave Q part is right. Now, this was in the mid to late 70s, and it was a hell hole of an area even back then.

If we're doing Houston neighborhood/street armpits now, well I'd just be remiss if I didn't mention Jensen Drive. That's one continuous armpit from end to end, and has been for umpteen years now.

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My aunt lived off of Manchester. Avenue Q and 103rd, I think it was. I know the Ave Q part is right. Now, this was in the mid to late 70s, and it was a hell hole of an area even back then.

If we're doing Houston neighborhood/street armpits now, well I'd just be remiss if I didn't mention Jensen Drive. That's one continuous armpit from end to end, and has been for umpteen years now.

Omg how could I forget 5th ward and Jensen! What a total sh##hole! Its worse than a 3rd world country there! Its like, if people from a 3rd world country were fleeing their homeland to come to America, land of the free, the richest country of opportunity and abundance, and they somehow ended up in 5th ward first, they would be thinking, "what a bunch of bull, this "America" is a DUMP! We were better off in Haiti!"
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I personally think La Porte is much better than most of these mentioned, especially if you make it off 225. They have a great main street and a great line up of small town events that you can't get anywhere in Houston.  Galena Park? Jacinto City? Aldine?

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I personally think La Porte is much better than most of these mentioned, especially if you make it off 225. They have a great main street and a great line up of small town events that you can't get anywhere in Houston. Galena Park? Jacinto City? Aldine?

Depends on your perspective. I mentioned La Porte namely because of the industrial element and the resulting odor. Aldine is a rough part of town, no doubt, but the overall ugliness of La Porte as you traverse 225 supersedes the rundown aspect of Aldine, that can be readily seen from 45.

Good call on Galena Park. I'll see your Galena Park and raise you a Webster. :D

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Depends on your perspective. I mentioned La Porte namely because of the industrial element and the resulting odor. Aldine is a rough part of town, no doubt, but the overall ugliness of La Porte as you traverse 225 supersedes the rundown aspect of Aldine, that can be readily seen from 45.

Good call on Galena Park. I'll see your Galena Park and raise you a Webster. :D

Aww, Webster isn't all that bad. First off, it's tiny (only about 10k--that's just twice the population of any tiny "Brookshire Bros. and Wal-Mart" town) and seems to have a disproportionate amount of commercial establishments, including a decent Mediterranean place (at least back in early 2012), Fry's Electronics, a large shopping center that used to be the indoor gardens Fiesta, and lots more.

If Webster is the armpit of Houston, then the rest of the city must be impeccably groomed, or if nothing else Houston has a great under-arm deodorant.

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Yessir, IronTiger. Take away that disproportionate amount of commercial developments and you have the Webster, Texas I used to know. The explosion of growth along 45 in this whole area has been absolutely stunning. I just lost some land to Harris County ROW down in Friendswood due to road expansion to accommodate all of the growth. Webster is not as bad as it used to be, I'll admit it.

South Houston, I didn't even click to that. Nicely done, Howard.

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  • 6 months later...

Montrose1100's analogy is spot-on, I think!  :-)

 

I love Houston, so I don't want to single out any particular armpit for special attention ... that would be like telling your children which one was your favorite.

 

That said, in my opinion, I would not worry as much about Gulfton.  There are children who are much more homely than that in this house!  Gulfton is like a child who might have seemed if she had a chance at a teen beauty contest, but instead ran off with a drug-abusing boyfriend.  She's older and wiser and has reached a state in which she has a bit of charm.  

 

I'm more worried about the neighborhoods that have been completely forgotten for decades.

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