tony

No, not that it would hurt attendance, but precisely what you say: they would make less money because food and beverages would be cheaper in the hotel food court.

So, the Texans are thinking people are going to leave the stadium, go in the Astrodome Hotel, buy a beer and go back to the stadium with it?

And, the last time I went to the rodeo I had to pay admission to get in. I didn't even think of going to my car where I had a corndog stashed.

Their arguments are fishy. It seems to me 'those people' are holding the good citizens of Harris County back from a good deal. Where is Ida Tarbell?

On October 30th that 60-year-old urban forest of healthy live-oak and pine trees that inhabited the former Parkwood site officially bit the dust. The developer saved a few around the edges. Cambridge Street between OST and Holcombe has reopened and construction seems to be progressing on the bayou bridge north of Holcombe. A large concrete structure is well underway at the far northeastern edge of the Baylor property. There seems to be sitework on the large empty lot facing Cambridge one block south of Holcombe, in Devonshire. The foundations for a number of townhouses have been poured a block west of there.

The tree removal has opened a new and somewhat ominous view of the south side of the main TMC campus. It seems much closer to OST than before. (The view I'm speaking of is looking north from the corner of Cambridge Street and Old Spanish Trail.) I'm not a treehugger but I hate it that all those trees are gone. If any of you can remember what the SW corner of Richmond and Kirby looked like before that strip center was built (late 70s?) you have an idea what the much larger Parkwood parcel looked like after the apartments were removed.

^^yeah - not sure why the Globe St. article included a picture with the top hacked off...

The thing on top is called an 'eyebrow'

The park, southwest corner of S. Main and Holcombe, is, I believe, a Johnson/Burgee design. It was built in a corner of the old Shamrock property where the tennis courts once were. It's very nice but somewhat lost on the edge of the swirling TMC. Did Johnson have a hand in this?

Maybe Miss Charlotte's was the wrong name. Ebenezer's rings a bell. The menu and upstairs part seem right. I'm sure it was on Converse.

I also remember the pagan church but it wasn't the place I backed in to or the postman's house with the damnit dolls nailed to the side. The damnit doll house could have been the parsonage, I guess. The two houses looked similar except it seems like the damnit doll house had only one floor.

I remember going to a reataurant in the early 70's in Montrose somewhere east of Anderson Street Fair called "Ebenezer's". No one else I know remembers it but I remember eating there a lot. It was in the upstairs part of an old house on a corner and had a 40's theme.. The music was usually poor old dead Judy Garland and items on the menu had clever names like "Marilyn Monroe Cheese plate" . Does anyone else remember it?

I remember Miss Charlotte's (a very trendy restaurant for the time, not the gay bar) on Converse St., two blocks east of Montrose between Willard and Welsh, behind Anderson Fair Retail. It opened and closed in 1973. It was just down the street from a house (corner of Welsh and Converse) with damn-it dolls nailed to its side. A postman and his wife lived there and they had naked seances at night. Late one Saturday I backed into a driveway on Willard St. trying to turn around. I hit a huge Bonneville parked face-out in the driveway of this bungalow and put out one of the car's headlights. A man in jockey shorts comes out on his porch with a shotgun and demands I pay cash for a whole new front end to his car. I told him he'd have to deal with my Dad's insurance company and took off (we lived on Woodhead at the time.) The insurance company did some sort of search and found he had no insurance and the county picked up his car. I felt terrible about that but he got back at me by writing on my car with a nail--very embarrassing because this was before self-serve gasoline and every time I filled up the guy would come inform me that someone wrote on my car with a nail. My Dad sold that car and kicked my ass for being drunk.

We ate TexMex at El Patio on W. Gray (in the center of RO center) and I usually ordered their Nachos Grande. I remember eating at Lillian's, on Westheimer where Numbers is now. They sold crepes. There were several sidewalk restaurants on the Lower Strip and pedestrian traffic was always heavy, even during the week. I stayed with my grandma sometimes in the summer (she lived in an old white wooden two-story house on Westheimer where the parking lot for Numbers/La Strada is today.) I would sit on her front porch swing with my shirt off and try to hustle joints from the guys walking down the sidewalk between the restaurants. Il Padrido was on the corner in that block (where La Strada stands now). They had good pizza. Michaelangelo's, which was directly across the street, is the only restaurant left from that time period. Sorry for rambling, this took me back.

I miss these restaurants:

1. Lee's Den - chinese - on Main Street. Very popular on Sunday nights.

2. The Silver House - Chinese - across from the downtown civic center, the George R. Brown. They had the best special noodle soup I've ever tasted. I've never had anything like it. Does anyone know where the chef went? Does any other restaurant have a similar soup?

3. Italian Sandwich Shop on Chimney Rock between Bissonnet & Beechnut in an old house. The best meatball sandwiches for under $2. Homemade pasta dishes. I've never had a meatball sandwich anywhere as good as theirs!

4. By the old Sakowitz close to the Galleria was Katz's restaurant with great ice cream.

5. I ate my first pizza at a pizza place (something like Spanky's) on Bellaire Blvd. across from the Bellaire Triange. I burned the top of my mouth, but I immediately fell in love with pizza.

6. The original diner where the 59 Diner is now located. Huge iced teas!

7. The Sabrett's hotdogs on Richmond in the strip center behind the Edward's movie theater & across the street from the old HISD main bldg. They had great hotdogs!

8. At Wesbury Square had a great lunch and ice cream place. Lots of kids had their birthday parties there. In the middle of Westbury Square was a large fountain.

9. Herbert's Ritz -- the best steaks ever and wonderful remalaude sauce -- prices were unbelievable -- I remember when I could get a steak dinner for approx. $7!

Here are some great places that are still open:

1. If you want a good old fashioned hamburger, try the Bellaire Broiler Burger -- it's hard to find but worth the trip.

2. I also enjoy the Telewink Restaurant -- a real diner! Great breakfasts & still cheap.

Old fashioned waitresses.

3. The Bellaire Breakfast Shop in the Bellaire Triangle (between Bissonnet & Bellaire & Chimney Rock & South Rice). Great prices.

4. Hank's ice cream on Main Street - close to Loop 610. Outstanding, homemade ice cream.

5. Hobbit Cafe - on Richmond between Richmond & Greenbriar.

The building under construction is at the corner of Bertner and the new, unnamed street which parallels OST and connects the new part of Bertner and Cambridge. It looks similar to the twin Red McCombs Early Cancer Detection buildings (uncertain of the exact name) located where Knight Rd and Fannin merge just south of OST--the only exception is that the new building has six floors and the twin buildings have 4. The Menninger Clinic will probably be located in this part of the Med Center or on El Paseo at Cambridge further south, although that site has been mentioned as a future Harris County Mental Health facility.

The #73 Metro goes up Cambridge and El Paseo and circulates throughout the Med Center. The Smithlands Station is about a 15 minute walk from upper Cambridge. Cambridge itself is completely impassible from Holcombe to OST and the city has spared the 15 year-old live oaks in the Cambridge esplanade just south of OST. The Parkwood apartments are history but the trees are still there for now...

Since the old HISD administrative building was leveled, it's one of the few Brutalist-style buildings left. There's another on the corner of Fannin and OST that I would consider Brutalist along with the Kroger on OST at Cambridge. I don't think it's anybody's favorite style but the building on Fannin is comforting somehow.

Barnet Newman's 'Broken Oblisk', in the plaza pool in front of the Rothko Chapel, was defaced with a swastika several years ago. It has since been completely refurbished and resealed and is back in place. This sculpture, which is arguably Houston's most controversial and artistically important outdoor expression, was dedicated to MLK and its defacement was a crude political act and not an ordinary 'tagging' if that word can be used at all.

The new sculpture seems a little wayward to me. It seems too close to the building. The back appeals to me more than the front where a large, vagina-like appendage spills forth above the entrance to the cave. It is somewhat more magical at night. I think I will like this sculpture over time but at the moment I'm feeling a little squimish about it.

How would you define 'basilica'?

The ground level facing MacGregor is very swanky looking. I wonder if it will have a Cambridge Street address in the future. I'm still trying to figure out why the city changed the original name (Outerbelt) and why it was named that anyway since it went in front of the original TMC institution, Hermann Hospital. Maybe the street was an afterthought, assuming the hospital faced the Fannin extension.

This building is inoffensive and as bland as any from the Kirksey firm. They also did the new UT dorms on Knight Road and they're somewhat more successful.

I like the "lantern" on top of the building too but does anybody know how the contractor plans to remove that giant, white, triangular, three-story cement mixer sitting inside it?

Let's be clear about the Prudential building: It can all be repaired including the swimming pool, the track to the west and the falling plaster. The owner just doesn't want to. They know there is neighborhood opposition to the Prudential building's demise. This is an historic building. It was among Houston's first surburban highrises and a Houston landmark. Inside, it is boxy and hard to work with. It is not particularly distinctive when compared with other buildings of its era in other cities and I imagine architectural historians would dispute its importance. But it's ours. It deserves to live. It is ironic that there is a public outcry about another boxy, uncomfortable space, the River Oaks Theater--and, yes, I signed the petition to save it. I'm just wondering why people hate on Weingarten Reality and give M.D. Anderson, Inc. a blank check. It's true that if a city is to grow, everything cannot be saved and Houston, like New York, has given the bulldozer a free hand. Granted, the Prudential is no Pennsylvania Station but shouldn't we save something? Does M.D. Anderson not have a rehab department?

I'm still wondering about that 2 acre (maybe) parcel fronting the north side of Old Spanish Trail west of Cambridge and across OST from that ghetto Kroger. It has not a single tree or bush, is carpeted with grass which is mowed regularly and has sat there in its unadorned state for decades. Is that part of the Parkwood site?

Well, I was wrong, Baylor DID buy that Parkwood property. I wonder how much they paid? This is probably not good news for those trees.

The trees on the west side of the VA have been removed in preparation for sewer construction under the Cambridge extension which will span Bray's Bayou, and will connect, on the north side, by the Confederate monument at MacGregor. Supposedly there will be a connector from the South Loop to Cambridge. The Medical Center lobbied the city for several years, hoping to use Cambridge as an alternate emergency route to Fannin, which is now a couple of lanes short due to the Metrorail tracks. Cambridge Street (below OST) fronts directly on the east side of the newly completed South Campus infrastructure. The South Campus is bisected by Bertner which, I assume, will be pushed through south of Braeswood. The new Bertner bridge has been open for several months. The Parkwood Apartments property includes, I believe, a large parcel of vacant land that fronts Old Spanish Trail at Cambridge. The price of this property was supposedly $34 million, which, if that's true, would make it comprable in value to the HISD property on Richmond. Apparently there were no takers. Surely Baylor, even with its endowments, would not pay that price but it's hard to imagine this land going to a private developer because of its location ajacent to the ravenous maw of the TMC. The small neighborhood directly north of the Parkwood property fought the Cambridge project to a compromise that gives them a 30 buffer from the new Cambridge extension. The VA donated the land for this, sacrificing the trees on the east side of old Cambridge.

That 'stairway to heaven' on the new Anderson building next door to the old Prudential gives me the shivers. It's pretty, though. Useless, but pretty. Wonder what that cost them?

All of the consulates I know about, except for one, are located in office buildings, mostly downtown or in the Galleria area. The exception is the Chinese consulate on Montrose, which is in a midrise, former apartment building. The Chinese who work there live in their own compound (I call it a chancellery but maybe that's wrong) located in Del Oro on Hepburn Street between Cambridge and Almeda. It is a large compound and surrounded by an expensive brick wall. They fly the red flag of China inside and it's visible from the street. The Falun Gong frequently protest outside the front gate like they do occasionally on Montrose. The only consulate I've been personally involved with is the Brazilian which is located in one of the office buildings along the West Loop, just north of where Post Oak passes under it. I had to get a visa in person as residents of the Houston metropolitan area are forbidden to apply by mail. The lines are frequently very long (you have to go there multiple times to drop off and pick up) and the times I was there, there were many Mexican nationals, Brazilians, Houstonians, Europeans, and impatient Dallasites who had flown in to get their business done. Brazilians get a separate line.

I think he was looking for a real answer, as in maybe a website with an address listing & other information. But since you obviously know they're in the phone book, maybe you could share with the rest of us where at in the 4 different 3 inch thick phone books to find all 80+ consolates. 

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You're right 27. Sorry that sounded flip. Mea Culpa.

I would say that it is a gem. Not spectacular but one of the relatively few remaining examples of late Art Deco large commercial in Houston.

I consider Art-Deco, which sort of morphed in "Mod" , the mother of all 20th century styles.

Without knowing the logistics of making the old building serve their purposes, I say they should save the old girl. I believe that it is a sign of a higher state of cultural evolution to consider the historic and aesthetic aspects of all large, commercial projects, even if a lesser profit is made. Easy for me to sit here and say that.

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Back in the 70s (I think), I remember the Prudential building's sign, which was blue neon. It had the company logo (the Rock) and took up the the top part of the tower. The grid that held the sign is still there. You could see it from all over the south side of town. I spoke with an administrator at MD Anderson who works in the building. She was quite defensive and in-my-face about the looming destruction: "MD Anderson owns it and we're tearing it down." Though she will not make the final decision, I think her statement says a lot about the culture over there. They don't care because they don't care. I hate to say it but I think that building is history.

Isnt that the LYME PROPERTIES lot?  I heard that they are going to build a research building on that land (there was an article a few weeks back).

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Yes, 1911 is the Lyme property. Supposedly, they plan on a 500K sq ft building. The lot seems small for that size building. The new Cambridge Street bridge will cross Bray's Bayou between there and the Ronald McDonald House, connecting to MacGreggor at the Confederate monument. It's next door to the 40-story Spires condo, which sits on a similarly sized lot. I think 1911 was originally planned to be the location of a Spires twin. Retail is rumored to be part of the ground floor plans, which is sorely needed. Lack of retail is the major drawback to living in the eastern and southern Med center. The new developments in the area bounded by Almeda, Dixie, Grand, and S. MacGreggor should help with the demographics for retail, along with the rehab'ed Nabisco plant and the new extension of Cambridge St. which slices off a piece of the Vetern's Hospital campus as it passes from OST to Holcombe. What I was wondering about, though, was what is happening on Holcombe? That stretch of road was not in bad shape and it is happening at the same time as the massive improvement on Almeda between Holcombe north to beyond MacGreggor. Sewer enlargements maybe?

Does anyone know where I can obtain a list of the rest of Houston's consulate offices?

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phone book.

OOH, if they tear down that old building, I will be SOO pissed...

I love that old relic.  Its a nice old building set amongst gleaming new structures.  If anything, they really should push forward with their proposal to buy the land once the Military reserve bases move from OST to Ellington (lots of land!)

The TMC is truly an awesome place.

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I think the med center has already got those government properties on OST.

By the way, I noticed yesterday that there seems to be activity at 1911 Holcombe.. There's an address sign that's new and the '20-something- year-old temporary' sales building for the Spires looks like it's being moved. There was earth-moving equipment on the site. Barricades also went up on Holcombe east of Bray's Bayou to Almeda, making that strech four lanes. Anyone know what going on other than the Lyme proposal for 1911?

Three construction trailers have recently been moved to the vacant UT land along Cambridge Street behind the Med Center Kroger, OST@Cambridge.