mkultra25

It's got a long history as a sports bar. Back in the 80s it was Dan & Nick's Sportsmarket, where "Dan" is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in a previous life, before his chain of sports bars went bankrupt and he got into politics. After that it was a similar sports bar named Dolph's for a while but they too eventually threw in the towel and it then became a succession of non-sports-bar-related businesses.

24th St. is a good example of this. There was already a mixture of residential and commercial on the section between Durham and Shepherd, but the traffic has increased since the new HEB opened, since more people are using 24th to get there.

An interesting series of photos taken after Old Wiess had been vacated, prior to its demolition: wiess college: abandoned

There's a reason that every place that has self-service grinders has separate grinders for flavored and unflavored beans and dire warnings not to mix the two up.

Yeah, I forgot about ADA regulations. That is the same reason the President's office was moved from its longtime Lovett Hall location to Allen Center - it wasn't feasible to retrofit elevators to Lovett Hall, so if you wanted to see the President, you had to climb several flights of stairs. Given the notorious unreliability of Sid's elevators, if there'd been elevator landings on each floor, the decision to build a new Sid might well have been accelerated by a few years. That is the first I've heard about structural issues at Wiess being caused by soil conditions. I'd be interested in any additional info you have on that - was it the usual Houston curse of moisture-related swelling and shrinking of clay soil eventually causing foundation damage? Legend has it that Wiess was intended to be temporary housing from the outset, but it always seemed quite solidly constructed for temporary housing.

Wonder what the renovation will entail? Hard to imagine they'd rethink things too far away from the low-key, unpretentious charm the shop's always had. I had a sinking feeling when I saw the subject line, so I'm glad to see that they're apparently still doing a decent business. I still have the heavy, solid wood coffee table I bought there almost thirty years ago for a ridiculously low price, only slightly the worse for wear after my dearly departed German Shepherd decided she liked the taste of it when she was a puppy.

We may have reached Peak Foodie when there is serious, unironic discussion of "elevated" wings with "globally influenced sauces". I can only imagine what Anthony Bourdain might have had to say about an elevated wing.

Not to crap on what seems to be an innovative method of construction, but it seems like buildings that date back no further than the 1950s/1960s are fast becoming architectural red-headed stepchildren on the Rice campus. The Rice Memorial Center, built in 1958, is slated for demolition and replacement, with only a small portion of the existing structure to remain. Sid Rich is barely outside the 1950s/1960s era, going up in 1971. And now what I assume is the "New Section" of Hanszen College, built in the mid-1950s, is on the chopping block. I suppose the trend started with old Wiess College, razed over the winter break between 2002 and 2003 after having stood since late 1949. I've wondered if there's a tacit age threshold before a campus building is considered untouchable - kind of the higher ed version of a historic designation. Baker College is certainly there, being one of the oldest buildings on campus and the first residence hall. And Lovett Hall goes without saying. The earliest buildings were built in the 1910s, but very few followed in the 1920s, and none as far as I can tell in the 1930s and early-to-mid 1940s (understandable, given the economic and political realities of that era). From the late 1940s on, the postwar building boom was on as the Institute grew into a University. Perhaps many of the buildings that arose during that boom have simply reached the end of their useful lifespan, but I prefer to think otherwise.

Rice approves new visual and dramatic arts building So, Visual and Dramatic Arts will get a new building, but it seems pretty clear that they intend to remove the Media Center before construction of the new building has even been funded. Temporary relocations of the affected departments and faculty are inevitable if they opt to erect the new building on the same plot of land the Media Center currently occupies, but there's no reason to fast-track the demo until the plans are a lot farther along.

They are not currently planning to demolish old Sid - as of the beginning of this year, the thinking was that it would be repurposed as graduate student housing. New Sid Rich building on track for 2021 completion

Interesting. 202 Millbrook is in Piney Point Village. I assume the area in and around the Memorial Villages would have been at least semi-rural back in the 50s, well before the later waves of development extended their reach that far from the city's center.

Sam White Oldsmobile opened in 1951 in the building currently occupied by Central Cadillac. There was a Swamplot piece that had a bit more info on it last year: Your Next Best Bets for Houston’s Most Historic Car Dealership Building Once 1621 Milam Gets Demolished That still leaves the question of what, if anything, was there between 1937 and 1951.

This important research may call for HAIF peer review. Maybe we could get an NSF grant.

To each his own. I've never had a bad meal there, although I'll admit the last time I was there was a year or two ago, so it's possible things could have taken a turn for the worse since then. And cafeterias are more sensitive than other restaurants as to what time of day you go - too close to the end of business hours, and there's always the risk of getting something that's been under a heat lamp for far too long. Houston used to be full of places like the Dinner Bell, but it's one of only a handful left now - a non-chain, neighborhood cafeteria that serves normal-sized portions at reasonable prices (I'm looking at you, Cleburne). You should try the Tel-Wink if you've never been there, not a cafeteria but an old-style meat-and-two-veg diner that's been around since the 50s.

I would hope that folks take to the streets with pitchforks and torches when and if the idea of redeveloping the Dinner Bell ever gains any traction.