cosmo

I believe many people in this web site and so many countless others in Houston would like to see a dynamic corridor established that would someday join other dynamic corridors and urban areas to create a meaningful pedestrian oriented type city. Some people think that ...''diversity" is a mandated politically correct movement however I see this as a hindrance to constructive development where what is needed is homogeneity of at least income and mentality ...if not culture. I personally do not want to rub elbows with people who are low income, those teens who listen to rap music and call themselves gangsters,who may or may not have mental disorders or people who are substance abusers though I do firmly believe they need our help and love as anyone else. Putting people of dissimilar backgrounds and incomes together in a potentially important and dynamic development , as in the Hardy Rail Yards, is a perfect way to squander one of Houston's few possible meaningful moments of growth in the right direction. For all of those urban planners who disagree please not how large the homogeneous areas around Houston have grown over the past 20 years and imagine what kind of city we would have if so much of that development was in downtown or midtown or even in the area south of Reliant Park but cannot happen because no one , including our greatly ...diverse....city council can convince people or developers that living in Houston would be like living tension free as people live in the suburbs, not having to constantly look over your shoulder at the person who is paralleling your path or by worrying about your children going to a school that will sabotage the child's education and put the child in the path of inner city school violence.

Think Las Vegas.....

From the only drawing that we have of the hotel, the interior layout does not in any way look like the Gaylord Texan and if anyone has been out to Las Vegas lately, the Astrodome hotel would not be any different than that of say a New York NY or of a Venetian Hotel or any of the other faux Las hotels...It would be nice if they could do a recreation in detail of the 1800's perhaps even better than what's offered in the Woodlands Townsquare and something better than molded rock formations along a riverwalk but again we're talking about today's construction. My idea to further the Astrodome hotel would be to , of course bury those ugly transformers on the east side of the building and connect the dome with a walkway and tramway that would be partially covered with an arched roof and landscaped both with shade trees and palm trees that would go to the Metro train station to quickly link the hotel with the rest of the city.

I for one would love to have Barnes and Noble to read at and then walk around the area , have something to eat and be able to take the ....ahem...train to other areas on the Metro line...However even though we have a public library, I don't care to visit it as there are too many homeless or transient people in the area loitering around...haven't been back to the library since my last experience...but if Barnes and Noble could keep out the people who would just use it to loiter in and sleep in the chairs...the bookstore would definitely be a place to read, have coffee and people watch.

that's my dogs name but I like it better than mine for this thread

I feel that the Astrodome hotel should be done in a historical motif but only if that means recreating the the effect in detail and not creating a pseudo modern historical type building but we all know that that means money. Perhaps the contributors to this thread need to look at what can and cannot work for an interior ex sports complex and what people can relate to as visitors to a hotel if they keep Las Vegas in mind. Having seen all the interiors in Las Vegas Hotels on the strip I would say that the problem of deciding on a motif for the Astrodome hotel can be compared to what works in a large enclosed hotel in Las Vegas. You decide....everyone has their favorite interior....however I favor the historical motif as I enjoy victorian buildings or those period buildings from the 1800's as I have found them to be the most human oriented and warm type building that I would want to walk around or have business in. I think that the riverwalk theme is something we all love and if it looks like a replica of something in the past ...remember that all architecture is of the past...even those buildings just built last year....It's just that some architectural forms retain their relevancy forever while others ...especially the modern lose their appeal in only a couple of decades....