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Croberts

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Everything posted by Croberts

  1. I really appreciate the pictures, I have not been in the neighborhood since 1977, really. the last time I was on the "square" was probably about 1975. Why it started down is a mystery to me, it has all the elements of "new urbansim" (see my comments in the wikopedia discussion of the square). Hippies loitered in the square from about 1967 on, so thats not the reason. But when cargo houston went down, that seemed to be the beggining of the end. The specialty shops lasted till sometime in the 1970s. I heard that some company bought the square a few years after the townhouses were added. They supposedly put in a theater, or were going to put on in. I believe the story was that the company was owned by the chinese import store, which used to face the central fountain, now apparently the home depot lumber place. It seemed retail sails began lagging in the mid 70s, and possibly it was competition with the newly created Galleria? One problem I think was that there was not enough to do. ie needed more restaraunts with a variety of prices, and more entertainment venues. It seemed the main reason to go to the square was atmosphere and to purchase specialty retail items. I used to make sand candles with scents from the scent shop, and wax supplies from the candle shop. I bought classic San Francisco rock concert posters at Cargo within weeks of famous concerts. A;sp bought blacklight posters at the Electric Paisley, and I became a black light artist myself, painting a number of bedroom murals for friends in Westbury.Also Indian prints beadspreads, paper mache tiffany lamps. What was missing was a book store and a large record shop. The westbury centerrette (sic) sign may be the oldest surviving thing in westbury. I am sure it is the original and I expect the center predates the square and certainly the weingartens plaza. The trampoline place was the last building on the side facing away from belfort but near chimney rock. sadly the conoco that was replaced by the now abandoned exxon was a classic modern style station, with a tile mural on front, a streamlined carport, it was one of the best pieces of architecture around, and deserved preservation status.
  2. Brazosport/Quintana Folklore BZZPORT on the Llano On slab road near kingsland, Mr. Bee built what looked like it was meant to be a small outdoor concession stand and picknic tables on the banks of the llano river. The sign said "BZZPORT" and the rumor was that he moved here from Brazosport. He was eccentric and died over 10 years ago. Last time I drove down slab road the BZZPORT sign still hung over the gate of the property. Missing bar patrons found in canal In the 1970s I heard a piece of folklore about the Freeport/brazosport area. There was a road to quintana beach that made a sharp turn before a canal. There was a bar up the road. Many people dissapeared from the bar never to be seen again. A fisherman snagged the roof of a car in the canal and it was discovered that the many missing people were in cars that sank in the canal when they could not make the turn on the way home from the bar.
  3. That was certainly true when it comes to urban design- it was the city beautiful movement was growing, and it was the beggining of urban planning (River oaks was houstons city beautiful inspired neighborhood). However the rise of the automobile and the ensuing urban auto congestion forced cities to move from a planning and design approach to an engineering to make cars happy approach- which is self feeding, since building better auto roads always stimulates more use of the auto.
  4. If you look in the westbury square discussion, there is an aerial photo of your street in the early 1960s, posted by 57Tbird. That photo appears in various forums, it shows up again in Sam Houston Airpark discussion.
  5. seems like a perfect topic for this forum, and if there is a sacred architecture in houston, it is modern. Do you know when this house was built or by whom? I lived in Westbury from 58-77, had a brother in law who lived on effingham, and I was once infatuated with a girl on green somthing next to the rr track. I think this was one of the last parts of westbury east of hillcroft to be filled in.
  6. Very good- I forgot to mention wood plank roads were more common in the south. They were called corderoy roads because of the bumps. What year was the request for bids or the baker mayorship?
  7. The idea of MacAdam roads were that they were paved with stones in layers of different sizes, and at the top, steel shod wagon wheels would pulverise the stones, and the dust would wash into the cracks, and form a binder. The advent of pneumatic rubber tires with tread destroyed these roads because the tread sucked the binder out and the roads would unravel. This lead to oil roads, asphalt roads and concrete roads, and occured after rubber tires became common, ie 1920s. Brick for streets was around a long time. Philadelphia streets had slate tracks for wagon wheels, granite curbstones and granite bricks for pavers. Sometimes brick was used, it was plentiful because it came in as ballast but was mainly used in houses. In the post civil war boom (the mcmansions of the industrialists who manufactured for the war, around rittenhouse square) georgia pine was cut into bricks and treated and used as pavers because wooden bricks made less noise that clay or granite bricks. When and why houston started paving with bricks I do not know. I know of no brick streets in austin, but corsicana has a lot of them still. Seems like my mother used to take me past one in the heights in the 1960s.
  8. THats the one! Thanks, I would have never remembered it.
  9. [ We regularly rode for miles on the flat concrete bottom of Brays Bayou, occasionally taking side "hikes" into the storm sewers that fed the bayou. There was one big pipe running up the middle of Stella Link in which you could walk (standing) all the way to Bellaire Blvd. I remember riding from rice to Herman park, stoping somewhere near stella link for bagels at a bakery I dont remember the name, and again near ost for antoines poor boys, then spending the day in the park and riding back. I never new that these woods had a name. I must have done this 50 times between about 1968 and 1972.
  10. Yes, I agree, I saw pieces of the plane the day after, and they were perhaps a dozen yards north of the bayou. We got their by driving up hillcroft, and my memory may be wrong but it seemed like the pieces were just west of hillcroft. I think I was attending St Thomas Episcopal school in Meyerland, and I remember a kid talking about hearing the crash.
  11. The arrpwhead park monorail was totally different from the Fondren road monorail (see my description in the previous posting). To get to the car I had to walk on the rail itself, wrapping my arms around the girder that the car road on-so the car was above and sitting on the rail, rather than under the rail, as in the pictures of the arrowhead park monorail. So there were two different prototype monorails and three altogether, county the hobby airport monorail.
  12. At least two others have mentioned this somewhere, but there have been no photos so far. I remember that it stridled the rail, which appeard to be a single girder on a concrete wall, it had rubber tires like a car on either side of the rail, the operator had a lever with a grip that presumably was the brake, it had thick plexiglass windows-would have been amazing to ride in, especially in a storm. The Fondren road section started on the ground and rose up 15-25 feet (im guessing) and there was a couple of hundred yards of elevated track, i would guess. I last visited it when in the 5th grade, around 1965.
  13. I was in kindergarten or the first grade at St. Thomas Episcopal School in Meyerland. We were told to walk straight home, to never talk back to teachers, and to obey their orders immediately. We were told by teachers and parents that the children that were killed would have been saved if they had listened to their teacher and gone back into the classroom. These lessons were repeated for several years, and whenever I heard sirens during school I suspected it was a school bombing.
  14. I was there too. They used the sound system from Woodstock, and it was late arriving so the concert was delayed many hours. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were there and circulated amoung the audience keeping us entertained. That was the first time I saw Wavy Gravy. I did not see the poster from the second similar concert, which featured quicksilver, john mayall, a third band I dont remember and the greatfull dead. At that concert there was a minor riot when the dead broke into love light, and the crowd rushed the stage. The police were beating heads, and the drummer from the dead got involved. They cleared the auditorium but before the dead left stage they said "we will be back when we have a place of our own," hence the name of the later club "Of our Own"
  15. Wow, I havent seen these posters in decades! This is the first reference to the Family Hand "earth foods" restaurant I have seen on HAIF. I wonder what ever happened to Ricky Sharp and Kerry Awn, two of the houston (and westbury?) artists that did some of these posters?
  16. The second bayou that Stu mentioned and I discussed in a previous email is visible on Google earth. The portion south of main looks similar to the way it looks in the 1960 photo. The portion north of main is buried or doesnt exist between main and westbury high water tower site. However, north of Chimney Rock on burdine, alongside the wesbury square site, it exists as a drainage ditch again. It appears to be buried, but exists as a right of way covered in grass up to willowbend blvd. Makes me wonder who built this and when- Its not there in 21, but is there in 60, and runs from at least willow bend to somewhere south of West Orem Drive. Too long for one landowner to have built it, I think, I wonder if it was not some part of flood control projects from the 1940s, that helped drain the westbury area for development?? In regards to the elephant bones, I have searched for them for years, but they dont seem to be on display in texas. Perhaps there was not enough to display, the texas memorial museum has a larger collection in warehouses than they have on display. That is where I heard they went.
  17. Yes, the nursery was huge, and the bar-b-que place was great, it had wonderful fries and chopped beef sandwiches. I believe that there was also a bowling alley and a burger king on that stretch of post oak, and the burger king must be one of the originals. I think the firm (based in miami) started in 65 and that is about the time that we started eating whoppers.
  18. I remember after the oil embargo in the 1970s, when regular went from 29 cents a gallon to $2.50 a gallon, everyone wanted to move "inside the loop". I expect that will happen again, only this time, gas prices are unlikely go down that much. My best childhood memories are from living on redstart, and the houses, though small, were in many ways, jewels. I hope that this time, willowbend will seem to Houstonians to be close to town, and you will experience a boom. If they build the wetland marshes off gasner (sic) for willow water hole, you will have a lot of preserved open space nearby. Cant say anything about Westbury high though. My 1921 topo shows that there are no roads between brays bayou and s. main, nor are there any west of the n-s rr track to the east of you. Neither willow waterhole nor brays have been channelized yet. There is only 1 house shown west of willow water hole and south of Brays.
  19. In 1956 I moved to redstart in Willow brook??. I remember that the houses were small, and not really ranch style, though what they were escapes me. They had some interesting design elements. Mine had a patio and a partially flat roof with gravel on it that came off on the patio when it rained. The house was small, and in 1959 we moved to Arboles in westbury. Most of the fencing was redwood lattice, which turned out to be a bad idea. It did not weather well, and looked ratty after a couple of years. Post Oak must have been the biggest n-s road in sw houston at the time of construction of 610. I remember the Zindler mansion was torn down to build the freeway (Marvin Zindlers family owned a chain of clothing stores, Zindlers). Post oak south of braes bayou was rural like, and in westbury there was a large nursery and a dynamite bar-b-que place. When they built 610 it initially did not enterface well with post oak, but in the late 60s or 70s they built the current post oak ramp. The sound wall you mentioned I do not remember but I was last there in 1979.
  20. In fact, that is the only photo I have ever seen of Willow Waterhole prior to development. Looks like a gallery forest (of willows?) on either bank, with open prairie (or ricefields) otherwise. Maxconcrete, you seem to have an experts handle on historical media coverage of houston!
  21. I posted in another thread that I have just purchased an aerial photo of S. Post Oak/Willowbend/Westbury at a place called Positive Image on Stella Link. I had a great learning experience looking through their photos and choosing one to buy. They aren't cheap ($60 for 11x14), but I'm going to frame the pic I bought as art, so it's not really that expensive either... I have some historical aerial photographs I would like to post, but I have had no success in including imagery in my posting. Can anyone tell me how to get it in here, and what the size limit is?
  22. Marinis was my introduction to empamadas too. Early 70s. Been dissapointed ever since with others. La Bodega for breakfast and Harvest Moon for dinner. I used to work at Hobbit Hole on Shepard, and some of the waitresses also worked at Harvest Moon.
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