LarryDallas

I'm 29 now as well but the name is not ringing any bells at all. Was he in vangaurd? I completely lost touch with everyone except 1 person that I went to Lanier with. This is pretty sad and I kind of wish everyone from there had gone to the same high school instead of this magnet program where we got sent all over the city to other schools. Three years went by in the blink of an eye. I can't remember clearly but I think 8th grade was actually enjoyable cause the work load went down. Does Detrich Wagoner ring any bells for you? He painted the mural in the cafeteria in the spring of 1993 as a gift from the graduating class. It didn't get done on time so he worked on it during the summer and we never got to see it. The guy is probably an art professor somewhere now. I heard Mrs. Levy retired sometime in the late 90s. She used to teach Texas history and I LOVED her class casue she bothered to learn everyone's name and got us all involved. I ran into coach Cole of the gym class around 1999 in the med center but she obviously did not remember me having been in her class in 1991. Mr. Nielsen is still there? wow....I never took his class but he seemed very dull. When did Mrs. Lanclose leave as principle? I can clearly remember she has a new Mercedes Benz SL roadster and would go shopping at Foleys downtown during school hours. Mrs. Monahan (director of the pup house) apparently got the top job after her. I've also heard that the school is now kind of as close as you can get to private school without actually being private school these days. Do the students these days get dropped off in Ferraris? They have torn down a lot of the older low rent properties in that area in the past 10-15 years. Anyway...just add whatever info you want.....that 3 years of my life is a big blank.

Speaking of Westbury businesses.........anyone have info on the history of the strip mall where Annie's Hamburgers is located? I think I read somewhere it used to be called Hank's in the early days. I went for the first time a few weeks ago and it was pretty good.

Speaking of amusement spots....does anyone remember the murders at the Malibu Grand Prix (SW location) in 1983? I went there a few times as a kid in the late 80s but reading this article below some 20 years later gives me the creeps. I never went into the restroom there but still. The building still stands to this day but I'm not sure what is in there. http://www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?acti...amp;story=11287

They are probably going to end up getting a mega HEB where the mall now sits once it is sold and razed. Grocery stores seem to do well in high crime areas whereas other business would just die a fast death. Look at the HEB on Beechnut at the belt. How the Circuit City in sharpstown survives is a mystery. I forecast an outdoor Meyerland like mall with a mega HEB as the anchor. The NE corner of Hilcroft and 59 was recently redeveloped with great success. The new strip mall has low vaccany and has gotten WaMu and Starbucks to open shop. I can't recall what exactly was there before but it look pretty bad. Hard to think that the Ferrari of Houston dealer was right around and corner on the feeder of 59 back in the late 80s. Well, the Ferrari dealer is still is a really bad area next to the flea market on the other side of 59 north of Westpark.

That location did not have Pontiac at the time of the move. Only Honda and Mitsubishi were there for the last 5-10 years they were located in Sharpstown. They now have Mitsubishi, Honda, and Subaru at the NW corner of the belt and 59. I used to buy Mitsubsihi parts from them at the old place. It was very run down and shabby. The walls had the fake wood panneling from the late 70s or early 80s on it and there was a calander of a woman in a biniki holding a marlin from the early 90s on the wall. The parking lot had weeds growing in the cracked blacktop.

It's worse than he tells it. In the 80s the worst criminals in that area were teenage "thugs" that did stuff like break into cars and spray paint on buildings to act bad and be "cool". For the most part it was a safe place. These days that entire area is full of professional criminals, prostiution, drug activity, and full fledged gang members (international ones as well....plently of MS13 in Sharpstown).

As sad as it may be for the historic building this is something that needed to be done a long time ago. Sharpstown is pretty much in ruins around Bellaire Blvd. At the Hillcroft intersection there is a hugh population of illegal aliens and they opened a 24 hour check cashing place there not to long ago. Well, that area of Sharpstown is "safe" compared to the parts west of Hwy 59. I think the last time I set foot in the mall was early in 2003 when my uncle came to Houston after 20 years. He used to hang out in the mall as a college student cause it was the place to be in the late 70s and early 80s. The place was a shell of itself. Pretty much all of the better retailers have jumped ship and all that is left are "upscale" chinese made good emporiums. Anyone know what moved into where JC Penny used to be? I can recall my parents going there during Christmas in the early 80s to buy stuff. It used to be a very nice place during the Christmas season. The last movie I saw there was in 1995 and I recall not wanting to leave my car in the then Foley's garage cause of all of the thugs around. Of course, I will go to the liquidation sale at Macy's just to look around one last time. IMHO, the entire mall should be razed and something like a gated community with 24 hour armed watchmen manning the gates needs to be built. The location is pretty good considering $3 gasoline and the nightmare commute times from new consturction past Hwy 6 on 59. If this development takes off then developers should start buying entire city blocks of the run down apartments to do the same. Maybe a mall can come back there after the criminals are run out. It really started to look like the ghetto after Gillman Mitsubishi/Honda vacated and that entire lot was left with overgrown weeds and litter everywhere. I bet they were breaking into the cars at night to pay for crack over there. Gillman was on that land for about 56 years and owned it. The crime was so bad they chose to buy the expensive real estate at 59 and the beltway on a mortgage.

I have not been on the train in years but used to love it when I was a kid. Well, maybe I'll skip work an afternoon this week and go for one more ride. I'm all for the improvements but I just hope it does not become poisioned with corporate garbage like a Starbucks at each station. I cringe at the naming rights plan for each engine and car. It is not as insulting as the Bank of America plackard inside the San Jacinto monument but still I would have prefered for it to stay privately run instead of the city govt. taking money like a hooker and doing the bidding of the corporate sponsor John. The govt. being the middle man in the whole thing is the problem; private it was great since 57. I guess we will have to wait and see how it turns out.

Joe, is that motel east of the bank that sits in the SE corner of Spencer and Walters? In google maps there is a black top parking lot that looks abandonded but I can't see the remains of the studio. Also, what was located at the SW corner of Shaver and Spencer? There is now the HEB (Mi Tienda) store with a blockbuster. The structure was built in the late 90s. Behind it is a Foodtown store that looks pretty old. The only new construction I have seen in that whole area in the past 4 years has been on Shaver north of Spencer and south of Queens on the west side of Shaver. They demolished a 1940s style abandoned home that was on a really big lot and built townhomes. I think they price just under $100K but the for sale signs that have been there since they were completed are a bad sign. Further south of that on Shaver is a creepy abandoned junkyard with cars and buses parked there. The main building and storage area suffered total collapse in a fire about 2 years ago. Since then it is a ghost town in that tract of land. Oh, behind the junkyard is a tract of land with several slabs on it. I assume they were apartments on Perez Rd. What was the story on them?

This is a great thread and was gripping to read cause I have been working in Pasadena since 03 and never knew the history behind it. The only bit of trivia I can add is that Manson family murder victim Sharon Tate went to that Catholic School north of Southmore on Shaver (St. Pius V Catholic School) between 48 and 51. Her family lived in Pasadena but left after her 2nd grade year. The whole church campus looks unaltered to I suppose it looked the same when she went there. The Shaver and Spencer intersection is one I cross at least a few times a month. I took a look at that vacant lot that was the site of the parking lot puddle wrestling in the film....VERY sad to see how it is today. In fact, I went to that Ward's a few weeks before they were going out of business. The worker in the store was an old lady that said she had been there for about 25 years (back in 02 or 01). If I knew about that filming location I could have gotten info...grrrr. Man I wish I had at least taken photos of the Ward's in the final days. It looked so out of place. In front of the flea market is a motorcycle shop that opened up about 1 or 2 years ago. On the SW corner of the intersection is an HEB dubed Mi Tienda that opened in early 07. They cater to the Latino market that is like 90% of the population in that part of Pasadena. One question though...where exactly was Gilley's located? I know there is nothing left of it now but where was it? Also, what used to be on the land that Walmart on Southmore sits on these days? When was that built? If anyone wants pics of the Shaver and Spencer intersection I can shoot some anyday...it is a few minutes in the car to get there from work. You may cry if you grew up there when it was still sort of rural and clean. Heck, I'll do a mini photo survey of the old parts of Pasadena since I have time to kill at work this week.

I also did not review every single post here but my 2 cents on this are that if the developer owns the property and at the time the highrise was proposed then no changes in ordinance should be made to retroactively kill the project. Driving in that area you see the "stop Ashby higrise" yellow sign in 90% of the yards. I grew up not too far from that area and went to Poe and Lanier as a kid. The mentality of the homeowners was very snooty and this was back in the mid 80s. I think it must have gotten much worse by now and they just don't want outsiders to come move into their area. This is not a gated community or something like West U where it is a different world in there. BUT, I would say those people despise how someone who did not buy into the area when it was affordable or have the loot to buy a house more recently will be able to live there and have access to their community. If they sell the apartments and have a maintenance fee my guess would be about $300-400 per square foot for buying and maybe 75-99 cents per sq ft for maintaining things each month. This would price it out of the range of Rice students but would appeal to the 30 somethings who do not want to buy a house and deal with maintaining it. It will be a total disaster for the surrounding homes and kill the way the whole area looks. A prime example of a highrise near expensive homes is in River Oaks where the highrise on Westheimer overlooks the $2+ million homes to the north. Of course, Westheimer is mostly commercial and the highrise is isolated from the homes. The homeowners near the site of Ashby Highrise need to plant live oak trees that will block the view of their homes and backyards to have more privacy.

Here is exactly where the booths are located now. They are not really communists but calling them communist or communist sympathizers is a Texas tradition.

I think it has to do with lazy more than anything. Restoration of the property is one of the most lame brain ideas ever and the person who came up with it should be fired from TX parks and wildlife. The monument and grounds have been a symbol of state pride since inception. The lawns were always maintained to perfection, access was free (minus the elevator), and people went to have a fun daytrip instead of a history lesson. On a related note I would be very interested to see what kind of pay scale increase the executives in this agency had at the time of or whortly thereafter the changes were made. If the lawns were to be brought back after cutting the brush the cost would be very high since most of the root system has been completely destroyed now. But doesn't that mean the terrorists win and they accomplish their goal of ending the American way of life 100%? Look, as I said in the earlier post I do not want or expect us to go back to the days of being able to drive around the JSC campus in a private car. The location of Space Center Houston is on the edge of the campus and visitors there do not even get close to the main buildings. Disney has no business doing any business out there and the fact that there is an admission charge of anything is an outrage. Agreed 100%

I think that is just another way of saying they have mismanaged themselves and are making excuses to cover their ***. A vast majority of the visitors to that park go there to have a good time in a park instead of as an educational trip. Putting a fee on entry to the museum gallery will discourage people who would have gone just to check it out. It is kind of like the digital divide that started in the 90s. There are people who go out to the park and have to think twice before spending $5. I think the bottom line is that is it cheaper to ignore the land and let it return to a wild state of condition than maintaining it. I agree that security measures would never allow for private cars to drive around in JSC like they used to in the past. However, NASA is a govt. agency funded by the taxpayers. I have a huge problem with a private company like Disney selling us tickets to look at exhibits on projects we funded to begin with. Oh, on top of that the new facility is garbage compared to the old one. NASA could have built their own building where Space Center Houston sits and moved everything from the old visitor center (less the murals) to the new building. Most importantly it should have stayed 100% free to anyone who wanted to visit. Security wise they can do anything that they want.....put dogs out there to search cars and have people walk through metal detectors to gain entry to even the visitor center. Oh, and the outragious prices also create a divide in who has access to the place. Prior to the early 90s anyone from River Oaks to the worst slum in Houston had the same cost of access to the place...ZERO dollars.

I had someone come visit me from Chicago and took them to go see the tourist spots around town. The other day we went to the park to see the momument and the USS Texas. I drive down Battleground road and take the right that takes you right to the monument. About 1/2 mile down the road I see a car turn around. There is a sign that says to use the Battleground road enterance so I go back that way and find a booth to collect money out there. WTF?...this park has been 100% free since day 1 and so had the monument since it was completed in 1939. Anyway, I pay and drive up to find that the displays that were free have been further reduced. For those of you who have not been to this place in the early 90s and prior to that it used to be 100% free except for the elevator ride to the observation deck. There were 2 main halls full of display cases on both sides of the 1st floor. In the 90s one hall was closed and the "Texas Forever" film was put into the theater that was built in one hall. The other hall had remained as is until recently. I would say 50% of that hall is still free but the other half has a $5 admission charge and most disgusting was the "Bank of America" sponsorship plate at the gate to the 2nd half that is not free. As it is now $12 buys you access to everything in the building (elevator ride, movie, and 2nd half of exhibit hall #1). This is not a lot of money and the $1 to get into the park is almost nothing but the idea of charging people money and selling AD space in exhange for sponsorship at such a significant and historic place in Texas is outragious and insulting. Toyota Motor Corporation also has advertising on the Texas Parks and Wildlife map of the park they give you at the gate. Houston, Lamar, and Santa Anna did not fight so you could be charged money to see what they did. So long as there is a state of Texas the birthplace of the state should be 100% free for anyone to come and visit. Is TX Parks and Wildlife really in a lot of financial trouble? I also noticed that they have quit mowing the lawns that used to be immaculate along the 1836 road on the Mounment side of the park (except at the end where the tunraround near the water is...it is still well kept there). They have put up signs that call the area a nature preserve and to not hunt anything. What a bunch of ***clowns. The service and maintenance was better when it was free. Acres and acres of grass area where people used to come to have a picnic have been lost to brush that has grown about 3 feet high. Anyway, I was just disgusted by the whole situation out there. God help us if they sell the entire property to Disney or contract it out to someone like Disney who is in the attraction business to run the place and charge $35 or something. NASA used to be a wonderful place in the old day but has been reduced to a total rip off that is garbage compared to the old and FREE visitor center. You can read more about that here: http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...mp;hl=NASA+buck

If anyone has the time, please copy my photos from April and label what was where in them so it can be archived here. I am very curious about this and would love some more info. Thanks!

This building is located near the southwest corner of Pasadena Town Square. It is at the corner of Pasadena Blvd. and E. Southmore Ave. I'd say it is roughly 15-20 stories tall and has the cool new look of the 60s with tons of right angles and straight lines. The word "Pasadena" was painted on the top and a ghost of the lettering can still be seen. What is the history of that building? I have seen it sit idle for over a decade and I think it is such a tragedy that ugly strip malls are popping up for professional services like tax prep, dentists, etc....when it could all go in this building. There is tons of parking already there and the Pasadena Police HQ is within walking distance so crime would be very low on the grounds. Post any info you have about this place. I'll have to grab my camera next time I go out there to snap some photos for people who do not know the place. I'd sign any kind of waiver and tour the building if they ever opened it for the public to see it for sales purposes. There have got to be offices in there that are time capsules sealed up as they existed in the 70s and 80s. A sign out front says it is available for use so at least they have not condemed the entire structure.

I was in the area for the first time in years just today. This house is located about 3-5 blocks south of 610 on the west side of Fulton street. The area is well established and mostly full of smaller homes built in the 40s to 60s of which most are in poor repair. The house sticks out like crazy because it occupies perhaps 4-8 times the lot size of the other homes in the area. What is the story behind it? The last time I was on that street was sometime in early 05 so this popped up in the past 2 years. I saw a basketball goal in the side yard and some kids outdoor furniture so it looks as if someone actually lives there and it is not a front for something else. I'm thinking it is some celebrity or Houston famous level of person. In my estimation the house is at least 7,000 sq ft. I wish I had my camera in the car today but I will be going back into the area soon so I can show you what I am talking about. If you know anything about this house do tell. Thanks!

Speaking of Walmart, I went to the one on Beltway 8 just south of where the Auchan used to be located for the first (and last) time recently. OMG...what a disgusting store! There were people just hanging out in the front and the store just seems very disorderly. To their credit it is a full service super walmart and not a mini Walmart the Meyerland one. If you want a half way good walmart to go to then the one on HWY 6 south of Dulles is the best one to go to. You can take HWY 90 and go in the back way using Murphy Rd. It is about a 15 minute drive compared to the 5 minute one it would take me to go to Meyerland but well worth it. Up Hwy 6 about 1 mile north on the left is a Sears hardware store. This has also become my replacement for Sears in Westwood. It is just sad to see Westbury/Meyerland lose 2 theaters in under 4 years like this. I think the Meyerland Theater will be converted into a foreign language version sometime in the future like the theater on W. Belfort and Fondren (the Indian theater) or the a Spanish language one. Otherwise, the building will sit dormant forever. But if Randalls pulls the plug on their store I would love for that entire wing of the center to be demolished and a Sears built. CLOSE THE WESTWOOD STORE SEARS!!!!! They would have to rebuild from nothing but they would have enough room to put in the auto center as well. Napoli pizza made the smartest move going from that center into a small private building near Chimney Rock and Beechnut. Now that is an area you feel safe leaving you car unlocked in the parking lot if you so desire.

I live in Westbury (a stone's throw from this area) and actually looked at a house in Westwood before buying here in 97. The area's only problem, like others have said, are the apartments that have become slums on the east side of Stella Link just south of 610 and on W. Belfort (north side) just before Stella Link. If you are ever in Houston and come back to see this area I think you will find the stretch of W. Belfort between the railroad tracks and Stella Link to be sort of preserved in time. There are really no modern (post 1980s) structures anywhere to be found. Stanco plumbing has a building that is from when the area was first built up and they have preserved it very nicely. A few doors down from them is a car repair shop that looks like something right out of the 50s. The only problem area is the corner of W. Belfort and Stella Link. There is now a Citgo on the NW corner that has all sorts of riff raff hanging out pandhandling or up to no good. Stella Link between W. Belfort and Willowbend has very clean and well maintained light office buildings and warehouses. In fact, Al's Formal opened a building there a few years ago. The warehouses that were there on Willowbend between Stella Link and the railtracks to the west have remained the same. They did find a dead body between those buildings about 4 years ago. I never followed that story much. There was also a plant nursey that was located on Willowbend that closed last year. The land has been turned into a baseball field that is maintained to perfection. Next to the tracks on Willowbend there used to be Kruger Motorsports (closed in 2000 and now demolished) and a small used car lot (closed shortly after Kruger....building stands abandoned). I am in in the area all of the time so I can snap a few pics soon. Anyone know more info about Kruger? They looked to me like they were struggling to pay rent towards the end cause they hardly had any customers and it looked run down. Had they been there since the 50s or 60s? Was it the place to go to get custom performance work done on your car in SW Houston? I wish I had taken photos of the building before it was lost. =( Oh, and does anyone know whatever happend to the man who owned the shoe repair shop in the strip mall on the north side of Willowbend just past the rail tracks? The windows are all blocked out with paper and it has been closed for about 3 years. I assume he passed and the store was shuttered. Now he was a nice guy. He also had a huge collection on toy cars, planes, boats, etc....displayed in glass cases in the store.....very cool stuff.

The 95 pic makes me want to cry. Home Depot is nothing but a thug. They had enough of a parcel of land to place the store facing Chimney Rock with the rear facing the square with enough room for trucks to be able to get to their loading docks. As it is over 50% of the Home Depot lot is never used. The only time I recall it was even over 50% capacity occupied was in the 2-3 day period right before hurricane Rita was coming this way. If they had bulit a lake (as city park property) where the land was in the glory days of the square we might have been spared the ugly Home Depot coming in. Although it will likely not occur I would like to see that whole area gutted and single family homes built where Home Depot, 99 cent store, and the Chase are. With rising energy prices this location is more valuable than it used to be when gas was 99 cents and Sugarland was a viable option. It is very odd that this parcel of land sat idle so long from the 60s to 95. Currently there is a small lot of land right in front on Home Depot next to the Dominos Pizza for sale. It is big enough to accomodate a fast food joint. I pray that does not occur. God help us if a McDonalds opens up and all sorts of crime comes along with it.

I went to Poe but decades later (class of 1990). While I was there it was the height of the cold war in the 1980s. The USSR had just launched their new Typhoon class of submarines that carried enough ICBMs onboard to destory any city in the world in a matter of minutes. We used to do these disaster drills in Poe where we hid under our desk if we were in he classroom or crouched in the hallways agaist the wall covering our faces with our hands. The Houston Post ran a story about that bombing in the late 80s during the anniversary of it one year. One of the student survivors was an amputee and they had a large color photo of him that I remember very well. During my time there Poe suffered a fire during summer vaction of one year but it never impacted the school calendar year so it was a non-event as far as I was concerned. If any fellow Ravens are here; did the school always have those lights that were an incandescent bulb with concentric rings around them? During my 1st grade year they did a major renovation to the school and all of those fixtures came out. In went the flourescent tube lights; getting us ready for coroporate settings I guess. On a side note and totally off topic thing I would like to say that Ms. Irvin of 2nd grade in 1985-86 was the most attractive teacher in the whole school during the time I was there.

Those post card photos from the glory days of the square are awesome! At the same time, they make me want to cry at how that place went from such a wonderful independent business and no motor vehicle place to the concrete jungle home depot is now. I would have to say while all of us on the board, minus a very small minority, wish the square was now as it was once, we have to be realistic. These times in which we live are nothing like the times were back in the 60s. I was born in 78 so I do not speak from firsthand experience but even in my lifetime I have seen our culture and population move towards egomania, anti-social, and flat out rude behavior. These days people want to drive to a big box store in an urban assualt vehicle that screams "I have more money than you do", buy communist made chinese goods on the cheap, and not give a rat's tail about much more. People used to be more nicer and more friendly just a decade or two ago in my experience so the 60s must have been way better than I even know. Anyway, while we will most probably never see that style of community square place in town I would like to see the square preserved somehow. These days if you want that kind of walkable marketplace in the neighborhood you have to shell out megabucks and live in a town where not just a subdivision is masterplanned but the whole city is a planned community. A sterling example of this is a place like Celebration, Florida. http://www.celebrationfl.com/

Yes and no. No because if a vast majority of roadways are designed by engineers to be taken at 60 mph with complete safety and you have one that is a newly built exact copy of the first one built back in the 1950s when vehciles themselves were primative (solid axels, body on frame design, drum brakes, etc); this catches people off gaurd and is a major safety problem even in low traffic conditions. Someone who does not know that interchange and takes the turn at high speed can have a crash. Yes it is the fault of the driver for crashing but it is the fault of TXDOT for making conditions more favorable for a crash.

To adapt to the changes that have occured in vehicle design thus enabling higher speed operation the roadways must also be changed. Do you think putting jet engines on aircraft was a bad idea? Props are what flew out of airports all over the world first so was building longer runways to accomodate faster jets also a mistake?