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plumber2

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Everything posted by plumber2

  1. That hotel that you stayed at on your first trip to Galveston in 1975 was probably the former Jack Tar Hotel. It was known as the Islander Beach by then and for several years before it closed. When new it was once the swankiest place on the Gulf Coast, built by William Moody III as a protest of sorts to his family, which owned the Buccaneer, and Jean Lafitte hotels. His father and his brother's widow were at odds with him back then. His sister in-law then built the Sea Horse motel down the street on the seawall, to compete with him. The Sea Horse was a huge two story semi circular affair with Gulf facing rooms, that attracted guests from all over and competed directly with the Jack Tar. Galveston benefited greatly from this family feud back in those days. Both places started to wane in popularity however, and then the Moody's sold off most of their hotel properties in the 1960's and later on, but still hang on to a few noteworthy examples like the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, and the Driscoll in Austin.
  2. Plus this is not Memorial Drive. I suspect this shot is near the starting point of Allen Parkway. Memorial Drive would be a few blocks north of this point.
  3. ChrisABC13, seeing that photo snapped a few of my memory cells. I remember traveling out Fondren Rd with my mom, after a music lesson off Bissonett in Robindell around 1963 or 64. She was trying to take a short cut to Arcola to go to some catholic church meeting. We came upon that monorail structure and stopped to look at it. I was about 8 or 9 years old. She would not let me get out of the car to investigate, because she was late for that meeting. Plus she said there were probably snakes and things out there. By the time I was able to get someone to drive me back out there, it was all gone.
  4. The Orlando's that owned this store actually lived in Tanglewood. I went to school with one of the Orlando sons.
  5. I HATE Toll Roads. (Just in case I haven't mentioned that enough on this site.)
  6. Of course this railroad line had long been removed through the neighborhood by then, it's just that the city didn't care to remove the tracks in the pavement at this location where it crossed Westheimer. Sure they paved over it, and built curbs, sidewalks and such, but they left the rails embedded in the street for decades, causing it to be a bone rattler like so many other poorly maintained crossings back then. This was also true for the line that went down Greenbriar to Rice University (which curiously does not show up on the attached map). That long abandoned line had rails in the cross street intersections way up in into the 1980's.
  7. I remember a poorly maintained abandoned train track crossing on Westheimer about in front of what is present day Katz restaurant. It was horrible, and probably broke many a shock absorber. Why the city didn't just pull up the old tracks embedded in the pavement instead of just continually paving over it, I'll never know? It's been gone for years now, but I remember it still being there as a young driver as late as 1970. However I'm sure the GMC Dreamliners handled it much better than the Grumman's would have. Those Dreamliners were solid!
  8. Before the Shepherd 10 Business Park was built, the site was used for low income housing. There were several two story structures, of the post WWII barracks style construction. I'm sure the lower Heights residents were glad to see them go at the time. Now we a ready for the next use of this land. MKT looks like a good fit for this site, however it appears hard to get in and out of.
  9. Jack Roach Ford moved to a new building on the SW Freeway sometime during the late 60's, possibly early 1970. I remember being fascinated by rooftop parking lot, with a drive ramp on the back side. The building is still there, now being occupied by Noel furniture.
  10. Beto has that Kennedy style appeal going for him. He's probably got a better chance of beating Ted than either Joaquin or Julian. I wish him luck as he's not accepting any PAC money for his campaign. I'd rather see one of the Castro brother's take on Abbott for Governor or that rat fink Dan Patrick for Lt Governor, or even wait and take on Cornyn later on.
  11. The other one at the end of Golf Drive was what my dad referred to as the Heights Golf Course. He claimed to have caddied there for extra money when he was a kid. It apparently closed sometime around WWII and then it became developed as Sheperd Park Forest later on. I've also heard that the current Pine Forest Country Club on Clay Road is going to close. The members have sold the property to developers. History has a way of repeating itself. Us native Houstonians have been witness to it more often than we'd like.
  12. That is very sad. My mother worked/volunteered on fundraising activities for the Cenacle Sisters that operated a retreat center on the property. I have several postcard type pictures of the place as it looked in the late 1950's and early 1960's, that came from the small bookstore that the nuns operated inside of the building. Before I started school I would accompany my mother there on Monday's (her work day out there). The nuns would watch me, entertain me and feed me while my mother worked. She had a work office upstairs inside of the big house, that she shared with a nun she reported to (Sister Vandenberg). Sister Petra, the one that watched me was the cook. The nuns lived in a small house just to the west of the big house. The retreat buildings were behind the big house, and a wooden chapel was located just to the east of those buildings. I basically had the run of the place on these weekly visits. I was told not to go down by the lake (a lost bend from Oyster Creek I suspect). There was a small grotto and bench down there, but nobody went there because of the water moccasins, which I discovered on one of my forbidden trips down there. Yes I got in trouble when I told on myself. The Cenacle Sisters eventually built a new modern facility on Kirkwood in west Houston at Buffalo Bayou in the mid 1960's. I have never had reason to go back to the Scanlan place after that. I'm really surprised it had lasted this long.
  13. That's exactly were it was, up against Ave B. There was a long hedge lined walkway from the convent over to it. We had a class function/party there in 1970 when I was a sophomore. No one went swimming though. I think it was too cold that day. It was strictly part of the convent, not the school. Students had to have a reason to even be on that part of the property. It was a typical 60's outdoor gunite pool, with pee gravel surrounding it. Not that big either, from what I remember. There was a diving board and a life guard stand believe it or not. I guess Sister Mary Somebody would be on duty if students went swimming. Can't believe I remember all that. Edit: Map of City of Bellaire Sec. 1 Westmoreland Farms, Harris County, Texas. May 1, 1949
  14. Awesome photo you discovered there Tejano. This was propoably one of the outer structures on the propoerty and not the main Simms house, as the main house was a larger plantation style home, which was 3 stories. I know this because a group of us high schoolers were in it one night in 1970 or possibly 1971. It was empty and pretty trashed out at that time. We were coming down from the third floor when a group of guys (probably east enders) cornered us and wouldn't let us by. They were acting kind of bullyish toward us until the girls in our group shamed them into letting us by. Gotta love those hippie girls.
  15. CHI St Luke's still owns the St Luke's Tower on Bates St along with the now vacant 1950's era hospital building on Bertner. The Texas Heart Center building on Bertner is also owner by CHI St. Luke's. They did sell the O'Quinn Tower on Fannin and the Baylor Clinic building on Main St. to Texas Children's last year. Texas Children's would be the obvious purchaser of those remaining TMC buildings once CHI St Luke's fully moves all of it's services to the McNair campus. The two institutions share already common corridors, several entrances and some life safety systems in those original buildings anyway.
  16. As much as I disagree with the Bushes on just about everything, at least they can spot a con artist when they see one.
  17. Or he'll lead us to economic ruin. Cutting taxes for corporations from 33% to 15% while the CEO's respond, "Why thank you very much., our stockholders will be very appreciative to you". And yes, Obamacare is horrible garbage, since it was designed by and written for the insurance companies, hoping for, yes just hoping that they would cover the uninsurable with affordable health care, but of course they couldn't. It was a failed business model, designed for the insurance companies to manage. It's unfortunate that they couldn't (or possibly wouldn't) manage it for their benefit. So let's go back to open markets with companies selling cheap hollow, and worthless coverage to unsuspecting families only to be cancelled after their first really big claim. Oh and about that wall dog. Are you expecting the landowners in south Texas to just hand over their property for this wall easement? Will you be okay with eminent domain?(government confiscation) for this easement. And then some type of private corporation to build and manage this wall, because as your party has alluded to so many times, the government is not good at this kind of stuff.
  18. To me it feels probably like what the french citizens felt during the fall of France in WWII, watching the Nazis march down the Champs Elysee. I'm that guy in the classic photo, crying as they march by. Really can't say much of anything else right now. I don't even want to be around people. A big dark cloud has settled upon us.
  19. The other IWA buildings shown in this picture were taken and replaced after the Sisters of the Incarnate Word sold their property in Bellaire on Bissonnet in the early '80's. They used the proceeds of that sale to fund the newer buildings at their downtown campus. They assumed that as enrollment had peeked at Marian High School in the mid 70's and was starting to decline, that there was not a future for parochial higher education in Bellaire. How wrong they were, as the Episcopals are having great success at that location.
  20. I remember going to Jones Hall for a class field trip sometime around 1967 or '68. Us boys got a kick out of scuffing our shoes on the carpet (it was red) and then touching the person in front of us, shocking them. Most of the girls would scream out loud (was that harassment?)
  21. The Jesus mural shown in the renderings above is actually a copy of the the 1960's original that is still in place out front on Fannin Street on the exterior of the old Main Building. The original mural was a huge lighted mosaic spanning probably 60 feet in length and about 7 to 8 ft tall. Of course it is currently obscured by a later 1980's (Dunn Tower) addition. One can still see it (now unlit) from the upper levels of the Marriott Hotel and Scurlock Towers across the street. Interesting that they would want to resurrect that theme from way back when in their new tower.
  22. I bet if this was the Keystone Pipeline instead of high speed rail, Texas legislature's would be falling all over themselves to introduce bills to push eminent domain efforts to get any holdouts out of the way.
  23. There used to be a lounge and restaurant in the building called "The Inns of Court". It was on the top floor of what we used to call TCB, the addition on the northwest corner of the block. I was told it catered to lawyers and such folks that were common tenants in the building and also in the adjacent Houston Club Building. Once Texas Commerce Tower was built across the street and Gulf Oil vacated I think the clientele base drifted off. There was also a small dentist's office on level 6. It was a single chair practice with pictures of his daughter (Jacqueline Smith) adorning the waiting room walls, reminding his loyal patients that he had a celebrity daughter.
  24. The real City of Houston Inspectors are mostly all gone, being replaced by entry level rookies, with no experience, little benefits, and no access to anyone with practical knowledge. I used to take a continuing education class taught by a former City of Houston inspector. He had to quit and go back in the field, just to make ends meets. City inspector careers used to be a job that older tradesmen could gravitate to once they got up in age. They would take the lower paying job, knowing that the non cash benefits would make up for the smaller take home pay. That has all changed. The pay is low and there are very few benefits. There is no incentive for trained people to take an inspector position with the City of Houston anymore. The talent is all gone. Even some of the plan checking for permits are now outsourced to a "resource" in Plano. There is no "bribe" incentive going on here. These guys your friend is dealing with just don't know what they are doing. They have never worked in the trade that they are expected to be knowledgeable in. It's not that they are dragging their feet, the fact is that they are truly clueless at what they are doing. It's a sad state of affairs, when an "apprentice" on the job has to explain to the inspector what he is there to look at. And these guys have to take a State exam to become inspectors. I'm not sure what kind of exam they give these guys. It's just truly sad.
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