jfre81

This sucks hard. Good to hear they plan on reopening. Would be nice if a little bit of the area's "Little Saigon" heritage stays intact.

Looks as if the building itself may be a total loss though.

There are plenty of good reasons that this location was chosen. It's close to the existing offices, meaning also to where existing employees live.

Any employees in Clear Lake, Pearland, Sugar Land etc. get hosed though.

So this means the Exxon Building downtown won't get abandoned after all?

Maybe the demolition of the old building made entry to the new one easier?

It may be that demolition would cost more than the value of the property just sitting there?

Probably.

Wouldn't the value go up if it was gone though?

Here's from last summer, pre-Ike, if one was to compare to its current state.

I knew I should've gone over and grabbed a brick to keep when I had the chance.

LOST: Houston Texans offense. If found, please call the Reliant Stadium front office.

The difficulty with downtown restaurants has always been that to attract close-in residents,as those residents had to drive past half a dozen great places to get to the downtown spot.

Maybe the new rail might help with that?

What can also help is having more stuff to see and do downtown besides the restaurant, so as to be able to make it a complete outing than just a meal. Discovery Green is definitely a step in the right direction, as would be the longterm success of HP as a whole. It's still looking pretty dead, but let's see what Lucky Strike's opening does.

Maybe the Ripcord could move into the old Blockbuster.

lol. That'd be quite the spectacle, but wouldn't that freak out the yuppies?

If we're going to cut car capacity on Westheimer there might as well be rail instead of a freaking moat.

It'd be nice to have something besides a vacant Blockbuster, a gas station and a Smoothie King at what's supposed to be a major intersection in Montrose though.

Maybe one day they'll try this on somebody with a gun that shoots real bullets.

More like time buzzing past newspapers.

Great shot.

Neat facade - it used to be Los Magueyes bar and restaurant, a record shop, and a paint store in the 1970s. From the painting on the inside it might be an old incarnation of Los Pericos Mexican restaurant which is a few miles up Main St. now (or the Pericos on Mangum).

You're the best Thanks.

Looks like the building isn't really in that bad of shape.

The pictures are broken because bandwidth was exceeded.

I'm aware. I've gotten popular. Trying to figure out a fix for this...

lol, wear a hard hat or something.

Awesome.

I'm looking at a move to downtown in the future, but first order of business would be finding some real work that will pay my end of the rent, lol.

Found this on a little urban expedition of sorts...

1708 N. Main@Harrington. Appears to have been a restaurant and/or bar. Anyone recall what this used to be?

Wow, that half royally sucked.

Still not over.

Clutch City '09

I just joined, as "jfre81"

The first pictures are along South Main just outside 610, near Willowbend.

The first light rail stop is on Greenbriar near Reliant, the Smith Lands station.

The next few shots were from the light rail, in the Medical Center and Hermann Park.

I got off the rail at the Wheeler station and went over to the Fiesta, then went back and took the rail to Main Street Square station.

I walked kind of zigzag through the streets to the northwest, stopping into the Chase Tower for the sky shots, then headed to Franklin Street which becomes Washington Avenue.

I went into Old Sixth Ward and walked down Kane Street, then took Sawyer back up to Washington. Continued west on Washington to Studemont.

Walked down Studemont which becomes Montrose. Stopped at the 34 bus stop at Bomar. I could've gone much further, but I needed my legs for today (for work). I could've walked all the way back home but I'd need a day of rest after, lol.

I think the whole round trip, getting back home and all, took about four hours. And I was by no means in a hurry.

Walking down that part of Studemont where there's next to nowhere to walk was exciting.

Everything from Main Street Square to the Bomar@Montrose bus stop was done on foot.

But hey, I made it, so I guess it's "walkable" if you've got mad skillz.

Too difficult ! It's on lock down. Only ninja's can gain access

I'll bet, because I walked around and couldn't figure it out. You must have entered through the parking garage as best I can figure. That or you did some climbing, or somebody just straight let you in. And I'm figuring the latter didn't happen.

The first picture in your reply to me, is that the older Savoy building? Looks like it, or it's another building that's all caved in on the inside. Got more pictures of the interior of the new building, the one that looks like it's still in good shape? I guess squatterkid looked after it when he was in there.

If this recession puts me on my ass I think I'm gonna go live up there. It's probably better than where I am