IronTiger

Aerials seem to indicate houses between Louise and Adele. Lot was also cleared--the trees that were there were torn down completely, though the trees that are there now have grown up. The transit center was dedicated in March 1992. I can't find the date it was (largely) abandoned.

Drive by this all the time and never saw it in use (given METRO never uses it these days, I guess why). The gas station that once operated there (closed between 1989 and 1995, though I can look it up) was only the southern "tip" (the triangle south of Louise Street, which was closed when it became a transit center). There is the La Coqueta bar there, which has red neon at night (unknown if it's still open, as the neon I've only seen at night) and looks pretty sketchy.

It was next to a railroad, which is going to limit walkability in some regards. But really, I suppose one way to back up what the building was is tracing back the land history of the apartments north of the freeway. If the entire property was condemned and then split off and sold, then probably not, but if part of the land was condemned and the original owners sold out then it might be traceable. From what I found, the address of the apartments, legally, isn't on Castle Court but rather 4508 Graustark, but I can't find anything on that property prior to 2016.

Any urban highway is going to cut through neighborhoods in the city no matter what. The big question was the urban highways cutting in the central business district. As for your other comment, I commute under 610 on a daily basis on one of the major roads that go under 610 North. On either side, there are old buildings and the occasional business. Yes, looking at Google Earth, there are more of the dense townhomes on the southern (more affluent) neighborhoods than the north side but even that's starting to change.

Of course there would be demolitions. If you wanted minimal demolitions, you would have to re-route 59 up to Kirby and Richmond (east of Greenbriar was where the heaviest demolition starts for 59, and even then a lot of that is reduced due to a tight right of way and using the railroad). The real question is if you want "core" to mean "CBD with few to no single family houses" (which I-45 DID avoid) or "core" to include "established neighborhoods". If you want to change the definitions, then anything in the Beltway is "core" as well. I find it interesting how the same people who accuse the Pierce as "cutting" through Midtown and shouldn't be there are the same ones who hold 610 as a dividing line between "muh inner loop core" and everyone outside of it.

In a historical sense, the highways DID bypass the core. The reason why I-45 is always bad because of the sharp curves in the road, and those were there to AVOID THE CBD. Interstate 10 went clear on the other side of the railroad while US-59 also avoided the core. With the exception of Boston's defunct Central Artery (which pre-dated the Interstate system), the Interstates were largely designed to go AROUND the downtown area. Anyone telling you otherwise either has no idea about history or is trying to push an agenda (usually both). Don't believe me? Fire up Google Earth (I think there's still a desktop version if you don't already have it), go back to 1944 when the freeways didn't exist (but leave the roads layer on) and tell me what you see.

Wait, so the Sears had a ground lease that it only would've had for 100 years? Who owned it? I thought Sears had all that land, and leased some space to Fiesta. Huh. A while back we had discussions if Rice owned the land or not. I guess they really DID all along.

Empty lots don't really have to densification, it has to do with land value (and those two are not interchangeable). A row of strip centers, churches, restaurants, and hotels is not very dense, but downtown and Uptown are, and empty lots (or parking lots) usually indicate two things: 1) The land value is so low that it doesn't really make sense to build there (any place out in the country, neighborhoods in serious decline, City of Detroit, etc.) 2) The land value is so high that it doesn't really make sense to build anything other than a high-profit building (basically any urban area including San Francisco's former Central Expressway up until 2008-ish) If you look at Uptown, even back to 2004, you'll see that there are more empty lots than today but the lots that are developed (with a few exceptions) are all skyscrapers, dense malls, or hotels. Downtown has empty lots, and those lots won't develop until they find developers for big multi-story building. Putting in a Panda Express with its own parking lot and drive-through would definitely be attractive but the land value is too high to see a low-rise like that built anymore. At one time the land value in downtown was low enough that a McDonald's with a parking lot was there at Main and Capitol, but that obviously is not the case anymore.

I *think* there might be one left, but another one of the unique Houston items...gone.

I wonder if the adjacent Fiesta will close too. Was that announced? I believe the Fiesta was on land Sears leased, and that property is now Rice's...

Oh, so it's actually closed? When was the closing date?

So, it looks like the "express lanes" construction also involves a total rebuild of the 288/610 interchange. This includes a temporary situation where the 288 S exit (eastbound) from 610 has gone from its 2013 reconstruction (two lanes splitting off from 610 to two lanes on 288 instead of one lane turning into two) to a scary exit-only lane with a really sharp turn. The original 288 interchange wasn't bad in itself (unless you were a truck with a penchant for going too fast), with the only most obnoxious part having the 288 North exit being BEFORE the 288 South exit, if you were going eastbound on 610. Westbound made a little more sense, with the traditional "exit and split" routine seen at the other interchanges. The rebuild seems to place the ramps at the same level and does not address the fact that the westbound 610 frontage road is not contiguous.

All railroads cost money to operate and maintain, and very few make a profit. Even the MTA (New York City's transit system) only gains back about 50% what they put in the budget. If the HSR was built and didn't make a profit, the state could sell the line to Union Pacific, who could use it as a super-fast way of getting from Dallas to Houston, and definitely turn a profit off of it.

Nah two is also bad because it will basically confirm what everyone in the counter-rail group is thinking, that it's just a long-range con to scam taxpayers and not actually deliver a functional, profitable private rail line. Already we've been going from "Hey, this is privately funded and operated, we're not like California here, ha ha" to "Yes, it's privately funded but have you considered eminent domain? It's only a narrow little strip!" No way would anyone living near the Heights Bike Path would allow HSR down it. In addition to having needing far more ROW than the Katy railroad ever had, it had all sorts of twisty turns that would make it impractical to freight and HSR alike. Whoops, critical research error on my part. For some reason I read Hobby opening in 1969, not IAH. Point still stands though. If this is anywhere close to a major hub as a contingent of this thread believes it to be, downtown is neither necessary or pragmatic.

LOL to the "why not downtown" arguments. If this is supposed to be an airport alternative, why does it have to be downtown? If HAIF had existed back in the 1960s, would there be just whole pages of complaints about the future Hobby Airport being outside of the Loop?

If it's facing north (roughly) and paralleling the Gulf Freeway, why does there seem to be an elevated freeway in the background? The half-cloverleafs wouldn't have existed at the time. Or that just a big building?

Based on the freeway, at least one other cross street, and the road length I want to say Pierce and Brazos.

It seems to be one of the streets around downtown, very narrow (three lanes, no dedicated parking). Were any EaDo or Midtown roads converted back into two way?

Oh man, and that was my own post too.

Where did Lewis & Coker have its locations before they closed the last one in the late 1990s (Memorial Drive, which became Rice Epicurean/Fresh Market/Total Wine)? All I can find is they had one other location in Kingwood in the late 1980s. From reading the articles it seems like at least their later days they skewed upscale despite the fact that they operated the Kmart grocery stores in the 1970s.

Reading about it on the current website of Pine Forest says it opened in 1945 (explaining why it isn't on the oldest aerial) and closed in 1975 (which is why the warehouses were only partially built out in 1978).

Doing of my "look at something in Google Earth and discover something else" excursions that I do on a far too regular basis, I found what appeared to be a golf course just east of the Sears store there. It was roughly bordered by North Shepherd (west), the railroad (south), Crosstimbers/Westcross (north), and the homes west of Yale (east). By the late 1970s it was demolished for a series of warehouses with railroad spurs, which it is today, though the spurs are not active anymore. Does anyone know what this golf course was? I tried to do searches on it to no avail.

Sometimes the business that the address refers to go under (pretty sure I've seen one thread where that happened). Plus, it can be helpful to refer to previous occupants of the property as well.

Note the pipes that drain runoff into the bayou. How polluted did the bayou end up getting at its peak?

The Texan was a drive-in in the 1950s that the owners later converted to an upscale restaurant over time Steak & Ale/Oxford Street closed in 2008 and ultimately became a seafood restaurant, which burned down in 2012 and was torn down very soon after. JJ Muggs/Rita's became a Mexican restaurant by the 1990s and has been a Fuddruckers since around the mid-2000s. Fajita Rita's closed around the early to mid 2000s and became a series of Mexican restaurants until 2012, when lightning struck an AC unit and burned down the building. Today there is a First Watch breakfast restaurant and Hungry Howie's. Tom's Barbecue settled in the early 1990s at the intersection of Holleman and Texas Avenue. It closed around 2001 and was torn down for a strip center. The Bryan location is now J. Cody's. Swensen's closed around the mid-2000s, I think it's Firehouse Subs now. Bennigan's is now an AT&T store. 3C Barbecue is now Napa Flats. Pop's Barbecue later became a catering business but is now a tire shop after a major renovation. The Deluxe is gone, having been substantially rebuilt for Chimy's Cerveceria several years back. Cafe Eccell was torn down for an apartment building. Their current spot replaced Luby's. La Taqueria eventually became La Bodega, which was torn down for a food truck park. The SW Parkway Kroger was updated inside and out in 2001, but was still run down, and closed in 2016. It is to become a Tru Fit fitness center. Chicken Oil is still there. Graham's is still there. The Hall closed in 2011 and was torn down for a Walmart.