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marmer

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Everything posted by marmer

  1. marmer
    Yeah, they lock him in the Carousel House and let the mold get him!
  2. marmer
    Of course the legend was that waterskiing could be done in the Shamrock's pool. I've seen that mentioned frequently but never seen a picture or any convincing proof.
  3. marmer
    Lisa, you rock! I am sure I speak for many when I say that I am so glad you have a column now! Thanks for a great article about the Cohen house (and 1 Waverly, and many others!)
  4. marmer
    If this is the area I'm thinking of, I remember that it was full of this kind of house. My wife looked at one in the late 80's and it had a lot of neat features. We thought the neighborhood seemed a little sketchy back then. Still, the price per sq. foot looks amazing and some lucky person could really make this into something special.
  5. marmer
    I agree with Subdude. Sure looks antebellum Greek Revival to me. HCAD probably has the 1948 date as the result of a remodel, modernization, occupancy change, or something. But I can certainly buy 1856.
  6. marmer
    Lamar HS was also in the movie "Sidekicks" and was the site for the greatly underrated and now nearly forgotten horror spoof "Student Bodies" (1981) I believe at one point in Student Bodies they showed a sign with the "R" clumsily altered to a "B"; the name of the school in the film was therefore "Lamab HS."
  7. marmer
  8. marmer
  9. marmer
    I thought the big selling point for McMansions was luxury amenities and large room sizes. That plus the ability to move in right away without major repairs or renovations. To people who don't care about architectural design very much or who want something that looks better than the suburban tract house they grew up in, that is an unbeatable combination and I daresay the buyers of those houses think they house their families very well.
  10. marmer
    Seems to be for them, judging from the unanimity of the yellow signs in the area. Sure, it might be a nice place to live and make the developers a bunch of money, too. All I'm saying is that I can understand the residents' concerns, and they are not only (or even primarily) financial. I think you're both underestimating the construction activity and agreeing that it will have some negative effect on the neighborhood. I don't really have an argument against that because I don't know enough about how those kind of arrangements work. I do know how cranes go up and what an endless parade of dump trucks looks like, and that would be reason enough not to want it by my house. Even if it meant someone else could make a lot of money.
  11. marmer
    In general, I oppose new construction. Strange, I know, from an architecture buff. You're right of course about large new houses. They increase the nearby home values and tax bills. But the inconvenience caused by single-family house construction and the population increase (if any) on a single-house basis is usually insignificant to most neighbors. I doubt there are any real objections to the three or four architect-designed new houses being built in Southampton. This is an exponentially bigger construction project and increase in population density. I could be all wrong, but I can't imagine the condo/apartments would be expensive enough to have any effect on existing home values.
  12. marmer
    They don't provide any benefit at all to existing residents. None. That's why they're so strongly opposed and that's why there are so many yellow signs. Sure, if it's built it will probably be a reasonably sweet place to live even though Bissonnet is a pain just with existing traffic. It's like if your neighbor builds a new house. Unless it is really extreme in some way it won't affect you at all. You can live with construction for a couple months. What I'm talking about is dozens of 18-wheelers, hundreds of worker vehicles, and heavy equipment for several months. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that, and there's no way I could ever afford to live in Southampton.
  13. marmer
    I don't think it has anything to do with "undesirables" or people who can't afford to buy a house. As far as I know the tenants of Rice Graduate Apartments, the tenants of Maryland Manor, the tenants of the lovely art-deco apartments on Wroxton and Bolsover, and the many renters of garage apartments are not made to feel unwelcome. It's that the construction process will lead to a year or more of major inconvenience for the whole area, with no benefit to the neighborhood at all. Here at Rice, we're enduring several major construction projects and believe me the noise and construction traffic as well as the blocked access to many areas are a cause for complaint. Nonetheless, the Rice community supports it because they know what a benefit it will be. Same thing, sorta, with the medical garage on Sunset. It's out of scale with the area but hopefully it will improve traffic and parking when it's done. But what do you think will happen when that big crane is delivered and erected? I can't imagine that it wouldn't make Bissonnet a one lane street for at least a day. Same thing with steel deliveries, pipe, you name it. Oh, and how about the noise and dust? Telling people in Southampton to plant more live oak trees is like trying to sell coals in Newcastle. There is already a big tree canopy. But the proximity and geometry of this extremely tall thing is going to make it plenty visible over the tree canopy. They're going to lose their sky. The Huntingdon and the one on San Felipe (River Oaks?) work, sorta, because they have enough space around them not to intrude quite so much on the surrounding neighborhoods, and they are both on major multi-lane through streets. But I haven't heard anyone say anything good about this project except to say the rendering is pretty and to complain that the city is trying to screw the developer, which they clearly are because the project will be a disaster for the whole area. Or they like the idea of high-rises in general as an efficient use of land. I doubt that this will have any real effect on anyone's house value
  14. marmer
    I spent a lot of time in the neighborhood this weekend. If the building could just miraculously appear overnight, it might not be too bad although Bissonnet is pretty crowded. But a year's worth or more of construction traffic, cranes, dump trucks and 18-wheelers would be sheer hell in the area and on all the surrounding streets.
  15. marmer
    "Man, that's a lot of rice!" They said it as late as the middle 80's, believe me! We thought it was funny.
  16. marmer
    Back in the old days at Rice, we of the MOB would always throw a party for the UT band when Rice played UT (or they would reciprocate when we went to Austin) Funny, they would always sing a song for us very much like that about A&M. (to the tune, I believe, of "Far Above Cayuga's Waters")
  17. marmer
    There's not much info out there, especially not from HISD, but it sure looks like Gregory Elementary School moved to the fortress-like campus of Lincoln High School (built 1966) in 1980. A new K-8 school, the Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, was thus created and the high-school age kids in the area were distributed to Lamar, Davis, and Reagan. Gregory-Lincoln became the district's fine arts magnet middle school a year or two later.
  18. marmer
    VicMan is the one who first raised the question... We're trying to figure out what happened to it.
  19. marmer
    Isn't that the Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, the K-8 Fine Arts magnet? Was that ever a high school? It was built in 1966 and is getting a new building.
  20. marmer
    Or Der Wienerschitzel?
  21. marmer
    Well, I'm neither Ben nor Kinkaid, and with apologies to the Thread Police, I'll take a quick crack at it. Most baby boomers grew up in tract houses or in urban apartments that were not architecturally interesting. Most of the MCM stuff they saw was institutional: schools, offices, clinics, etc. To them, steel, glass, terrazzo, flat roofs, low ceilings, and interior brick look both cold and old. Add to that the modern desire for kitchen and bath amenities and the longer hours that one generally must work to have the biggish bucks, and a new house in the "dramatic" "Mediterranean" style, with little or no yard to maintain, looks pretty attractive. Especially since you can throw money at decorating a new house instead of repairing or remodeling an old one.
  22. marmer
    Well, OK, I can buy the idea that it was males only, sorta. Certainly at that age a bunch of boys skinny-dipping would have been considered wholesome, manly, etc. And there would have been the advantage that you didn't have to transport or store a wet bathing suit. But a bunch of girls skinny-dipping? Scandalous! My daughter is 12 and if anyone suggested that she and her friends swim naked, you'd hear the EWWWWW! in San Antonio. I can't imagine that if the girls did swim in the buff, the entire male student population wouldn't know that, and constantly be trying to sneak a peek.
  23. marmer
    With all due respect, that sounds like an urban legend.
  24. marmer
    Yeah, like the Music Hall! That's a sad example of a structure that truly was outdated in many significant ways in terms of both audience amenities and production facilities. I always hated everything about the Music Hall except: the view from the audience, the view of downtown from the lobby, and the art deco exterior from a distance. And Hobby Center, however you may feel about its facade, works much better as a theatre venue for today's shows.
  25. marmer
    Jones Hall is the only theatre its size in Houston. It seats 2,911. Sarofim Hall is close at 2,650, Brown Theatre in Wortham seats 2,255 max. It is unfortunate that the restroom locations and numbers are from an earlier era, though remodeling has helped. Still, I see long lines for the women's restrooms at all the larger, newer, venues in the city. Mine, too. I'm not sure there's any way around it. What would a better hall for the Houston Symphony look like? I've already touched on the shape and size in my previous post. Ideally there would be more storage space (the HSO rents a warehouse now) and better loading dock access. A pipe organ would be nice, and possibly seating behind the stage for a chorus. Maybe wider variability of acoustics. Aside from that, I can't add very much.
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