worldlyman

Yeah, one of those nights I actually saw a mom pushing a baby stroller. And with the addition of Discovery Green, short of being a full blown mixed use/residential area, downtown is actually a viable entertainment/leisure option. Wouldn't it be great if those funky and hot retailers set up on Main St? That would be a great, great thing. As it is, it might be Houston's destiny that the funky and hot retailers are meant for the Heights, Montrose, Midtown, Washington Ave and the Galleria. Perhaps downtown, aside from the business aspect, will always be our high cultural activity hub, nice large public park, and one bar/nightlife district among Houston's others. I guess we could strive for better but downtown Houston 2012 is certainly far better than downtown Houston 1993 or such. Yes, I feel could that there could be a shot of positivity for the next five years downtown.

I've been going downtown the past few Friday/Saturday nights now and it's still reasonably busy. It isn't 2000-2004 mass peak but there's still a lot of activity there. It has more of a busy neighborhood nightlife vibe as opposed to the 6th St or Bourbon St. carnival crowd it used to have...and it's still OK with me. I still saw a lot of people packed in at No-Tsu-Oh, Flying Saucer, Minuti's Coffee, Molly's and such. And the attraction of downtown for me isn't just Main St. I like what I see over in front of Jones Plaza/Bayou Place and on Caroline St. across from Houston Pavilions. People were walking down Travis to Frank's Pizza and Pepper Jacks past midnight. Lots of people sitting in the patio of Sambuca. Houston's nightlife areas are fairly plenty now, with other areas and districts competing with downtown. That being said, downtown Houston is still a good nocturnal entertainment destination among so many that we have in the area. It could be much worse. I know and remember what downtown Houston in the 80s and early 90s was like on a weekend night. Now that was truly dead.

I'm glad it's coming back. It is nice to have another entertainment option here, grand illusions and such. The location is rather difficult though, given how the SW Fwy has become.

Star, Barry's and Candelari's are all very good...but I LOVE Fuzzy's on Fondren/Westheimer! Deep dish.

Downtown is still a very handy urban resource to me. I sometimes take a long break from my job at the Med. Center on a Saturday night and downtown is still going on. It's not as hot as it was circa 1999-2001 but it's alive and well-used. There are still bars and clubs, with a decent flow of pedestrians from Houston Pavilions to Market Square to Bayou Place. There's not an insane crowd of people like you see in tighter, denser metros...but to see a lot of people going from place to place in downtown H-town is still good to see and enjoy. I like grabbing a slice from Frank's Pizza or sipping a blackberry iced mocha at Minuti Coffee's patio or grabbing something at no-tsu-oh. It's a mix of people, and the blacks, whites and Latinos who frequent downtown on Saturday nights seem to enjoy it without much tension. I don't sense tension there on a Saturday night, generally. But the Asian crowds of early 2K seem to have gone elsewhere for nightlife. Sometimes on my Mondays off, I like doing tunnel walks. Again, considering Houston has many other different geographic points of commerce, there are people that still walk around downtown. It's not crowded but there are still people. I like walking down Main on a pleasant Monday afternoon. Then after burning some calories, go walk the tunnels and then wind up at Doozo's at Houston Center for their addicting dumplings. And it's nice to enjoy a quiet day at Discovery Green with the wife...with the breeze on Monday. It's actually pleasant that it's not overrun by tourists. Let them have Kemah...or the future Earthquest for that. But when I want a busier Discovery Green, I'll just come back on the weekends. For me, I've stopped seeing one particular point of Houston as an end-all, all-or-nothing topic that some other people do. There could be some improvements and additions, to be sure, but I've pretty much stopped comparing our downtown to that of others. I mean, does traditionally urban Chicago have these unique entertaining little side streets like Fairview or White Oak that have a semi-rustic flair (but still with urban context)? That's what I like about Houston. I can enjoy these knick-knacks here in H-town. On my Saturday breaks...I can take the METRORAIL down to downtown for some late night pizza OR get in my car and drive over to Onion Creek or 6th Bar or some place on Victorian, semi-rustic White Oak for a "Bad Ass Hot Dog" or a burger. On Saturday nights, it's cool to see people walk from place to place there in that Studewood/White Oak corner. You can have that funky Victorian bar crawl...or you can have that urban flair of downtown on a Saturday night, among many other environments we have in H-town. Heck, I even like sitting at the patio of Cafe Europe on Fountainview@Westheimer and watching people walk among the sidewalks in that shopping center from Taiko to Kentucky Club to Darband Grill...enjoying that Houston style urbanity. But as it is, downtown still happens for me. The maturation and settling of it hopefully will continue. It's MUCH better than what I saw in the mid-90s, for sure.

Here's a link to some classic Westbury Square pics if it's not been posted yet: http://transportbox.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-10-2009-houston-westbury-square.html

I used to live on Benning St. off of S. Post Oak back in 1988. Totally 1988, from January to November. There was a comic book shop in Westbury Square where I used to get my fix of New Teen Titans, Justice League of America, Avengers and back issues of Miracle Man that year. The guys who ran it seemed to get familiar with me for a short while though I don't remember their faces anymore. They pretty much knew what I wanted when I came in. That was a very interesting set-up that I recall of Westbury Square but it felt so abandoned. It's a shame that it couldn't be re-habbed.

Horton Plaza has a movie theater and a decent food court on the upper level. But really no great restaurants or clubs. It is however positioned nicely to the Gas Lamp district. I lived in the Gas Lamp for five months. Horton Plaza's a neat assymetrical mall. San Diego's downtown is surely more developed but the finished productl is way too Disney. It lacks a sophistication, it's the sort of thing you pin down when there. Downtown Houston still has more potential. As it is now, downtown Houston still feels more exciting in a raw way. I took the trolley from the Med Center on break, long break, and what I like is that downtown H-town is not Disneyesque or whitebread like the Gas Lamp.

I work in the Med Center and I wished that food court had dinner hours for us who work later shifts! Ben Taub's cafeteria is really bad, and the adjacent Mickey D's doesn't help either. Some of my lovely coworkers actually walk next door to Memorial Hermann just to eat!

You ought to try and park at the Ben Taub Garage across the street on Taub Loop, but some people have the same idea. It's easier to find parking off of Holman/Travis or Holman/San Jacinto's side streets and then use the HCC/Ensemble rail station. I attend HCC and work at the Taub...it's not too bad.

This place is just like starting, y'know. Houston Pavilions seems like a cool place, interesting OPEN design that is opposite of the Galleria, close to the downtown action. I've been to some beautiful malls in Asia, been down the Stroget in Copenhagen, and I've appreciated the unique Horton Plaza in San Diego when I lived in that city...but there's nothing all that wrong with HP except the circular rings with their unsafe-height rails. Is it because it's in Houston that it's "an ugly. empty mall," especially when it's NOT EVEN FINISHED yet? I notice that negativity phenomemon...just because something's in Houston, it's ugly or uncool or this or that. Just the whole set-up of Houston Pavilions to Main Street Square relative to the rest of downtown...that whole thing when I walked there after work last Friday night...seems a lot more edgy, untamed and YET HONESTLY more urbane than doing the Hollywood&Highland (and that Walk of Fame crap), more so than the Century City Shopping Center and quite more so than Beverly Center/Beverly Connection. Houston Pavilion just adds texture to downtown. The large cultural/performance buildings, the bayou walk, the Main Street action, the skyscrapers...that nouveaux urban vibe in a Sunbelt context, it's here in H-town, not Hollywood. I love L.A. but it seems played out...the influx of new developments happening in Houston just seems much more delicious.

My wife and I went milling about Houston Pavilions last Saturday. I thought that McCormick & Schmicks might be open. But the feel and look of the place EXCEEDS what I saw in the renderings. It is a fantastic design. It's certainly different. Just like Horton Plaza in San Diego is different...Houston Pavilions is different. The view of the skycrapers is astounding. I just can't wait for more shops to open there...getting more customers. There were some people at Books A Million that night. My complaint is that the guard rails around the cross rings could be higher. It is so easy just to jump down on San Jac or Fannin from that...or be pushed over. And parking could be at least 3 bucks instead of the 5 we paid that night. I personally don't mind paying 5...but I just want added incentive for more patronizing. Houston Pavilions is the kind of place that can really attract regularly...I just can't get over how cool that design is. Has anyone tried walking there from the Pavilions to about Main @ Capitol (or close to Sambuca)? What's the distance like? I know I could look that up on a map or something but would still want to know how someone else finds a stroll like that. I wanted to stroll that but my wife was heavily disappointed that McCormick & Schmicks was not open and she was hungry (wound up going to La Strada in Montrose).

I rarely drive through Uptown Park. But though my wife and I generally dislike Starbucks...I was in the mood to go last Friday evening post-Ike...and she was not. Anyway, as we drove through, Uptown Park looked like a happening little city! Cafe Express to Uptown Sushi...it was just happening all over the place! People were walking all over, spilled out the doorways and hanging out al-fresco. Was it just a post-Ike phenomenon or is it really typically that crowded on a Friday/Saturday evening at around 10:40 pm? The two times I've walked around Rodeo Drive on a Friday night at about the same time...it never gets that high energy. Maybe the layout of Uptown Park lends itself that way. Has Uptown Park become or been something of an entertainment hub?

Downtown Los Angeles. I used to spend quite a bit of my time going to the Central L.A. Library on some weekdays. Broadway in downtown is quite a terrific urban vista where those pics were taken. As someone said, you can definitely tell that the ship has definitely sailed away when it comes to "reviving" or "gentrifying" downtown. That part of downtown L.A. is most definitely a crowded shopping mecca for the poor, mostly Latino during the day. BUT...when the sun goes down (or after it's time to leave the library)...downtown Los Angeles shuts down. Better get to your car, buddy, before you lose sight of your own shadow! Other parts of downtown L.A. that are new such as the Grand Ave area...are ironically terminally sterile with skinny sidewalks! Ain't that something. I do enjoy downtown L.A.'s old Chinatown. It's not too bustling but it's still active enough for an urban excursion or meal. And it's not too scary in the daytime at all. However... I like downtown Houston the way it mixes the new with the old. Perhaps noticeably reliable commercial pedestrian activity will be more substantial as the Houston Pavilions is completed and humming. Downtown Houston's weekend nightlife has stabilized. It's not the super crowded sidewalk club chic of 1998-2004 but rather a more casual place that offers a mix of bars, lounges and restaurants and a few clubs.

There is the inferiority complex thing. Stuff that's constructed in San Francisco or Seattle are construed as automatically better than what's in Houston. Personally, I think San Fran's skyline is just an overgrown version of Ft Worth's, plus a nice pyramid. Seattle, I don't get either. I've never seen an angle of the Emerald City's that compares to H-town's skyline views going down south on 45 or from the up ramp coming from 288 on to 59 South. Those are nice skylines but they don't look as sharp or striking as Houston's.