57Tbird

Here's another view and description of the monorail at Arrowhead Park http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/57Tbird/HoustonMonorail-1956.jpg 1956- Skyway Monorail Monorail, Incorporated, built a short test track of their suspended system at Arrowhead Park in Houston, Texas. Each bogie was powered by a 310-horsepower Packard automobile engine. The driver was seated high above the passenger carriage on one of the two bogies. After eight months of testing, the track was dismantled and rebuilt at the Texas State fairgrounds where it ran for many years. Its promoters claimed it could reach speeds of 160 km/hr, but no Skyway transit installations were ever built.

Looks like you saved your moon-landing newspapers like I did. Sure is interesting to go back and look at the articles and ads from that era.

Just curious... What does 1950 smell like?

I think it was the End o' Main Ballroom. Eating Bill Williams' fried chicken with your hands was "Fried Chicken - Savage Style". I never knew that you could eat it any other way.

Montrose Elementary was built in 1913, in the block bounded by Stanford, W. Main, Sulross, and Greeley. Don't know when it closed, but the High School for the Visual and Performing Arts was built on its former site in 1971. This info from a friend who attended Montrose in the 40's. Just out of curiosity, why do you ask?

I think you're right about that Burger King being one of the originals. I had never heard of them before that one opened. My regular Sunday evening trek was Landsdowne to W. Airport to Chimney Rock to Gasmer to Post Oak to Burger King, just north of Willowbend. Mid-60's... a Whopper was $.35.

Good point! Add to the list... my old school, the Lamar Redskins.

Fred Pepper was my baseball coach at Lamar High School in the early 50's. He was very good. He went to Rice in the mid 40's and was, briefly, a pitcher in the Yankee's farm system before he came to Lamar. I had heard that he eventually became the principal at Westbury.

Have you seen the R.O. Elementary Alumni website? I contacted the webmaster, Peter Denman, ROE Class of '66, and told him I had some old class photos given to me by a friend who attended. I inquired if he would like to have them for his historical pictures section on the website. He had just started a section with old class photos and he was happy to get them. Check it out if you haven't already.

I spent the first years of my life in the late 30's in the Riverside/Riverside Terrace area at 2655 Oakdale, just west of Ennis. I wonder what that house looks like now. Neighbors were Leon Jaworski, a young, up-and-coming attorney, and a very young Bill Archer, future congressman, both of whom some of you may know of. I attended kindergarten and first grade at Sutton Elementary, which was not too far from my house. I see there is now a Sutton in Sharpstown. I guess the original Sutton I attended was renamed.

You're looking east in that photo. See post #1 by MaxConcrete on this topic for the approximate boundaries of the airport. It would have been just about due north across South Main (90A) from Butler Stadium. Westbury now occupies the old airport site.

I received the following in a PM from a new member of the forum... curious1. I couldn't help him with his inquiry, but possiby someone (maybe sevfiv or suredid) who has been in that area recently can help. Not sure why he hasn't posted this. If someone can offer any information, I'll pass it on in reply to his PM. Thanks! "I grew up in the Harrisburg/Manchester areas of Houston in the 30s, 40s and 50s. I roamed every street and railroad track in these areas. In 1945, a Harris Elementary teacher told us about a historic marker located east of the Milby home, across Broadway and behind Jack Roach Ford. I found it easily and checked it out several times. The marker basically stated that The Capital of the Republic of Texas was located at the site, and it gave dates. I live in Mississippi now. In 1990, my brother and I looked for the marker and couldn't find it. I think I'm the only person that knows the marker ever existed. Do you know what happened to it? The location was between the Milby home and Glendale Cemetery, but closer to the Milby home. It was north of the railroad tracks that ran by the cemetery. 'Preciate any help you can give. (The Houston Library was clueless)"

Filio, More on Bobby.... He gave Kenny Rogers a gig in 1959 and replaced David Clayton-Thomas in Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1972, but piano player Bobby Doyle made the most impact locally by establishing Ego's, a dark apartment complex lounge on South Congress Avenue, as a live music venue in the early '90s. A musician's musician, Doyle succumbed Sunday to lung cancer, surrounded by friends and relatives in his North Austin home. He was 66. Able to handle requests for songs by everyone from George Gershwin and Nat King Cole to Jerry Lee Lewis and Stevie Wonder, Doyle, who was blind, was a brilliant, self-taught piano thumper who possessed a raspy, soulful voice. "There aren't too many white guys that can do Ray Charles, but Bobby Doyle was one of them," said keyboardist Riley Osbourn. "He had such a broad range," Osbourn said. "He could play blues, R&B, gospel, jazz. . . . He had his own style by combining all those things." He was "the main cat," said former Asleep At the Wheel pianist Danny Levin. "If you were thinking about doing a solo piano thing, Bobby Doyle was the guy you looked up to." A Houston native, Doyle moved to Austin at age 7 to attend the Texas School for the Blind. While at McCallum High, where he was the first blind student to graduate, he played on KVET-AM on Saturday mornings. "Bobby always had a transistor radio in his pocket," said Eddie Wilson, who would later book his former classmate at Threadgill's. "He'd be bopping to the radio in class. He'd keep it just loud enough for him to hear, but not the teacher." Bassist Jon Blondell, who played in a trio with Doyle in the '90s, said the pianist "had the ears of a bat." After high school, Doyle started the Bobby Doyle Three, a popular local jazz outfit, with a University of Texas student named Kenny Rogers on standup bass. Rogers soon dropped out of college to play full time with Doyle, singing high harmony and playing bass on the 1962 album "In a Most Unusual Way." The trio disbanded in 1965, and Rogers went on to become a country-pop sensation. "Bobby told me that he used to write checks for Kenny Rogers for five years, then Kenny went on to make $200 million and ain't written Bobby a check once," Wilson said. But the Gambler never forgot Doyle; about 10 years ago, David Letterman asked Rogers to name the best musician he'd ever played with, and "Bobby Doyle" came out instantly. Doyle also impressed producer Phil Spector, who used him on several sessions in the late '60s, when Doyle lived in Los Angeles. When Clayton-Thomas left BS&T in '72, Doyle was tapped as a replacement, but the piano player didn't last long with the horn-driven pop band, appearing on only two tracks on 1972's "New Blood." Doyle moved back to Austin in the late '70s and performed five nights a week at an East Riverside Drive lounge. But he was soon back on the road, ending up with steady work in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe during the '80s. He moved back to Austin for good in 1990, performing every Thursday and Friday at Ego's, a dive he'd enjoyed playing during visits to Austin. The word got out that there was an incredibly soulful singer and piano player at Ego's, and Doyle's sets soon were frequented by musicians and hipsters. Two nights a week, the dank, hidden joint on South Congress was cooler than any basement jazz club in Greenwich Village. Because of Doyle's draw, the club started booking other acts, even rock bands, and the dive was transformed into a scrappy stop on the live original music circuit. Doyle also played regularly at the Driskill Lounge and Eddie V's. Doyle played regularly until two months ago, when he became too ill. Wilson said playing music was one of Doyle's few pleasures after his wife, Mary, died in August 2004. They had been married for 17 years. "They were quite a team," Wilson said. "I've never seen a couple have so much fun together. He was ready to go the day after Mary died."

I read in the Austin paper a couple of weeks ago that Bobby Doyle died. His obituary.... Robert G. "Bobby" Doyle Robert G. "Bobby" Doyle, age 66, of Austin, Texas, died on Sunday, July 30, 2006. He was born on August 14, 1939, in Houston, Texas, to Edward and Ella Doyle. Bobby was a renowned musician, whose original trio included himself, Kenny Rogers and Don Russell. He appeared on the Joey Bishop Show, the Steve Allen Show, and toured with Blood, Sweat & Tears and the Kirby Stone Four. In recent years Bobby performed regularly at Ego's, Driskill Hotel, and Eddie V's Restaurant. When he wasn't performing, he enjoyed all sports, especially baseball and football. Bobby was preceded in death by his loving wife, Mary; his parents; his daughter, Kathleen; and by two of his sisters. He is survived by his children, Michael, Kevin and Adam and wife Melissa; stepchildren, Lewis Powell III and wife Barbara, Misty Lampani, and Melanie Kooser and husband David; brothers, George Doyle and wife Edith, John Doyle and wife Geneva, Patrick Doyle and wife Jean, Raymond Harkey; sister, Ruth Drousche; and by 5 grandchildren, Lewis IV, Dominic, Logan, Addison, and Evelyn. A Memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 3, 2006 at Weed-Corley-Fish Chapel with Mr. Duane Miller officiating. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Bobby's name to The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central and South Texas, 2224 Walsh Tarlton Lane, Suite 200, Austin, Texas 78746, (800)880-9474. Published in the Austin American-Statesman on 8/1/2006.

I went to just about all the Frontier Fiesta shows in that time-frame. Loved it! Knew some of the kids who performed there. Some of the more famous were Tommy Sands and Paula Ragusa (who later became Paula Prentiss). They were comtemporaries of mine at Lamar HS. Robert Foxworth also went to Lamar, but he was several years behind me. I don't remember Kenny Rogers performing at the FF, when I was going, but I did see him around town, when he started out with The Bobby Doyle Trio and, later, with his group, The First Edition. Speaking of the "Larry Hovis Trio", I remember Larry as a member of a group from Reagan High called The Four Spades. They were a big hit playing at the Frontier Fiesta and at school proms around town. Happen to have a picture of them from about 1953. Of course, you know which one is Larry.

I agree about the accuracy... rather inaccuracy... of the HCAD dates. They have my old house listed as built in 1964. It was built in 1961...the year I moved in. The house of my old neighbor across the street from me was built in 1960. HCAD has that right, and it is not in the picture. I checked the HCAD build dates of some of the other houses in my neighborhood that are in the picture, and they are listed as built in 1958, which might be a little early. So I agree with the dating of the photo.... 1959-early 1960.

That is a fantastic photo! Amazing to see what the area around my first house, in Westbury South, looked like just before it was built in the Spring of 1961. Many vacant lots. I was on the west side of Landsdowne, between Fontenelle and Firenza. We were really out in the boonies then. Had to go a Burger King on Post Oak, near WillowBend, for our first Whoppers. The races at Meyer Speedway on Saturday nights sounded like they were almost next door.

Looks like the Milby name on the gravestone at the lower right of the historical marker

Well... I walked and sometimes rode my bike to the Alabama Fun club on Saturday mornings. Only, I did that scene a few years before you, in the late 40's. Jimmie Green Chevrolet was not there yet. I don't remember when it was built (early-mid 50's maybe), but it was next to the Bible Cyclorama. Then there was a Gulf station just north of him on the southeast corner of Shepherd and Westheimer. Was Chris' Coney Island still on the southwest corner of Shepherd and W. Alabama? We would go there after the movie for Coneys and liquid refreshments. From what area did you walk to the movie? I'm familiar with the territory, since I knew a lot of kids who lived close to the Alabama.

Some of the more popular image sharing sites are photobucket, tinypic, and flickr. Just sign up and follow their instructions for uploading your photos to post here or elsewhere. Resize your pictures to the size most have done in HAIF. At one time there was a 500 KB size limit, I think.

Here is a 1960 photo that MK made reference to in an earlier post of his about the location of an old airfield in Westbury. This came from a website about old air fields in the Houston area. This is of an area of Westbury South, where I bought my first house in 1961. You're looking south in the picture with South Main (Hwy 90A) running east-west across the top. Chimney Rock is the north-south street to the far left. Landsdowne (street my house was on) is the next street to the right running parallel to Chimney Rock. That's Meyer Speedway under construction at the top. W. Airport is in the middle of the photo, starting at the little curve in Chimney Rock. No Hillcroft yet.

This from the July 21, 1969, Houston Post. Must have been the Art Cinema at one time. I remember seeing this one. It was just across the parking lot from Rodney's Men's Clothing Store in the Village.

Thanks, Mark! I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting up with Norman when I had my first car, a '51 Chevy, worked on at Jimmie Green Chevrolet, on Shepherd between Westheimer and W. Alabama. There was a problem with my brakes that the mechanic wanted to talk to me about. I went back to the work area and who should be the mechanic who wanted to see me? None other than "Stormin' Norman". What a surprise! This must have been about 1953-54.

Mark, Even though I knew that wasn't Playland-Houston, thank you for affirming that I still have a few kilobytes of memory left upstairs. Those "real" pictures of Playland-Houston brought back a lot of memories, and most of the details were as I remembered. Those races were some of the most fun times of my mid-teens to mid-20's youth, so I guess that's why a lot of the details were imbedded. Your pictures of the races with the cars, track and stands were fantastic. I only wish I could have had the foresight to have taken similar pictures when I had the chance. One of my favorites was Billy Wade. Many times, he and Norman Pierce would mix it up out on the track. I remember them getting into a fight with each other after one race. Thanks again for the great pictures! I look forward to seeing more.