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Lucy was supposed to come to Houston for a visit, but I can

https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/economic-development/east-end-maker-space-taps-in-opportunity-zone-for-mayors-complete-communities-initiative-101858?utm_source=outbound_pub_4&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_33886&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email Interesting article about new developments for TXRX "East End Makers Hub" and "The Center for Pursuit". Looks like East End Makers Hub will be at 6501 Navigation and Center for Pursuit at 4400 Harrisburg.

Eternal Gandhi Museum Gets $100K from Elkins Foundation https://www.indoamerican-news.com/eternal-gandhi-museum-gets-100k-from-elkins-foundation/ https://egmh.org/ Houston: Eternal Gandhi Museum Houston (EGMH) is delighted to inform you that The Elkins Foundation, has provided a capital grant of $100,000 for the construction of the Museum. It is the second major foundation after Houston Endowment to offer support to EGMH in the early stages of its capital campaign. We are truly honored and sincerely express our gratitude to The Elkins Foundation for this magnanimous gesture to bring to life a unique civic asset to the culture landscape of Houston. Margaret Wiess Elkins and James A. Elkins, Jr. established The Elkins Foundation, https://www.theelkinsfoundation.org/, in 1956 as a way to help strengthen and enrich the community in which they lived. Today, their descendants continue that work. Under the stewardship of Elise Elkins Joseph, Leslie Elkins Sasser, Virginia Arnold Elkins and an Associate Board representing the next generation, The Elkins Foundation contributes each year to numerous organizations serving Houston and the Greater Gulf Coast. Eternal Gandhi Museum Houston (EGMH) is an initiative to preserve and continue the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. The museum will be located in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the United States. It will be the first ever museum dedicated to peace in the Americas. Its mission is to reinforce the universal values of Truth, Peace, Nonviolence, Love & Service. EGMH has acquired 3 acres of land in southwest Houston to house the museum and is launching a capital campaign. The proposed budget for construction is 6.5 million dollars as follows. The capital campaign has reached $ 2.9 million of the required $ 6.5 million. The EGMH Board of Trustees has committed $1.1 million and secured another $0.8 million in private donor commitments. The Houston Endowment Foundation recently awarded a capital grant of $500,000. A concerted fundraising campaign is underway through foundations, corporations and private donors to raise the remaining $3.6 million. https://egmh.org/faqs/

Feb. 15, 2005, 6:12AM BEQUEST TO MFA COULD SET RECORD FOR AN ART MUSEUM Oil heiress's gift ultimately may be up to $450 million By SHANNON BUGGS Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, soon could be entered in the annals of philanthropy as the recipient of the largest cash gift to a fine arts museum ever publicly announced. Caroline Wiess Law, the daughter of one of Humble Oil Co.'s founders, made the museum the prime beneficiary of her estate. When all of Law's assets are sold and the legal proceedings conclude, possibly by the end of this year, the museum could net between $400 million and $450 million, said director Peter Marzio. "In recent history, this would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest cash gifts to an art museum," said Mimi Gaudieri, executive director, Association of Art Museum Directors in New York. "This money will help make Houston one of the most important museums in terms of programming and serving the public." Law's giving would rank as No. 1 in non-art donations to museums on a list compiled by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which tracks charitable donations of $50 million and more. Less pressure on budget The MFA already has plans to kick off a capital campaign in the coming months for designing and building a third structure on its campus to house 20th century and contemporary art, Marzio said. This comes after the museum raised $125 million to build the 200,000-square-foot Audrey Jones Beck building, which opened in March 2000. "If the Law bequest works out the way we want, " Marzio said, "there will not be as much pressure on the operating budget to build the new building as there was on the budget when we built the Beck building." Because the Law gift is endowed money, it is not meant to be spent. Instead, the cash will be invested by money managers Fayez Sarofim in Houston and Luther King in Fort Worth. The $165 million the museum has already received from Law's estate has raised the museum's total endowment to $545 million. A second check of $165 million is expected to arrive by the end of March, making the city's wealthiest arts organization even richer. "It's a magnanimous gift not only to the MFA but to the entire city," said Ed Wulfe, president of the Houston Symphony. "It ensures the long-term viability of one of our major arts organizations and allows it to continue to impact the quality of life of our entire city." An avid art collector, Law followed her mother's footsteps on the MFA's board of directors. She used oil industry inheritances from her parents and husbands to support the museum's growth. She was named a life trustee and was thanked by the board for her generosity over the years with the honor of her name being bestowed on the museum's main building designed by architect Mies Van Der Roh. "She felt that our family has been very lucky and that this city has been very good to us and that it is our privilege and duty to give back to the city and that this gift might inspire others to do the same," said Jim Elkins, Law's nephew and executor of her estate. Soon after Law died in 2003 on Christmas Eve and her 85th birthday, her estate gave the museum Law's contemporary art collection valued at between $60 million and $85 million. The 55 major works include pieces by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro. The estate also distributed $25 million checks each to the museum, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. What was not mentioned in the museum's announcement about that gift was that Law named the museum the residual beneficiary of her estate. Anything not specifically given to a person or institution was to go to the museum, including all of the assets of her foundation, which is valued at $18 million and is scheduled to be dissolved by the end of the year. The endowment also allows the museum to use less of the endowment's income every year to run the fine arts museum and the central administration of an arts organization that also operates the Glassell School of Art and the decorative arts museums at Rienzi and Bayou Bend. The museum's budget requires a draw of about 5.1 percent of the $544 million endowment total return to generate one-fourth of the the $41 million needed to operate the museum this fiscal year, which ends June 30. History of efficiency Before this infusion of cash, the museum earned a reputation as an efficient charity by spending 88 percent of its budget on programs and services and paying only 4 cents to raise $1 in charitable contributions, said Charity Navigator, a Web-based evaluator of the financial habits of nonprofits. That compares with the average art museum's spending just 68 percent on programs and 13 cents on fund-raising expenses. But one area in which the MFA appears stagnant is in revenue growth. Over the past three to five years, the average art museum grew by at least 6 percent, deriving primary revenue from individual donations, corporate contributions and and ticket sales. The MFA's revenue in that time frame rose only 1.6 percent. Chronicle reporters Everett Evans, Purva Patel and Charles Ward contributed to this story.

I talked with 2 gentlemen who were in the process of determining what it's going to take to get the train engine in working shape. According to them a lot of parts were pilfered from the train and possibly taken to other like engines to get them running. They said that even though this train is about 100 yrs old there are about 300 railroad museums in the United States and the parts can be manufactured. The train was moved to the rail tracks near 2 warehouses and the eastern warehouse already has about a dozen antique rail cars. They also said the tender car was given away and they said that was a very stupid thing for whoever gave it away to do. It's like taking the gas tank off a car and expecting the car to still run. One of the guys said his ultimate goal would be to get it running and taking to Commerce St tracks into downtown, I'm pretty sure he was joking. He said he grew up in the Heights but now lives in Goliad. They also mentioned the Railroad Museum, said it would be on the other side of the warehouse, I don't know if he meant at Marmon Park or exactly where. The train was only lowered on the tracks that came with it and not on the rails below it. I also took pics of every train car on the rails except for the compressed helium gas car and an open top freight car.

i went by the menil and rothko chapel yesterday and the broken obelisk in the reflecting pool in front of rothko is gone. anybody know what's up?

One of the blogs I follow, Brand New, has done an extensive piece about CAMH's new logo, which originates from the shape of the building. Linky: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/ucllc/brandnew Here's the before and after:

July 27, 2005, 4:09AM A major bequest for the Menil David Whitney's collection includes a few masterpieces By PATRICIA C. JOHNSON Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The Menil Collection will receive a trove of modern art

Who designed the Holocaust Museum? For that matter who designed the MFAH buildings, Contemporary, and Menil?

I did google Rodeo museum in Houston but I think only Cowboy museum on Almeda rd came close.

Land donation gives a lift to veterans museum project Development of a veterans museum in Houston got a boost last week when ExxonMobil donated a 35-acre tract at the corner of Interstate 45 and Scarsdale Boulevard to the Veterans Museum in Texas, the nonprofit group spearheading the project. Houston was selected as the site because the more than 200,000 veterans who live in Harris County represent the largest concentration of veterans in the state. The museum's design will recognize each branch of service. The main museum building -- in the shape of the Lone Star of Texas -- will consist of three floors totaling 203,000 square feet. Space in each point of the star will be allocated to each of the major services -- Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines. - Jenna Colley

This will be going up a few blocks down from the Holocaust Museum on Caroline From the Asia Society of Texas Website: Discover Asia without leaving the region. Asia Society Texas is your passport to Asia. Asia Society Texas is in the early phases of a campaign to realize the dream of building the Asia House in Houston. Asia House, to be located in the museum district, will provide a focal point for Asia Society Texas and a place to showcase the Asian American community. Asia House will include gallery spaces for permanent and visiting exhibitions, public space for performances and lectures, a library, garden and more.

I walked by this site at 5104 Caroline the other day and Transwestern was marketing it. The Weather Museum's website indicates they intend to reopen at a new site. http://www.wxresearch.org/ Anyone have any information on where that might happen?

I'm new to this forum and this is my first post and I am not quite sure if this goes here, but here goes: I remember the KPRC studio and the drive in along Post Oak and in 1967 or 68 when I was little, there was a wax museum directly across Post Oak from the drive-in. Does anyone remember the name and exact address of it? I'm curious because I work in the area and figure the museum was located where either Westlake Center or The Hampton is now. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks,

A proposal to place the Texas Music Museum in Houston has been on the table for quite some time. Years ago the city was granted designation for the project but never received $10 million in funding from the state. Lawmakers picked up the idea for Austin, though the bill never passed. Now plans for it to be here may be picking up steam again. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Push-for-Texas-music-museum-in-Houston-revived-11191967.php?cmpid=twitter-premium

http://www.chron.com/life/article/Lone-Star-Flight-Museum-unveils-plan-for-35-5850508.php#photo-7058444

The Knock Knock Children’s Museum will finally break ground next week after more than a decade of raising money and several false starts. BREC and the nonprofit Knock Knock board of directors have secured a contractor to build the museum, which was designed to sit on a sloped hill near City-Brooks Community Park on Dalrymple Drive. An official groundbreaking ceremony will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday for the building, which is designed to have three peaks and walls of windows. The agency had not yet disclosed the contractor. BREC spokeswoman Cheryl Michelet said the contractor will be introduced at the groundbreaking ceremony. More at: http://theadvocate.com/news/12119386-123/finally-knock-knock-childrens-museum

http://impactnews.com/blogs/sugar-land--missouri-city/sugar-land-heritage-museum-finds-permanent-home/

http://swamplot.com/a-houston-bicycle-museum-arrives-in-the-museum-district/2014-08-07/#comments https://www.houstonbicyclemuseum.org/LightNEasy.php?page=index

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=399005 Design unveiled for Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park The planned Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park, designed by Pritzker Prize laureate Thom Mayne and his California architecture firm Morphosis, is expected to break ground later this year and open in 2013.

Well in advance of the museum opening in its permanent location, programs and resources are being planned and developed. Many of these will likely debut in the museum's first, satellite location in the East End Cultural Center. These include, but are not limited to: http://www.hmoc.org/

I saw this when walking in my hood today: THe health science museum is set back pretty far from the sidewalk, basically surrounded on 3 sides by parking spaces. This sounds like they are going to expend to the sidewalk possibly. Does anybody know anything about this?

Some exerpts: http://culturemap.com/newsdetail/11-08-10-there-a-new-houston-museum-on-the-drawing-board-meet-mod/

When driving through midtown, I've noticed a bunch of development signs dated 2006, including a Fire Department museum and several mixed use developments, and some kind of plaza on Milam as well, I think. The signs say "coming in 2006" and it's currently 2007 so I was wondering... are these guys just late or have the projects been cancelled? It would be nice to see less empty lots in midtown.

This is certainly good news as for a long time, this stuff was unaccounted for: http://bill37mccurdy.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-houston-sports-museum-is-back/