Memories Of West Houston

[Fringe]

Just found these links when I googled it.  I didn't remember that many fatalities- so sad.  

http://www.hfrrf.org...eHiltonFire.asp

   Raw video from that night.

http://books.google....%20fire&f=false

That video brought back a lot of unpleasant memories. I believe 12 people died and several more were injured. Could have been prevented had Houston required hotels and condos to have auto-sprinkler systems installed like the fire department had been asking for years. As a result of this incident they finally did start requiring it, but only for new construction. Still a lot of old hotels and condos in the city built before 1982 that are unprotected. I wouldn't  consider spending one night in one without auto-sprinklers. 

[TV2EBoogaloo]

I lived in Lakeside from 1974 until 1985 and spend a good deal of time there even after that

lets see where to start

Matty1979 Carillion had a Chilis, B Dalton (I believe that was it) a western wear store right next door to Chilis, Cones and Cream that turned into the marble slab that was owned by the Hankamers that I am 99% sure have the Baylor College of Business now named for them, several restaurants that came and went, Laugh Factory and to be honest a lot of stuff I don't remember now......they sure ruined it when they redid it in the 90s and messed the parking lot all up

Reefmonkey Westchase was a mall.....coming out from Target (connected to the mall) was a Halmark card shop to the left, a KB Toys, an optical shop, further down was a womens wear store, the Funway Freeway used to be on the south side of the mall, but moved across to the north side next to the GodFathers Pizza so they could have parking lot access, but then found out cutting a door would cost 10K so they did not do it, there was a regular shoe store and a jewelry store and several others I can't recall (I believe a womens only shoe store and maybe another jewelry store) and a Weingartens where Randalls is now....later on when the mall part was closed down there was a Larry's Shoes until Larry's all went under..."Hey Larry Where Are My Shoes" they were a damn good shoe store

Matty Revere was built to be a high school eventually and it had a full wood shop and a full metal shop that were both nicer than anything RE Lee had

Mr Lewis and Mr Lyles were the shop teachers Mr Lewis was metal and Lyles was wood....I might have that backwards.....the Metal shop teacher had a cool RX-7 and the wood shop teacher had an older light blue dodge dart I believe it was.......in wood room #1 they had an eye drawn on the wall and when they would have a "pop party" as they liked to call it(give you swats) the eye would blink at you..... know a large number of people that got light up in there

I don't remember the principal but the VPs were Mrs. Reese that had a son named Bart that went to Strake Jesuit (says something about HISD) and Mr. Brailsford who had a swat zone of anywhere from your calves up to your lower back (most believed because he was drunk most of the time) but his swats were so weak it really did not matter in the 1979-1980 school year out JV team went undefeated and we were named Houston City Champs because no other team was undefeated and there were no JV playoffs.....Ron Stones son Billy was one of our starting OLineman and David Dial the son of former Rice player and NFLer was a starting cornerback...Mark Drury also played, but can't remember his position (son of the waste management CEO).....I played Starting free safety for most of the games until moved to linebacker

Coach Capers was the head coach and died about 10 years after that and for some reason right now I can't remember a bunch of the other coaches.....there was also a coach the year before that who was the back up RB for Earl Campbell at UT....they were tough as hell on us in practice and used to go over the allotted time for practices OFTEN, but none of the parents cared because parents back then especially at Revere took care of home work and grades at home......after we won out last game we mooned cars out of the back of the bus the whole way home with all the coaches and Mrs. Reese pretending they saw nothing......good times indeed!

Soifan I can only think of one girl that went to Second Baptist and she is now married and lives in Walnut Bend in the VanEniman's (spelling) old house now...I lived on Olympia

when we first moved to Lakeside Westheimer was 2 lanes of asphalt with bar ditches all the way to Gessner....the shopping center to the west of Lakeside drive had not been built et and there was a large billboard there advertising Lakeside and it had a huge mound of dirt high enough you could almost touch the bottom of the billboard that all the kids would ride their bikes on

The Hilton Fire I had forgotten about, but I remember it now you could see the smoke from the Walnut Bend pool......a family named Pennyaqua (sp) lived in the back of Lakeside and they were investors in and had management in the Adams Mark that is now something else....they had a really cute daughter that was a year older than me named Claudia and she had an older bother that I can't remember his name and their house was fun to party at

Matty again the shopping center you mention was a UtoteM, I can't remember what was around from it, then a Japanese Restaurant, a Schwinn Bike store back in the corner, a TSO Optical, La Hacienda that would serve minors left and right especially if you came in as a group and all were drinking as we OFTEN DID and the food was good too, Dailey's Liguors and perhaps something else

when the shopping center on the west side of Lakeside was built it had a cleaners, a Chinese food place, Eckards (where the mom of one of the three people old enough to drive to Rever worked)(also where we got all of out playboys, penthouses, gents, and hustlers when Eckards would throw them in the dumpster on the same day of each month)(we eventually got "busted" when we got lazy and stopped stashing them well in our back yard fort and some of the pages blew into the lawn and my dad found them mowing the lawn and climbed up and found thwe whole stash which was good for him in a way because then "the talk" was much less difficult), a liquor store (not as good as Dailey's), Randalls, Sports Stop where I bought my G&S FiberFlex and my Team Mongoose that was later stolen by the quail hollow apartment trash, there was a full service Exxon on the corner, Arnolds Deli, Pizza Hut where we used to get free pizza for folding boxes and they would often serve minors as well, and Disk and Dat which was an awesome record store where the employees could name any artist and record just by saying a few words to the songs and it was also a head shop....I bought my football shaped Houston Oilers #1 record there and a fish store that was pretty great and where I got all my fish from and where everyone likes to sneak in and scoop out some gold fish and toss them to the Oscars when no one was looking....there were probably a few other stores I can't recall

the strip shop across Wilcrest had a cleaners, a full Asian Grocery, and a bunch of things I can't recall

the small strip type thing on Walnut Bend was always a day care (the day care almost looked like a house) and I think an insurance office......the small strip center on Blue Willow was Dr. Zinner the vet that had a funny nose where a dog bit him and again some insurance office or something similar

Malvie the store you mention was a Safeway....right near Gregg Binghmans #54 car wash (boy the stories from there I better not repeat)(and someone was stabbed or shot to death there recently...after Safeway left Texas it was an Appletree for a while then closed down and then went through several incarnations because the apartment dwellers would steal them blind......in that same shopping center was the world famous KGS Liquors owned by Salem Bin Sareti and he would sell to ANYONE! and I mean ANYONE especially if he had seen you before.....EXCEPT for occasionally he had some way where he knew he was being watched and you would walk in the store and he would just sternly say NO!....and you would look at him and he would say NO! and you knew that was that until about a week later you could go in and it was right back to buying all you wanted......I used to take orders at Lee and me and my brother would go there and walk out with 2 grocery bags full of liquor and I would charge a bit extra to everyone and cover mine and my brothers and then deliver it at school the next day....me and my brother bought so much booze that after we moved to San Antonio (and my brother went away to UT we went back at Christmas (6+ months later) and as we walked into the door Salem looked up at my brother and said "hey long time no see" with a big smile on his face....we still laugh about that.....a week after that I was back in Houston for New Years and walked in and got the "no" and I was like remember just a week ago me and my brother "long time no see" and he just gave me the "no"......he also said to my brother that time "you finally turned 21 huh" because that was back when the drinking age went from 18 to 19 and my brother was grandfathered in for 2 months and then when it went from 19 to 21 they did not do the grandfather thing for those that had been legal.....my brother had kicked it all off with him by giving him an ID that consisted of a paper temp license with NO PICTURE that my brother had changed the date on and then laminated it with the Walnut Bend pool membership card lamination machine ....Lee was such a blast it was the best high school on earth and the principal there was back of Walnut Bend resident Larry Burgein that had a son Mike that was a grade older than me and a wild man just like every other kid in Lakeside and Walnut Bend....mike could fix anything on his crappy 79 Chevy 4 door (what ever was one size above a Malibu) with two pairs of vice grips haha which I think were the only tools he owned

in that same strip center there was Ranger Market owned by the Melchers that lived in Briargrove park until the7 sold out and then there were 2 7-11s on that corner one on the north east corner and one on the southwest corner.....their daughter Joanne was really sweet and was my age and their son Frank was a grade older than me and I believe he died from some rare disease and they have been very charitable in his name all over Houston since then for medical causes especially

across the street on the northwest corner there was a jiffy lube place.....the first Dominos (or any delivery pizza) place in the area, I think a sports bar and some other things I can't recall

Malvie that area had been up and down FOREVER because of the apartments right along Lakeside and Briar Forest....they started out as Quail Hallow and two other complexes at least and then Lakeside place was built and quickly went downhill right across from the Lakeside pool.....two friends of mine accidentally set the majority of the bundles of wood shingles on fire when they were being built, but their parents really did not care because everyone in Lakeside and Walnut Bend wished all those apartment would have burned....I had a friend from Lee (who's name I can't recall I think it was Chase) that accidentally ran over and killed a little girl that was playing on Lakeside on the north side of Briar Forest and ran in between all the crappy ass junk cars that used to line Lakeside drive by those crappy apartments and darted out in front of him before he could stop...it was ruled not his fault by HPD 100% and after that the city FINALLY put up no parking signs along there and towed off a bunch of the cars and also made those complexes install fences around all of the area except the drive ways (Lakeside place was "gated" even in the driveways after that, but the riffraff still moved in......in the early 90s most if not all those complexes except for Lakeside place were abandoned because of asbestos and because you can't rehab flat roofed slap together CRAP but about 20 times before you have totally worthless slapped together crap......everyone in the neighborhoods thought they were finally going to be torn down, BUT! the investors found a way to "totally seal in the asbestos" and they started to rehab them......a friend of mine piled a ton of their new wood in one unit and poured gas all over if for about 3 days and finally one night we all watched over a friends back fence as he light them up......you could hear the "woosh" a block away and see a shadow running in front of a big mass of flames .......sadly not that well cured lumber and gas don't hold a fire very long and the brave fireman from the great Fire station #69 (right by Revere) were there to spray out the smoldering wood pile and the damn apartments remained to still trash that area today including the influx of Katrina trash that again took the area to a new low along with Walnut Bend Ele. Revere, and Westside.....although last I heard some of those piles of worthless crap had been cleared out yet again to the point that administration from Revere and Walnut Bend went and ask the management where all their welfare students were going to come from and telling them it was hurting their enrollment

a few other things.....there used to be a water tank behind where Lakeside Swim Club is now and when Houston upgraded their water system it was removed and that is where the park part is now and same with by Walnut Bend pool that is the park that BMC gave money to......one summer our friends grandma was watching me and my brother while my parents were on vacation and we knew her grandson that was a bit older than me and my brother and was also a Lakeside resident (one of a multitude of kids I knew in Lakeside that basically had a house to themselves and you thought they almost did not have parents and he had a HOT sister slightly older than me that was a waitress at Chilis).....anyway we knew from him that his grandma only had one good ear and she slept on that side so she was basically old and deaf when she was asleep......we all snuck out and got caught by the rent-a-pig that Walnut Bend hired when we were climbing over the fence to get on top of the walnut bend tank......me and her grandson got away and my brother got caught by him......we got back home and the guy brought my brother home and rang the doorbell probably 15-20 times and even went and tried to call and she never woke up so he let my brother go

there used to be baseball fields right at "the ditch" and Briar Forest where Revere is and the sports there were run by the Walnut Bend Pool Gym that is still there today.....the guy that worked there originally was one of the ones that invented T-ball back when T-ball was played with a piece pf plywood cut in the shape of home plate, a piece of pipe coming up and then a radiator hose for the top part that you had to work to slide up and down to adjust the height that held the ball......they also had "five pitch" there where your own player pitched to you and you got 5 pitches to get a hit or that was that and the other team had a guy that stood right behind him to field any hit back towards the mound and your player was to pitch and then just stand still

there used to be a UtoteM right down the street from Walnut Bend Ele. on the small stretch of Walnut Bend that went from the front to the back of the subdivision and there was also a place there called Sinnet (Tennis spelled backwards) that made high end womens tennis apparel and a frined of mine's mom worked there as a seamstress for a while

"the ditch" before CityWest was built was straight, but the bottom that always held water was much more meandering had a path along both sides in a lot of spots where you could walk or ride a bike and we would take bacon or budding lunch meat and tie it on a string and catch crawdads and then have crawdad fights or crawdads VS plastic army men wars.....you could catch box turtles, snappers, red ears, and soft shells.....when the expanded Briar Forest to be 4 lanes at the bridge (it used to only have a 2 lane bridge there) the workers were killing the water moccasins by the dozens and tossing them up on the sides......the field where Lockwood Andrews and Newman is now along with most of City West was pretty much a field except for a patch of trees just south of where the big city west office building and pond is now....eventually a big excavator came in and cleaned out the ditch to the condition it is today and took out all the areas you could walk and cross it except for a couple of bridges one in the front and one in the back of Walnut Bend right bast Revere......it "accidentally" burned when the parents in the area got tired of the apartment trash coming through the neighborhood on the way home from school and saying nasty things to little kids, bumping into and keying cars, and opening mail boxes ect.....one day the parents went down there with sticks and bats and told them all after school to find a new way home...which was down Briar Forest and a lot longer route and it was not long after that the bridge burned and the neighborhood decided to not rebuild it (still not sure who burned it, but WELL DONE!)

also right on Westheimer where the large City West building is now there was a Birdies driving range and a go cart track that used to let you get pretty crazy on the carts if the right guys were working....when City West was built Birdies actually moved east down Westheimer to a large vacant lot (right near piney point I think) and across that cross street from the office building that had Alexander Smith Academy (which I think is still around but not sure if in the same location)

the area between Blue Willow and Walnut Bend on Westheimer had a wendys (right across from the day care place mentioned above) and a handy dans which was before home depo and Lowes and builders square......closer to Blue Willow was a cheap strip center or nothing at first then it was cleared and the big 2 story strip center was built some friends not much older than my group of friends (used to be the swim team coaches for Walnut Bend Swim Team) had a pool cleaning and contracting company in there for a while, but it closed down and I can't remember most of the rest of what was in there, but there was a cheesy sorry sucky ninfas franchise, and a Chilis knockoff called Spoons where a friend of mine worked for a while and they watched a bum bath naked in the fountain of the big curved building across Westheimer by Target (further down Westheimer there was another Chilis knock off called Fry's right at Fry road)

Beltway 8 was just westbelt then and 2 lanes but they had huge mounds of dirt hilled up where the over passes would be all along the part of the road from Westheimer all the way to the back exit of Briargrove Park (the dirt piles were in between westbelt and Briargrove Park kind of shielding the subdivision from the street).....it had kick ass motorcycle trails on it and some pretty good riders would tear it up out there frequently...as a kid without a motorcycle you could climb to the top and ride down the opposite direction and still have GREAT jumps and build up a lot of speed.....it was not until right when they decided to build the freeway that HPD would attempt to run the riders off, but because of the layout it was a fruitless chase and they would usually pull up and try and get them to come over and then just watch them ride off the other way....HPD did not sweat the small stuff back then and HPD was always the coolest and greatest group of cops back then ever.....the funny thing is the part that was westbelt the street was suppose to be one of the feeder roads, but when Beltway 8 was built they did it completely different than originally thought and all that dirt was scooped up and hauled off and all of westbelt was torn up and redone with different feeder roads

once CityWest was built we used to hang out there a lot and drink accept when HPD showed up and said the owners were complaining about the trash so we would clean up and move to "10,000" (a building with a parking garage at 10,000 Richmond) or to the end of Richmond (back before Richmond went much past 10,000

the shopping center at the front of Briargrove Park has a Dairy Queen (that was actually nice and clean for an urban DQ), Rice food Store (back when it was just Rice), a Jaspers BBQ that had a kickass beer can collection, and the assorted other strip center stuff and a full service Shell Station with a garage.....the DQ went down hill when some Greeks bought it and in addition to the DQ menu they had wooden shingles on the wall with various Greek foods listed on it (about the same time all urban DQs in Texas went downhill)

in the back of Lakeside and Walnut Bend by the Bayou Dow Chemical was built and you use to be able to sneak in sometimes and fish in their pond until you got chased out by security...."the ditch" was a lot more rocks back there by the bayou and some friends used to catch coral snakes and other poisonous snakes back there and sell them to make anti-venom....La Hacienda De Los Moraloes that served "Continental" Mexican food (that everyone in Houston hated) opened back there across from Dow it had a fancy gift and jewelry shop in it as well and was "high end" and expensive and quickly folded.....we used to go around back there every so often, but stopped when some friends were chased off by guys holding uzis (not threatening, but in view)

behind Walnut Bend some friends built a half pipe with 16' square of flat in the middle and 12' high sides that transitioned on the curve over 8' of distance on each side and one side had an 8' high drop in area cut into the middle.....they stole all the lumber from the high end houses being built in the very back of Lakeside....further down towards Wilcrest was a rope swing (but no one would swim in the Bayou although some friends did fall in a few times and a couple of friends rafted from there to the back of Briargrove Park includign past what at the time was the lot less well functioning "turd factory" right at westbelt and the bayou

further down by Wilcrest and the Lakeside country club right across the street from the country club was another area where everyone would ride bikes and motorcycles.....one time several friends found a dead guy in a corvette that had been there about a week.....it was not long after they made the bridge over the bayou on Wilcrest 4 lanes and the guy was hauling, clipped the curb, spun just right that he made it between the open areas between the two sections of bridge, the car turned backwards and the rear of it stuck into the opposite bank.....you could barely see the skid marks and the area where he hit the curb and he did no damage to the guard rails on the bridge which is why it took so long to find him....I will spare all further details about his condition

right across the bayou from there used to be some stables, but Houston removed them when stables became for "rich people" and that area became a "real park" although it was never much of anything for years after than

use to you entered Lakeside Country club just bast the bayou and the fence probably still shows where, but when they expanded Wilcrest they took some country club land and the country club redid the golf course and moved the driving range to right next to Wilcrest and moved the entrance to where it is today

pretty much all I can remember or legally repeat for now any other questions I will check back from time to time

if you want to know about further down Westheimer I can remember some of that.....I know just past the funeral home (where I will be dumped into the ground one day hopefully many many years from now) right at Dairy Ashford use to be the fireworks stands and HPD would set up there from time to time to try and catch people coming back into the city, but because we were on bikes most years we would cut through the cemetery and down Dairy Ashford to Briar Forest and they would never see us.....further down was Westheimer Stables where WNB (weekley night boozers) the wanna-be high school "frat" had their famous keg parties (there were 3 wanna-be high school frats at Lee, WNB, naughty dogs and one other group + two girls groups Marsalee (sp) that my friends mom was a founding member of and one other wanna-be high school sorority)....the one year I went to the stables party they had 32+ kegs and they made the mistake of hiring HPD to be guards for the "event" instead of Harris County Sheriffs like they had for the past several years and Harris County Sheriffs got mad and busted the party up and I can still remember friends running all over the place holding large plastic pitchers of beer and being chased by the cops....the party was so big they blocked off Westheimer and lined their cars up and put flairs out and directed the traffic out like it was a major sporting event.....they also seized all 32 kegs including a ton of them that had been stashed in a horse trailer.....that was the end of the big WNB yearly fundraiser blowouts from then on but far in away not the end of WNB or naughty dogs or any of the rest

sorry to ramble any other questions just ask though you might not want to know the answers

Houston and west Houston were the absolute greatest places on earth to run wild in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s! PERIOD!

PS sorry for poor spelling and grammar and the rambling it is late and a lot of this was stream of conscientiousness if anything is not clear just ask

[TV2EBoogaloo]

OK a few more things looking at Google earth

the auto parts store at Lakeside and Briar Forest was a Charlies Hi Low

whatever is at the southeast corner of Wilcrest and Briar Forest was not the building it is today and was a daycare I believe

the vacant lot at the corner of Inwood and Walnut Bend was my friends house and they had so much foundation trouble they finally knocked it down and they were going to build new, but google earth has shown a vacant lot forever

the car wash at the front of Walnut Bend came about the same time as Wendys and Handy Dan...it looks like the spoons building is gone and the Ninfas building remains

the building on the northwest corner of Westheimer and Lakeside was a Gibraltar Savings and Loan, a Sally Beauty and a Baskin Robbins

across Lakeside in the strip that had the Schwinn place the free standing building to the east was a chicken place that was a local chain, but I can't remember the name.....I think the building to the west was also a bank

Westchase Mall also had the Palais Royal the whole time, but it used to be in the mall I am 99% sure and the Black Eye Pea was also always there....out front on the southeast corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest in the mall parking lot was the Rusty Pelican and the Taco Cabana was a Two Pesos which was such a Taco Cabana ripoff they got sued and Taco Cabana won and took them over (I have eaten at the original Taco Cabana on San Pedro in SA it had only an inside area where you ordered and you ate on pick nick tables out front under an awning) They were owned by a college roommate of mine's uncles and for a while there was Taco Cabana and Tacocita when the split over an argument over franchising and after they got back together and went with Taco Cabana they sued Two Pesos

The Pizza Hut at the front of Lakeside was where the Walgreens is now

back down Wilcreat right near the McDonalds used to be the Rotisserie For Beef and Bird or "the beef and bird" as we called it....it was really good and pretty nice and I know in the recent past before they closed down they also started to have a nice selection of Texas wines which was another reason I was sad to read about 4 years ago to read the owners were retiring and closing it

on the southwest corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest when that strip center was new they had a Houstons for a long time

the pipeline over Buffalo Bayou at Wilcrest between the two bridges was not there and that is why the corvette with the body could fit through

where the Dominos is still listed at Briar Forest and Wilcrest what shows as "Nicks Sports Bar" was always some kind of a bar (boy I bet you could get your knifing and stabbing on there when Katrina trash moved in)

there is one house on Olympia in Walnut Bend just a few houses to the east of Walnut Bend lane that does not match the others at all in looks or age....it was a friend of mines house and it burned and his sister rebuilt it in that "style" for some reason.....my friends dad when he lived there never would pay his neighborhood pool fees so all my friends that worked at the Walnut Bend pool had to kick him (their friend also) out of the pool and tennis courts haha

when we first moved to Lakeside and for a long time after where westchase mall is was nothing more than a cattle ranch and it had several tanks dug around the property and a lot of cows out there

St Cerials (sp) was a LOT smaller and Rodgerdale was a two lane road with ditches on each side

Rosewood Hospital and a bunch of one story Dr offices use to be on the north side of Westheimer just east of Gessner

I can't believe the way so many asshats have moved into Rivercrest and knocked down the trees and built those total ghetto crap homes (especially some of you NBA stars you know who you are your houses tool like ass that a fool built nice job trashing a beautiful subdivision)

in the past Briar Forest did not go through Rivercrest it stopped before to the east and it was a single lane in Briargrove Park and dead ended at the Rivercrest lot boundary

the furthest south and west lot in Rivercrest (that google has as a vacant lot right now) was some people that had a nice home, a big red barn and some out buildings and several horses and a horse walker you could see from Westheimer...it looked like they actually trained and make money off of horses there for a long time

Vargos.....always been beautiful......food has always SUCKED!

Benihana has been there FOREVER

I am pretty sure Sherlocks pub has been in Carillon and it was a place that was pretty popular for the 18-23yo crowd and was pretty good about serving minors most of the time back then

southeast corner of Westheimer and Beltway 8 was a Schlumberger, Halliburton, or Baker (one of those or similar type company) field office with the office building that is still there and there use to be long sheds with equipment (dozers engines pumps ect) and some equipment fab areas as well.....there was plans to do something with that 20 years ago

in the middle of Briargrove Park there is a wooded area across Seagler from Twin Circle Drive......it was always suppose to be a park, but it looks like Houston has still done nothing......a small airplane crashed in there one time and one or two died and we all had to go and take a look....looking back now I wonder if the pilot did not crash into there instead of all the homes and apartments around there.....have to think that is the case if so what a selfless act on his part God Bless him

use to be a post office on the east side of Rogerdale just after Richmond then westpark tollway was a railroad track

south east corner of Westheimer and Gessner was the Jack in The Box and a Shipleys Donuts looks like it has been redone

the dumpy pile of crap at the northwest corner of Jeanetta and Richmond was "the Cadillac Club"....there was nothing Cadillac about it

I would share a story about one of the few times I rode the bus home from Lee and what happened when we pulled up to that corner and all the apartment trash from the apartments at Lakeside and Briar Forest saw a little black kid looking in the bushes for something......but the words they were using back and forth can't be said on a polite forum.....but the few white kids on the bus were looking at each other and dying laughing while the apartment dwellers went CRAZY on that kid....looks like the area around there is still "keeping up the brand"

well I can share a little....they were calling him a poor penny pusher from piney point and telling him he was not going to find any pennies in those bushes (it went down hill from there) of course the funny thing is everyone saying that were themselves a bunch of broke fools from trash apartment themselves.....I realize that Piney Point is actually the city on Memorial, but that area around Jeanetta was always called Piney Point as well for some reason

there was a substitute bus driver for the back of walnut bend that used to go in that area when traffic was really moving and they were running early in the morning and get everyone into the front of the bus and back into a lawn and trench it the same driver if traffic was backed up would let everyone get out of the bus and run into the Cstore if they would get him some cigarettes

further south of there was where the little league fields were after Paul Revere was built (just down from where that crappy old Ma Bell field office is) it looks like that area is still mostly a park.....the concessions were always getting broken into

[Firebird65]

Those were quite possibly the longest posts I've ever seen on HAIF. LOL! But much appreciated. As I've said, I've lived in the Westchase area for 20 years (since 1990) after growing up in the Aldine area. I really enjoyed the History of Aldine thread on HAIF and am glad to see now there's one for my not-so-new home. I've seen a lot of changes to the Westchase area since I moved over here straight out of college but always wanted to learn more about what it was like before. Thanks for sharing!

[TV2EBoogaloo]

someone ask also it was not until 1985 or later that Briar Forest went through Rivercrest my friend I rode to Lee with my freshman year also gave a cutie that lived right on Briar Forest in Briargrove Park a ride to school or home occasionally

not really westside stories per say, but a couple for Firebird I will keep short

the McDonalds on Wilcrest was pretty new in 1984 and there was also the older one down east of Gessner on the south side of Westheimer by Service Merchandise

when the 1984 Summer Olympics came McDonalds had a game card with a scratch off where it had an event and then you would win a small fry, small coke, or a cheeseburger for Bronze, Silver, or Gold in the event that was listed....if the USA won one, two, or three events you would get one, two, or all three prizes

well as we all might remember from that era the Soviets and their satellites boycotted those Olympics

along with this DRAMATIC change for McDonalds they also failed to put on the cards that you could only use one per visit.....combine this with the fact that the new McDonalds on Wilcrest would leave stacks of those cards (about 100 each) by all the registers where we would just help ourselves while the employee was filling the order and the one on Westheimer would give you about 10 per order and it ended up that me and my friends had about 200+ of the damn things and many were multiple winners per card......for about the next 6 weeks or so as long as they were valid me and all my friends could eat at McDonalds every day as often as we wanted to for free.....after a while at those two locations they would let us trade for a fried pie (back when they were really fried) or an ice cream come, or a Filet-O-Fish or anything that was of equal or less value to what was on the card.......we ate there 2 or three times a day sometimes

at the end we still had so many left that we stood in the parking lot and gave the last ones away to other customers as they were coming in because we could not use all we had left......McDonalds had a dramatic shift in how they handled promotions and the verbiage they put on promotions after that summer

Another time "Like Cola" (a 7-UP product) went around many of the neighborhoods on the westside and gave out 2 free 8oz bottles on every ones door......we drove around 2 or 3 neighborhoods taking them right back off ....the only bad news is that Like Cola SUCKED, but hey it was "free"

[Malvie]

Boogaloo, that was without a doubt the finest and most entertaining series of posts I've ever read on this forum (and I've read a lot of them; I just don't post much).

Thank you a TON for all that fascinating info!

I lived here in 1979, and, as I said, I always thought that "when I grew up and got rich" (ha) I'd like to live over here. I lived in "Swingin Singlesville" Southwest Houston, at Bissonnet and what is now Beltway 8 (but what was then not even West Belt; it was just a wide open swath of land that "some day" they were going to build a freeway on. I had to wait a week to move into my apartment; it was called DoubleTree, a new Harold Farb, and I had to take it at "preconstruction" (meaning I had to sign the lease while it was being built) in order to even GET an apartment. Then, when it was ready, I had to wait a week because they couldn't get the water connected---there weren't enough City workers to connect it that fast, Houston was growing by 2,000 residents a week at that point.

Anyway, I was in and out of the city (I've moved all over the country since then) periodically over the years and it's changed (has it ever...). I KNEW that Briar Forest was NOT constituted like it is now, I just couldn't remember what it was like---it stopped at Rivercrest! And Chimney Rock didn't go through to IH 10, either (I'll bet there was some rich folks hue and cry over that when they cut it through). I remember the Westchase Hilton being all shiny and new; I stayed in it many times when coming back to Houston on business. This area out here was "far west Houston" then, and Dairy Ashford, as I recall, was just about the end of the civilized universe---fields and ranches past it. I remember Andrau Airpark vividly, and Westpark was a road with a railroad track and power lines beside it. Bellaire Blvd. stopped somewhere about where the Beltway is, and I remember driving on the "newly expanded" Westheimer out to Highway 6 when there was literally nothing out there. A subdivision here and there and a lot of cows.

I wrecked my new car on Highway 6. Why? I was dating this girl in Tomball (!), and I'd been up to Tomball to see her and came back down 1960 to Highway 6 down to the (then 4 lanes each way past Bissonnet) Southwest Fwy, then home. Highway 6 was mostly 2 lane, but they were expanding it and it was under construction. The young lady and I had, um, imbibed quite a bit, and I was driving home when I shouldn't have been, and, well, I ran into the cones and off into the rebar/open construction area. The car would still go and I left the scene (is the statute of limitations expired at this point? 31 years ago, wowsers...). It was the company's car and I had to pay to fix it myself before they found out. That was somewhere around the current Highway 6 and Briar Forest, and there was absolutely, positively nothing out there (I was the only car on the road). I remember the first time I went that way, I was shocked that Westheimer went all the way out there (and stopped).

Your descriptions of the area are amazing and wonderful, Boogaloo. You are a great storyteller in the grand old Texas tradition!

[cowboybud]

My sister moved to Mission Bend (where I now live) in 1982 or so; Hwy 6 was pretty barren, just an occasional strip center, office building or subdivision. The KOA campground was still there; Foley's had just opened at Westheimer (FM 1093), but West Oaks Mall wouldn't be built for a few more years. Bellaire had just been extended to where it now dead ends in Mission Bend (I don't know why they don't just extend it all the way to 1464).

[matty1979]

OK a few more things looking at Google earth

the auto parts store at Lakeside and Briar Forest was a Charlies Hi Low

whatever is at the southeast corner of Wilcrest and Briar Forest was not the building it is today and was a daycare I believe

the vacant lot at the corner of Inwood and Walnut Bend was my friends house and they had so much foundation trouble they finally knocked it down and they were going to build new, but google earth has shown a vacant lot forever

the car wash at the front of Walnut Bend came about the same time as Wendys and Handy Dan...it looks like the spoons building is gone and the Ninfas building remains

the building on the northwest corner of Westheimer and Lakeside was a Gibraltar Savings and Loan, a Sally Beauty and a Baskin Robbins

across Lakeside in the strip that had the Schwinn place the free standing building to the east was a chicken place that was a local chain, but I can't remember the name.....I think the building to the west was also a bank

Westchase Mall also had the Palais Royal the whole time, but it used to be in the mall I am 99% sure and the Black Eye Pea was also always there....out front on the southeast corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest in the mall parking lot was the Rusty Pelican and the Taco Cabana was a Two Pesos which was such a Taco Cabana ripoff they got sued and Taco Cabana won and took them over (I have eaten at the original Taco Cabana on San Pedro in SA it had only an inside area where you ordered and you ate on pick nick tables out front under an awning) They were owned by a college roommate of mine's uncles and for a while there was Taco Cabana and Tacocita when the split over an argument over franchising and after they got back together and went with Taco Cabana they sued Two Pesos

The Pizza Hut at the front of Lakeside was where the Walgreens is now

back down Wilcreat right near the McDonalds used to be the Rotisserie For Beef and Bird or "the beef and bird" as we called it....it was really good and pretty nice and I know in the recent past before they closed down they also started to have a nice selection of Texas wines which was another reason I was sad to read about 4 years ago to read the owners were retiring and closing it

on the southwest corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest when that strip center was new they had a Houstons for a long time

the pipeline over Buffalo Bayou at Wilcrest between the two bridges was not there and that is why the corvette with the body could fit through

where the Dominos is still listed at Briar Forest and Wilcrest what shows as "Nicks Sports Bar" was always some kind of a bar (boy I bet you could get your knifing and stabbing on there when Katrina trash moved in)

there is one house on Olympia in Walnut Bend just a few houses to the east of Walnut Bend lane that does not match the others at all in looks or age....it was a friend of mines house and it burned and his sister rebuilt it in that "style" for some reason.....my friends dad when he lived there never would pay his neighborhood pool fees so all my friends that worked at the Walnut Bend pool had to kick him (their friend also) out of the pool and tennis courts haha

when we first moved to Lakeside and for a long time after where westchase mall is was nothing more than a cattle ranch and it had several tanks dug around the property and a lot of cows out there

St Cerials (sp) was a LOT smaller and Rodgerdale was a two lane road with ditches on each side

Rosewood Hospital and a bunch of one story Dr offices use to be on the north side of Westheimer just east of Gessner

I can't believe the way so many asshats have moved into Rivercrest and knocked down the trees and built those total ghetto crap homes (especially some of you NBA stars you know who you are your houses tool like ass that a fool built nice job trashing a beautiful subdivision)

in the past Briar Forest did not go through Rivercrest it stopped before to the east and it was a single lane in Briargrove Park and dead ended at the Rivercrest lot boundary

the furthest south and west lot in Rivercrest (that google has as a vacant lot right now) was some people that had a nice home, a big red barn and some out buildings and several horses and a horse walker you could see from Westheimer...it looked like they actually trained and make money off of horses there for a long time

Vargos.....always been beautiful......food has always SUCKED!

Benihana has been there FOREVER

I am pretty sure Sherlocks pub has been in Carillon and it was a place that was pretty popular for the 18-23yo crowd and was pretty good about serving minors most of the time back then

southeast corner of Westheimer and Beltway 8 was a Schlumberger, Halliburton, or Baker (one of those or similar type company) field office with the office building that is still there and there use to be long sheds with equipment (dozers engines pumps ect) and some equipment fab areas as well.....there was plans to do something with that 20 years ago

in the middle of Briargrove Park there is a wooded area across Seagler from Twin Circle Drive......it was always suppose to be a park, but it looks like Houston has still done nothing......a small airplane crashed in there one time and one or two died and we all had to go and take a look....looking back now I wonder if the pilot did not crash into there instead of all the homes and apartments around there.....have to think that is the case if so what a selfless act on his part God Bless him

use to be a post office on the east side of Rogerdale just after Richmond then westpark tollway was a railroad track

south east corner of Westheimer and Gessner was the Jack in The Box and a Shipleys Donuts looks like it has been redone

the dumpy pile of crap at the northwest corner of Jeanetta and Richmond was "the Cadillac Club"....there was nothing Cadillac about it

I would share a story about one of the few times I rode the bus home from Lee and what happened when we pulled up to that corner and all the apartment trash from the apartments at Lakeside and Briar Forest saw a little black kid looking in the bushes for something......but the words they were using back and forth can't be said on a polite forum.....but the few white kids on the bus were looking at each other and dying laughing while the apartment dwellers went CRAZY on that kid....looks like the area around there is still "keeping up the brand"

well I can share a little....they were calling him a poor penny pusher from piney point and telling him he was not going to find any pennies in those bushes (it went down hill from there) of course the funny thing is everyone saying that were themselves a bunch of broke fools from trash apartment themselves.....I realize that Piney Point is actually the city on Memorial, but that area around Jeanetta was always called Piney Point as well for some reason

there was a substitute bus driver for the back of walnut bend that used to go in that area when traffic was really moving and they were running early in the morning and get everyone into the front of the bus and back into a lawn and trench it the same driver if traffic was backed up would let everyone get out of the bus and run into the Cstore if they would get him some cigarettes

further south of there was where the little league fields were after Paul Revere was built (just down from where that crappy old Ma Bell field office is) it looks like that area is still mostly a park.....the concessions were always getting broken into

WOW never seen such a great post!!

Much like you I grew up in Walnut Bend and my first job EVER was at the pool. We spent many of hours down at the ditch trying to catch anything we could. I find this very funny now but we would also swipe any kind of X-rated magazine we could find...mainly at Eckerd drugstore. We would ride our bikes down to the ditch, check out our XXX magazine stash smoke "Cherry Vine" or ciggs if we had them.

We would go to the pool and manage to piss off the lifeguards until they kicked us out for the day or made us lay on the concrete which could fry an egg until they felt ready to let us back in the pool.

After that we would play Baseball or somekind of game on our street which we lived on Burgoyne at the time. When it got dark we would play "Bloody Wolf" and never worry about wierdos being out there.

Boy those were the days!

My cousins grew up in Lakeside and lived on Meadow Lake. Both went to Lee and Revere and have a ton of stories from back in the day.

'

[matty1979]

WOW never seen such a great post!!

Much like you I grew up in Walnut Bend and my first job EVER was at the pool. We spent many of hours down at the ditch trying to catch anything we could. I find this very funny now but we would also swipe any kind of X-rated magazine we could find...mainly at Eckerd drugstore. We would ride our bikes down to the ditch, check out our XXX magazine stash smoke "Cherry Vine" or ciggs if we had them.

We would go to the pool and manage to piss off the lifeguards until they kicked us out for the day or made us lay on the concrete which could fry an egg until they felt ready to let us back in the pool.

After that we would play Baseball or somekind of game on our street which we lived on Burgoyne at the time. When it got dark we would play "Bloody Wolf" and never worry about wierdos being out there.

Boy those were the days!

Man I think you and I should get together and grab a beer sometime soon! My wife and I along with our son moved back to walnut Bend 2 years ago. talk about changes. I think alot of these original homeowners are starting to fade and there is no doubt that this neighborhood will be what it was back in the day. Oh wait...one problem.....the damn apartments that are about 40% occupied and attract nothing but trash and savages!

This really upsets me because I had such a carefree childhood riding my bike allover Lakeside and Walnut Bend. Kids these days are confined to the driveway and you never see a pack of kids on bikes(normally up to no good) riding thru the neighborhood.

I will post more when i can but keep these comments coming!!!

My cousins grew up in Lakeside and lived on Meadow Lake. Both went to Lee and Revere and have a ton of stories from back in the day.

'

[TV2EBoogaloo]

thanks to all that liked the info...I wondered if I was not boring with too much info, but it seemed to all piece together

Chimney Rock was not cut through until into the 90s probably like 95 (I was not back in Houston as much by then)

I dated a girl for about 9 months that lived in the third house on the right on the east side of Indian Circle from Chimney Rock and I know it was not cut through in 1987 and for several years after I believe....the guys in the house next to her had been in my scout troop and she never liked them because one of them blew up her dads 450SL tire with an M80......use to be a full time armed security guard that would sit pretty much all night right along there on Chimney Rock on a part of the street that was paved, but where you did not drive just before Indian Circle

There was some controversy, but by then Houston was starting to get the council members that wondered why "the rich" could keep streets from going through their area so the bridge was finally built and that was that

when we first moved into Lakeside the edge of the city limits was the western edge of Walnut Bend, but it was moved rapidly out to Dairy Ashford within a couple of years and stayed out there for at least 3-4 fireworks seasons because that is where all the fireworks stands would be

back then in Lakeside for sure and I believe Walnut Bend you HAD TO HAVE WOODEN SHINGLES by deed restriction......our family did an addition to our house and a fireman was the contractor and right at that time he knew 100% for sure that Houston was going to outlaw wooden shingles for any new roofs so our new addition, 3/4 of our garage roof and the back side of our existing house roof were done in composition and then a few months later when the law passed we had the front of the garage and the front of the house done as well......some may remember many of the crappier apartment complexes around Houston would have decorative siding as shingles too and when they would catch fire the place was about impossible to put out

I remember the Harold Farb apartments all over west Houston and the sign that went with them.....I don't believe I ever met him, but several of my friends would party some with Harold Farbs son (I believe his name was Kenyon) and he was a pretty cool and down to earth guy from what they all said...I was probably at several of the same parties, but just never met him

Also probably until at least 1990 and probably several years later Kirkwood did not cross the Bayou as well....it dead ended north and south of it, but there was no bridge

by 1984 Briar Forest was 4 lanes at Dairy Ashford and on past to at least Briar Bayou Drive.....from there it was two lanes I believe for a long time hell it may have been gravel for some of that time as well....I had some friends that lived in Briar Bayou (back then Paul Revere and Lee drew from the western edge of 610 all the way to highway 6 and Rogers was some type of "special" school and was even closed part of the time......my brother went to Rogers for 6th and 7th and part of the 8th grade and then the other part of the year he had an option and chose Revere because it was so much closer and all his better friends were doing the same (and no bus ride).....they all spent a lot of time moving stuff in and getting the place set up

on the east edge of Briar Bayou drive right ad Briar Forest google earth still shows a vacant lot that where a guy named David Kay lived that was a grade younger than me and was friends with the others I knew.....their house burned in about 87 I believe and I am shocked nothing has ever been built then.....the gated community to the east of Briar Bayou (I think it is called Stonehenge I might be wrong) was all built in about 82-83 and I had a friend or two that lived in there as well

it looks like the skating rink just south of Westella on Dairy Ashford is still there and that was a big hangout in middle school back when parents could just drop kids off and then pick them back up later

I knew three others that lived on Briar Bayou one that was just down from the corner and then another guy that I can't remember his damn name for the life of me.....if you go down Briar Bayou it takes a jog and if you were to just drive straight you would crash right into their house.....it was a cool flat roof house that had been featured in Houston Homes and Gardens (or something like that that was a big time magazine), but by then some "issues" had basically made the place TRASHED.......that was another of many of the people I knew that it seemed did not have parents......some girls I knew could sneak their parents cars out a lot and we could all go over there and party like hell and not even have to clean up because you could not tell your mess from the existing mess......he had several wild blowouts there as well that got pretty crazy.......further down was a hotty I believe named Korry (a girl) that had a cool orange scout, but not everyone knew her as well because her family paid for her to go to Stratford which was common at the time Jeff Bagwells former wife Shaune did the same thing though she almost got kicked out when she posed for a magazine and guys were hanging the pages on her locker she was a really sweet girl for being such a hotty and having become a pretty big model even back then I did not know her super well, but several of my friends were really good friends with her and I would see her around parties and the beach and what not (shout out to 16 and 18 mile roads in Galveston)

that girl Korry was known because once a year her parents went somewhere and she had the house and she would have a pretty massive blowout as well, but it was kind of hush hush for such a raging party so her place did not get trashed

I am 99% sure it was Briar Forest that was dirt or gravel because where it curves near where Eldridge is now was a lot sharper curve where people were always having wrecks and one wreck there that still affects us all was when a guy that went to Lee had a dirt bike break down just to the east of that curve and he and his brother were loading it up in his brothers truck at night and a drunk guy came around the curve and hit them and he lost one of his legs......the drunk was pretty much worthless so it turned out to be the first time that anyone (I believe in the USA) and almost definitely in Texas went after the bar for serving someone more drinks when they were clearly drunk.....they ended up and won the case and like I say it was either the first time that had been tried or maybe the first win in that type of case....I am 99% sure I remember his name and his first name was Troy, but I wont say the last name on here

further down at Briar Forest and Highway 6 I knew a guy names Sterling McGuire (I believe it was) and that area right around there was like a little Rivercrest in a way (without the trees and Bayou, but it had big 10 acre or so lots and horses and other animals (similar to what Westway Ln looks like just north of there on google)

my dad and mom had worked at the downtown Foleys before I was born and a guy they had worked with was the first manager of the West Oaks Foleys...my mom had her original Foleys Charge Card well into the 90s and back then when customer service was still decent she would whip that tired looking thing out and the clerk knew they were dealing with a lifer and many would comment they had not seen one of those in years

I am sure some others will remember this, but for a while they had widened Westheimer (greatest stretch of road on earth) to 3 lanes from west 610 all the way to 6.......then when it became too crowded Houston came up with the brilliant plan to save money instead of going in and buying up right of way especially from 610 to about Gessner they went in and re-striped the roads from three 12 foot wide lanes down to 4 10 foot wide lanes and cut out chunks of the median in the middle to get the extra few feet they needed......the damn buses in Houston at that time were something like 10 feet or 10'2" wide so when you drove down the street and came up on a bus stopped or to pass everyone had to squeeze over a bit more towards the center so the person in the lane next to the bus could pass.....I think that lasted 3 or 4 years before they figured out that too many crappy drivers were not passing the buses out of fear and instead "pacing" them and then slowing down really slow to pass when the bus stopped........plus it was super crowded as hell like that and they finally went in and got the right of way and widened them back out to 4 lanes of the proper size......also just after Gessner heading west there was an area where the lanes had crazy striping and everyone would try and race to not be the car cut off in the 4th lane as they went to three and heading east everyone would race to be the one that got into the open new 4th lane......they did not even just end one lane as a right turn only or start the 4th from three after an intersection (I am 99% sure that is how it was if anyone else remembers better I would love to hear)......but that was driving in Houston back in the day......get in, start it up, get out of the way or haul ass......there was NO middle ground haha

thanks again to all that read and liked the info hope I did not bore with too many personal antic dotes, but they pseudo tie into why I remember some of that stuff and once again thank you Houston, Texas for being the greatest and funniest city to be born in, live in, and grow up in....I had friends in San Antonio that would hear me talk about some things and they would think I was BSing until several of them came with me to visit and saw some of the parties ect in action and some of the cool clubs we could just about walk right into at 16 and 17 and they were like damn this blows SA away and even into college others would think I was BSing until we would meet people from other areas of Houston and they all had similar stories as I did and then they were like damn Houston sounds crazy.....and back then it was

Houston truly the greatest city on earth

[banking214]

thanks to all that liked the info...I wondered if I was not boring with too much info, but it seemed to all piece together

Chimney Rock was not cut through until into the 90s probably like 95 (I was not back in Houston as much by then)

I dated a girl for about 9 months that lived in the third house on the right on the east side of Indian Circle from Chimney Rock and I know it was not cut through in 1987 and for several years after I believe....the guys in the house next to her had been in my scout troop and she never liked them because one of them blew up her dads 450SL tire with an M80......use to be a full time armed security guard that would sit pretty much all night right along there on Chimney Rock on a part of the street that was paved, but where you did not drive just before Indian Circle

There was some controversy, but by then Houston was starting to get the council members that wondered why "the rich" could keep streets from going through their area so the bridge was finally built and that was that

when we first moved into Lakeside the edge of the city limits was the western edge of Walnut Bend, but it was moved rapidly out to Dairy Ashford within a couple of years and stayed out there for at least 3-4 fireworks seasons because that is where all the fireworks stands would be

back then in Lakeside for sure and I believe Walnut Bend you HAD TO HAVE WOODEN SHINGLES by deed restriction......our family did an addition to our house and a fireman was the contractor and right at that time he knew 100% for sure that Houston was going to outlaw wooden shingles for any new roofs so our new addition, 3/4 of our garage roof and the back side of our existing house roof were done in composition and then a few months later when the law passed we had the front of the garage and the front of the house done as well......some may remember many of the crappier apartment complexes around Houston would have decorative siding as shingles too and when they would catch fire the place was about impossible to put out

I remember the Harold Farb apartments all over west Houston and the sign that went with them.....I don't believe I ever met him, but several of my friends would party some with Harold Farbs son (I believe his name was Kenyon) and he was a pretty cool and down to earth guy from what they all said...I was probably at several of the same parties, but just never met him

Also probably until at least 1990 and probably several years later Kirkwood did not cross the Bayou as well....it dead ended north and south of it, but there was no bridge

by 1984 Briar Forest was 4 lanes at Dairy Ashford and on past to at least Briar Bayou Drive.....from there it was two lanes I believe for a long time hell it may have been gravel for some of that time as well....I had some friends that lived in Briar Bayou (back then Paul Revere and Lee drew from the western edge of 610 all the way to highway 6 and Rogers was some type of "special" school and was even closed part of the time......my brother went to Rogers for 6th and 7th and part of the 8th grade and then the other part of the year he had an option and chose Revere because it was so much closer and all his better friends were doing the same (and no bus ride).....they all spent a lot of time moving stuff in and getting the place set up

on the east edge of Briar Bayou drive right ad Briar Forest google earth still shows a vacant lot that where a guy named David Kay lived that was a grade younger than me and was friends with the others I knew.....their house burned in about 87 I believe and I am shocked nothing has ever been built then.....the gated community to the east of Briar Bayou (I think it is called Stonehenge I might be wrong) was all built in about 82-83 and I had a friend or two that lived in there as well

it looks like the skating rink just south of Westella on Dairy Ashford is still there and that was a big hangout in middle school back when parents could just drop kids off and then pick them back up later

I knew three others that lived on Briar Bayou one that was just down from the corner and then another guy that I can't remember his damn name for the life of me.....if you go down Briar Bayou it takes a jog and if you were to just drive straight you would crash right into their house.....it was a cool flat roof house that had been featured in Houston Homes and Gardens (or something like that that was a big time magazine), but by then some "issues" had basically made the place TRASHED.......that was another of many of the people I knew that it seemed did not have parents......some girls I knew could sneak their parents cars out a lot and we could all go over there and party like hell and not even have to clean up because you could not tell your mess from the existing mess......he had several wild blowouts there as well that got pretty crazy.......further down was a hotty I believe named Korry (a girl) that had a cool orange scout, but not everyone knew her as well because her family paid for her to go to Stratford which was common at the time Jeff Bagwells former wife Shaune did the same thing though she almost got kicked out when she posed for a magazine and guys were hanging the pages on her locker she was a really sweet girl for being such a hotty and having become a pretty big model even back then I did not know her super well, but several of my friends were really good friends with her and I would see her around parties and the beach and what not (shout out to 16 and 18 mile roads in Galveston)

that girl Korry was known because once a year her parents went somewhere and she had the house and she would have a pretty massive blowout as well, but it was kind of hush hush for such a raging party so her place did not get trashed

I am 99% sure it was Briar Forest that was dirt or gravel because where it curves near where Eldridge is now was a lot sharper curve where people were always having wrecks and one wreck there that still affects us all was when a guy that went to Lee had a dirt bike break down just to the east of that curve and he and his brother were loading it up in his brothers truck at night and a drunk guy came around the curve and hit them and he lost one of his legs......the drunk was pretty much worthless so it turned out to be the first time that anyone (I believe in the USA) and almost definitely in Texas went after the bar for serving someone more drinks when they were clearly drunk.....they ended up and won the case and like I say it was either the first time that had been tried or maybe the first win in that type of case....I am 99% sure I remember his name and his first name was Troy, but I wont say the last name on here

further down at Briar Forest and Highway 6 I knew a guy names Sterling McGuire (I believe it was) and that area right around there was like a little Rivercrest in a way (without the trees and Bayou, but it had big 10 acre or so lots and horses and other animals (similar to what Westway Ln looks like just north of there on google)

my dad and mom had worked at the downtown Foleys before I was born and a guy they had worked with was the first manager of the West Oaks Foleys...my mom had her original Foleys Charge Card well into the 90s and back then when customer service was still decent she would whip that tired looking thing out and the clerk knew they were dealing with a lifer and many would comment they had not seen one of those in years

I am sure some others will remember this, but for a while they had widened Westheimer (greatest stretch of road on earth) to 3 lanes from west 610 all the way to 6.......then when it became too crowded Houston came up with the brilliant plan to save money instead of going in and buying up right of way especially from 610 to about Gessner they went in and re-striped the roads from three 12 foot wide lanes down to 4 10 foot wide lanes and cut out chunks of the median in the middle to get the extra few feet they needed......the damn buses in Houston at that time were something like 10 feet or 10'2" wide so when you drove down the street and came up on a bus stopped or to pass everyone had to squeeze over a bit more towards the center so the person in the lane next to the bus could pass.....I think that lasted 3 or 4 years before they figured out that too many crappy drivers were not passing the buses out of fear and instead "pacing" them and then slowing down really slow to pass when the bus stopped........plus it was super crowded as hell like that and they finally went in and got the right of way and widened them back out to 4 lanes of the proper size......also just after Gessner heading west there was an area where the lanes had crazy striping and everyone would try and race to not be the car cut off in the 4th lane as they went to three and heading east everyone would race to be the one that got into the open new 4th lane......they did not even just end one lane as a right turn only or start the 4th from three after an intersection (I am 99% sure that is how it was if anyone else remembers better I would love to hear)......but that was driving in Houston back in the day......get in, start it up, get out of the way or haul ass......there was NO middle ground haha

thanks again to all that read and liked the info hope I did not bore with too many personal antic dotes, but they pseudo tie into why I remember some of that stuff and once again thank you Houston, Texas for being the greatest and funniest city to be born in, live in, and grow up in....I had friends in San Antonio that would hear me talk about some things and they would think I was BSing until several of them came with me to visit and saw some of the parties ect in action and some of the cool clubs we could just about walk right into at 16 and 17 and they were like damn this blows SA away and even into college others would think I was BSing until we would meet people from other areas of Houston and they all had similar stories as I did and then they were like damn Houston sounds crazy.....and back then it was

Houston truly the greatest city on earth

I am 99% sure it was Briar Forest that was dirt or gravel because where it curves near where Eldridge is now was a lot sharper curve

You are correct. I used to play t-ball off Briar Forest, just past Dairy Ashford. I believe it was called Memorial Dairy-Ashford Little League. I used to think it was fun to drive down the winding dirt road for fun. I want to say it went all the way to Hwy 6, but can't seem to remember. I lived in Country Village until 1986 and remember building trails and bike paths where Kirkwood dead-ended at Buffalo Bayou. Great times.

[Malvie]

thanks to all that liked the info...I wondered if I was not boring with too much info, but it seemed to all piece together

Chimney Rock was not cut through until into the 90s probably like 95 (I was not back in Houston as much by then)

I dated a girl for about 9 months that lived in the third house on the right on the east side of Indian Circle from Chimney Rock and I know it was not cut through in 1987 and for several years after I believe....the guys in the house next to her had been in my scout troop and she never liked them because one of them blew up her dads 450SL tire with an M80......use to be a full time armed security guard that would sit pretty much all night right along there on Chimney Rock on a part of the street that was paved, but where you did not drive just before Indian Circle

There was some controversy, but by then Houston was starting to get the council members that wondered why "the rich" could keep streets from going through their area so the bridge was finally built and that was that

when we first moved into Lakeside the edge of the city limits was the western edge of Walnut Bend, but it was moved rapidly out to Dairy Ashford within a couple of years and stayed out there for at least 3-4 fireworks seasons because that is where all the fireworks stands would be

back then in Lakeside for sure and I believe Walnut Bend you HAD TO HAVE WOODEN SHINGLES by deed restriction......our family did an addition to our house and a fireman was the contractor and right at that time he knew 100% for sure that Houston was going to outlaw wooden shingles for any new roofs so our new addition, 3/4 of our garage roof and the back side of our existing house roof were done in composition and then a few months later when the law passed we had the front of the garage and the front of the house done as well......some may remember many of the crappier apartment complexes around Houston would have decorative siding as shingles too and when they would catch fire the place was about impossible to put out

I remember the Harold Farb apartments all over west Houston and the sign that went with them.....I don't believe I ever met him, but several of my friends would party some with Harold Farbs son (I believe his name was Kenyon) and he was a pretty cool and down to earth guy from what they all said...I was probably at several of the same parties, but just never met him

Also probably until at least 1990 and probably several years later Kirkwood did not cross the Bayou as well....it dead ended north and south of it, but there was no bridge

by 1984 Briar Forest was 4 lanes at Dairy Ashford and on past to at least Briar Bayou Drive.....from there it was two lanes I believe for a long time hell it may have been gravel for some of that time as well....I had some friends that lived in Briar Bayou (back then Paul Revere and Lee drew from the western edge of 610 all the way to highway 6 and Rogers was some type of "special" school and was even closed part of the time......my brother went to Rogers for 6th and 7th and part of the 8th grade and then the other part of the year he had an option and chose Revere because it was so much closer and all his better friends were doing the same (and no bus ride).....they all spent a lot of time moving stuff in and getting the place set up

on the east edge of Briar Bayou drive right ad Briar Forest google earth still shows a vacant lot that where a guy named David Kay lived that was a grade younger than me and was friends with the others I knew.....their house burned in about 87 I believe and I am shocked nothing has ever been built then.....the gated community to the east of Briar Bayou (I think it is called Stonehenge I might be wrong) was all built in about 82-83 and I had a friend or two that lived in there as well

it looks like the skating rink just south of Westella on Dairy Ashford is still there and that was a big hangout in middle school back when parents could just drop kids off and then pick them back up later

I knew three others that lived on Briar Bayou one that was just down from the corner and then another guy that I can't remember his damn name for the life of me.....if you go down Briar Bayou it takes a jog and if you were to just drive straight you would crash right into their house.....it was a cool flat roof house that had been featured in Houston Homes and Gardens (or something like that that was a big time magazine), but by then some "issues" had basically made the place TRASHED.......that was another of many of the people I knew that it seemed did not have parents......some girls I knew could sneak their parents cars out a lot and we could all go over there and party like hell and not even have to clean up because you could not tell your mess from the existing mess......he had several wild blowouts there as well that got pretty crazy.......further down was a hotty I believe named Korry (a girl) that had a cool orange scout, but not everyone knew her as well because her family paid for her to go to Stratford which was common at the time Jeff Bagwells former wife Shaune did the same thing though she almost got kicked out when she posed for a magazine and guys were hanging the pages on her locker she was a really sweet girl for being such a hotty and having become a pretty big model even back then I did not know her super well, but several of my friends were really good friends with her and I would see her around parties and the beach and what not (shout out to 16 and 18 mile roads in Galveston)

that girl Korry was known because once a year her parents went somewhere and she had the house and she would have a pretty massive blowout as well, but it was kind of hush hush for such a raging party so her place did not get trashed

I am 99% sure it was Briar Forest that was dirt or gravel because where it curves near where Eldridge is now was a lot sharper curve where people were always having wrecks and one wreck there that still affects us all was when a guy that went to Lee had a dirt bike break down just to the east of that curve and he and his brother were loading it up in his brothers truck at night and a drunk guy came around the curve and hit them and he lost one of his legs......the drunk was pretty much worthless so it turned out to be the first time that anyone (I believe in the USA) and almost definitely in Texas went after the bar for serving someone more drinks when they were clearly drunk.....they ended up and won the case and like I say it was either the first time that had been tried or maybe the first win in that type of case....I am 99% sure I remember his name and his first name was Troy, but I wont say the last name on here

further down at Briar Forest and Highway 6 I knew a guy names Sterling McGuire (I believe it was) and that area right around there was like a little Rivercrest in a way (without the trees and Bayou, but it had big 10 acre or so lots and horses and other animals (similar to what Westway Ln looks like just north of there on google)

my dad and mom had worked at the downtown Foleys before I was born and a guy they had worked with was the first manager of the West Oaks Foleys...my mom had her original Foleys Charge Card well into the 90s and back then when customer service was still decent she would whip that tired looking thing out and the clerk knew they were dealing with a lifer and many would comment they had not seen one of those in years

I am sure some others will remember this, but for a while they had widened Westheimer (greatest stretch of road on earth) to 3 lanes from west 610 all the way to 6.......then when it became too crowded Houston came up with the brilliant plan to save money instead of going in and buying up right of way especially from 610 to about Gessner they went in and re-striped the roads from three 12 foot wide lanes down to 4 10 foot wide lanes and cut out chunks of the median in the middle to get the extra few feet they needed......the damn buses in Houston at that time were something like 10 feet or 10'2" wide so when you drove down the street and came up on a bus stopped or to pass everyone had to squeeze over a bit more towards the center so the person in the lane next to the bus could pass.....I think that lasted 3 or 4 years before they figured out that too many crappy drivers were not passing the buses out of fear and instead "pacing" them and then slowing down really slow to pass when the bus stopped........plus it was super crowded as hell like that and they finally went in and got the right of way and widened them back out to 4 lanes of the proper size......also just after Gessner heading west there was an area where the lanes had crazy striping and everyone would try and race to not be the car cut off in the 4th lane as they went to three and heading east everyone would race to be the one that got into the open new 4th lane......they did not even just end one lane as a right turn only or start the 4th from three after an intersection (I am 99% sure that is how it was if anyone else remembers better I would love to hear)......but that was driving in Houston back in the day......get in, start it up, get out of the way or haul ass......there was NO middle ground haha

thanks again to all that read and liked the info hope I did not bore with too many personal antic dotes, but they pseudo tie into why I remember some of that stuff and once again thank you Houston, Texas for being the greatest and funniest city to be born in, live in, and grow up in....I had friends in San Antonio that would hear me talk about some things and they would think I was BSing until several of them came with me to visit and saw some of the parties ect in action and some of the cool clubs we could just about walk right into at 16 and 17 and they were like damn this blows SA away and even into college others would think I was BSing until we would meet people from other areas of Houston and they all had similar stories as I did and then they were like damn Houston sounds crazy.....and back then it was

Houston truly the greatest city on earth

LOL, I vividly remember them narrowing Westheimer's lanes between 610 and Gessner. Great care had to be exercised in the MUCH LARGER and less easy to control cars we had then. I remember dodging the buses, and your memory is spot on about the lanes just -ending-. No warning, no help, no kidding, just suddenly you were in a lane that wasn't there any more. Then you had to get over by squeezing in.

You were talking about growing up here; I grew up in Dallas, Ft. Worth, and San Antonio, and I can assure you, none of those places were nearly as wild as Houston.

When I first got here (as a 21 year old fresh college grad) in 1979, it was like this: if it was Friday and you didn't have at least ONE party invitation for the weekend, something was desperately wrong. Usually, the difficulty was figuring out how to fit all the parties in, together with all the other activities (baseball in the Dome featuring Nolan Ryan, festivals, ALWAYS something to do.). If you were bored in Houston in the 70's, it was your own fault. Friendliest big city I've ever seen, full of fun and interesting people who knew how to work and knew how to play. Moved back to Dallas and the difference was striking---Houston was wide-open, Dallas was restrained; Houston was friendly, Dallas was reserved; Houston was full of partying singles, Dallas was full of young churchgoing married people with kids. Huge differences.

Great thread.

[Subdude]

I lived in Lakeside from 1974 until 1985 and spend a good deal of time there even after that

lets see where to start

Matty1979 Carillion had a Chilis, B Dalton (I believe that was it) a western wear store right next door to Chilis, Cones and Cream that turned into the marble slab that was owned by the Hankamers that I am 99% sure have the Baylor College of Business now named for them, several restaurants that came and went, Laugh Factory and to be honest a lot of stuff I don't remember now......they sure ruined it when they redid it in the 90s and messed the parking lot all up

Great post. Wasn't there also a club at Carillion at one point with some outdoor seating? I could be wrong on this.

[soifan]

I lived in Lakeside from 1974 until 1985 and spend a good deal of time there even after that

We lived in the area during the same time frame, but you were older. I lived there from birth until age 10 when we moved to Katy. I lived on Wickersham in Walnut Bend.

Soifan I can only think of one girl that went to Second Baptist and she is now married and lives in Walnut Bend in the VanEniman's (spelling) old house now...I lived on Olympia

I went to 2nd Baptist from fall of 81 until spring of 84 - 2nd-4th grade. We had a carpool with people from walnut Bend, Briargrove Park, and in 4th grade - the Hilton hotel.

the small strip type thing on Walnut Bend was always a day care (the day care almost looked like a house) and I think an insurance office......the small strip center on Blue Willow was Dr. Zinner the vet that had a funny nose where a dog bit him and again some insurance office or something similar

The day care was actually a private preschool/ lower grade school called Meriweather. I went there from age 4 through 1st grade. It did always look like a house. It had a big L- shaped playground out back where my little sister busted her head open when she fell off a tire swing onto the pebbles below and then the swing came back and hit her again in the head as she was getting up. I also remember taking Spanish class during the day there. Next to Meriweather in the late 70's was a ballet studio that later became a dentist office. On Blue Willow was the vet you mentioned as well as a dentist - we went to both of those offices.

there used to be a UtoteM right down the street from Walnut Bend Ele. on the small stretch of Walnut Bend that went from the front to the back of the subdivision and there was also a place there called Sinnet (Tennis spelled backwards) that made high end womens tennis apparel and a frined of mine's mom worked there as a seamstress for a while

I remember that tennis store and UtoteM. I was just talking to my mom and she said one of our neighbors was a seamstress for the shop (she didn't know about your post). She thinks it was our nieghbor named Carol Holt - although it could have been a different neighbor. Was that you mom's friend?

the area between Blue Willow and Walnut Bend on Westheimer had a wendys (right across from the day care place mentioned above) and a handy dans which was before home depo and Lowes and builders square......closer to Blue Willow was a cheap strip center or nothing at first then it was cleared and the big 2 story strip center was built some friends not much older than my group of friends (used to be the swim team coaches for Walnut Bend Swim Team) had a pool cleaning and contracting company in there for a while, but it closed down and I can't remember most of the rest of what was in there, but there was a cheesy sorry sucky ninfas franchise, and a Chilis knockoff called Spoons where a friend of mine worked for a while and they watched a bum bath naked in the fountain of the big curved building across Westheimer by Target (further down Westheimer there was another Chilis knock off called Fry's right at Fry road)

I had forgotten about Spoons until I read it. I remember all of those places quite well. I remember when they built that 2 story silver colored strip center as we lived on Wickersham so we watched it go up from our house. (We backed up to Overbrook? - Is that correct? Is Overbrook the 2nd street? I used to know them all in order. ) I have a funny memory of that Wendy's and getting stuck there for a long time. My mom was coming out of the drive-thru and was going to turn on walnut Bend to go back to our house, but she cut it too tight and went up over the curb and got stuck in a low place in the grass before you turn onto Walnut Bend. She wasn't able to reverse out or go forward and we had to wait for help. We were blocking the drive thru line. This had happened to others before so after that incident they finally concreted that spot in and you can still see it there today.

Fry's was down Westheimer near eldridge - don't remember the side street name, but I'm fairly sure it's not Fry. The only Fry Rd I know is the one in Katy. It was open until about 3 or 4 years ago.

the shopping center at the front of Briargrove Park has a Dairy Queen (that was actually nice and clean for an urban DQ), Rice food Store (back when it was just Rice), a Jaspers BBQ that had a kickass beer can collection, and the assorted other strip center stuff and a full service Shell Station with a garage.....the DQ went down hill when some Greeks bought it and in addition to the DQ menu they had wooden shingles on the wall with various Greek foods listed on it (about the same time all urban DQs in Texas went downhill)

Do you also remember the Jumbo grocery store and the Kay Floyd pharmacy? We frequented both of those stores often. Kay Floyd was also called Kay Lewis at one point and was owned by two men who I believe also owned Piney Point Pharmacy. I remember they had nice gifts in there too and also had home delivery service.

I posted in Red under his quotes.

[soifan]

OK a few more things looking at Google earth

across Lakeside in the strip that had the Schwinn place the free standing building to the east was a chicken place that was a local chain, but I can't remember the name.....I think the building to the west was also a bank

I remember that chicken place well and I think it was called Ron's. Does that sound correct? My dad loved their chicken.

Westchase Mall also had the Palais Royal the whole time, but it used to be in the mall I am 99% sure and the Black Eye Pea was also always there....out front on the southeast corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest in the mall parking lot was the Rusty Pelican and the Taco Cabana was a Two Pesos

I don't remember Palais Royal being in there, but I do remember The Gap just as you came out of Target after the 45 degree angle on the right. I remember always going to the Palais Royal on westheimer near I believe Hayes. I think it is now the location of a Spec's liquor. Also, the Pea has been there as long as I can remember too.

The Pizza Hut at the front of Lakeside was where the Walgreens is now

back down Wilcreat right near the McDonalds used to be the Rotisserie For Beef and Bird or "the beef and bird" as we called it....it was really good and pretty nice and I know in the recent past before they closed down they also started to have a nice selection of Texas wines which was another reason I was sad to read about 4 years ago to read the owners were retiring and closing it

on the southwest corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest when that strip center was new they had a Houstons for a long time

We ate at that Pizza Hut often - remember getting ET glasses there. I remember the Container Store behind it in the strip center. I also ate at that Houston's as a kid and in my early 20's when I lived near Dairy Ashford/ Westheimer. We went to Beef and Bird for my husband's college grad dinner and it was great.

the pipeline over Buffalo Bayou at Wilcrest between the two bridges was not there and that is why the corvette with the body could fit through

Is this where they have the stairs/ tunnel to cross Wilcrest to get to the pool?

Rosewood Hospital and a bunch of one story Dr offices use to be on the north side of Westheimer just east of Gessner

I believe the doctor's offices were 2 story as we had an ENT in there. It was a very pretty setting and was sad when they tore it all down about 10 years ago.

Vargos.....always been beautiful......food has always SUCKED!

Benihana has been there FOREVER

We moved to Katy in 84 so I went to High school out there, but we often went into town for special occassions. We ate at both before dances. Only been to Vargo's once, but it was beautiful. I remember the swans, peacocks, and gazebo. I don't really remember the food as they were running long/behind with the food so we had to eat really fast to make it to prom before they shut off entrance. I've been to that Bennihana many times over the years - once sat next to a whole table of Astros players(1991).

I am pretty sure Sherlocks pub has been in Carillon and it was a place that was pretty popular for the 18-23yo crowd and was pretty good about serving minors most of the time back then

That's correct - my sister went there alot in late 90's.

I changed to blue as I see the red is hard to read -sorry.

Do you also remember the huge fireworks show they would put on every year on Flag Day? They shot them off from those office buildings between Blue Willow and the current Beltway. People would park all over that section of Westheimer to watch the amazing show. We always parked near the church with all those bells.

[soifan]

thanks to all that liked the info...I wondered if I was not boring with too much info, but it seemed to all piece together

Very interesting to me - thanks!

I remember the Harold Farb apartments all over west Houston and the sign that went with them.....I don't believe I ever met him, but several of my friends would party some with Harold Farbs son (I believe his name was Kenyon) and he was a pretty cool and down to earth guy from what they all said...I was probably at several of the same parties, but just never met him

My dad is a landscape architect and did MANY jobs for Farb over the years. I still remember that sign well too. Do any still exist? I remember one along Westheimer near Gessner (Woodlake Square area?) not too long ago. I think Farb died not too long ago b/c I remember my dad going to the funeral.

it looks like the skating rink just south of Westella on Dairy Ashford is still there and that was a big hangout in middle school back when parents could just drop kids off and then pick them back up later

Lots of fun memories! It's still there, but I haven't been inside in years.

I am sure some others will remember this, but for a while they had widened Westheimer (greatest stretch of road on earth) to 3 lanes from west 610 all the way to 6.......then when it became too crowded Houston came up with the brilliant plan to save money instead of going in and buying up right of way especially from 610 to about Gessner they went in and re-striped the roads from three 12 foot wide lanes down to 4 10 foot wide lanes and cut out chunks of the median in the middle to get the extra few feet they needed......the damn buses in Houston at that time were something like 10 feet or 10'2" wide so when you drove down the street and came up on a bus stopped or to pass everyone had to squeeze over a bit more towards the center so the person in the lane next to the bus could pass.....I think that lasted 3 or 4 years before they figured out that too many crappy drivers were not passing the buses out of fear and instead "pacing" them and then slowing down really slow to pass when the bus stopped........plus it was super crowded as hell like that and they finally went in and got the right of way and widened them back out to 4 lanes of the proper size......also just after Gessner heading west there was an area where the lanes had crazy striping and everyone would try and race to not be the car cut off in the 4th lane as they went to three and heading east everyone would race to be the one that got into the open new 4th lane......they did not even just end one lane as a right turn only or start the 4th from three after an intersection (I am 99% sure that is how it was if anyone else remembers better I would love to hear)......but that was driving in Houston back in the day......get in, start it up, get out of the way or haul ass......there was NO middle ground haha

I remember!! I wasn't driving age, but we/ our parents (carpool) drove Westheimer everyday from Walnut Bend to Voss to go to Second Baptist. It was scary after having those nice wide roads. You felt like you were always waiting for someone to hit you.

[TV2EBoogaloo]

Yes Meriweather was it thanks for the name.....and I remember the playground.....sorry bout your sis those were the kinds of things kids and parents shrugged off back then

the seamstress at Sinnet was Connie Moore I think the owners lived in Lakeside or Walnut Bend as well and several of the ladies that worded there did...that name Holt sounds familiar my mom surely knows her as well

I went into Lee in 83 so you are several years younger than me....I knew a few people right on your street or a street over, but I can't remember any of their names for the life of me.....one girl for sure lived right on the street (Wickersham you would have been across the street if you backed up to Overbrook) that would have had the silver shopping center right behind her and maybe right on the corner or one house over to the west she has some younger brothers that surely grew up to be as crazy as all my friends were and they might have been your age or a grade older.....another was William Mack that was a grade older than me and actually a couple of years older....he lived on Wickersham or Overbrook, but further to the west I believe in the south side....he had a pretty cool black step side Chevy 4X4 truck with some 70s-80s style paint stripes on it he was probably living there still when you were in fact I am 99% sure he was

I think I know what you are talking about getting stuck....I think in the past they had it with just the drive "lane" and a bigger grassy area between the lane and the street....that is pretty funny

I was wrong and you are right it was a Jumbo not Rice at the front of Briargrove Park.....thanks.....and I 100% remember Kay Floy (I think it was Kay Floy not Floyd) they had the coolest toys in there and I used to love to go there with my mom and be a brat for a toy or something like that....thanks for that memory

we might have gone to that dentist as well....I know my orthodontist was a bit away from Lakeside in a multistory building over near Sharpstown, but we might have gone to that dentist there by Dr. Zinner for regular dental stuff

Rons was the chicken place.....they had really good rolls I believe and we ate there a lot too (really got it to go)

I think Frys was at Fry road, but I think that Fry road was torn up and eliminated when some of the stuff around there was developed.....looking at Google maps South Fry goes into that neighborhood and I think in the past before all that was there the plan was for it to cut through the "reservoir" and head over to where Eldridge is.....I could be wrong about that, but I am pretty sure Fry road used to have some other crazy plan than what it is now south of I-10......back in the day all that seemed kind of "way out there"

Rosewood was a really nice setting.....it was torn down right about the time "crap" took off being built in Houston

we used to eat at Houstons a lot as well when I would come back and crash on friends couches in the summer and holidays after we moved to San Antonio....the had pretty good food for the price back then, but I have not been to one in a while and I think they went a bit more "upscale" once they shrank down to fewer locations

you might be right about the Palais Royal....maybe it was The Gap that was the big store I don't remember......after I wrote that I remember the Palais Royal being where you mentioned down by Hays Rd.....I know straight inside from the entrance next to Godfathers Pizza straight to the back of the mall was the large womens store.....it must be The Gap I was not remembering that was the other larger store in there

I remember the Container Store as well I think it replaced Sports Stop

wow I remember that tunnel and stairs......that was under Memorial to get to the neighborhood pool that was at the corner of Wilcrest and Memorial

where I am talking about is the bridge for Wilcrest that goes over the Bayou right by Lakeside Country Club......when I was younger that bridge was just two lanes and as you drove south on Wilcrest the two lanes narrowed to one lane and cut across what is now a median and all the traffic north and south bound crossed over the east bridge.....the north bound lanes narrowed to one lane the same without the cut across the median and then you cut back over south of the Bayou and Wilcrest went back to 4 lanes with a median

when they came in and made Wilcrest 4 lanes there they built a separate 2 lane bridge to align with the south bound lanes and put the medians in on the north and south of the bayou......if you look at google there is a wide gap about the size of a median between each of the two lane bridges.....it now shows a water pipeline there now, but in the past that pipe was not there and that is how that car was able to fit through without anyone seeing anything damaged......the guy was apparently FLYING heading south, clipped the curb, and managed to shoot right between those two bridges with no or very minimal damage so no one even knew he was down there until my friends saw the car stuck rear end into the south bank facing north and went to look and realized the driver was still in it....of course back then no cell phones and it was CLEAR he was VERY dead and they had to run to the apartments near there to get someone to call (what would have been before) 911

yea I remember the fireworks some.....Lakeside Country Club used to have fireworks on the 4th as well when I was younger we would go over to the Sharpstown fireworks

when I was older we used to put on our own "fireworks show" in the Walnut Bend Gym parking lot and after it was built in the Lockwood Andrews and Newman building parking garage (right across the ditch from Walnut Bend pool)

one time some of my crazier friends were shooting them off out over Briar Forest and someone either called the cops or the cops happened to be driving by and saw the "action" and whipped into the parking garage and a friend had seen them coming and timed it just right to drop a 250 count of blackcats on top of their car as they drove into the garage......the whole way up the garage you could hear them going off as the car went from level to level

of course there were stairs and all the kids were hauling down the stairs as fast as the cop was driving up and then they were all off down the ditch to scatter back into the neighborhood...we stayed in the Walnut Bend pool parking lot and watched and kept shooting ours

HPD being HPD back then and not sweating the "small stuff" they got to the top......turned around.....went back down the garage.....and drove off down Briar Forest like nothing had happened

I think those Farb signs are gone now.....I remember the complex you are talking about it was on the south side of Westheimer not to far east of Gessner and I believe not much further down on the north side of Westheimer was another complex that was also a Farb complex and looked very similar

the skating rink was pretty new when we were going and the owners ran it and their daughter was there a lot as well and about my age and of course she was an amazing skater she could get flying when they would clear it off and have the races and also a race where one squatted down on one skate and the other pushed them from behind (they had a name for it) she would usually win that as well for her age group and of course she had a click of great skating friends....I think she lived in the Spring Branch district though she did not go to Revere or Lee and yea it was a lot of fun......they used to do the hookie pookie in the big area they had painted in the center to skate and race around and the DJ was where you could skate up to them and make request......couples only this song!

glad others remember those lanes on Westheimer.....they were insane, but somehow Houston drivers mostly made it work

thanks for some of the corrections and additional memories

[TV2EBoogaloo]

Great post. Wasn't there also a club at Carillion at one point with some outdoor seating? I could be wrong on this.

I believe if you were facing it from Westheimer there was a club or restaurant with a big outdoor area on the southwest side of the "east side" of the shopping center

I am sure some remember this, but when it was first built it actually had two large parking areas east and west that were separated by a strip of shops that ran perpendicular to Westheimer and there was a pass through like a carriage house would have and you drove under the second level of shops from the east lot to the west lot if you were in the back of the shopping center....the B Dalton would have been just to the east of where I am thinking this club/restaurant outdoor area was....there was also the large pseudo bell tower in the far south east corner of the entire complex

I am 99% sure about the carriage house pass through, but they screwed and uglied that whole place up so bad when they redid it that it is not nearly as nice or as cool as it was then......all those ramps and levels were a blast to run around as a kid....if I am thinking right the laugh stop would have been in the part that had the pass through

please correct me if wrong

[TV2EBoogaloo]

LOL, I vividly remember them narrowing Westheimer's lanes between 610 and Gessner. Great care had to be exercised in the MUCH LARGER and less easy to control cars we had then. I remember dodging the buses, and your memory is spot on about the lanes just -ending-. No warning, no help, no kidding, just suddenly you were in a lane that wasn't there any more. Then you had to get over by squeezing in.

You were talking about growing up here; I grew up in Dallas, Ft. Worth, and San Antonio, and I can assure you, none of those places were nearly as wild as Houston.

When I first got here (as a 21 year old fresh college grad) in 1979, it was like this: if it was Friday and you didn't have at least ONE party invitation for the weekend, something was desperately wrong. Usually, the difficulty was figuring out how to fit all the parties in, together with all the other activities (baseball in the Dome featuring Nolan Ryan, festivals, ALWAYS something to do.). If you were bored in Houston in the 70's, it was your own fault. Friendliest big city I've ever seen, full of fun and interesting people who knew how to work and knew how to play. Moved back to Dallas and the difference was striking---Houston was wide-open, Dallas was restrained; Houston was friendly, Dallas was reserved; Houston was full of partying singles, Dallas was full of young churchgoing married people with kids. Huge differences.

Great thread.

we had some neighbors (that still live in that house today) that moved to Dallas for a short while (about 6 months) while an oil company tried to figure out where to headquarter.....the wife/mom mentioned to my mom how the ladies in dallas would never just go shopping in their tennis cloths after playing tennis and ladies in dallas would kind of dress up to go to the grocery store

dallas...

[CHADBO]

I lived in Lakeside from 1974 until 1985 and spend a good deal of time there even after that

lets see where to start

Matty1979 Carillion had a Chilis, B Dalton (I believe that was it) a western wear store right next door to Chilis, Cones and Cream that turned into the marble slab that was owned by the Hankamers that I am 99% sure have the Baylor College of Business now named for them, several restaurants that came and went, Laugh Factory and to be honest a lot of stuff I don't remember now......they sure ruined it when they redid it in the 90s and messed the parking lot all up

Reefmonkey Westchase was a mall.....coming out from Target (connected to the mall) was a Halmark card shop to the left, a KB Toys, an optical shop, further down was a womens wear store, the Funway Freeway used to be on the south side of the mall, but moved across to the north side next to the GodFathers Pizza so they could have parking lot access, but then found out cutting a door would cost 10K so they did not do it, there was a regular shoe store and a jewelry store and several others I can't recall (I believe a womens only shoe store and maybe another jewelry store) and a Weingartens where Randalls is now....later on when the mall part was closed down there was a Larry's Shoes until Larry's all went under..."Hey Larry Where Are My Shoes" they were a damn good shoe store

Matty Revere was built to be a high school eventually and it had a full wood shop and a full metal shop that were both nicer than anything RE Lee had

Mr Lewis and Mr Lyles were the shop teachers Mr Lewis was metal and Lyles was wood....I might have that backwards.....the Metal shop teacher had a cool RX-7 and the wood shop teacher had an older light blue dodge dart I believe it was.......in wood room #1 they had an eye drawn on the wall and when they would have a "pop party" as they liked to call it(give you swats) the eye would blink at you..... know a large number of people that got light up in there

I don't remember the principal but the VPs were Mrs. Reese that had a son named Bart that went to Strake Jesuit (says something about HISD) and Mr. Brailsford who had a swat zone of anywhere from your calves up to your lower back (most believed because he was drunk most of the time) but his swats were so weak it really did not matter in the 1979-1980 school year out JV team went undefeated and we were named Houston City Champs because no other team was undefeated and there were no JV playoffs.....Ron Stones son Billy was one of our starting OLineman and David Dial the son of former Rice player and NFLer was a starting cornerback...Mark Drury also played, but can't remember his position (son of the waste management CEO).....I played Starting free safety for most of the games until moved to linebacker

Coach Capers was the head coach and died about 10 years after that and for some reason right now I can't remember a bunch of the other coaches.....there was also a coach the year before that who was the back up RB for Earl Campbell at UT....they were tough as hell on us in practice and used to go over the allotted time for practices OFTEN, but none of the parents cared because parents back then especially at Revere took care of home work and grades at home......after we won out last game we mooned cars out of the back of the bus the whole way home with all the coaches and Mrs. Reese pretending they saw nothing......good times indeed!

Soifan I can only think of one girl that went to Second Baptist and she is now married and lives in Walnut Bend in the VanEniman's (spelling) old house now...I lived on Olympia

when we first moved to Lakeside Westheimer was 2 lanes of asphalt with bar ditches all the way to Gessner....the shopping center to the west of Lakeside drive had not been built et and there was a large billboard there advertising Lakeside and it had a huge mound of dirt high enough you could almost touch the bottom of the billboard that all the kids would ride their bikes on

The Hilton Fire I had forgotten about, but I remember it now you could see the smoke from the Walnut Bend pool......a family named Pennyaqua (sp) lived in the back of Lakeside and they were investors in and had management in the Adams Mark that is now something else....they had a really cute daughter that was a year older than me named Claudia and she had an older bother that I can't remember his name and their house was fun to party at

Matty again the shopping center you mention was a UtoteM, I can't remember what was around from it, then a Japanese Restaurant, a Schwinn Bike store back in the corner, a TSO Optical, La Hacienda that would serve minors left and right especially if you came in as a group and all were drinking as we OFTEN DID and the food was good too, Dailey's Liguors and perhaps something else

when the shopping center on the west side of Lakeside was built it had a cleaners, a Chinese food place, Eckards (where the mom of one of the three people old enough to drive to Rever worked)(also where we got all of out playboys, penthouses, gents, and hustlers when Eckards would throw them in the dumpster on the same day of each month)(we eventually got "busted" when we got lazy and stopped stashing them well in our back yard fort and some of the pages blew into the lawn and my dad found them mowing the lawn and climbed up and found thwe whole stash which was good for him in a way because then "the talk" was much less difficult), a liquor store (not as good as Dailey's), Randalls, Sports Stop where I bought my G&S FiberFlex and my Team Mongoose that was later stolen by the quail hollow apartment trash, there was a full service Exxon on the corner, Arnolds Deli, Pizza Hut where we used to get free pizza for folding boxes and they would often serve minors as well, and Disk and Dat which was an awesome record store where the employees could name any artist and record just by saying a few words to the songs and it was also a head shop....I bought my football shaped Houston Oilers #1 record there and a fish store that was pretty great and where I got all my fish from and where everyone likes to sneak in and scoop out some gold fish and toss them to the Oscars when no one was looking....there were probably a few other stores I can't recall

the strip shop across Wilcrest had a cleaners, a full Asian Grocery, and a bunch of things I can't recall

the small strip type thing on Walnut Bend was always a day care (the day care almost looked like a house) and I think an insurance office......the small strip center on Blue Willow was Dr. Zinner the vet that had a funny nose where a dog bit him and again some insurance office or something similar

Malvie the store you mention was a Safeway....right near Gregg Binghmans #54 car wash (boy the stories from there I better not repeat)(and someone was stabbed or shot to death there recently...after Safeway left Texas it was an Appletree for a while then closed down and then went through several incarnations because the apartment dwellers would steal them blind......in that same shopping center was the world famous KGS Liquors owned by Salem Bin Sareti and he would sell to ANYONE! and I mean ANYONE especially if he had seen you before.....EXCEPT for occasionally he had some way where he knew he was being watched and you would walk in the store and he would just sternly say NO!....and you would look at him and he would say NO! and you knew that was that until about a week later you could go in and it was right back to buying all you wanted......I used to take orders at Lee and me and my brother would go there and walk out with 2 grocery bags full of liquor and I would charge a bit extra to everyone and cover mine and my brothers and then deliver it at school the next day....me and my brother bought so much booze that after we moved to San Antonio (and my brother went away to UT we went back at Christmas (6+ months later) and as we walked into the door Salem looked up at my brother and said "hey long time no see" with a big smile on his face....we still laugh about that.....a week after that I was back in Houston for New Years and walked in and got the "no" and I was like remember just a week ago me and my brother "long time no see" and he just gave me the "no"......he also said to my brother that time "you finally turned 21 huh" because that was back when the drinking age went from 18 to 19 and my brother was grandfathered in for 2 months and then when it went from 19 to 21 they did not do the grandfather thing for those that had been legal.....my brother had kicked it all off with him by giving him an ID that consisted of a paper temp license with NO PICTURE that my brother had changed the date on and then laminated it with the Walnut Bend pool membership card lamination machine ....Lee was such a blast it was the best high school on earth and the principal there was back of Walnut Bend resident Larry Burgein that had a son Mike that was a grade older than me and a wild man just like every other kid in Lakeside and Walnut Bend....mike could fix anything on his crappy 79 Chevy 4 door (what ever was one size above a Malibu) with two pairs of vice grips haha which I think were the only tools he owned

in that same strip center there was Ranger Market owned by the Melchers that lived in Briargrove park until the7 sold out and then there were 2 7-11s on that corner one on the north east corner and one on the southwest corner.....their daughter Joanne was really sweet and was my age and their son Frank was a grade older than me and I believe he died from some rare disease and they have been very charitable in his name all over Houston since then for medical causes especially

across the street on the northwest corner there was a jiffy lube place.....the first Dominos (or any delivery pizza) place in the area, I think a sports bar and some other things I can't recall

Malvie that area had been up and down FOREVER because of the apartments right along Lakeside and Briar Forest....they started out as Quail Hallow and two other complexes at least and then Lakeside place was built and quickly went downhill right across from the Lakeside pool.....two friends of mine accidentally set the majority of the bundles of wood shingles on fire when they were being built, but their parents really did not care because everyone in Lakeside and Walnut Bend wished all those apartment would have burned....I had a friend from Lee (who's name I can't recall I think it was Chase) that accidentally ran over and killed a little girl that was playing on Lakeside on the north side of Briar Forest and ran in between all the crappy ass junk cars that used to line Lakeside drive by those crappy apartments and darted out in front of him before he could stop...it was ruled not his fault by HPD 100% and after that the city FINALLY put up no parking signs along there and towed off a bunch of the cars and also made those complexes install fences around all of the area except the drive ways (Lakeside place was "gated" even in the driveways after that, but the riffraff still moved in......in the early 90s most if not all those complexes except for Lakeside place were abandoned because of asbestos and because you can't rehab flat roofed slap together CRAP but about 20 times before you have totally worthless slapped together crap......everyone in the neighborhoods thought they were finally going to be torn down, BUT! the investors found a way to "totally seal in the asbestos" and they started to rehab them......a friend of mine piled a ton of their new wood in one unit and poured gas all over if for about 3 days and finally one night we all watched over a friends back fence as he light them up......you could hear the "woosh" a block away and see a shadow running in front of a big mass of flames .......sadly not that well cured lumber and gas don't hold a fire very long and the brave fireman from the great Fire station #69 (right by Revere) were there to spray out the smoldering wood pile and the damn apartments remained to still trash that area today including the influx of Katrina trash that again took the area to a new low along with Walnut Bend Ele. Revere, and Westside.....although last I heard some of those piles of worthless crap had been cleared out yet again to the point that administration from Revere and Walnut Bend went and ask the management where all their welfare students were going to come from and telling them it was hurting their enrollment

a few other things.....there used to be a water tank behind where Lakeside Swim Club is now and when Houston upgraded their water system it was removed and that is where the park part is now and same with by Walnut Bend pool that is the park that BMC gave money to......one summer our friends grandma was watching me and my brother while my parents were on vacation and we knew her grandson that was a bit older than me and my brother and was also a Lakeside resident (one of a multitude of kids I knew in Lakeside that basically had a house to themselves and you thought they almost did not have parents and he had a HOT sister slightly older than me that was a waitress at Chilis).....anyway we knew from him that his grandma only had one good ear and she slept on that side so she was basically old and deaf when she was asleep......we all snuck out and got caught by the rent-a-pig that Walnut Bend hired when we were climbing over the fence to get on top of the walnut bend tank......me and her grandson got away and my brother got caught by him......we got back home and the guy brought my brother home and rang the doorbell probably 15-20 times and even went and tried to call and she never woke up so he let my brother go

there used to be baseball fields right at "the ditch" and Briar Forest where Revere is and the sports there were run by the Walnut Bend Pool Gym that is still there today.....the guy that worked there originally was one of the ones that invented T-ball back when T-ball was played with a piece pf plywood cut in the shape of home plate, a piece of pipe coming up and then a radiator hose for the top part that you had to work to slide up and down to adjust the height that held the ball......they also had "five pitch" there where your own player pitched to you and you got 5 pitches to get a hit or that was that and the other team had a guy that stood right behind him to field any hit back towards the mound and your player was to pitch and then just stand still

there used to be a UtoteM right down the street from Walnut Bend Ele. on the small stretch of Walnut Bend that went from the front to the back of the subdivision and there was also a place there called Sinnet (Tennis spelled backwards) that made high end womens tennis apparel and a frined of mine's mom worked there as a seamstress for a while

"the ditch" before CityWest was built was straight, but the bottom that always held water was much more meandering had a path along both sides in a lot of spots where you could walk or ride a bike and we would take bacon or budding lunch meat and tie it on a string and catch crawdads and then have crawdad fights or crawdads VS plastic army men wars.....you could catch box turtles, snappers, red ears, and soft shells.....when the expanded Briar Forest to be 4 lanes at the bridge (it used to only have a 2 lane bridge there) the workers were killing the water moccasins by the dozens and tossing them up on the sides......the field where Lockwood Andrews and Newman is now along with most of City West was pretty much a field except for a patch of trees just south of where the big city west office building and pond is now....eventually a big excavator came in and cleaned out the ditch to the condition it is today and took out all the areas you could walk and cross it except for a couple of bridges one in the front and one in the back of Walnut Bend right bast Revere......it "accidentally" burned when the parents in the area got tired of the apartment trash coming through the neighborhood on the way home from school and saying nasty things to little kids, bumping into and keying cars, and opening mail boxes ect.....one day the parents went down there with sticks and bats and told them all after school to find a new way home...which was down Briar Forest and a lot longer route and it was not long after that the bridge burned and the neighborhood decided to not rebuild it (still not sure who burned it, but WELL DONE!)

also right on Westheimer where the large City West building is now there was a Birdies driving range and a go cart track that used to let you get pretty crazy on the carts if the right guys were working....when City West was built Birdies actually moved east down Westheimer to a large vacant lot (right near piney point I think) and across that cross street from the office building that had Alexander Smith Academy (which I think is still around but not sure if in the same location)

the area between Blue Willow and Walnut Bend on Westheimer had a wendys (right across from the day care place mentioned above) and a handy dans which was before home depo and Lowes and builders square......closer to Blue Willow was a cheap strip center or nothing at first then it was cleared and the big 2 story strip center was built some friends not much older than my group of friends (used to be the swim team coaches for Walnut Bend Swim Team) had a pool cleaning and contracting company in there for a while, but it closed down and I can't remember most of the rest of what was in there, but there was a cheesy sorry sucky ninfas franchise, and a Chilis knockoff called Spoons where a friend of mine worked for a while and they watched a bum bath naked in the fountain of the big curved building across Westheimer by Target (further down Westheimer there was another Chilis knock off called Fry's right at Fry road)

Beltway 8 was just westbelt then and 2 lanes but they had huge mounds of dirt hilled up where the over passes would be all along the part of the road from Westheimer all the way to the back exit of Briargrove Park (the dirt piles were in between westbelt and Briargrove Park kind of shielding the subdivision from the street).....it had kick ass motorcycle trails on it and some pretty good riders would tear it up out there frequently...as a kid without a motorcycle you could climb to the top and ride down the opposite direction and still have GREAT jumps and build up a lot of speed.....it was not until right when they decided to build the freeway that HPD would attempt to run the riders off, but because of the layout it was a fruitless chase and they would usually pull up and try and get them to come over and then just watch them ride off the other way....HPD did not sweat the small stuff back then and HPD was always the coolest and greatest group of cops back then ever.....the funny thing is the part that was westbelt the street was suppose to be one of the feeder roads, but when Beltway 8 was built they did it completely different than originally thought and all that dirt was scooped up and hauled off and all of westbelt was torn up and redone with different feeder roads

once CityWest was built we used to hang out there a lot and drink accept when HPD showed up and said the owners were complaining about the trash so we would clean up and move to "10,000" (a building with a parking garage at 10,000 Richmond) or to the end of Richmond (back before Richmond went much past 10,000

the shopping center at the front of Briargrove Park has a Dairy Queen (that was actually nice and clean for an urban DQ), Rice food Store (back when it was just Rice), a Jaspers BBQ that had a kickass beer can collection, and the assorted other strip center stuff and a full service Shell Station with a garage.....the DQ went down hill when some Greeks bought it and in addition to the DQ menu they had wooden shingles on the wall with various Greek foods listed on it (about the same time all urban DQs in Texas went downhill)

in the back of Lakeside and Walnut Bend by the Bayou Dow Chemical was built and you use to be able to sneak in sometimes and fish in their pond until you got chased out by security...."the ditch" was a lot more rocks back there by the bayou and some friends used to catch coral snakes and other poisonous snakes back there and sell them to make anti-venom....La Hacienda De Los Moraloes that served "Continental" Mexican food (that everyone in Houston hated) opened back there across from Dow it had a fancy gift and jewelry shop in it as well and was "high end" and expensive and quickly folded.....we used to go around back there every so often, but stopped when some friends were chased off by guys holding uzis (not threatening, but in view)

behind Walnut Bend some friends built a half pipe with 16' square of flat in the middle and 12' high sides that transitioned on the curve over 8' of distance on each side and one side had an 8' high drop in area cut into the middle.....they stole all the lumber from the high end houses being built in the very back of Lakeside....further down towards Wilcrest was a rope swing (but no one would swim in the Bayou although some friends did fall in a few times and a couple of friends rafted from there to the back of Briargrove Park includign past what at the time was the lot less well functioning "turd factory" right at westbelt and the bayou

further down by Wilcrest and the Lakeside country club right across the street from the country club was another area where everyone would ride bikes and motorcycles.....one time several friends found a dead guy in a corvette that had been there about a week.....it was not long after they made the bridge over the bayou on Wilcrest 4 lanes and the guy was hauling, clipped the curb, spun just right that he made it between the open areas between the two sections of bridge, the car turned backwards and the rear of it stuck into the opposite bank.....you could barely see the skid marks and the area where he hit the curb and he did no damage to the guard rails on the bridge which is why it took so long to find him....I will spare all further details about his condition

right across the bayou from there used to be some stables, but Houston removed them when stables became for "rich people" and that area became a "real park" although it was never much of anything for years after than

use to you entered Lakeside Country club just bast the bayou and the fence probably still shows where, but when they expanded Wilcrest they took some country club land and the country club redid the golf course and moved the driving range to right next to Wilcrest and moved the entrance to where it is today

pretty much all I can remember or legally repeat for now any other questions I will check back from time to time

if you want to know about further down Westheimer I can remember some of that.....I know just past the funeral home (where I will be dumped into the ground one day hopefully many many years from now) right at Dairy Ashford use to be the fireworks stands and HPD would set up there from time to time to try and catch people coming back into the city, but because we were on bikes most years we would cut through the cemetery and down Dairy Ashford to Briar Forest and they would never see us.....further down was Westheimer Stables where WNB (weekley night boozers) the wanna-be high school "frat" had their famous keg parties (there were 3 wanna-be high school frats at Lee, WNB, naughty dogs and one other group + two girls groups Marsalee (sp) that my friends mom was a founding member of and one other wanna-be high school sorority)....the one year I went to the stables party they had 32+ kegs and they made the mistake of hiring HPD to be guards for the "event" instead of Harris County Sheriffs like they had for the past several years and Harris County Sheriffs got mad and busted the party up and I can still remember friends running all over the place holding large plastic pitchers of beer and being chased by the cops....the party was so big they blocked off Westheimer and lined their cars up and put flairs out and directed the traffic out like it was a major sporting event.....they also seized all 32 kegs including a ton of them that had been stashed in a horse trailer.....that was the end of the big WNB yearly fundraiser blowouts from then on but far in away not the end of WNB or naughty dogs or any of the rest

sorry to ramble any other questions just ask though you might not want to know the answers

Houston and west Houston were the absolute greatest places on earth to run wild in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s! PERIOD!

PS sorry for poor spelling and grammar and the rambling it is late and a lot of this was stream of conscientiousness if anything is not clear just ask

Mr. Eubanks was the principal, The JV went undefeated with and extra game because we had a team who we didnt even play call us when someone forfeited and told Coach Capers that they could beat us. Flip was the quarter back, Eric Taylor was running back, John Neal, Grant Gilbert, Jason Hernandez, Michael Atkinson and many more I can keep going. We had pep rallys on the football field and then chanted We Are Revere, Mighty Mighty Revere. I played guard and I cant remember what position on defenense for the the JV team that went undefeated.

Eric Taylor, Billy Stone and myself played one game at fondern middle school with the eigth grade team when we were with the JV.

Some of the guys shaved their heads. Some of the other coaches was Coach Manning and Bucless (sp). We had Mr. Davis as a math teaches along with Funky Ferendae (sp) He wore the 70's disco clothes with the collars that would poke an eye out.

I remember we used to get pops for our grades.

I lived in Ashford South which was between Westheimer and Briar Forest and Dairy Ashford. Briarforest used to curve at Eldridge and was dirt that used to turn to mud after raining. I wrecked my brothers car in the ditch when I was 14 cause of the mud. We used to ride the trails along the Buffalo Bayau over off Enclave by Brett Richards and Steve Allisons neighborhood.

You had the little league, Memorial Ashford Little League just west of Dairy Ashford on Briar Forest which my father was part of the negotiations with HISD for the land. They have built a elementary school in the Briar forest part in the last few years. I remember playing football out there and watching the Huey Helicopters fly over and my dad parachuting out at Addicks Dam. Leroy Shaffer from the Houston Rodeo was a helicopter pilot for the Army National Guard who would fly dads unit out there to jump. My dad even had Mr. Shaffer and a Huey lift the light poles up and slide them in the hole in the ground for the lights at the little league fields. They how they used to spend the tax payers money.

[Lostman]

Wow! malvie and boogaloo - thanks for the wonderful memories! I stumbled upon this site a few weeks ago and have now spent far too much time avoiding other work reading all of this. A few things I remember, to add a little to this thread. Hubby and I moved here in 1978, living in a Harold Farb complex on Gessner near Bellaire, then bought a townhouse on Pagewood, right behind Emerson Elementary. I worked at Best Products for a while and remember driving by the Cadillac Club someone mentioned somewhere here. Yes, definitely not Cadillac! When we first got here I did temp work for a very nice townhome development - Hudson on Memorial. Very upscale townhomes. I also temped for a few months for two law firms in a bank building on 610 - O'Quinn, Kerensky and Machinek (sp?) and Rogers, Rubenstein and Wright. It was always a mouthful to answer either phone line. Worked for Channel Z too, offices on Post Oak and 610. Then worked for Richmond Tank Car in the office building next to the Marriott. Hamburgers by Gourmet was a favorite lunch run back then, I think it is an erotic lingerie store now. I remember keeping an eye on the gas lines at the stations right there too, running down to get in line as you saw cars starting to line up.

While living in that area of west Houston, we frequented Baby Jane's Log Cabin on Richmond on Friday nights. Dan Pastorini was a frequent visitor there too, often with a few sweeties on his arms.

In '81 we moved out to "far west" Houston, off Barker Cypress Rd. It did not go straight through as it does today, but rather zig-zagged all over the place. Windsong Trail was known as Gertie Rice Rd and West Little York was a dead end at Hwy 6. I took a job in CFISD at the elementary school in Prestonwood Forest. Met a few other teachers at the parking lot that is now Park n' Ride to carpool to work. Highway 6 had just expanded to 4 lanes and there were maybe 7-8 stoplights all the way up to 249.

I remember one fall, at the start of the school year, that West Little York suddenly cut through past Hwy 6 to the west, and Barker Cypress was getting straightened out. Seems there was a little bit of a scandal about Bob Eckels (IIRC) and that extension of WLY. Now there are probably 25-30 stoplights between I-10 and 249 along Hwy 6!

Worked for a couple of summers temping in office buildings at the Barker Cypress end of a new development - Park 10! Rather than drive down BC to I-10 and up Hwy 6 to enter Park 10, those of us that lived off Barker Cypress just made a dirt road across the field to where Park Row ended. You just couldn't use it when it was rainy. Also the hill on Barker Cypress going up and over the dam was really steep back then. When they expanded BC they made the hill much more friendly.

I remember the Barker Post office and the old timey buildings that were there with it. Seem to remember also, when they tore all of that down, there was a pool under or behind the buildings that I had never seen before. Also a nice little nursery over to the east (Baker Rd maybe) where Barker Cypress ended at I-10.

One house I have often wondered about, and I have not really poked around here much to see if there is any info, is the house at the corner of Hwy 6 and West Little York. The land was cleared around the house a few years ago, and several of the buildings on the property were torn down, but the main house is there. It looks like it was very beautiful in its day. Wonder what its history is.

Well, I am glad to find this forum and really glad to read everyones memories of West Houston! Looking forward to reading more here in the future!

[lolsociety]

I live down the creek from the house on West Little York. It is a beautiful home and still maintained, and still holding a fair value on HCAD. It is on aerial maps for as far as I can go back, which is the 40s, though it was completely covered in trees and barely visible. There were a few other farm homes around connected with dirt roads, including one which sat on the land my neighborhood was built on. The creeks looks amazing in aerial photos - like a riparian forest. Wish it still looked that way today. 

 

Wow! malvie and boogaloo - thanks for the wonderful memories! I stumbled upon this site a few weeks ago and have now spent far too much time avoiding other work reading all of this. A few things I remember, to add a little to this thread. Hubby and I moved here in 1978, living in a Harold Farb complex on Gessner near Bellaire, then bought a townhouse on Pagewood, right behind Emerson Elementary. I worked at Best Products for a while and remember driving by the Cadillac Club someone mentioned somewhere here. Yes, definitely not Cadillac! When we first got here I did temp work for a very nice townhome development - Hudson on Memorial. Very upscale townhomes. I also temped for a few months for two law firms in a bank building on 610 - O'Quinn, Kerensky and Machinek (sp?) and Rogers, Rubenstein and Wright. It was always a mouthful to answer either phone line. Worked for Channel Z too, offices on Post Oak and 610. Then worked for Richmond Tank Car in the office building next to the Marriott. Hamburgers by Gourmet was a favorite lunch run back then, I think it is an erotic lingerie store now. I remember keeping an eye on the gas lines at the stations right there too, running down to get in line as you saw cars starting to line up.

While living in that area of west Houston, we frequented Baby Jane's Log Cabin on Richmond on Friday nights. Dan Pastorini was a frequent visitor there too, often with a few sweeties on his arms.

In '81 we moved out to "far west" Houston, off Barker Cypress Rd. It did not go straight through as it does today, but rather zig-zagged all over the place. Windsong Trail was known as Gertie Rice Rd and West Little York was a dead end at Hwy 6. I took a job in CFISD at the elementary school in Prestonwood Forest. Met a few other teachers at the parking lot that is now Park n' Ride to carpool to work. Highway 6 had just expanded to 4 lanes and there were maybe 7-8 stoplights all the way up to 249.

I remember one fall, at the start of the school year, that West Little York suddenly cut through past Hwy 6 to the west, and Barker Cypress was getting straightened out. Seems there was a little bit of a scandal about Bob Eckels (IIRC) and that extension of WLY. Now there are probably 25-30 stoplights between I-10 and 249 along Hwy 6!

Worked for a couple of summers temping in office buildings at the Barker Cypress end of a new development - Park 10! Rather than drive down BC to I-10 and up Hwy 6 to enter Park 10, those of us that lived off Barker Cypress just made a dirt road across the field to where Park Row ended. You just couldn't use it when it was rainy. Also the hill on Barker Cypress going up and over the dam was really steep back then. When they expanded BC they made the hill much more friendly.

I remember the Barker Post office and the old timey buildings that were there with it. Seem to remember also, when they tore all of that down, there was a pool under or behind the buildings that I had never seen before. Also a nice little nursery over to the east (Baker Rd maybe) where Barker Cypress ended at I-10.

One house I have often wondered about, and I have not really poked around here much to see if there is any info, is the house at the corner of Hwy 6 and West Little York. The land was cleared around the house a few years ago, and several of the buildings on the property were torn down, but the main house is there. It looks like it was very beautiful in its day. Wonder what its history is.

Well, I am glad to find this forum and really glad to read everyones memories of West Houston! Looking forward to reading more here in the future!

 

[DevonH]

Well the original post was five years ago, but I just saw it. I lived in Walnut Bend in the early days from 1967-1977. Also played baseball at both locations of Voss-West Little League and attended Walnut Bend Elementary School.

Voss-West was originally on Hays Rd, as someone pointed out. It moved to the Paul Revere location in about 1973-4. There was nothing else in that field at the time, then some apartments were built and then the rec fields were built over.

One builder, Paul J. McConnell built many of the homes in WB. Lakeside Estates went in next door.

We used to go to Andreau to watch the planes land and I learned to drive on two lane West Belt.

Walnut Bend fed into T.H. Rogers Jr. high and Robert E. Lee HS. We rode busses all the way to Rogers before Paul Revere existed.

Good times.

[plumber2]

That home builder, Paul McConnnell made a tradition of buying ice cream for the whole school (St Micheal's) on St. Patrick's day every year that I attended 1961-1969. I'm not sure how long he continued the patronage but it was something us kids looked forward to every year.

[SpaceAge]

I started at Walnut Bend Elementary School in January 1968 after moving from Sharpstown to our new house in Ashford Forest.  There was only one school bus serving all of west HISD elementary students at that time.  One bus route covered everything from Walnut Bend all the way to Highway 6.  It took 40 minutes to get home from a school only 2-3 miles away because of the long route and the lack of roads.   The poor old bus (it may have been a 1959 International Harvester model with very rounded shape) was so overcrowded we had three people per seat, enforced by our driver Mr. Jackson, plus people standing in the isle front to back, and more sitting on the steps in front.  And there were no hand-holds on the corner of the seats then so people were stumbling and their books falling all the time.  

 

We would leave the school, head out to Westheimer.  (We would pass the three houses of Lakeside Estates that sat there all alone for several years.)  Then down to the first stop on Hayes Rd. (there was no Wilcrest) There were 3-4 old wood frame houses down Hayes Rd. with several Mexican-American children, likely the only ones in the school.  Then on west (no Kirkwood) past Dairy-Ashford (no Eldridge) to drop off the only black students in the school that lived next to where the Roquemoore dirt yard was later built.  Then on to Hwy 6.  (Later we had stops at Briar Village when it was built.  One time our bus was flooded out there and we had to get out and push it back to Westheimer.)  On Hwy. 6 we turned North and went down past Briar Forest to Westway where we had four or five riders.  (One girl's mother had a dark blue with white stripe 68 Camaro Rally Sport with the hidden headlights.) We went down to the end of this gravel road and had a difficult time turning around at the end but we had to turn around to get back on Hwy 6 to go back to Briar Forest.  At the corner, where the Chevron is now, there was an old farm house where we dropped off two girls.  (Their mother drove a 1952 light green Dodge automobile.)  And now the real fun began.  Heading east on Briar Forest there was nothing but miles and miles of a rough narrow gravel road it seemed like we would fly down that path kicking up a huge dust trail at great speed.  There were two dangerous 90 degree turns where people had been killed in wrecks- we would slide out of our seats to the other side of the bus each way.   Briar Bayou was the last stop on the gravel road for 5-6 more children.  (The home builder Joel Phillips lived down there and had a swimming pool inside his house.)  Then on to Dairy Ashford and back to civilization.  Part of the original Briar Forest remains but its now called Goar Road.

 

Our old bus had a wreck one day on the way home from Walnut Bend.  There was someone changing a tire on the side of Westheimer and Mr. Jackson swerved to miss him.  We ran through the ditch and hit a big old tree in front of an old farm house past Hayes Rd.  Mr Jackson's head went through the windshield and blood was everywhere but he was able to get to the back of the bus, which was way off the ground, and see that we jumped out safely onto Westheimer.   A lot of the children were injured and people along Westheimer picked them up and drove them home.  Most people were hurt from hitting their heads on the back of the seat  in front of them which were steel pipe frames across the top and sheet metal backs. (No seatbelts for the driver or students.)  A lot of people had teeth knocked out and bloody lips, black eyes and bloody foreheads.  No big deal.  We had cub scouts that afternoon and these people that picked us up on Westheimer dropped us off for cub scouts in this bruised and bloody condition at the cub scout lady's house.  What a surprise for her.  We should have done our first aide lesson that day. But no one seemed too concerned.  We had a brand new bus with automatic transmission the next day and carried on. There are many other bus tales from the years through Rogers and Lee that are equally memorable.  

 

Do you-all remember in front of Walnut Bend school that Briar Forest was built four lanes just like it is now but it was a dead end at the east school property line/ditch and there was no curb cut to drive to the front of the school.  Every single car and bus that had to drop off in front of the school had to drive up over the curb and over the median to U turn to get to the west bound lanes.  It was fun to sit out in front of school every morning and see all those big bouncy cars making that maneuver in a hurried pace.  It remained that way from before 1964 to the early 1970's when the street was completed. People put up with a lot of inconveniences then. 

 

[capgage]

I lived in the area 72-86.  Started in Ashford South on Wedgehill, walked the short distance from there to Ashford Elementary for Kindergarten.  Then moved to what I guess is Ashford Village, at Waldemar and Cherry Bend.  Went to Ashford thru 3rd grade but then to Askew for 4th and 5th in some kind of Vanguard program.

 

Resurrecting an old thread.  Could not resist because it was speaking directly of my childhood.  Went to Revere 6/7/8th grade, and am exactly the same year as boogaloo.  Must know who he is, because I share all the same memories from there as him including the people and the shop teachers.  I took woodshop and metal shop in 6th there.

 

I didn't go to Lee, though many of my friends did.  I think I missed out.  I went to Strake for 9/10/11th then moved Louisiana for senior year which was a throwaway.  Just partied, played heavy metal guitar, and grew my hair out.  That was how you "fit in" there.  Then to UT, luckily got in-state tuition.  Strake turned out to be a blessing for preparing to go to UT engineering school though.

 

It's a joy to  hear all the memories that I share, plus the ones I don't since they pre-date me.  It's fascinating the bussing that went on in the 70s when Rogers was the middle school, and how it went so far west to what really was the country and the time.  All those kids being bussed so far away.  Before there were really proper roads to go there!

 

Also for many years lived under the flight path for Andrau, and when those Lear jets came over there was just no point in continuing conversations.  Couldn't hear anything else but the planes.

 

My family on both sides are deeply rooted in Houston so I love this site for gathering the "memories that never were" for me but are very relatable.

 

Been in Austin since 87, with a brief break to Virginia in 93.