A Retrospective On A Retrospective

[Reefmonkey]

My dad used to subscribe to the Houston Business Journal, and I remember seeing this story when I was home from college, recounting lost institutions of Houston from the 25 years leading up to 1996, and now the article itself is 22 years old. Man I feel old. I've underlined the institutions I remember.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1996/09/30/focus2.html

 

Gone but not forgotten: 25 years of city memories

Sep 29, 1996, 11:00pm CDTUpdated Sep 29, 1996, 11:00pm CDT

Houston has been criticized as a city that doesn't remember its past. But during the last quarter-century, the city has bid farewell to many an institution that Houstonians will not soon forget. Here, then, are some of the more vivid memories from the past 25 years of Houston history.

? Glenn McCarthy and the Shamrock Hilton. The legendary hotel on Holcombe, built by "King of the Wildcatters" Glenn McCarthy just after World War II, finally ran out of luck in the summer of 1986. The aging hotel's fancy fittings and fixtures were stripped by salvage crews, and the 18-story structure was demolished to make way for expansion by the Texas Medical Center.

McCarthy inaugurated the grand old hotel in 1949 with a $1 million, black-tie party featuring a river of champagne and a train load of Hollywood celebrities. The scene was later recreated in the movie "Giant," a Texas classic based loosely on McCarthy's life. Like his hotel, McCarthy's reputation as an oilman, brawler, drinker and gambler was larger than life.

? Armco Steel and the Baytown Works. At their peak in the late 1970s, the two giant steel mills located along the Houston Ship Channel employed more than 6,500 high-wage laborers who churned out tons of steel construction beams, oilfield tubular goods and massive steel plates.

In 1983, Armco began massive layoffs at its local mill, and the plant was closed for good in 1984.

USX idled its Texas Works in Baytown in early 1987, following a six-month labor strike. The facility was permanently shuttered in early 1988.

? George R. Brown. Along with his brother Herman, Brown is best remembered for creating Brown & Root, one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms. But Brown also had a reputation as a philanthropist and a financier of political careers. He and wife, Alice, contributed millions of dollars through their Brown Foundation to Rice University, the Museum of Fine Arts, Wortham Theater Center and other educational and arts groups across Texas.

Brown's campaign contributions to politicians across the nation won the eternal loyalty of an ambitious Congressman named Lyndon Baines Johnson, who later as president rewarded Brown & Root with huge government construction projects.

Brown died at the age of 85 in 1983. The downtown convention center bears his name.

? Nick's Fish Market and Cutter Bill's. This pair of famous Houston establishments epitomized Houston's reputation for wretched excess during the boom years.

When Nick's debuted at the peak of the boom, it was one of the most expensive restaurants in town; $40 abalone steaks were a run-of-the-mill menu item.

Ensconced on the ground floor of First City Bank downtown, Nick's was the ultimate symbol of power lunching -- every table had its own private phone.

But when the economy soured in the mid-1980s, penny-pinching corporations red-lined Nick's and kicked back expense accounts that included client lunches there. The restaurant couldn't survive on its patrons' own money. The elegant eatery became one of the oil bust's first high-profile casualties.

Cutter Bill's legendary western wear store rode high in the saddle with the booming oil economy and the "Urban Cowboy" craze of the early 1980s. The prominent hat-and-boot emporium near The Galleria was as well known for its backroom bar as its fancy duds. Beginning shortly after the lunch hour, sales clerks were saying "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" plying customers with complimentary cocktails to loosen up their wallets.

But Cutter Bill's wild ride came to a screeching halt when federal agents impounded the owner's assets and auctioned off everything that was left -- including the store's landmark golden horse.

? Challenger. The disastrous explosion of the Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986, stunned the world and shattered the mystique of perfection surrounding America's space program.

A wide-ranging reassessment of the nation's manned space effort badly demoralized the space agency. Although the shuttle fleet returned to the skies with the successful launch of Discovery on Sept. 29, 1988, NASA is still feeling the negative repercussions from Challenger's short and tragic final flight.

? Jamail's. Generations of rich Houstonians sent their maids for weekly groceries at Jamail & Sons on Kirby, and even the less well-off splurged for handpicked produce, exotic condiments and custom-cut meats on special occasions.(My mom used to go there to get "fancy" stuff for her Christmas party and other big events, it's the first place I had Jelly Belly jelly beans when they became a craze in the early 80s, and my brothers and I liked they had a machine that dispensed old fashioned glass coke bottles for 10 cents)

But after the death of patriarch Albert Jamail in 1986, the 43-year-old grocery operation fell victim to family squabbling.

The store filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1989, but that petition was converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation a year later at the urging of the store's bankers. Jamail's rang up its last sale in March of 1990.

? Hurricane Alicia. In August of 1983, Houston took its only direct hit from a Category 4 hurricane in the past two decades. Hurricane Alicia ripped through the area with winds of 120 mph, causing more than $3 billion in damage.

Although old-timers called the storm a sissy in comparison to big blows like Carla and Camille, Alicia remains the only bona fide hurricane most modern Houstonians have actually experienced.

? Gilley's. This venerable country-and-western dance hall in Pasadena was immortalized in the 1980 movie "Urban Cowboy," which was filmed largely at Gilley's and the surrounding petrochemical complexes. (though I was too young to ever go there, my dad had a can of Gilly's beer on display in the bar in our living room, next to a can of JR Ewing's Private Stock beer

The nightclub showcased headliner country singers, mechanical bulls and enough space for up to 5,000 kicking dancers. Owners Mickey Gilley and Sherwood Cryer fought over control of the club in the late 1980s. Cryer finally closed the joint in 1989. Gilley's burned down in 1990.

? Howard Hughes. The billionaire engineer/aviator/inventor struck it rich with Hughes Tool Co., which he founded around a revolutionary drill bit that excelled at cutting through hard rock formations. Although routinely seen in the company of Hollywood starlets during his heyday, Hughes' later years were spent in strict seclusion. He died in 1976 while flying from Acapulco to Houston for medical treatment.

Hughes left behind a $2.3 billion fortune but no clear-cut will, which caused a flurry of would-be heirs to pop out of the woodwork. A Houston probate court spent years sorting through claims on Hughes' estate, including one filed on behalf of Hughes' "unknown" heirs.

? Suite 8F at the Lamar Hotel. This particular corner suite at the old Lamar Hotel in downtown Houston used to function as the city's private smoke-filled room.

Houston power brokers routinely gathered there to play poker, handpick politicians and generally map out the city's future. The crowd of regulars included Jesse Jones, Judge James Elkins and George Brown, among other notables.

But as the regulars died out, the Lamar fell on hard times. The hotel was purchased by developer Gerald Hines in the 1970s, and the building was destroyed in a spectacular implosion in 1983. The tract remains vacant today, awaiting a turnaround in the real estate market.

? Gulf Oil Corp. While the oil giant was technically based in Pennsylvania, Gulf was long one of the city's leading employers and a prominent member of the local corporate community.

Until the mid-1960s, a neon version of the company's glowing orange logo spun atop the Gulf Oil tower downtown, a vivid symbol of the city's oil-based economy.

But Gulf was acquired by Chevron Corp. of California in 1984 in a move that rescued the company from oil patch raider T. Boone Pickens. Chevron paid $13.3 billion for Gulf, a sum that remains the high-water mark for an oil company buyout.

? Judge Roy Hofheinz. This Houston politician left his mark on the city as no other elected official ever has. After leaving politics, his Houston Sports Association masterminded the creation of the Astrodome, brought the city its first major-league baseball team and built the $100 million Astrodomain sports and entertainment complex.

Hofheinz was Harris County Judge for nine years and left office at the age of 33. Despite two contentious terms as mayor of Houston in the early 1950s, Hofheinz was known all his life as "The Judge."

One day in November of 1982, a memorable procession approached the Astrodomain. Hofheinz's funeral cortege circled the Dome twice, then carried the judge to his final resting place.

? El Mercado del Sol. This ambitious renovation of a dilapidated East End warehouse into a Hispanic-themed retail and entertainment complex was a notorious failure.( went there once when it first opened, my mom was curious and took us)

The City of Houston poured more than $500,000 in federal Community Development funds into the Navigation Drive experiment, the first time the city had invested in a private business venture.

Mainland Savings -- a local thrift that was eventually dragged under by such risky investments -- loaned El Mercado another $1.5 million.

The project had only been open about a year when lenders foreclosed on it in August of 1986. Investors evicted the few remaining merchants and boarded El Mercado up for good in December of 1989.

? Sakowitz. Four generations of fashion-conscious Houstonians were clothed by the Sakowitz brothers and their haberdasher descendents. But an overly aggressive expansion plan and the crumbling oil economy pushed the chain into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1985.(went there all the time as a kid, both the downtown and Post Oak locations, loved eating in the lunchroom)

Family son Robert Sakowitz closed the downtown store -- igniting the ritziest "going-out-of-business" sales in Houston's history -- and sold the bulk of the family's interest in the chain to an Australian retailing company.

In spite of the cash infusion, the stores never recovered their former grandeur.

What was left of the chain was placed in bankruptcy again in May of 1990. Sakowitz's last store, the Post Oak flagship, was liquidated the following summer.

? The 1990 Economic Summit. Houston's economic decline in the 1980s made the city the butt of international jokes. But Houstonians were eager to showcase their up-by-the-bootstraps recovery in the summer of 1990, when the city was tapped to host the leaders of the free world at the annual economic summit.

Thousands of volunteers scrubbed the city from stem to stern, planted acres of red begonias and gritted teeth through a week of monumental traffic jams caused by the official motorcades.

Although the anticipated windfall from visiting journalists never lived up to the expectations of local hoteliers and restaurateurs, the effort had an indirect payoff. Many of the more than 3,000 visiting reporters included glowing reviews of Houston's economic recovery in their Summit coverage.

? The Astrodome scoreboard. It was a dark day for local sports fans when County Commissioners agreed to tear out the Astrodome's famed animated scoreboard in the fall of 1988. The hokey board flashed colorful images of snorting bulls and six-shooting cowboys anytime the Astros hit a homerun or the Oilers scored a touchdown.

The unique scoreboard was dismantled to make room for 10,000 additional seats, which Oilers owner Bud Adams claimed the arena needed to attract the Super Bowl.

? Percy Foreman. This flamboyant Houston attorney won a reputation as the greatest courtroom lawyer alive by defending more than 1,500 accused murderers during his 60-year career, losing only one client to the electric chair. Foreman was equally renowned for his 3,000 to 4,000 divorce cases.

An old Texas adage said: "If you shoot someone down in cold blood at high noon on a crowded street, the first thing you do is call Percy. The second thing you do is figure out how to pay him."

Foreman believed in charging whatever the traffic would bear, although he was known to defend policemen and poor folks for free. He also frequently accepted art or antiques in lieu of cash. Once he accepted a pair of live elephants that were trained to drink Coca-Cola from bottles -- but only after he'd lined up a buyer for the pair of pachyderms.

Foreman never retired. As he lay on his deathbed in the intensive care unit of a local hospital, he was preparing arguments for yet another murder case. He was 86 years old when died on Aug. 25, 1988.

? Prince's Drive-In. The hamburger palace on South Main once featured carhops on roller skates and guest appearances by rock '' roll bands. Founder Doug Prince was always a sure bet as a big bidder in the annual auction of the Livestock Show's Grand Champion Steer.(never ate at the original Prince's, but remember driving by it when driving between downtown and the medical center on the way to see the pediatrician)

If Prince won the auction, he generally offered the champ back to locals in hamburgers served down at the drive-in. But after 56 years, the popular hangout flipped its last patty and closed its doors on Dec. 16, 1990.