terrbo Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 510 Milby? Houston, right? Anyone know about this joint? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 Air conditioning? Free Parking? Five minutes from downtown? Sounds like they did everything right. I can't imagine why we haven't heard of this place before! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 (edited) Looks to be a boxing ring that was operating in 1953 and therabouts. Heh, I guess they did some racy stuff between boxing matches. That same match book is being sold on an ebay listing for $6.Bozo St. Clair regaled Houston audiences in the late 1940 Edited January 3, 2009 by kylejack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FilioScotia Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 510 Milby? Houston, right? Anyone know about this joint?Milby Street? Unless there's another Milby Street I don't know about, I have to tell you this joint was on the east side of town, in what was then, and still is now, the arm pit of Houston. 510 Milby is at the corner of Milby and Harrisburg, far from downtown, at least a couple of miles east of the overhead 59 Eastex Fwy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted January 3, 2009 Share Posted January 3, 2009 (edited) Looked it up on Google Maps and rode my bike over there. I intended to trespass ( ) and see what was up. What is now 516 Milby looks to have been it, possibly. Or maybe it was to the right of that in either what is now an empty field or at a gas station that appears to have taken severe weather damage. 516 Milby is a really rundown looking building. Attached to it in the back is a building made out of metal siding-type stuff. This part of the building has a big hole in the side of it. Inside you can see a clock, some tables, a locked raised area...I saw some guys in there. Wasn't clear if they were homeless or what. I decided not to go in. Edited January 3, 2009 by kylejack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Snapped a picture of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Snapped a picture of it.Good job. I don't think anyone is surprised that there are no windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 "Bozo St Clair"? Naked boxing girls? Interesting find there. The mind boggles... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Good job. I don't think anyone is surprised that there are no windows.Underneath the black panel there's a sign. It starts with the letter R, so it might say Ringside. Maybe not Ringside Club, though, because I didn't spot the top of a C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FilioScotia Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 (edited) "Bozo St Clair"? Naked boxing girls? Interesting find there. The mind boggles... Don't get your hopes up. The boxing girls just wore very skimpy outfits. You could call it an ancestor of "female mud wrestling." I don't think Houston had what we would call real "strip clubs" in those days. Our local vice laws and vice cops saw to that. Bozo St. Clair was an old Vaudevillian who did his song, dance and comedy schtick at Houston night clubs in the 1940 Edited January 4, 2009 by FilioScotia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NenaE Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Underneath the black panel there's a sign. It starts with the letter R, so it might say Ringside. Maybe not Ringside Club, though, because I didn't spot the top of a C.Good detective work, Kylejack! How many times have HAIFers driven by that, and never had a clue what it was. Those matchbookcovers are priceless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FilioScotia Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 (edited) Good detective work, Kylejack! How many times have HAIFers driven by that, and never had a clue what it was. Those matchbookcovers are priceless.Go to Google Maps, type in "510 Milby, Houston, Texas" and you'll get a satellite eye view of the intersection of Harrisburg and Milby. You will also see that directly across from what once stood at 510 Milby is the Maxwell House Coffee Plant. You know? As I recall, we learned in an earlier discussion here on HAIF that -- before it started producing coffee, this facility was a parts and assembly plant for Ford Motor Company until 1942. It produced trucks and other vehicles for the U-S military during the war, and only later did it become what it is today. My point is: can you think of a better place to open a night club with boxing ladies and gents than right across the street from a large manufacturing plant? Especially during the war? When everybody had more money to spend? I'm betting the old Ringside Club was one hot and jumping east end night spot in its hey days before and during WWII. I could be wrong, but I don't think the windowless building someone photographed is the old Ringside Club. The address on that building is 516 Milby. Google mapping 510 Milby turns up one of those 360 degree photos of that stretch of Milby, and you can see that the windowless building at 516 is very big, and goes back from Milby quite a ways -- all the way back through the block in fact. I'm guessing the Ringside Club was closer to the corner of Milby and Harrisburg. Maybe even the now vacant lot next to 516.On the other hand, the Ringside Club did need a fairly big building to accommodate a night club that offered floor shows, and a boxing arena with seating for several hundred people. That means the building at 516 could have been the Ringside Club. Address numbers have been known to change over many years. Edited January 5, 2009 by FilioScotia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roym Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 By the way terrbo, what was the book you purchased at Half Priced Books? A book on matchbook collecting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrbo Posted January 4, 2009 Author Share Posted January 4, 2009 By the way terrbo, what was the book you purchased at Half Priced Books? A book on matchbook collecting? It's called..."Striking Images" by Monte Beauchamp.. a collection of vintage matchbook cover art. Tons of great stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Julio Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Ha ha...you are THERE! A must for your home phonograph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roym Posted January 5, 2009 Share Posted January 5, 2009 Ha ha...you are THERE!NICE. Thanks for the additional pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jana Kincer Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 Houston has lately been referred to as the restaurant or culinary capital of the United States. In celebration of that, I was wanting to share pictures of old Houston restaurant matchbooks. I have several hundred I can share with the community here (but not all at once!). Was interested if any of you out there want to do the same. Any Houston matchbook collectors out there? It would be great to share old pictures of the actual restaurants as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkultra25 Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 I'm not a matchbook collector, but I'm sure there'd be interest here in seeing these. There have occasionally been pictures of old restaurants posted, but they tend to be scattered across various threads as opposed to centralized in one thread. There's also an ongoing discussion on local restaurants of yore under the thread title "Defunct Houston Restaurants". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 I think my wife has a few from Houston. I'll try to remember to photograph them. There's a weird combination antique store + part-time coffee shop + hipster boutique downtown that sells all kinds of old Houston matchbooks: https://thetippingpointstore.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hindesky Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 (edited) I have a bunch of them from back in the day when I was a smoker. Gave some away to a distant relative who collected them. Used to collect them cause just about every restaurant or bar gave them away back then. They are from Junction, San Antonio, Houston, Pasadena, Mexico City, Acapulco, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Taos, Steamboat Springs and several other places I've traveled to or lived in. These are some of the interesting ones. Â Â Â Edited May 6, 2022 by hindesky 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jana Posted July 19, 2022 Share Posted July 19, 2022 Interested in buying any collections of Houston matchbooks if you guys are willing to sell any Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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