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Discovery Green Park At 1500 McKinney St.


c4smok

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Ahhh yes, Cherryhurst....do I have a good one for you: I had a good friend-R.I.P.- who lived in a townhouse on Yupon. Almost everyday after work he'd find a pile of poop on his little square of grass. One day he was home sick and saw who was bringing their dog over to deposit it's load. A few days later he scooped up that day's poop, took it to the guy's home, dumped it on his threshold, rang the doorbell and politly told him he was returning what his dog lost. That was the end of having the guy who lived on the park with the biggest yard dumping dog s__it on my friend's little square of grass.

A little respect is a good thing and sometimes stinky.

On another note. i hate to see crawford closed. The street situation around GRB and Hilton is already funky enough.

Edited by musicman
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A little respect is a good thing and sometimes stinky.

On another note. i hate to see crawford closed. The street situation around GRB and Hilton is already funky enough.

Yeah, it would be nice if the plans included tunneling Crawford under the park. They're already building down for the garage.

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Ahhh yes, Cherryhurst....do I have a good one for you: I had a good friend-R.I.P.- who lived in a townhouse on Yupon. Almost everyday after work he'd find a pile of poop on his little square of grass. One day he was home sick and saw who was bringing their dog over to deposit it's load. A few days later he scooped up that day's poop, took it to the guy's home, dumped it on his threshold, rang the doorbell and politly told him he was returning what his dog lost. That was the end of having the guy who lived on the park with the biggest yard dumping dog s__it on my friend's little square of grass.

I know a lady who took it a step further--she picked up the turd (with some implement, I'd hope) and threw it at the guy! He was not pleased.

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funny enough, the area where the park is/will be apparently used to be heavily automotive-related places (car shops, a bumper factory, taxi garage).

as far as the shape of the park, and how it forces mckinney and lamar to abut walker and dallas, it should be named "bottleneck park" or "bell jar park" :D

and i kind of like a park being named "park." why not?

it will replace some surface parking, but a little less than i thought:

4goyec0.jpg43wzhub.jpg

Beaker Park.

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Why is the word GREEN in RED?

Taken directly from the website http://www.discoverygreen.com/index.asp:

"And why the color red for the word green? Applying the universal language of color, red stands for vitality and energy. Because it is the color of that which flows through our veins, it's recognized as the color of life itself -- a critical element to any park. The use of red is unexpected. Like Discovery Green -- like Houston for that matter -- it's unique... a little adventurous, a little magical, a little unusual and quite a bit of a surprise."

...jeez, who writes this stuff?

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Yeah, it would be nice if the plans included tunneling Crawford under the park. They're already building down for the garage.

Well, because it would have to go a little far under (depending on where the lake will be). And as it would go down, it would hurt the blocks past the park, because streets can only go down at a specific angle. So either cut the green space or hurt the other blocks.

Then you can throw in Flooding, the homeless, cables/lines/drainage already underground, etc.

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Well, because it would have to go a little far under (depending on where the lake will be). And as it would go down, it would hurt the blocks past the park, because streets can only go down at a specific angle. So either cut the green space or hurt the other blocks.

Then you can throw in Flooding, the homeless, cables/lines/drainage already underground, etc.

Well considering that Crawford is currently configured to remain on the surface as a pedestrian zone, you can bet that the lake isn't going to be on top of it. If this were any other street, I'd like the idea of sinking it. But Crawford is discontinuous as a result of the Arena's placement, so its traffic count is really low. With that in mind, the cost of implementing an underground street would include not only the $$$ but the opportunity to have used that underground space for more parking spaces. So IMO, it just isn't worth bothering.

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Well considering that Crawford is currently configured to remain on the surface as a pedestrian zone, you can bet that the lake isn't going to be on top of it. If this were any other street, I'd like the idea of sinking it. But Crawford is discontinuous as a result of the Arena's placement, so its traffic count is really low. With that in mind, the cost of implementing an underground street would include not only the $$$ but the opportunity to have used that underground space for more parking spaces. So IMO, it just isn't worth bothering.

So how about my idea then......Close Crawford St permanantly from Discovery Green to Toyota Center, 1 block southward.

This would extend the pedestrian promenade past the front entrance of the Hilton Americas to the front doors of Toyota Center, linking both via a pedestrian promenade, with Discovery Green. And were only talking about one block...and given the flow of Crawford and surrounding streets, not many vehicles will miss a 1 block long Crawford St.

Better yet my dream would be for this (above) to happen and the Utility station opposite the Hilton on Crawford St to give way to development. That site would be perfect for offices or high-rise residences with ground floor retail.

Me thinks this is a solid plan...."IF" we could get that utility station to move. What a waste of a terrific site. :angry2:

Edited by tigereye
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So how about my idea then......Close Crawford St permanantly from Discovery Green to Toyota Center, 1 block southward.

This would extend the pedestrian promenade past the front entrance of the Hilton Americas to the front doors of Toyota Center, linking both via a pedestrian promenade, with Discovery Green. And were only talking about one block...and given the flow of Crawford and surrounding streets, not many vehicles will miss a 1 block long Crawford St.

I agree completely. It just removes one more confusing element from an already-confused streetgrid in that area and encourages park usage by people on their way to or coming out of special events.

I'm not so thrilled with the idea of moving the utility station. There are PLENTY of vacant parking lots in that area, and adding another one probably isn't going to result in much new development. Besides, it would be really costly and Centerpoint has actually done a fairly nice job at making it look less hideous than it formerly was.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't know if replying to my own reply is against the rules, but I had another thought occur to me on this subject. It seems ironic that in posting after posting on this site, everyone complains about the lack of urban-style development and growth in the center city, but when something does happen everyone complains about the type of development that is taking place.. It seems that we can't have it both ways; either we leave lots of open green space and put up with the resulting sprawl or we go dense with urban walking environments by building vertical and digging underground to conserve space.

Houston is getting bigger by the day and it

Edited by marc
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I don't know if replying to my own reply is against the rules, but I had another thought occur to me on this subject. It seems ironic that in posting after posting on this site, everyone complains about the lack of urban-style development and growth in the center city, but when something does happen everyone complains about the type of development that is taking place.. It seems that we can't have it both ways; either we leave lots of open green space and put up with the resulting sprawl or we go dense with urban walking environments by building vertical and digging underground to conserve space.

Some of us aren't complaining about getting a new park, we applaude it. Some of us just wonder if 90 million dollars on a 5 acre pocket park is the best use of the money when other city parks are in disrepair because of budget and personnel cuts. 90 million could put a lot of kids into uniforms and off the streets.

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Some of us aren't complaining about getting a new park, we applaude it. Some of us just wonder if 90 million dollars on a 5 acre pocket park is the best use of the money when other city parks are in disrepair because of budget and personnel cuts. 90 million could put a lot of kids into uniforms and off the streets.

Well, the park is actually 12 acres, not 5, a multi-faceted park, not a pocket park, and the $52 million (not $90 million) raised from private sources likely would not have been donated to uniforms, though being a park with many amenities, it may in fact keep some kids off the streets.

Some of us believe that statements about charitable contributions not being used for uniforms and after school programs amount to "straw man" arguments, since the contributors were not given the option of donating to uniforms OR a park, and no one has researched whether in fact, the contributors have not donated funds to uniforms or after school programs. In fact, Houston Endowment, Inc., a major contributor to the park ($10 million), has, in addition to the park grant, donated $25 million toward educational programs and scholarships in just the last 2 years.

I might suggest that that is a LOT of uniforms.

http://www.houstonendowment.org/

Edited by RedScare
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Oops, my bad, 12 acres, but I'll stick by the 90 million (actually, 93 million). Land value that the city donated was worth 41 million. I still think it's a glorified carnival, just my opinion of course, and one of the few times I agree with MidtownCoog on something.

And yeah, we might lose the possible 11th street park due to this.

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Oops, my bad, 12 acres, but I'll stick by the 90 million (actually, 93 million). Land value that the city donated was worth 41 million. I still think it's a glorified carnival, just my opinion of course, and one of the few times I agree with MidtownCoog on something.

And yeah, we might lose the possible 11th street park due to this.

OK, I'll take the city's contribution. Now, explain to me how the city gets into the business of school uniforms.

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OK, I'll take the city's contribution. Now, explain to me how the city gets into the business of school uniforms.

i don't know about school uniforms but i know they do band uniforms for their "special" programs. if i remember correctly there was a calvin murphy expose on 13Undercover a few yrs back about how it was mismanaged.

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OK, I'll take the city's contribution. Now, explain to me how the city gets into the business of school uniforms.

Red, not talking about school uniforms, was talking about sports uniforms and also using it as a metaphor for everything that goes with organized activity like equipment, bats, balls, soccer goals, etc. We complain about being the fattest country in the world, and the schools are cutting activity programs, someone needs to pick up the slack. Why not the city? I know the need is there, at the Y I am a memeber of, there is no shortage of underprivledged kids using the facility every afternoon. I wonder about the kids who aren't close to YMCAs getting left out. Half of our population is hispanic, and you can almost count the number of soccer fields inside the loop with your fingers. That's a shame.

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Red, not talking about school uniforms, was talking about sports uniforms and also using it as a metaphor for everything that goes with organized activity like equipment, bats, balls, soccer goals, etc. We complain about being the fattest country in the world, and the schools are cutting activity programs, someone needs to pick up the slack. Why not the city? I know the need is there, at the Y I am a memeber of, there is no shortage of underprivledged kids using the facility every afternoon. I wonder about the kids who aren't close to YMCAs getting left out. Half of our population is hispanic, and you can almost count the number of soccer fields inside the loop with your fingers. That's a shame.

Mason Park on the East End is getting 2 first class soccer fields put in right now at a cost of $600K. I'd guess that most of these soccer players are immigrant adults. I don't see much soccer activity amongst the local American hispanic kids in my neighborhood.

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