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It's happened before. When New Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field) was built, the entire neighborhood of bars, restaurants, and mixed-income housing that surrounded it was plowed under for massive surface parking lots. A decade later, people started wondering why the are was a dead zone, while Wrigley Field remained a vibrant, desirable neighborhood even with a hundred-year-old stadium. About a decade ago there was a push to turn the Comiskey parking lots back into a neighborhood, but that got derailed by the 2008 crisis, and everything that has followed since. Since the stadium and the parking lots are owned by the State, and not real estate billionaires, it could still happen.

This kind of MOTUS, or something different?

New restaurant in the basement of 1000 Main, next to the Whataburger.

I think it's part of an ongoing pressure campaign from the city against a group called Food Not Bombs that feeds the homeless outside the library. There's been a bunch of articles about it in the newspaper over the last couple of years. The city is happy to have FNB relocate to a different place on the other side of the bayou where other charities do the same, and the city has social services people available, but FNB won't move, and has been given dozens of tickets. They just don't care, and pay the fine. It's a very weird situation. Not having the library as a cooling center reduces FNB's client base. But I don't think that will bother them.

The cooling centers are few and far between. For example, there are zero cooling centers in downtown Houston. The nearest one is a 40-minute walk, mostly in full sun, in 100+° heat, and heat indicies over 110°. Many of the people who live on the street have problems which require them to take various medicines. A lot of medicines exacerbate any exposure to heat and sun. As an example, many high blood pressure medications make people very sensitive to heat and direct sun. Moreover, many of the people living on the streets congregate downtown because that's where they can get help. Either from the Beacon, or from the city-designated places where charities are permitted to hand out food, or from other municipal and social services, or from the suburban churches that drive vans into downtown and hand meals and hygiene packs out through the barely-cracked windows of their vans because they're afraid of the homeless, but have to keep up their charitable appearance so they can drive back to their McMansions in Spring and The Woodlands and tell their friends what good Christians they are for braving the scary, dark, crime-infested streets of the big city for their pastor and hey, I ordered a double-foam doppio oat milk frap, and this is a single-foam doppio oat milk frap, I demand you get your manager while I rant about this injustice on FaceTube. I don't like that sometimes there's a guy who sleeps in the planter in front of my building during the day. But I can also understand why he might not want to walk an hour in the hot sun just so he can sit in an air conditioned room for a few hours, and then get kicked out on the street again. The cooling centers are only open 9am to 5pm. The same hours that most social services are available. So, the choice has to be made — sit in a cooled room, or find food Sit in a cooled room, or try to get your stolen ID replaced so you can get a mailbox and eventually a job. Sit in a cooled room, or sweep the gas station parking lots in Midtown for a few bucks so you can eat tonight. Sit in a cooled room, or direct tourists into the parking lots for Astros games so you can earn a few bucks to buy some bandages to cover the sores on your feet you got from being shuffled from neighborhood to neighborhood. When I lived in the desert, it was well-known that 5pm is the hottest time of the day. I don't know if that's true in Houston, as well, but it always seemed strange to me to kick people out of cooling centers at 5pm. It's like saying, "Wow, it's really hot out. Like life-threateningly hot out. But my shift is over, so out you go. Good luck. Try not to die."

Only if the sun suddenly appears directly overhead. Generally, in urban environments — including downtown Houston — one side of the street ends up in full sun in the morning, they both bake in the mid-day, and the other side gets full sun in the afternoon.

Easy to say when you have an inside in which to seek refuge.

I think they're probably legal. The older portion of what is now The Star has one. In downtown Chicago, they're encouraged. If your building has an arcade, you can get an extra floor or two on your permitted height. Same if you allow the public to use your lobby to traverse from one side of the block to the other. Obviously, that don't work in Houston, since there is no zoning. No zoning = No way to encourage good design.

Looking forward to it. That strip mall has been so forlorn for so long. I guess that's why there's been a dumpster out front for the last few weeks.

Good idea. I'll make a mint selling bike locks on Fannin Street!

Truly deserved. Pretty much anything older than last Tuesday is a blur for me. A good portion of my brain is Jarlsberg.

It's always funny how Europeans complain about American chain restaurants but the ones in Europe are always packed, especially in non-tourist towns. I think the only place where there was any real backlash against Starbucks was in Vienna, but even there after all the talk about kicking Starbucks out of the country, it still survives and thrives in Austria. The times I've gone to Starbucks in Vienna or Berlin or Frankfurt, there wasn't a single person speaking English. Ditto for T.G.I. Friday's. Europeans just like to complain about stuff.

From my days living at Dakota Lofts, I remember train tracks running down Sterrett. I wonder if those will be rehabbed, or if new ones will be put in.

The "burned" cliche grew out of people who were used to drinking coffee not being used to espresso. When Starbucks became popular, most people were used to Dunkin' Dishwater, and Taster's Choice. My problem with Starbucks these days is that it all tastes so sugary. I'll get one as a treat, but my go-tos these days are Three Valves, Fifth Vessel, and Day Six.

Since it was 100% voucher housing, maybe the city didn't want to be in the position of knowingly putting people in harm's way?

I didn't know about Campesino. I thought that block was all the cathedral's property. Is the entrance under the metal awning?

"Cut the red wire?" "No, the black wire!" "They're all black wires!"

A shot from today. Metro's web site says this should be over by Monday morning.

Well, @ChannelTwoNews — I actually went. I drove up to the Conservancy's Warren Lake unit. I didn't stay too long because it was 99°, and there's no place to sit. But I'll go back again when the weather is friendlier, and I remember to bring snacks and a shooting stick. Not too many birds around, but that's to be expected, since there's not much wildlife left in Texas compared with when I lived here last time. Also, it was 99°. I saw a flock of Egrets, and a few Red Wing Blackbirds, and a whole bunch of what appeared to be Swifts. Fortunately, lots and lots of dragonflies, which means not many mosquitoes. But as we've learned recently, Houston is so hot now that it's become inhospitable to even mosquitoes. (Thanks, Exxon!) It's a good place to go and get a sense of what Houston used to be like before strip malls and cheap concrete. Even this far out, the reserve is bring surrounded by boring beige suburban drek. There's one development that looks several years old, and another one being built across the street ("Sunset Prairie" or some similar excretion). Except the new cookie-cutter development is being built six feet higher than the old cookie-cutter development. We've been to this rodeo before: When the rain comes, the water will run off of the new development and flood the old development. Then the property values of the old development will suffer, it will become run down, and it will eventually become gross. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Wipe hands on pants. Here's some pictures:

I'm not going to do anything just because some rando on the internet says I should. Primarily because I'm not sure how it disparages anyone. Rather than derail this thread, I'll discuss it with you in PM.