editor

Nuns don't curse people. It's not part of their religion. Nice attempt at spreading anti-Tremont FUD, though. Maybe it will turn into an urban legend. We all know you have an axe to grind against Tremont. You don't have to make stuff up to support it.

I lived in downtown Houston for a while. First at Live Oaks (which later became Oakwood Houston, and is now something else I think) and then at Dakota Lofts. The best thing that ever happened to downtown was when that Randall's opened in Midtown. And when it did you could totally see the pressure being put on the Kroger on West Gray. Within weeks the customer service people became real bitchy and the quality of the food and the ammount of items on the shelves all took a nosedive, I think because so many people from Montrose, downtown, and Midtown went to the new store which was shiny, clean, nice, friendly, and had a Starbucks upstairs. That Kroger really went to Hell quickly and I stopped shopping there in fairly short order when they started having problems getting in basic items and it got dirty. Nothing bothers me more than a dirty food store. I know supermarkets operate on razor thin profit margins, so I assume that the manager had a hard time getting in new stuff when all of his customers fled. That said, what would really help downtown most are a couple of coffee shops that stay open late at night and on weekends, and a couple of convenience stores. Not having a convenicence store wasn't too bad at the time because I worked southwest so Randall's was on my way home and I could just pop in. But many times it would be nice to walk to pick up some milk rather than fight suburban commuters to get to the other side of downtown (this was before light rail was finished, too). And I know people around here really hate all the Walgreens popping up everywhere, but I think it would help the north side of town if there were a few, maybe near the Franklin Lofts. Drug stores don't have to be soulless wasters of urban space. There are NINE Walgreens within a ten-minute walk from my place now, and not one is a standalone. They're all in buildings at least 30 stories tall, so it's not like they are unable to do it in Houston, they're just unwilling for economic or other reasons. The same could be said of grocery stores. There are four grocery stores within walking distance of where I live. All of them are in the basement or first floor of 50 story residential condo towers. Maybe if Houston developers had the guts to build a few tall residential blocks clustered together then the supermarkets, drug stores, etc... will come and next thing you know you have a real urban neighborhood.

It should also be noted that the station slogans back in those days were adapted to fit their assigned call letters it was many years before broadcasters were allowed to pick their letters. The K/W split is violated in a lot of places. San Antonio and Dallas have already been noted here. A few more off the top of my head: KQV/Pittsburch KYW/Philadelphia KDKA/Pittsburgh KFIZ/Fond du Lac, Wisconsin WNAX/Yankton, South Dakota WHO/Des Moines WIBW/Kansas City Here's a map of where the violators are today: The map excludes Louisiana and Minnesota because the boundary is fuzzy in those states because of the river's course. The first three on my mind are all in Pennsylvania because that's one of the places I went to college. The professors there will tell you that KDKA was the first radio station. But that's wrong. It's just something they say because they're in Pennsylvania. The KFIZ allocation came around 1997 when the FCC abandoned the K/W split rules for all of a week or so. It was the only station quick enough to take advantage of the brief rule change, duming WFON for KFIZ, which it eventually dumped again for WFON, and then again changed back to KFIZ-FM under a grandfather clause. Last I heard the AM side was WFON, and the FM was KFIZ, but that was several years ago. The reason the K stations ended up on the west coast and the W stations on the east coast was because ships in the Pacific had W call signs, and ships in the Atlantic had K call signs. This was, of course, before the Panama Canal made it more common for ships to sail both sides of the United States.

IAH has always been a visual hodge-podge, but of the few hundred times I've been through it I only had trouble twice -- both in the international terminal. I know Denver's airport is nice, especially since it's so new. I hope to go there this summer. Now AUSTIN -- There's a great small airport. Really well done.

That's right near Spec's isn't it?

No, because they aren't trying to satarize anyone or make a political or social statement like the people who altered the Starbucks logo were trying to. On a related note, I seem to recall a newspaper article the said Starbucks either had some problems with their logo or had to change it when they moved into the Middle Eastern market. I don't think it was because of the form of the woman, but because it was a woman at all.

Great pictures. I always wondered if that church was still active. It looks so lonely. Nice to see inside, too. I always feel weird taking picures inside churches.

Why would you spend $6 a day at Starbucks? Are you getting a sandwich, too? I spend $1.75 on a large tea. It costs half the price of an equivalent sized Snapple or other bottled tea.

Here's hoping. It would be even better if they put retail on the ground floor of the parking garage.

Of course, they had to add nipples, undermining the message of the graphic and showing the creator to be nothing more than a childish fool. Way to blow your credibility.

In a city like Houston it should be mandatory that restaurants and cafes have outdoor seating areas. It's done great things for other cities. I guess the Houston equivalent is all the people sitting in their cars in the Sonic parking lot.

I was doing some research the other day and came across this line in an article in a newspaper's archive: So I wonder which was the one TV station that Houston had for all those years. My guess is that it was KGUL/Galveston, which later moved to become KHOU/Houston.

I think it's interesting how so many athletes open restaurants. But in this case, the name is a little cumbersome. "Roger Clemens' Rocket Sports Grill" is a mouthful. FWIW, I was at "Ditka's" last week. Nice and easy to remember and tell friends about. And is there a reason the word "Rocket" is in there that I'm not aware of? I'm not a sports fan. Is that his nickname?

Your message is way off topic and has been edited. The topic of this thread is photography. The information you posted about Tremont towers has been done to death around here. Take it somewhere else.

Adding it to the Calendar.

What's the address?

I like the house. It's good for a TINK or some empty-nesters. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same thing so many other homes do: Beautiful, full trees mean crappy lawn.

We received this news release today: --:-- Crescent Sells 5 Houston Center Record Sale Realizes Joint Venture Promoted Interest FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2005--Crescent Real Estate Equities Company (NYSE:CEI) announced today that it has sold 5 Houston Center on behalf of Crescent 5 Houston Center, L.P., the joint venture which owns the office property. The office property was sold for $166 million, or $286 per square foot, resulting in a merchant building gain to Crescent of approximately $25 million, including a promoted interest earned of approximately $13 million. John C. Goff, Crescent's vice-chairman and chief executive officer, commented on the sale, "We are very pleased with the sale of 5 Houston Center and realizing our first promoted interest in our office joint venture program. When we modernized our office business and initiated our office joint venture strategy, we told the market that this program would increase our operating return on equity by 300 to 600 basis points, as well as generate significant promoted interest income. The sale of 5 Houston Center produced an overall gain of approximately $25 million to Crescent, including an approximate $13 million promoted interest. The sale was at $286 per square foot, a record for Houston." Mr. Goff continued, "We had estimated the value of the promoted interest for our existing joint ventures on our third quarter 2005 earnings conference call to be in the range of $90 million to $100 million. We expect to continue harvesting these promoted interest gains for our shareholders in the future." Crescent completed the development of 5 Houston Center in a 75%/25% joint venture with an affiliate of JPMorgan Asset Management in 2002. Crescent will continue to manage the property for the new owner, Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II, Inc. 5 Houston Center is currently 95.5% occupied. --:-- Here's some pictures of the building:

Maybe this is just the sort of thing needed to revitalize the East End. Imagine a stadium just off Harrisburg surrounded by a thriving community of tacorias, ballrooms, bars, and other small businesses. Imagine the fan loyalty. It would put any Major League Baseball team to shame.

My gut instinct is to vote for downtown. But there's soooooo much available parking for just this sort of event in the Astrodome area. I say put it at Six Flags.

Here's hoping!

Excellent examples. I think Houston needs just this sort of thing. Here's another great builidng that would be a good museum. It's part of the University of Cincinnati. It's nice to see a Frank Gehry that's not all shiny and reflective.

I think one reason for that is the fact that Wal-Mart has the "huge warehouse with an enormous parking lot" thing that it can't seem to wake from. I think there's enough vacant land not too far behind the GRB to accomodate them. And it would be a great service for people in the East End who don't have a lot of shopping opportunities right now.