editor

19 hours ago, __nevii said:

I understand that this post was made over a decade ago, but I would say that lack of zoning (in the context of how US zoning laws have been used throughout history) is pretty much the polar opposite of "pro-sprawl": all the mixed use that everyone likes the celebrate in Europe and older parts of American cities are exactly what is possible without the restrictive forms of American zoning.

It was zoning that made mixed use districts possible in big American cities, not a lack of zoning.  The whole reason that zoning was invented was because the magic imaginary hand of the free market doesn't work for the common good.  That's why we invented governments. 

Houston has had 150 years to prove that a lack of zoning makes things better.  Clearly the experiment has failed.

Yep.  Western Kingbird, according to Merlin, the bird identification app from Cornell University.

On 6/23/2023 at 9:15 PM, BEES?! said:

I love Tranquillity and think it’s a gorgeous work of art, but I understand there are major issues there…too bad. 

It's been six years.  I'm no longer buying the blame Harvey excuse. 

Here's the plaque:

REACHING UP by Giselle Oviedo

"Reaching up", was created by emerging artist Giselle Oviedo, a college student in Fine Arts at the University of Houton-Downtown, inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 4, 10 and 15. It features hands holding an arm that is presenting a sprouting seedling. The multiple hands are a reference to unity and diversity, while the seedling refers to education and earth protection.

This mural is a unique opportunity, made possible thanks to the support of the Houston Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs (MOCA) and Street Art for Mankind (SAM), for the artist to create her first major mural in her hometown.

The artist was selected amongst her peers through a contest created in partnership with UHD, and a committee of Houston Art Experts decided on the artwork.

The piece is part of the second series of the Big Art. Bigger Change. murals produced in May 2023 in Downtown Houston. It was made possible thanks to the drive and generous support of the Houston Downtown Management District, the City of Houston and Harris County Precinct One. Special thanks to Zydeco Diner for donating their wall.

…and it's gone.  Taken after mass yesterday:

They're pushing hard for donations for the new space, downplaying the parking lot and talking up the non-parking lot part.  If the whole thing was open space, and not just 10% of it, I might buy a brick or something.  It seems like an opportunity missed.  The cathedral could lease the Archdiocese parking lot a block away, or ask Amegy to keep using its parking garage, giving the bank a huge tax write-off.  I just can't support more hot black tarmac in downtown Houston.

This was in today's bulletin:

Quote

Last weekend, our parish initiated the $9.8 million Completing the Walk capital campaign for benefitting the long term provision for our parish and its facilities by fulfilling the original vision and plan of the late Archbishop Fiorenza. This campaign will work with the parish- ioners of the Co-Cathedral as well as benefactors from across the Archdiocese, including those whose support made the Co-Cathedral’s construction possible in 2008. For those who missed out on the launch or want to know more details about specific case elements, I will use this space over the next few weeks to lay out more details.

The first case element is the one that was already announced back in March: the completion of the construction of the Archbishop A. Jo- seph Fiorenza Plaza. The late Archbishop had planned for a similar space called “Cathedral Green”, but as we complete the work, it is only fitting that it bear the name of its originally visionary.
Now that the demolition of the old structurally unsound church is complete, 60,000 square feet of space have been opened up for the 6,000 sq. ft. green space that will include a covered pavilion for events and community gatherings, the centerpiece Sacred Heart statue from the front of the old church, and a commemorative wall honoring the legacy of Archbishop Fiorenza, the history of Sacred Heart Parish, and the donors whose generosity makes the project possible.

The remaining space will provide for more than a tripling of available parking in the lot (from 44 to 144). This new parking development will be fully fenced, gated, and landscaped to provide for more con- venient and secure parking for our visitors immediately across the street from the Co-Cathedral. In total, this case element will account for $2.5 million of the $9.8 million goal.

Please visit our website at
www.completingthewalk.org

for more information about the campaign goals and ele- ments and how you can make a pledge or donation to join our community in Com- pleting the Walk.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place all our trust in you! Amen!

Yours in Christ,
Very Rev. Jeffrey L Bame Pastor & Rector

On 6/23/2023 at 8:29 AM, phillip_white said:

If this is possible, then just about anything is. Three Marriott brands in the same building for some reason.

https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7554589,-95.3662685,3a,48.9y,281.37h,97.64t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1suZyl8YkMh56xavvIDae8RQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

It happens.  HAIF's former sister site once detailed a new skyscraper that had three different flags in it.  I can't remember what the parent brand was, though.  The bottom levels were an extended stay, the middle was the mid-range/tourist hotel, and the top was for conventioneers. 

The location was great for all three purposes, and sharing amenities and back-of-house was seen as a money-saving move.

On 6/22/2023 at 8:45 AM, ChannelTwoNews said:

If you took the trip - how did it go?

I ended up going to Goliad, instead.  Cute town.  Ate at a little diner and spent too much money at the antiques store on the main square.  Right in the middle of the trip, mother nature threw us a gully washer.  Very dramatic clouds.  I'll post some pictures if I ever get around to developing them.

On 6/21/2023 at 3:51 PM, 79ta said:

Thanks for looking at it, but I'm still locked out.

Try it now.

I did a software update today.  I don't always let you know, but today I have a few extra minutes to do so.

• You can once again get to HAIF by typing in thehaif.com.  This is a feature that was not available for about a year, but is back.  I know I use it a bunch.
• You can request your PII.  Click on your name, then Security and Privacy, then Request Data.  Because they can be hard on the server, these requests have to be handled manually, so please be patient if you use this feature.
• You can now request that your account be deleted.  In the past when people have requested this, we've just made the account dormant.  But things have changed in the last 20 years, so it's far more likely that these requests will be honored.  Again, it's a manual process, so please be patient.
• Many tiny bugs have been ensquasherated.  Most of them you never see.

As always, if you see anything that doesn't look or work right, let me know.

As part of a comedy bit it does on the morning show, WGN-TV was asking questions of randos on the street.  One of the guys they grabbed threw in a plug for Max's Wine Bar on Washington in Houston.  He recommends some kind of watermelon salad or drink or something.

@Luminare— Congratulations!  A new badge has been added to your public profile.

On 6/16/2023 at 10:21 AM, BeerNut said:

Did the requirements to post in this section change?  I'm not able to post in this section.

When I reorganized some of the sections, State Politics inherited the restrictions of another section.  I've fixed it.  You should be able to post there now.

14 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Our Time . . . 15 years ago.

W Hotels are not what they were.  But whatever floats your boat.  I suppose the 1990s are on the verge of becoming hip again.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

On 6/19/2023 at 11:38 PM, staresatmaps said:

If you want these facilities, you should encourage them in your own neighborhood … Share the load.

As luck would have it, this is my neighborhood!  And I would have no objection to a public hygiene facility replacing any of the surface parking lots.

That's far closer to the "highest and best" use for the space than another stretch of asphalt.

On 6/19/2023 at 11:38 PM, staresatmaps said:

Concentrating homeless services has been shown to destroy neighborhoods

[Citation needed]

Chicago has a lot of rules governing new skyscrapers.  And contrary to the hyperbolic claims of real estate developers — they keep getting built.  Funny, that.

The city's Department of Transportation has added some new rules (Traffic Demand Management) for new developments that are near train stations.  Some of them are kind of interesting.  I've only briefly scanned the rules, but these are parts that caught my eye:

• The goal is not just to reduce car ownership, and the use of personal cars, but to also reduce the reliance of ride-hailing like Uber and Lyft
• Rules restricting free parking.  This was already a thing for office towers, but will not apply some other buildings, including retail. 
• In some cases, employees may be able to "cash out" the value of their office parking space.  Meaning, they can get money on their paychecks if they don't use a car to come to work.
• Prohibiting apartment and condo buildings from including parking in the rent, which was pretty common already.  I used to pay $380/month for a parking space at Aqua.  But condo buildings more commonly included a parking space.
• Companies may be required to subsidize the cost of transit passes.  A bunch of companies already do this in Chicago (mine did, and still does), so I'm not sure why this is necessary, unless it's fallen out of favor, or they're making it mandatory.  Which is part of the next point:
• Mandatory marketing of transit alternatives.  The buildings and companies almost never tell their employees about transit subsidies and other programs.  They will now be required to encourage people to use the programs.
• On-site day-care for employees, which I remember being a big thing in the 1970's in New York, and even Enron did it here in Houston, but I guess it's not as widespread as it should be.
• On-site car sharing services.  Chicago already has ZipCar and Avail, but maybe it's not as widespread as it used to be the last time I lived there.
• "Micromobility" strategies, like subsidizing gym memberships near the office, so people don't have to drive to go to the gym after work and then drive home.
• "Micro-transit" — meaning the office building organizes van pools.  Some of the big skyscrapers already do this (Michigan Plaza, Prudential Plaza), but those are with massive buses because they're massive buildings.  This will encourage smaller office buildings to do it with vans and cars, and to build designated pick-up and drop-off locations.
• Mandatory bicycle amenities (bike kitchens, public tool kits, showers, etc)
• Building must be constructed with parking levels that can be converted to other uses.  Some Chicago skyscrapers have been converting their parking garages to office and residential space for the last ten years or so (900 North Michigan Avenue, Water Tower Place) as people realize that cars aren't worth the hassle in a big city.  Now, parking areas will have to be designed with this in mind.

As someone who has lived in Chicago on-and-off over the last 20 years, it's been my observation that CDOT has become very forward-thinking.  It understood decades ago that it is a transportation department, and not a cars and asphalt department, even though transit is handled by other entities.   It was converting street parking spaces into parklets and outdoor dining spaces for everyone to enjoy years before COVID made it fashionable in other places, realizing that public space is not the best place to store private property. 

Few of these policies would work in Houston (though, if I wasn't WFH, my company would cover my Q Card).  But it's interesting to see the direction other cities are going, especially as Houston starts to become more dense and downtown becomes more mixed-use.

I was in a hurry, so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the plaque.

May 27:

There's a plaque next to it.  OCRed version:

THE MEETING

by Aec Interesni Kazki

"The Meeting" is a mural about the war in Ukraine and the promotion of peace
(United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16). War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. The world has become more unstable and fearful since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Houston made clear statements in support of Ukraine and has decided to suspend its Sister City relationship with Tyumen and its long-standing partnership with Moscow until free and open dialogue can resume.

This mural, created by Ukrainian artist Aec Interesni Kazki and curated by Street Art for Mankind (SAM), is dedicated to the thousands of Ukrainians who lost their limbs from exploding shells in the war. It features, in the unique surrealistic style of the artist, a son with missing parts, returning home to his welcoming mother. At first sight, the modern scene looks like a celebration (glass, positions, etc.), yet a deeper look opens new interpretations with the bullet, or the misplaced futuristic body parts. For this young man, the healing is made all the more difficult with the continued fighting.

The piece is part of the second series of the Big Art. Bigger Change. murals produced in May 2023 in Downtown Houston. It was made possible thanks to the drive and generous support of the Houston Downtown Management District and Harris County Precinct One. Special thanks to the Icon Hotel and Verde Communities lIc for donating their wall.

I had the ham/egg/Gruyere/leafing things bagel at Fifth Vessel this morning.  Can recommend.

Can someone explain the use of the word "trill" in this context?  Is this a rap music term?

When I see "trill" I think of Star Trek alien worms that burrow inside of other aliens with spots on them:

I suppose you could make burgers out of trill worms, but I also supposed that's not what this rapper is going for.

On 6/12/2023 at 10:12 AM, quietstorm said:

The Beacon at the Episcopal Diocese downtown provides hot showers daily. If a person is mentally they may not know or have the capacity to locate the center; but many homeless residents shower there each day. 

Yeah, that's always the hard thing with mentally ill homeless people.  It's hard to stay on your meds when you don't have a safe place to keep them, or a regular life schedule/alarm clock of some sort to keep you on track.  And there's a certain level of mental illness where you're no longer mentally capable of taking your meds reliably.  In some cases, you only need to miss one dose and you're done for.  Just this morning, I saw a middle-aged woman standing in the middle of Fannin Street shouting at imaginary people.  As noted before, downtown's vagrancy problem doesn't seem to be about homelessness so much as it is about drugs and mental illness.

In decades past, people who couldn't stay on their meds would have been brought to state-run places to help them get back on track.  I don't know what the situation is in Texas, but in Illinois, funds for mental illness were gutted by a series of governors of both parties in order to balance the budget. Then they congratulate themselves in front of the TV cameras while services for poor and desperate people get worse.

I've seen a nice lady in Midtown who sits down with homeless people on the street and helps them with their medications and other things.  She's of sounder constitution than I.  I think I'd give up.  She really is amazing.  Stunningly beautiful, and kind as the day is long.  She could be a beauty queen or a runway model in Paris or any number of other things, but she seems to spend her free time sitting on the sidewalk with Houston's least fortunate, charging their phones and doing more than her share to make other human beings feel human. 

14 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Who the heck thinks an 8 lane street is normal in any city?

Unfortunately, it is seen as perfectly normal in a lot of places in America.  And it's terrible.

1 hour ago, trymahjong said:

Hmmmmm seems planting natives in ROW would be positive for trees- perhaps extra positive for bees and butterflies:

I'm always dismayed when I see so much un-landscaped public space.  For example, the medians and sidewalk areas (called "margins" or "parkways" in other cities, I don't know what the term is in Houston).  Too often they're just dirt and some developer laid irrigation pipe over it and walked away. 

I wish there were neighborhood gardening clubs or other groups that could get permission to tend to these areas; especially the city-owned ones. 

And when I see the bill every month for water drainage, I wonder how much lower it might be if the city put more effort into ensuring fallow space was properly vegetated.

On 6/12/2023 at 11:06 AM, IntheKnowHouston said:

I don't understand why a certain moderator changed the title of this topic in April to The Garden at 1011 McGowen. The Garden closed around late March.

I'm probably in the minority, but stand-alone places - the ones usually leased to restaurants, bar, and retail - could probably have the address only in the title. These places usually have a high turnover. Plus, it takes the hassle out of constantly updating the title of the topic. 
 
Anyway, replacing The Garden is a new bar named Rhythm Bar. According the bar's Instagram, it's shooting for a summer opening.



https://www.instagram.com/rhythmbarhtx/

I'm ok with the named in the titles because people know names more than they know addresses, so it makes it easier for people who aren't regulars to find things. I'd rather have the additional overhead of changing the titles than make it harder for someone to find something they're interested in.