ssullivan

I don't think Wright hated cities at all. A number of his projects were specifically designed for cities. His only skyscraper built, the Price Tower, was originally designed to combine ground-level retail with a mixture of residential apartments and corporate offices in the tower. Doesn't sound too anti-city, pro-suburban sprawl to me! This design started life in 1925 as the Saint Marks Tower project that was intended for New York but not built. Eventually the design was recycled and modified to be used for the HC Price Company of Bartlesville, OK. Construction of the Price Tower commenced in 1953, with completion in 1956. For many years the building housed the corporate offices for a local utility company, a dress shop, a beauty salon, several two-story apartments rented to local residents, and the Price Company's headquarters. Eventually Price needed all of the building for its offices, and the full tower was used as office space. Today the tower has been reborn as the Price Tower Arts Center, featuring an art museum, exhibit of Wright's furniture designed for the tower, boutique hotel, fine restaurant, and guided tours of the tower. Yes, Frank Lloyd Wright did believe in grand, well designed buildings and neighborhoods along the nation's highways and in suburban areas. However, I think it's wrong to say he was anti-city, as a number of his projects were quite urban in scope.

I'm a big fan of Wright's work. Sure, his roofs leaked, he often under-engineered buildings (his construction crews were known for adding extra reinforcement to the cantilevered designs while he was off site), and his furniture was more about art and design than comfort and practicality. But what he contributed to American architecture is significant. He was truly way ahead of his time, as evidenced by some of his houses that were built before World War I yet are very similar in style to houses built by others in the 1950s and 1960s. There are many of his influences in styles that were popular in the US. Many of the craftsman bungalows in Montrose in Houston (and similar neighborhoods in other cities) have obvious signs of his influence. There are several new houses I

I have you beat. Once I ended up eating at Barnaby's three times on a Saturday (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). That's what I get for going out with two different groups of friends who all like the place in the same weekend, and then meeting someone for a first date that night who wanted to go there. I didn't have the heart to tell him no. At least I did hit two different Barnaby's locations (West Gray for breakfast and dinner, Fairview for lunch). Besides Barnaby's, my other regulars include: -Niko Niko's -Chipotle (Woodway/Voss because it's close to work until I'm laid off in three weeks, and Med Center because it's close to home and METRORail) -Mission Burritos -Ming's Cafe -Mai's -Panera Bread (wish they would open one inside the loop but at least I don't have to go to the Midwest to eat there anymore) -Starbucks -Fadi's (Usually Westheimer, although the Meyerland location is closer to my new apartment) -Tien Ren -Chuy's -Pappsito's -Berryhill -Cafe Express -Jason's Deli -Fu's Garden (Rice Village)

I think a lot of White's time has been spent on cleaning up the mess he inherited too. Since taking office he's had to find a new police chief, deal with a lot of financial issues, including the pension problem, and get people appointed to key positions so that the city government could start carrying out his agenda. That takes a lot of time and effort. I think that the synchronization of traffic lights and better management of street construction projects have been good steps by White's administration, although some of the first traffic lights in the project in Midtown are already out of sync. Hopefully the city will stay on top of this project and correct those issues as they come up.

This is great news. I hope they are able to go through with the restoration. When I was in this building last year for jury duty I was disappointed by the sad state of the interior and obvious renovations that had been done to squeeze more courtrooms into the building. It will be nice to see it returned to its original appearance.

Yes, I think it's going to look great when finished. It's actually not the second in Houston, but at least the third. A traffic circle was built at Broadway and Park Place near Hobby Airport when the Park Place addition was developed. The old Houston-Galveston Interurban Railway stopped in the middle of it. When the Gulf Freeway was built on the Interurban right of way, the traffic circle was hidden from view by the freeway overhead but largely left unaltered. It remains to this day, although it is now controlled by traffic signals. A new roundabout has been built in Westchase at the intersection of Seagler and Meadowglen. Both of these streets have been extended (Seagler south to Richmond, Meadowglen west to the Sam Houston Tollway) as part of the new West 8 development. The streets were finished over a year ago but remained closed to traffic for months, until they were opened for a short time a few months ago. Then they were closed again. I don't know if they've been reopend yet or not. There's also at least one "lost" traffic circle in the city. One used to exist where the Eastex Freeway intersects the old North Loop (now Kelley St.) just north of the current 59/610 interchange on the northeast side of town.

Not just being looked at. Metro owns that land and has for many years now.

Yes, he really was for real. Too bad nobody has a clip from the ad of the bikini clad woman coming out of the pool with the VCR.

Yes but I rarely found him that funny. On the other hand, I did always enjoy Alvin Van Black's "Alvin at Night" segments where he went to all the high society functions (in what must have been the world's largest tuxedo). Didn't he die a few years ago?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Pollack is the main reason for the Gulfton Ghetto. Colonial House is one of many complexes in that neighborhood that were built over a decade before Pollack ever arrived in Houston. Fortunately none of the newer complexes in town are on the enormous scale that the Gulfton Ghetto apartment complexes are. Most of those complexes have 800-1,200 units, whereas most of the newer inner loop properties built since around 1998 are under 500 units. Still, rentals are less stable as longtime renters with decent incomes who don't eventually buy something tend to keep moving to newer properties every few years. It would be nice to see some of those apartments convert to condos in a few years, such as the Renaissance at River Oaks property on South Shepherd, that was original developed as rentals by Gables and then converted to condos in 2000.

Truth be told, AMLI didn't even build the AMLI Midtown development. They bought it from the original developer around late 2000/early 2001.

Let me also ad Hilton Furniture, where the guy takes a chainsaw to the mattress and says "That's a fact" and the little kid yells "Jack".

Oh yeah. I forgot about Kathy from Auto Insurance Discounters (her voice makes my skin crawl) and the Carpet Giant man. That guy scares me - he always is wearing the same ugly shirt in every ad and the way he says "Carpet Giant" is really strange. As for Gallery Furniture I think the all time worst was when Mac was inside of a mattress. I once heard that the reason he stopped jumping when he pulled out the wad of money was that he threw his back out filming one of those ads and could no longer do the jump. There's also the ANCIENT Discount Tire Co. ad that still pops up occassionally with the old woman throwing the tire she bought from them and didn't like through the store's front window. I remember seeing that when I was about four years old (and that was over 25 years ago).

Ed returned to Channel 13 in the early 1990s after being gone for a few years and undergoing rehab for his addiction issues. He has since been off the air a few times for heart problems and last year Tim Heller replaced him as the station's chief meteorologist, but Ed remains on the 6:00 newscast. I don't think Don Nelson was with Metro Traffic. He has worked at Channel 13 for many years, including before Metro Traffic even existed. He also has done a lot more than just the morning traffic reports, such as weather reports, feature stories, and cohosting the old Good Morning Houston morning show.

Any ad for Gallery Furniture, including their non-TV advertising. Anyone remember the huge "TODAY" billboards all over town a year or two ago that said nothing else? And fortunately these ads have been gone from Houston TV for a very long time, but the old Worthington Chevrolet ads ("It's Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!" and then some weird animal would come out with Cal riding on it or standing next to it and they'd play that annoying "If you want a brand new car go see Cal..." song) were pretty awful too. Unfortunately the Worthingtons still have dealerships in other parts of the country and they are STILL running those same old ads. I have stumbled across them occassionally in the last few years while traveling. I also vote for the Jose Lima Casa Ole commercial. I was so glad when that one disappeared.

OH MY GAWD. I had totally forgotten about those old Colonial House TV ads! Thanks for bringing back an old memory from my childhood. It's really scary that he still has the same haircut after all these years. Judging from the photos of his office building on his website, his taste in design still seems to be pretty bad.

I understand a lot of the businesses that front Kirby between University and Bissonet wanting to keep the left turn lanes, because it would make access to their stores difficult without it. However that section of Kirby is one of the ugliest streetscapes in the city, especially to be located in a pretty upscale neighborhood. I do hope the median between Bissonnet and the freeway is kept in the plans and that something can be done to relocate power lines and reduce the number of driveways. Fewer driveways would do a lot to help traffic flow in the area as well as improve the landscape. Decorative street lights would also be a nice improvement. But even if none of these improvements are implemented, just getting the street rebuilt will be a major improvement as it's one of the worst major streets in the city when it comes to pavement condition. I just moved into a new place on Kirby at North Braeswood... I'm dreading dealing with the construction the next few years (we got notice it's starting this week between Brays Bayou and Holcombe) but hopefully the end results will be worth the hassle.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how Highland Village is always the first shopping center in Houston to put up Christmas decorations and last to take them down? Usually by Halloween they're all lit up and some years it's almost February 1 before they get them down. I know this year I was traveling for work much of January and February and I remember coming home between trips the second week of February and driving by and seeing the big red bows still on top of the buildings. But they are great decorations and give the place a great holiday atmosphere. I just think they could be a little more prompt in taking them down.

Yeah, it's not that obvious. But it's there, right under "BREAKING NEWS" on the upper right side of the page, just below the banner.

Taco Milagro is on the northeast corner of the Westheimer and Kirby intersection. The article states that the land is on the west side of Kirby, just south of Westheimer.

There have been many crashes where there were not large portions of the plane left intact. The ValuJet crash in the Everglades in 1996 is one. In that case the aircraft impacted the ground and exploded with such force that NTSB reports on the accident reveal that there were no recognizable large plane parts. Same thing with the United 757 that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. The force of the impact and explosion of the plane hitting the Pentagon would have been enough to instantly blast much of the plane into unrecognizable pieces. This of course was then followed by a massive fire fueled by jet fuel and flamable building materials, with the building itself collapsing into the fire and remants of the plane. As for the eyewitnesses who said it looked like a commuter plane and the one who said it looked like there were only a few people in the plane, you first have to consider were these real quotes or just something made up by the people making the video to reinforce their message. And second, assuming the quotes are real, much research into human memory has shown that a person's memory of a traumatic, sudden event can vary greatly from what really happened, even if the eyewitness is telling his or her story just a few minutes after the event. Also, many people do not know enough about commercial aircraft to distinguish what type of plane it is, especially if it is flying very low overhead at over 500 MPH before impacting a building. I also question the person who said that he could only see a handful of people in the plane. How can someone make out that much detail of something moving so quickly? Then there was the quote by someone who said it sounded like a high-pitched whine like a fighter jet. I'd have to go check to see which type of engine American Airlines has on its 757s, but one of the engine options for the 757 is a Rolls Royce engine that has a very high-pitched sound, and the plane sounds quite different from most other jets. The video is full of holes, and considering the source, I find it rather hard to take that seriously.

Ricco I'm jealous. The last tax cut saved me a whopping $7 a year! I'm all for decreasing taxes but there's a price to pay for it. Either we cut services to keep things in balance are the country is forced to rack up huge amounts of debt. Bush has chosen to do the latter, while at the same time cutting some very critical social services, both directly and indirectly. His domestic economic policies have left all 50 states in a financial bind. The No Child Left Behind Act sounds good on paper, but most of it remains unfunded. I think it's wrong for the federal government to place huge financial burdens on states like this law and then not adequately fund those obligations. Same thing with children's health insurance and homeland security issues. Now in Texas we not only have schools that are in worse financial shape than ever before but also a children's health insurance program that has been severely cut. Okay, so we don't provide affordable health insurance to lower income families so their children can get preventative care. It saves everyone a little bit of money, especially those who are the wealthiest in the state. They didn't want their tax money going to those lazy poor people anyway. But this is so shortsighted! The cost of CHIP is far lower than the cost of Medicaid and providing ER care to all of those children whose parents could not afford to take them to the doctor so they wait until the child is so sick that they are forced to visit the ER. Where is the logic in that? We save a few bucks here, but spend a ton more there. Four more years of the current domestic policy will result in nothing but continued escalation of unemployment, poverty, personal bankruptcies, corporate greed, and increased division among our citizens. I applauded the Democrats during their convention for reaching out and saying "Let's stop this ridiculous fighting and unite the country." I was disgusted by the repeated speeches at the Republican Convention that did nothing but attack the other side. I'm tired of the country being run by a bunch of hypocritical bigoted bullies who want this to be a theocracy, not a democracy. And yes, I am a Christian (lifelong United Methodist) but I think it's wrong that so much of the ruling party's platform is based on fundamentalist Christian ideas. It's time for a change!

Kerry. Didn't vote for Bush when he ran for guv or for President the first time. Didn't vote for his daddy either, although Bush Sr. at least had some brains and common sense about foreign policy. As for Kerry, I generally like him, although I was a Dean supporter back when I thought he had a chance. But at this point they could run Donald Duck against Bush and I'd probably vote for him. I refuse to vote for anyone who wants to legislate discrimination against a group of Americans into our Constitution, while at the same time continuing to cause serious damage to our economy by funding a hugely expensive and unjust war and ignoring many serious domestic issues such as Social Security, health insurance, unemployment, and nearly bankrupt state governments.

I tend to disagree with this statement, simply because there are a lot of nice inner loop neighborhoods with lots of kids living in "traditional" families, as well as some not so traditional (but equally loving and stable) family units. Yes maybe the houses aren't as new or as affordable and some of the HISD schools aren't as good (although there are some excellent HISD schools inside the loop), but I don't think you can say that the inner loop neighborhoods can't support families when thousands of families live in those neighborhoods. Yes, maybe downtown and midtown aren't prime places to raise children yet, but lots of places here are. And you are right, having kids does change you. If I ever have any I might feel differently, although at this point if I ever do find a partner and we decide to adopt children, I think we'd definitely give careful consideration to some of the nicer inner loop areas. But at the moment, that's all still a long way off.