brucesw

There's a Mickey Dee's at 20th and Yale; been there for years. Not to change the subject or anything -- but, anybody know how long Yale St. Pharmacy has been around? I think that current building has only been there since the 40s, but wasn't it across the street or something before? On Topic: I'd only been to Kaplan's a few times but my Mother, who grew up in the Heights, always raved about it and loved to get gifts from there. One of those institutions you think will be there forever.

The first Cinerama movie was "This is Cinerama," produced in 1952 and premiered in NY. There were numerous other travelogs in the 50s; "How the West Was Won" was released in '62 according to IMDB. I saw "This is Cinerama" in LA in 1955, the same summer my step-granddad took my brother and I to the newly opened Disneyland. It opens with Lowell Thomas, an investor in the company, reading a narration. Only the center of the screen is exposed. At a certain point, the curtains begin to roll back, and back, and back, and back (146 degree arc). The audience gasps and the gasps turn to shrieks as the opening sequence bursts on the screen, accompanied by sound seeming to come from everywhere: a very realistic roller coaster sequence with every member of the audience sitting in the first car. It was great fun, and Cinerama may never have gotten any better. Wikipedia has a very good article on Cinerama including excerpts of Bosley Crowther's original NYT review.

Perhaps named for R.E. "Bob" Smith, partner of Roy Hofheinz in the Houston Sports Assoc., thus in spearheading the drive to build the Astrodome and bring Major League BB to Houston. The Handbook of Texas says at one time he owned more land in Harris County than any one else, 11,000 acres. I'm wondering if the land where the Astrodome sits and the area around there was owned by him.

Did this become Angelo's Fisherman's Wharf?, a place that had an all-you-can-eat option IIRC. That's about the right address.

I remember that one now. I knew he had more than just the one on Main and the one near Richmond. He was kind of like Pappas today -- a very famous restauranteur. His annual Capon Dinner was a big charity bash -- can't remember what it raised money for. OST was a very cool street.

Other public dance halls of the 20s and 30s included Kensington Hall and the University Club. I think both Kane and Arch Yancey came on board after KNUZ switched to Top 40. Before that, it was probably block programmed - a couple of hours of country in the afternoon might be followed by a couple of hours of easy listening music around the dinner hour, followed by something else, then maybe an hour or so of religious programs, etc.

In my research in the 20s I keep coming across mentions of the End 'O Main Dance Hall, but I don't know if that was still around in the 50s. Biff Collie worked at a number of Houston stations; KNUZ was neither the first or last. He hosted a certain up and coming singer from Memphis by the name of Elvis at the Grand Prize Jamboree at the Eagles Hall in 1955. Here are some links on Biff Collie which indicate some of the venues he hosted dances and shows at: http://www.crb.org/awards/djhf/collie.html http://www.hillbilly-music.com/programs/st...ex.php?prog=310 http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/promos/elv...byday/1955.html There were a couple of Larrys at KNUZ, I think. Larry Vance and Larry Kane. The latter also had a teen dance show on KTRK that many people thought was better than Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Thanks everybody for the info. I sure wish I had seen the three-dimensional signage and 57TBird - love that 'chicken savage' in the Rice ad! I guess that means BW's opened in 1939, according to the ad, so maybe I'll come across something on it in the old newspapers I'm reading. I'm sure the guy on the other forum isn't infallible so maybe he misremembered or it was just a typo. Maybe I'll try to rouse him - he doesn't post anymore. I'm guessing the 'skillet' just meant the chicken was skillet fried rather than deep fried like the fast food joints do today. As famous as Bill Williams was it must've been pretty good. I grew up in Lake Jackson and never ate at BW's but I always heard about it.

I can see what the post card says. I can also see that it does not depict Indians sitting cross-legged on the roof, as described in MarthaG's original post. The restaurant probably was there for a couple of decades; the post card shows it at one point in time. Restaurants have been known to change signage, menus, recipes and menu descriptions over time. In another forum a couple of years ago a fellow who seems to be very knowledgeable about Houston history, and particularly restaurants, stated that Bill Williams signature dish was Fried Chicken, savage skillet style. I was merely asking if anyone else could confirm that. The answer cannot be divined just by looking at this one post card. The connection with Indians is curious, anyway. Fried chicken is not a Native American dish.

Great illustration - postcard? Were there Indians on top of the building at one time, or just the sign? I don't think I ever saw the building; we came to town on Almeda/288, across on Holcombe, then up Fannin to Montrose, and seldom went on Main. Bill Williams had other restaurants, too. Anybody have an explanation of what 'fried chicken, savage style' meant? I've heard something from another source but would like to confirm it. Actually, I'd heard it was 'savage skillet style.'

Here's a link to a Chronicle article from May 2000 saying Westwood Technology Center would be up and running that summer. I thought it had been a little longer than that. I didn't realize the fiber optics angle; it was a small mall and wasn't doing very well and with 1st Colony Mall opening it was going to be competing with that and Sharpstown and prospects didn't look good. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/c100story.hts/...chron100/552078 The Sears store was making money so they wanted to keep it open.

Chimney Swifts? http://www.birds.cornell.edu/BOW/CHISWI/ I have geckos all over the place and I've never heard one chirp. Mine must be pretty contented. I don't think everyone's talking about the same thing.

It's further downtown than that. Only thing I can think of is 1st City National but I was thinking that didn't go up until several years after the Humble Bldg.

Yes, you are right. I was thinking that's where HPB was but was going to have to drive by to confirm it. I was in there about 20 years ago and there was an antiques shop in that space. I remember being struck by the Mezzanine and curved staircase along one side and asked the proprietress what it had been and she said a Meyer Brothers. That was probably the only time I was ever in a Meyer Bros.

To the left, Humble Bldg going up, then the Continental Oil Co. bldg; on the right you can make out Neils Esperson and the Gulf Building. What's the shiny building just to the right of center?

I don't know where it was in the 50s; my first visit was probably '61/2. The phone book listings for 1969 have the Shamrock at 6900, Valian's at 6935.

I remember Valian's being a little bit farther south of the intersection. If you came out of the circular drive in front of the Shamrock and crossed Main you went into the parking lot of Valian's, iirc. SpaceAge posted some 1969 listings in the 50s Era Med Center Hotel thread which put Valian's at 6935. By 1970, Fannin Bank was on the SE corner of the intersection; it housed a lot of Shell employees and there was a Shell station in back by the parking garage. That may be a Shell station lit up on the corner. Catty-corner to the Shamrock by the early 60s was the original Capt. Benny's, housed in a real shrimp boat, not a faux one. Benny Hienemann had been an oyster shucker at Bill Williams, just up the street. He bought a shrimp boat, hauled it to that corner (looks like a car lot in the picture), cut a hole in the side, put in a cooler and a bar and started serving oysters on the half shell, cold boiled shrimp and ice cold beer. The place was packed. My older brother tried to get me to go there one time when I visited ca. 62-3, but I wasn't having anything to do with oysters on the half shell . Fortunately I later overcame that attitude. BTW I was at the BookStop on Shepherd last week and happened to remember there used to be a Valian's take-out across the street, where the Pappas Seafood is now.

I kind of like the Sterling but it would have been way to big for Houston in that era. I wonder what happened to Ross Sterling. After he sold his shares in Humble to Standard, he went on a building and buying spree in Houston but I guess the biggest thing he ever built was the Post-Dispatch skyscraper (22 stories, Texas at Fannin, I think, now the Magnolia Hotel). I've read that when he sold the Post-Dispatch paper, it was at auction, which kind of sounds like bankruptcy. His bio in the Handbook of Texas says after he was defeated by Ma Ferguson for a second term as gov, he came back to Houston and 'built another fortune in oil.' Then there was: SW corner of Polk and Dowling, now demolished. Referred to as a red brick oven by Post staffers. The Shamrock was a bad business decision -- too far out of downtown and too big. It was never profitable. Hilton couldn't turn a profit on it. No wonder the complex never got built.

Bravo! nmainguy. Your idea doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell here in Houston, of course, but I like it. I think pineda's right: it'll be a parking lot for Reliant City, er, Park. Or a Super WalMart.

The Neighborhood Mkt on Hillcroft was formerly a Rice Epicurean and before that a regular Rice; that's been a long established location for a grocery store. That Neighborhood Mkt is much nicer than the one on S. Gessner @ W. Bellfort which was built from the ground up. Both seem to do a lot of business. There used to be a Jumbo across Fondren from the defunct Albertson's that failed and nothing in that center has ever done well, for some reason. Sure looks like there'd be enough population. There are big apartment complexes up and down Fondren and in behind Fondren Middle School, but the neighborhood further west on Braeswood, Braeburn Valley, is much like Meyerland and Maplewood in character, just a few years newer. The Albertson's was probably too big for the neighborhood, though, and I frequently encountered service problems. There'd be long lines at only a couple of registers, other employees and managers walking back and forth, and they'd never open another register. Re: the Walmart at Meyer Park. I only went one time and thought maybe I'd caught them on a bad day. It's interesting to read all the comments from others on how nasty that store is. My impression is that there's not room for a Super WM there; I hope that's true so they'll have to move if they want to expand. I guess they like the location just off the Loop.

That was the De Luxe. Sad. Thanks for the pictures; I wasn't planning on doing a tour so didn't have my camera with me.

I haven't been able to remember just where on Chenevert Liberty Hall was nor find any references to it on line. Whereever, it's gone. It may have been torn down for GRB, tho I suspect it was gone before that. The 3 or 4 blocks south of GRB are all vacant lots now, awaiting their destiny as parking lots, probably. Further south the street is a little more interesting. A shotgun house in what looks to be fair shape, a couple of bungalows, ditto, some 4-plexes and 6-plexes, plus lots of lofts and a couple of small office buildings and small industrial facilities. Too much of the old residential is already gone for my taste.

Okay, thanks. I didn't bother to look at the map; I thought I had read earlier in the thread that the one off 45 was the Bluebonnet. The location off 225 puts it closer to the one on 75th. Maybe I'll get a chance to see both of them.

The website of the church has a slide show of the interior; one shot from the stage shows the auditorium. http://www.g12houston.com/about.htm I was hoping for an exterior view. No naked people either.