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H-Town Man

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Everything posted by H-Town Man

  1. H-Town Man
  2. H-Town Man
    Hmmm... could it have been the Schlumberger park on I-45 S?
  3. H-Town Man
    Wow, thanks H2B. Can you tell me anything else about it?
  4. H-Town Man
    Okay, here's one for you oldtimers. My dad tells me about a Jersey cattle farm and dairy on the location of present day Jersey Village. You went there and saw them milking cows, and then you could eat ice cream made from the cows that they had just milked. If anyone remembers or can tell me more about this, I'll be impressed.
  5. H-Town Man
    Don't forget San Fransisco. You could eat off the sidewalks in San Fransisco.
  6. H-Town Man
    I remember that place... my cousin had every birthday there for a while. Personally, I could take it or leave it. It was like an amusement park inside a warehouse. There were the bumper cars on the left, some slides it seems in the middle, a big He-Man virtual reality type thing in the middle where you went through these rooms and shot laser guns (ok, that was kind of cool), a putt-putt golf course, some of those bb guns where you try to shoot away the red circle on the target (impossible), a big video arcade on the right, and it seems like a big skating rink in the back. I think all of that stuff was at Fame City - I might be mixing and matching from other places. Can't believe I remember all that. This one is more recent - anyone ever go to Physical Whimsical, at 249 and 1960, in the Mervyn's shopping center? What about Games People Play? There were like three water slides, and I remember one time one of them was closed down. I heard that some kid had cut his back going over one of the seams between the sections of the slide, and from that day on I was terrified to ride down any water slide, anywhere. Oh, last but not least... did anyone ever go out to the Oil Ranch? I think it was off of 290, near either Waller or Hempstead. There was a u-pick-em pumpkin patch, paddleboats, cows you could milk, and a big barn full of hay with rope swings and stuff. You felt like the Bobbsey Twins after it was all over. Very cool.
  7. H-Town Man
    Great info from our correspondent downtown. I love the part about overhearing the conversation on MetroRail about the UH expansion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the SE corner of Fannin and Congress the old courthouse?
  8. H-Town Man
    The Fuermann books are great, aren't they? Some of the pictures in them are fantastic. About half of the ones you find are autographed, so he must have signed like crazy. The titles are extravagant: "Houston: Land of the Big Rich," "Houston: The Once and Future City," and the pictures and drawings reflect so much optimism and bravado. That must have been a great time to live in Houston.
  9. H-Town Man
    For anyone who has just joined this conversation, I want to sum up all the intelligible information that has been given over the last four pages, to spare you the trouble of reading through all of it: 1. A developer has announced a mixed-use project called Houston Pavilions, to be built on three blocks of downtown land running east from Main St. across from the Courtyard by Marriott. 2. The project may include office space, but it probably won't, since the vacancy is so high. 3. There might be a Virgin Megastore, or there might not. 4. The developer might be breaking ground this fall, or it may be in 2006, or there may be no planned groundbreaking. 5. It may benefit The Park Shops. Or it may not. 6. The developer is probably going to get this done in Houston, since he did it in Denver. 7. But regardless of whether he gets it done, downtown Houston is just getting started, so there's no doubt we'll be seeing a lot of cool stuff in five or ten years. There, I think that covers everything.
  10. H-Town Man
    Only one I really regret not having is that tall one in Houston Center, and maybe the second half of United Bank Plaza. Bank of the Southwest and Block 283 were great, but would have been out of scale. The Philip Johnson one was just plain ugly. I wonder if he was also the architect on the Main @ Congress building - it looks like his proposed buildings for Times Square. Good thing that didn't go up either - it would have taken out some of our best historic buildings. I wonder what the original plan for Cullen Center was like?
  11. H-Town Man
    I've got 8mm film of Astroworld in the late 60's, when it first opened. I wonder if people would be interested in something like that. As a child, I was traumatized when they changed Hannah Barbera Land to Splashtown. Long after I had forgotten about Hannah Barbera Land, there was something that seemed evil about Splashtown - bad vibes you might say. Now I remember why. It's great to see HAI Forumers exploring their inner child. I wonder if somebody has broken out bawling over this thread.
  12. H-Town Man
    Subdude, this is great. I am flattered that my idea had something to do with the creation of this "project," but I never could have done what you have in making it a reality. For once I feel like this site could be something more than just a bunch of bored malcontents spouting off their views about architecture. As you build on this and other people contribute, we really could build a significant resource for historic Houston on the web - THE resource for historic Houston on the web. Bravo.
  13. H-Town Man
    You know, this just begs to be pointed out... how appropriate for Montrose that the love of these two men would help make the museum there a better place. Hopefully more ex-partners of Philip Johnson will emerge to make bequests to the collection there.
  14. H-Town Man
    I guess y'all read Sarnoff's column, about JP Morgan Chase consolidating their downtown offices? They merged with Bank One, which means elimination of space. They are cancelling on two leases, opening up 250,000 sf downtown.
  15. H-Town Man
    How diversified we are. Every company looks energy related except three. Those three are an airline, a garbage company and a food service company. Exotic, to say the least. A few years ago we could point to Compaq Computer and American General. Not anymore. Also, wasn't BMC Software on there? We are especially weak in the Top 100. Remember when Enron, Reliant Energy, Dynegy, and El Paso were all in the top 50? Altogether we had I believe six companies in the top 50. Not no more. I really hope Continental Airlines, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon do not get swallowed in mergers. It could happen though. That would be rather depressing for the Bayou City.
  16. H-Town Man
    Or maybe they're just messing around with us, and don't really intend to do anything, like every other high rise developer in the city of Houston.
  17. H-Town Man
    You'd think we were sinking under the ocean or something.
  18. H-Town Man
    Does it strike anyone as funny that the number of downtown skyscrapers remains the same, and yet... we keep adding new parking garages???
  19. H-Town Man
    Nothing... we're just passing the time until they announce groundbreaking.
  20. H-Town Man
    Did the Walgreen's on Main have a liquor section? I used to shop at the last remaining Walgreen's with a liquor section in the country, on 55th St. and Lake Park, Chicago, IL. That place was Ghetto with a capital 'G'. You would see the bums hanging around outside at 10 AM, with bottles in brown paper bags. They would drink in the daytime before heading to work at night, panhandling college students. There was also a grocery store next door with a basement liquor section, and enough customers in that neighborhood to bring good business to both.
  21. H-Town Man
    I didn't even realize they were gone. I am still scarred from childhood days when my mom would take me there and I would have to find some way to entertain myself for an hour and a half. Usually I ended up walking along the tiled walkway of the store over and over, trying only to step on certain tiles (this is how you develop OCD, by the way). This was also the case when we went to Mervyn's, but there they had a circular walkway that went around, so it was a bit more interesting. Hey Subdude, there's another idea for your downtown retail district - Mervyn's. We'll call it "Subdude Pavilions," and it'll have Target, Stein Mart, Mervyn's, Sears Hardware, Family Dollar, and maybe a Luby's. Houston Pavilions won't have a chance once this thing goes up.
  22. H-Town Man
    Yeah man, I'm with you on the Target. If we could just get that, a Stein Mart, and maybe a Weiner's, downtown'll really be hoppin'.
  23. H-Town Man
    LOL
  24. H-Town Man
  25. H-Town Man
    For almost anything you propose doing with the Astrodome, it would be cheaper to build a whole new building in a different location than to convert the Astrodome to that use. This includes homeless shelters, fitness centers, high school sports stadiums, transit centers, amusement parks, etc. It's like taking that old Chevy van that grandpa's had sitting next to the garage for twenty years, and trying to convert it into a fuel-efficient hybrid car. You're better off just buying a new hybrid car. The only reason to reuse the Astrodome is if whatever you're using it for uniquely incorporates the Astrodome in some way - if it's an original idea that's appropriate to the Astrodome and couldn't be done anywhere but the Astrodome. My idea was to build a Museum of Modern Technology, with airplanes, space rockets, etc., kind of like our own Smithsonian, and devote a section of it to showing the role that technology has played in Houston, particularly with space exploration. The idea being that the most prized piece in the museum's collection would be the museum itself - the actual building. Most tourists who visit Houston do so to see NASA; this could be the next thing on their itinerary.
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