nyc_tex

Yeah,

It won't happen naturally, then it shouldn't move forward.

The beauty of Houston development is that is happens without zoning in a natural way. Zoning would be man interfering.

I guess "man" is not natural? May be women are natural and men are cyborgs.

Interesting.

Great photos, Kaysh Shinn of the old Cab Voltaire. Was that the Black Flag show at the International Club on Westheimer?

I know I saw them there as with the Minutemen.

I actually used to rehearse in that warehouse. I think the first 3 floors are kind of musician lockouts for band practice, and the top level had people living in it. Very interesting place.

Me too. We had a practice room there in the early 1990's. Occasionally, those living in the top floor would get drunk and start shooting the building across the street.

Someone may have already pointed this out, but the guy with the Mohawk is Christian Armheiter (sp?) He was/is the lead singer/guitarist for The Hates, a Houston punk band that dates back to about 1978 or so. Haven't seen him in years....cool that he still has the hawk.

Here's a link:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/mu...al/4009595.html

What about tha BEST ONE ? Reality BITES . . .(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110950/)

Reality Bites was filmed on one of the streets behind Cecil's on W. Grey.

Rush was filmed in and around Houston. One of the notable scenes was filmed in a fourplex in Montrose.

A friend lived there years ago and there were pictures all over the walls from the filming.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102820/

Many scenes from Arlington Road were filmed on the UH campus.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137363/

Consolidated Arts Warehouse on Montrose is different from Commerce Street. If you go down Montrose and would go under the SW freeway, it was immediately after the freeway going south toward the MFAH.

Another important Punk club in Houston's history was not too far away at Main and the SW freeway, where a Wendy's now stands. It was called The Rock Island.

I don't recall seeing the BH Surfers at either of these locations, but that certainly doesn't mean they didn't play there. I am sure they did. One of my more favorite Surfers shows was at the Meceba Theater at Richmond and Main. 85 or so....

Sign is down, building is gone... I'm assuming it's dead for the time being. 1.5 million for that lot too - eeef Last I heard, the big issue for midrise buildings in the area was waiting on the city to install an upgraded sewer system, but that would involve tearing up some streets (old ones that still have the original brick under them) on the north side of West Gray. I'm getting all of this 2nd hand from the former owner of my townhouse on West Gray. He was very active in the Midtown area and attended many of the city council meetings, etc... that concerned West Gray, Webster and Bagby. He was one of the people instrumental in getting the Hispanic Beer Joint on the corner of Genessee and West Gray shut down and destroyed. I don't really remember it, but apparently it was a terrible eyesore and constant cause of problems in the area.

I know....damn those Hispanics for wanting to live and have entertainment options there.....didn't they know that gentrification is occurring and they need to leave now that the wealthy whites have moved back into the city? They are not an eyesore when they are building the cheap town homes, but they should certainly know to leave after they get off work....

It took Philly forever to build structures this tall. Philly's skyline has been short for some time now until recently. It's honestly about time Philly started to build structuers this tall. Philly was patient and Houston will have to be as well and it looks like they are. You don't need to build supertalls for nothing.

I believe the reason Philly has such a short skyline is because they had a law on the books disallowing any buildings to vertically exceed the height of the William Penn Statue on the city hall building. By the time they changed that, many of the major corporations had relocated when skyscrapers took off in the 70's.

Wow neat... it's so... un-Texas.

Really?

http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Annu...ngs_041107.html

Was a movie theater formerly in this building? I remember seeing a film in this area back in '92. If I remember correctly, it was also underground.

If so, where was it?

There sometimes seems to be a somewhat moralistic tone when people talk about avoiding Houston weather and the tunnel system in particular. Is it really somehow better to be outside? Does it impart backbone or something? I would agree that you can almost totally avoid outside weather in Houston better than in almost any other city I know, but I never felt there was anything wrong about that. I suspect that if it werent' the case, it would be a lot smaller city.

Impart backbone? Yes. Many Houstonians are pusses, as a consequence. Granted, I suspect many are transplants.

Is it better to be outside? Yes.

I thought that, too, at first. But replacing 3 blocks (and the public space between them) with a shopping mall (entirely private space) isn't just a shopping mall in downtown. I see people here who are excited about it because it will be like downtown, but better. It will be cleaner, safer, denser, happier, something. It's not as blatant as Sugar Land's Town Center, but it's part of the same movement. They are replacing public space with private space. They are building a downtown ride.

You can (legally) take photographs from public sidewalks. You can't inside malls. People have no right to "peaceably assemble" in a shopping mall.

"Pomo" isn't dead. By its very 'nature' it can't die. Maybe as a style of architecture or other art forms, but the possibly of a postmodern period or a 'postmodern' culture doesn't 'die'. It may be replaced.

One of Eco's articles in Travels of Hypermodernity, as I recall, looks at the facsimile of LBJ's oval office that is in the LBJ Library in Austin. Intriguing analysis.

Although I agree that much of America is ostensibly becoming private 'space' this is not a new phenomena. Many spaces today that are theoretically 'public' were initially constructed as private space for select populations (i.e. city parks, museums, trains, ect....).

In some ways, space has become radically democratized in the last 150 years.

I'll take Dick over Baudrillard any day. (That's Philip K. Dick, not the other kind.) He saw Disneyland as one of the most frightening places on earth. Your America might be the map, but mine is still America. Don't eat the menu.

I'm just referencing the guy who is considered the seminal figure in postmodernism. That's all.

Besides maybe CW Mills who used the word first in 1959. Or Daniel Bell who termed 'post-industrialism' in the early 70s.

JB wrote the menu of the menu, not me. Don't go on a hunger strike because your tasteless food came from McDonalds.

My problem is the replacement of life by simulacra. House of Blues is a perfect example, and Houston Pavilions will be another. Phil's being replaced by 59 Diner is probably the canonical example. Did you ever eat at Phil's?

What's a more rewarding experience: playing Guitar Hero 3, or playing a guitar?

Just about anything that wasn't an inside-out mall, I guess.

Quit developing, I suppose, maybe get a job providing a more direct service? I'm no expert on developers.

I don't like the tenants, but that isn't really what I'm saying.

No, everything new isn't automatically artificial. New things that try to look like old things are artificial. Things that mediate direct experience, that mimic things they aren't, that "give the impression of an urban city", those new things are artificial.

Cool. Maybe "BACK IN BLACK" will play there. They're an AC/DC tribute band playing the HOB in Dallas. It's probably as good as the real thing.

In the world of PM, everything is simulacrum in some sort of pastiche. Using Borges' old metaphor, the map replaced the 'real' place long, long ago......America is intrinsically 'the map.'

No distinction between older versus newer. The brownstone that I live in, which was built in 1870, is no different the House of Blues, any of the current or future locations.

All objects and signs are copies of other copies of other copies for where there was no original...and thus is truth or the hyperreal.

Consequently, according to the Jean Baudrillard (Grand papa of PM), Disney is actually the 'most real and authentic' thing in America.

Real blue cheese burgers don't have salad dressing on them. They have crumbled blue cheese.

I was working at CSAW in the early to mid 90s and we would come down there often to eat.

Burgers, pool and Dixie beer out on the courtyard in the back. Nice combination.

Sorry to hear about the owner.

RIP Ramones.....I got to see them a number of times both here and in Austin. Most interesting show was around '90 or '91 when they played at The Unicorn Ballroom. It was a converted Safeway supermarket on East Crosstimbers, mostly used for Latino Quincineras (sp?). A new act from Chicago, Smashing Pumpkins, opened the show, middle act was co-headliner Social Distortion, followed by the Ramones. Gabba Gabba Hey!

Spent a few New Year's Eves at Liberty Hall as well as catching Kinky Friedman and the Jewboys. Before one concert he and the Jew Boys performed a whole set on KPFT for Huey Meaux which I recorded on an old reel-to-reel that I need to find. The Kinkster spent a good amount of time kidding several Baylor Med students who showed up at the studio.

The Island was just a tad before my time, but I did make it to Cab. Voltaire and a few other mid 80s Punk clubs (e.g. Pic 'n Pack, Consolidated Arts Warehouse, Lawndale, Cafe Mode)

Wasn't the Omni another?

The Ramones at Liberty Hall:

The Ramones at somewhere in Houston in '78

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-yDdwLDjMU

Really Red at the Island

Thanks for these pics. I vaguely recall my mother taking us there in the mid to late 70's. What I remember the most was an ice cream shop we would stop by on almost every trip. I want to think the decor and ambiance fashioned an older style ice cream parlor.

The only other memory is of my mother loosing the diamond from her engagement ring somewhere in Westbury Sq. She franticly looked everywhere but to no avail.

I don't think I have been out there since the early 90's. For those of us out of town and rarely back in Houston, thanks for the walk down memory lane.

Sad to see the area in such disrepair.

100 yrs ago cars weren't a real transportation option for most.

You're absolutely right, but in Manhattan, a horse and buggy was no less efficient than a car is today.

Let us not forget that the streetcar system that was omnipresent in almost all cities in the early 20th century were successfully lobbied against by the oil/gas and motor companies to tear up and put in buses. It had much more to do with money than efficiency or practicality. Suburban sprawl was a product of the automobile, not the other way around.

Image combined with the federal subsidy is why light rail lines continue to be built. METRORail makes no sense otherwise. It is no more useful than buses at far greater cost.

Most freeways are built exclusively with federal and state funds.

I'm glad NYC or Chicago didn't have your perspective 100 years ago. The only problem with starting a mass train system in Houston is that it wasn't done 25 years ago. The demographic shift from the NE to the South and West is only going to continue along with continued increases of foreign migration into the area.

City planning is exactly that, planning for the future, more so than the present. With another 4-5 million in Houston metro in the next 50-100 years, there are only so many freeways that can be built. Proactive and perseverance.

Did you know a guy from those Catacomb days named Stephen Hammond?

I interviewed him for my 1960s Texas Music website here.

Anyone here remember the "Jester lounge"....apparently down in Montrose somewhere? The Old Quarter downtown as well?

That PUF was created in 1876. How come all the governors before him aren't being held accountalbe for not changing the system?

I don't think you will find anyone relegating all the blame on Perry. Previous governors and congressional members are responsible as well, but the problem with that logic is they are no longer in power and currently can do nothing to change it. He has had many opportunities to ameliorate these inequalities and has done little to nothing to change the historical course of action. He has only perpetuated it.

While that's very unfair, it doesn't validate his point that the Governor gives more money to A&M just because he's an alumni.

If you require an overt confession from Captain Hairdo that his motivation for vetoing legislation that would provide UH and TT extra funding and turning around and giving 2x the amount to a PUF school is motivated by political or personal prejudices then continue to hold firmly to your skepticism. He's not be very bright, but he's isn't that dumb.

Their myopic focus on keeping A&M and UT #1 and #2 in the state academically and athletically for public institutions, is ultimately hurting the vast majority of Texans. It's really quite childishly selfish.

Let us not displace any piece of this socio-historical narrative.....UH has been viewed with extreme prejudice and disdain by alumni from A&M and UT for decades now, much of which has been due to the ethnic and racial diversity at UH and its more working class orientation. I couldn't tell you how many times I have heard "coogro high" coming from the mouths of the aforementioned alumni.

Yeah.. you have no clue what the heck you are talking about.

It's called the Century Tree... it's old.. it's big...people get engaged under it... thats all.

It's not the one in front of the Academic Buiding. It's behind Northgate and I am going on what was conveyed to me by quite a few students. So, if I have incorrect information, the indoctrination process at A&M is losing it's tight grip.

But even if it's untrue, there are a multitude of other verifiable circumstances that exemplify my point just as poignantly.

Gig'em.

Actually, an Aggie is any person who has ever attended a class at Texas A&M, it doesn't have anything to do with graduation.

This statement show what little you know about Texas A&M. You're taking 10% of what Texas A&M is and generalizing it to include all Aggies. There is actually very little difference in the students that attend Texas A&M, Texas, OU, <insert any other big school here>...

I completed a graduate degree at A&M. I will certainly confirm the degree of ideological and ethnic homogeny is greater amongst the undergraduate student body at A&M than any other university I have taught at or been on. But granted my perspective is probably skewed and less credible, for I went to UH.

And I am far from being an Aggie.

Any school that cherishes "the hanging tree" deserves the prejorative and provincial assocations it gets. And they wonder why minorities don't want to attend the school.