mollusk

HAH!!!! Nate99, you are a wizard at digging up images. I've gotta say, this does a pretty good job of keeping and complementing the fabric of the original facade.

Well, I was close, at least. Thanks for the clarification - I'd poked around some and didn't come up with what y'all did. I remember seeing those panels and wishing someone had invented the term "fugly," not realizing at the time that we might later think the same about gauzy Quiana disco shirts with murals of Venice on them, seafoam green polyester leisure suits, and two toned platform shoes (on guys). The again, it was the mid '70s, and I was young and had undeveloped tastes.

"Raft foundation" is such a nicely evocative way to describe the slab portion of Kingdom Tower's underpinnings.

IIRC, that ugly building was Memorial Hospital.

Resist the urge to click on them. There are some commenters I choose to not read; I'm sure that there are others who avoid reading my wisdom. And so it goes.

The good news is that they are at a point of mayhem that indicates they will be finished soon. There have also been semis full of furniture, mattresses, etc. unloading recently.

What I once had, until it got stolen. Fairly heavy by today's standards, but pretty decent in its day. I kept up with town traffic on it pretty easily; then again, I was far more aerodynamic at the time.

God love him.

I'm pretty sure Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler are all still making white cars. HPD vehicles have been white for quite some time with the blue being in the form of applied decal stripes. I'm also pretty sure that the supply of blue dye for shirts has not vanished.

Underground parking in that particular location would be pretty vulnerable (remember Allison?).

When I am in places that have rail, I tend to use it. Including in Houston, where I pretty much never ride the bus. Yes, there are some skeevy people on public transit who you are very unlikely to find as passengers in your own automobile. There are also some skeevy people on the sidewalks and even in the tunnels downtown, at Target, at the grocery store, at IKEA, at school, at the mall, and at pretty much any other public place you can think of. We will not even address the Walmartians. I will acknowledge that there are also some quarters where the skeevy people may have more money and dress more nicely (often called "suburbs" or "gated communities"), but that doesn't make them any less skeevy. Gently put the talk radio down, back slowly away from it with your hands visible, and get over it.

And yet, we still don't have a historical commission trying to dictate paint colors or sidewalk placement, as some other places do... not to mention, the percentage of even inside the Loop property in a historic district is small. As said before, I think there ought to be clear rules, consistently applied. I also think it's a good idea to have a mechanism to request a variance to avoid silly results. It is also my experience that practically every builder and developer is quite convinced of the superior quality and incomparable aesthetics of his or her proposed product, even if he or she is the only person with that opinion.

I went to their web site, figured my appraised value at their rate, and calculated that their residential property tax rate is 67.5% of ours. YMMV.

It's not startlingly beautiful, but I'm also not going to join in the retch fest. I kinda like the curves and the balcony detail, but I am SO over blue glass.

Houston has certainly had its problems over time; granted, not as big as Birmingham, Watts, etc., but still they occurred. I hit teh Googelz, and one of the very first hits was http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/10563-infamous-riots-in-our-city/ , largely about the 1967 TSU riot. Some contributors to that thread still post here. I also found some materials on the Moody Park riot in 1978 here and here. I was in grad school here at the time, and those two articles pretty closely follow my recollection, though they omit mention that Phil Archer and Jack Cato, Channel 2 guys at the time, both got stabbed; Cato quite seriously. A huge difference is the contrast between HPD then and now. I'm certainly not saying that the department is perfect now, but at least it's no longer being run by our very own local version of Bull Connor, nor has it been for quite some time. What does disturb me, though, is the militarization and "bad azzing" of the force, even down to such subliminal things as black shirts and cars rather than blue.

To get back to funding roads, by tolls or otherwise... Once upon a time, most of our highways were built either out of cash flow or with bonds, either way backed by tax revenues, largely from fuel taxes. Although cars do now get better mileage than they used to, we also have more of them. Be that as it may, the gasoline tax hasn't budged in more than twenty years on either the Federal or State of Texas levels. So, let's do us some calculatin'... 1993 - Average US miles driven: 8800. Best selling truck: F150, 18 hwy mpg. Best selling car: Taurus, 30 hwy mpg. $187.73 in fuel tax for the F150, $112.64 for the Taurus, in 1993 dollars. Accounting for inflation, that's $309.53 for the F150 and $185.72 for the Taurus. 2013 - Average US miles driven: 9400. Best selling truck: F150, 23 hwy mpg. Best selling car: Camry, 35 hwy mpg. $156.94 in fuel tax for the F150, $103.13 for the Camry. Texas population in 1993, 18 million. 2013, 26.7 million. Oh, and on top of the loss of real spending power, let's not forget that The Merry Little Band in Austin and their brethern and sistern in DC have also been raiding the fuel tax revenues for other spending. If fuel taxes were indexed to inflation and actually spent as the dedicated fund that the Texas Constitution says they are, I humbly submit that our need for toll roads would be markedly reduced, and our highway maintenance standards could return to what I remember them being.

Seeing the bump on invasives just brought a couple more things to mind... If there is a good sized, independent nursery nearby, they can be an excellent resource. In particular, I'd wander by on a weekday if possible, since there will be fewer other customers to distract whomever you are consulting. (Jeepers, I miss Teas.) If you somehow have a hook to get into a local wholesale nursery, that can be a great resource. Also, even though this has so far been a relatively mild summer with a good amount of rain, I wouldn't plant anything bigger than bedding until we get into September and the first cool front comes through. Transplanting even container grown trees stresses them, and August's typical heat and dryness only add to that. Evergreens aren't quite as big a deal, but the ideal time to plant something big is when it's dormant, i.e., when the leaves are off. Most nurseries are not adding much, if any stock by this time of year. They will have big sales come October or so to make room for Christmas trees; after that the new stock will begin to arrive. Bargains can be had during those sales if you know what to look for. If you manage to wait for arrival of the new stock, hold off a bit more until after Valentine's to get past what is usually the last chance for frost in these parts. Whatever you buy, make sure that you've got an accurate estimate of how big it's going to get - not only how tall, but how wide, too - and what it will look like when it gets to that stage. I had a neighbor who ended up with a nearly impenetrable jungle because she just couldn't grok that plants actually, like, y'know, grow. When she moved away, the new folks had several weekends' worth of chainsaw parties - and five years later we're still trying to eradicate the remnants of the giant elephant ears. Another neighbor though that a ligustrum hedge would look just dandy in the 18" gap between the house and the driveway. Within a few years they were pruning almost every other week at times, and one side of the car looked like it had been in a minor accident or something. Likewise, and I know I've already mentioned this, but remember light requirements. Goofy neighbor #1 also got royally ticked off at me because a tree in my yard (that had been there for years) cast too much shade for her roses to flourish (shoot, even live) in the place she wanted to put them. Good luck.

Are you talking about those flashy light thingies on the car's corners? I thought it was illegal to use them in Houston.

Just as good builders do cosmetically good work as a matter of course, they most likely would also perform safe work as a matter of course. Likewise, a builder that will cut corners on cosmetics or material quality is entirely likely to also cut corners on structural issues that compromise the integrity of the structure. I've seen it happen. Building codes originally started as a matter of public safety, and still perform that role. However, they have also taken on a role with aesthetics in some instances, notably preservation of historic structures or districts. I will agree that having several inspectors swarm in on one isolated issue is apparently wasteful. On the other hand, ground up construction necessarily involves several inspectors, just as it requires several different types of tradespeople. As an easy example, plumbers are notorious for ignoring structural issues, and a structural inspector without training in electrical likely would make a hash of that inspection. As other posters have pointed out, there are also some builders that require being hit over the head with a 2x4 to get their attention; a stop all work order is the functional equivalent of that. Finally, and at the risk of overstating what ought to be obvious, I am not defending petty jackasses, who unfortunately nevertheless exist all around us in all walks of life.

Since Skanska tends to self fund projects and is already taking down the Houston Club building, I strongly suspect you will get your wish. As best as I can map out, there will be a somewhat unobstructed view corridor in the vicinity of the 10/45 merge, as well as here and there coming down 59/69 (generally those places from which you can currently see Pennzoil or Esperson, though it's going to pretty much tuck behind Pennzoil once you get even with the post office). The blockers that aren't already there are the Market Square project that's getting its foundation dug right now to the north/northwest, and the Marriott/6 Houston/CoC project to the east.

Good question, considering the problems we've had with METRO's bumbling, the lack of transparency at the tollroad authority, and the Cabal of Cronies that appears to make up the Planning and Development board. Added to this, it's going to be a huge problem getting the various existing entities to give up some of their current turf - which is what would have to happen if it's going to be effective rather than just another layer of gummint. Somehow, I doubt that a Miami Dade style merger could get much traction in this neck of the woods; but thinking out loud, perhaps a merger of the tollroad authority and METRO might get there, tossing in Houston's P & D and its counterparts for good measure. I've heard of a process called an "election" that allows the public itself to participate in the vetting. Having those boards answer to voters rather than being insulated from them can't hurt.

That may well be, but Harris County is gradually becoming bluer. I also think that Abbott in the age of the Tea Party is a much more polarizing figure than early Rick Perry was. Wendy Davis likely has as much name recognition as Bill White did; either of them have more recognition than Ron Kirk did around here. As for '06, I doubt that even Chris Bell's mom could have gotten excited about him.

BMW has dealerships on 45 at 1960 and just south of 242, both of which are Autonation stores. Neither seems to be hurting for business.

A lot can change between now and then, but I'm not seeing it.

I hadn't really focused on it before, but Skanska's Capitol Tower is going to be all but buried from a lot of angles.