mollusk

I just got a push email that Moku Bar is now open at 2914 White Oak, which you get to via the alley between Pho Binh and Tacos A Go Go.

2 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

I don't recall ever seeing signage that said parking is free after 6:00

The old school parking meters had a message to that effect inside the little window that showed how much time was left.  The new meters just won't accept payment.

12 hours ago, C2Ag93 said:

I'm still perplexed by my dad's use of "Houston 1"

77001 is only used for PO boxes; downtown street addresses are 77002 (or 77010 for the Houston Center / DG / GRB area).  Given NASA's mission it's difficult to imagine letting its mail get outside of secure channels, so direct pickup from the post office or perhaps dedicated delivery makes sense.

20 minutes ago, Luminare said:

60's chic in terms of interiors.

More like 30s deco with the plants someone stole from a Chotchkie's - but it does have flair.

Houston Museum of Natural Science?

Cotija works pretty well - it's a crumbly hard white cheese.  Try the mole enchiladas at La Mexicana - they come with cotija.

All four cars are '65s - Catalina, Catalina, Tempest, and the grille of a Ford (most likely Galaxie).

That was in my prime car spotting days - I could even tell what year a given VW Beetle was. 🤷‍♂️

"Do you have it in chartreuse and pumpkin?"  Seriously, that was my stock response to any salesman insisting that the whatzit could be configured anyway one wanted.

If you're asking about the one to the left of the Humble (Exxon) Building, in front of the old downtown Y, it's the Humble Building's garage.  It's still there.

It's more stable than it looks...

Houston is built on layers of sand and clay.  How far down the transition is between a sand layer and a clay layer varies, even within a block, and different soils have different bearing capacities.  Ground water also enters into the calculations if it's there.

In which case you should also know that Critical Mess no longer starts at Market Square. 

Short term memory... it's the second thing to go.

Rather than having a giant concrete moat around downtown I'd just as soon all the freeways be reduced to stubs with business designations, and if we need to have through signage just post it to any of our ring roads.  That's what a lot of cities in other countries do, and it helps congestion.  We had a real life experiment with that in San Francisco, where traffic improved when the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down due to earthquake damage, repeated more recently when they tore down the Central Freeway north of Market.  (IMHO they ought to finish the job and replace it with regular surface streets all the way down to the 80.)

Actually it's one of Crock's recovered threads.

2 hours ago, cspwal said:

I've met a lot of people IRL who think the train has no riders and just disrupts traffic.  I guess people remember the one article from when it opened and that's the conventional wisdom, even when the red line is running as many trains as possible at rush hour to accommodate the riders

Along with the people IRL who refuse to ride the train because they're "afraid [they'll] get knifed" (verbatim quotation). 🤷‍♂️

Central Market and HEB also have bulk spices in bins so you can get what you need for waaaaaaay less money.  Even though the price may be marked as some huge amount, it ends up being a buck or less (sometimes much less) when you scoop your seasoning into a little bitty ziplock bag.  People basically are paying several bucks for the bottle, which ends up holding much more than generally will be used in the next few months.

FWIW, the ponding issue is something that whoever paid for the parking lot should drum on the contractor about.  Whether it's a permeable surface or not doesn't make much of a difference - poor drainage is poor drainage.

fruit juice beer, peanut butter beer...

2 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

I really don't want to continue the ridiculously off-topic reminiscing of times past, but I have to ask:  What exactly does it mean to have been "stampeded out of there"?

Essentially it was a panic reaction to the erosion of a more or less apartheid society.  It was a time when people who supported integration were often referred to as "(slur) lovers," sometimes with spray paint (or worse) - and that was here.  Other places in the deep South were even worse; some still are.  To be sure, there was also an element of not wanting to go from comfortable majority status to being in the minority for fear of being on the receiving end of what had been dished out.

My last comment, too, to get back on topic.

16 hours ago, Luminare said:

 

You are doing exactly what I just said. Looking at an incredibly specific example, and then cherry picking data as if its a 1 to 1 correlation. That is an incredibly oversimplification of the matter. Not to mention its a bit disingenuous to make a broad claim that all of these people will react or respond to the impetus to leave. Not all people in a classified group think alike whether white or black. I'm sure there were some that did leave because they were genuinely racist, but also for many other reasons. Some people just leave when other people within their "in-group" also leave an area and some people do attach that "in-group" preference to their race, unfortunately, but its not like black people don't do the same or any other group. People typically like to live next to people that are similar to them. Not to mention the highways themselves were the main cause of "flight" in the first place because it allowed for greater mobility and the ability to live further from town yet also feel closer due to the highway. This is much more complicated matter than just simply...house of black guy targeted by a select group of racists which then leads to 92% of a particular race to flee. That is an enormous leap in logic that borders on conspiratorial. You have not built a solid enough case to make that argument and quite frankly nobody really has and its why I'm very skeptical of the concept of "white flight" in the first place. This focus on race in every issue is ridiculous. Its just not that important to people as it is often portrayed either back at that time or especially now. The 1950's till the 1970's was an incredibly economically prosperous time which saw the increasing mobility for many not due primarily to race, but due to economics and a shift national values and trends.

It's wonderful that the pervasive racism and bigotry I grew up with is inconceivable to people who grew up afterwards.  Still, it was most assuredly "a thing." 

From the late 50s until 1967 or 68 my grandparents lived a couple blocks from the intersection of Calhoun and Griggs.  It was a neighborhood that looked exactly like Oak Forest and postwar Bellaire used to - smallish one story 3/2 ranches, most with attached one car garages, as white as a box of rice and solidly middle class.  You didn't get into the wards until north and west of TSU.  The first shopping mall in Houston was Gulfgate, and Palms Center (anchored by JC Penney) was built about the same time.  And until 1964, racist deed restrictions were common and enforced.

They had a "This is my home.  It is not for sale!" sign in their yard (follow the link in Crock's post above).  Nevertheless, they got stampeded out of there over to a very similar house in Sharpstown, and took a beating on the sale price, when the neighborhood went from solid white to almost entirely black over the course of just a couple years.  So yeah, it really was "that important to people... back at that time."

Personally I would have voted for stone of some sort on the spandrels, as well as having the base facade forward of the upper curtain wall rather than lined up with the indentations.

The Parking District lives

Just sayin'

On 10/8/2019 at 1:48 AM, Urbannizer said:

Retail brochure for The Preston:

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/transwestern-property/Flyers/ee24f0ac-addf-e911-80f5-caa232701e1a/The Preston_Brochure Final.pdf

1 hour ago, cougarpad said:

Still trying to figure out how much of the skyline this new tower is going to block from Market Square's sky deck and pool. Would suck to have paid rent for the amenities in Market Square including the scenery to now have it obstructed. 

Based on the brochure link Urb posted, not much.