Purpledevil

@IronTiger I think the 1700 West Loop South address is accurate, Tiger. Seems there was a Wolfe there, and the HPD horse stables were next door. Getting to be too many years. @Specwriter You know, you've really jogged the ol' memory. I believe you are dead on with your memory. It sat on the east side of 45 right before West Gulf Bank, not too far past Canino. I believe the new Auto Nation facility has been built where the nursery once stood. Prior to the new Auto Nation, that was where Fred Fincher Motors stood for umpteen years.

@TimoricThere was once a place on Richmond Avenue that was called the Trail Dust Steakhouse. They'd cut off your tie and nail it to the wall if you wore one inside.

According to my ancient but always reliable Humble Oil map, 45 stopped just south of the present day North Loop. It was then designated as U.S. 75, sans the I-45 designation, then jogged slightly west to Airline Drive and then continued on south to N. Main. From there, U.S. 75 proceeded down N. Main to Houston Ave. and then turned south down Houston Ave. to Washington and then turned east into downtown. South on Bagby to Pease, which curved into what appears to be a brief 4-6 lane road until Scott St., at which point it reappears on the map as I-45. I can tell you with near certainty, that there was no Interstate 45/U.S. 75 signage left on Houston Ave., N. Main, Airline, or Bagby when I was growing up in the 70's. Edit to add: I-45 had the dual U.S. 75 designation until at least the late 1980's. Much like the present day 69/59 set up. U.S. 75 always ran the length of present day I-45 since I have been around.

Given what I remember of the café and waterfalls, I'd be pretty certain it was all demo'ed when management renovated the mall in the late 80's. That's when the ficus and all of the cool sculptures were removed from the corridors, and my favorite water feature in front of Montgomery Ward's met its demise. It used to fill up with water on one end, dump the water when full, and raise up on the other end striking a brass pipe that let out the most beautiful gong. The walled up area near the skylights would be too high to conceal the stairs. The skylights were there from the beginning, and cascaded sunlight down onto the center court and subsequent café area. Ah, yes. The days when Greenspoint was still classy. What predated Target at Memorial City Mall was Montgomery Ward's. It was an old dookie brown colored building that simply screamed 1970. Indeed, it too had a second floor. Sat right across the mall corridor from the recruitment offices for the Armed Forces, and oh yeah, the best Whataburger that Memorial has ever known.

For those of you out there that like their rock music on the harder side, Houston has gained its first hard rock station since 1995 when Z-Rock 106.9 left the airwaves. Introducing the all new KHMX-HD2 "HarD Rock 96.5". As announced on Mike McGuff's BlogSpot. http://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2017/11/hard-rock-96-5-hd2-houston-radio.html

The mall itself was only 1 level, Tiger. There once was a second floor in the center court, which was originally a café. Each of the department stores had a second floor, i.e. Lord & Taylor, Montgomery Ward's, J.C. Penney's, Joske's, Foley's, and Sears. Sears & Joske's closed off their second floors off first. As of today, there isn't a second floor open to the public anywhere within the entirety of Greenspoint.

I see now. Looks like I'm the one who needed some clarification, Ross. Could you PM me a link of where you went to obtain this information on 290's infancy, Tiger? I distinctly remember a divided highway after Mangum, and I want to say it ran clear up to Cypress. After Cypress, the median went away and that old section of 290 (now business 290) is what it became afterwards. 290 in Houston, as I recall, was built in the median directly between the two double lane roads around 1981, maybe 1982. Now, I'm a little nuts, but I don't think I've taken the dive off into the deep end of crazy yet. My folks used this route to get to my grandparent's place in Bellville, and this would have been in the 70s. I didn't start taking the I-10 to Texas 36 route to get to granddaddy's until I was driving myself in the mid 80s. Gracias, mi amigo. Edit to add: Never mind, I see you linked the map in your post above. Have you ever found anything further on the more northern portions of the Northwest, between 8 and 34th? I know you have become quite the encyclopedia of knowledge on that particular highway since the construction began.

Neat map, Ross. Thanks for posting that. The inquisitive side of me wonders what the HLSR had in mind for use of that property originally? Headquarters, I presume? Just to keep the good Tiger up to speed, Northwest Freeway is actually U.S. 290 not Texas 288. Looks like a simple typo by our fellow HAIFer Ross, but I thought that might need a little clarification. Edit to add: As an aside, it's interesting to me to see the map use the term "Northwest Freeway" and to see the freeway laid out in full over Dacoma. The Northwest Freeway was merely a stub that terminated at Dacoma (perhaps it was at Mangum?) up until I was in my late teens. Interesting to note that this map, which would predate the expansion of U.S. 290 past the original stub by some 15 years, shows a full fledged freeway already planned out, documented, and mapped in 1967, when it didn't actually exist at the time.

1972, I do believe, was when Humble became Exxon. So, you'd be right on about the Humble listing. Nice find, Tiger.

4400-4550 Dacoma St. 24 acres in total. Demolished building was 254,566 square feet, built in 1976 by Exxon. Latest appraised value of land that I could find through HCAD was $31,905,156. The entire complex apparently took 5 years to build, with 1971 showing as the initial ground breaking.

Post of the Year candidate is what we've got right here, folks. Well said, cspwal!

That would be eerily reminiscent of Town & Country's last days, with the mall gone and Marshall Field's building becoming the only remnant of what once was there. Having grown up with Northwest, it would be yet another loss of something from the childhood days, but so is the price of progress. I documented my last trip to the mal here on the HAIF, and I'm sure the pictures are floating around here somewhere. It wasn't even worthy of being deemed a shell of its former glory at that point in time. Quite depressing. It's really a shame that Almeda and Northwest are identical. Someone with a vision saw fit to save Almeda, yet Northwest (and its nearly identical footprint to Almeda) has seemingly been deemed unworthy of a revamp. Oh well, the wrecking ball will never demolish all of the memories that I hold for Northwest Mall. R.I.P. old friend. I will never forget the butt whipping I received for running away from my mother in a mad dash away from Penney's and in to Foley's so I could get on that kid's shoes department's boat more quickly than the old lady could get across that mall. It was worth every welt.

@j_cuevas713 Any new word on Thompson's Antiques? I understood they were leasing the old Penney's box and weren't going anywhere, after being pushed out of their longtime home down on Old Katy Rd. for the freeway expansion. Could it be that the mall and the old Foley's meet the wrecking ball, while the Antique Center remains in place with a new "Northline Commons concept" in the rest of the mall's current footprint?

Well, if it ultimately turns into a bar, the old church will surely make for some fantastic photo opportunities of lightning strikes.