mike1

Thanks for the link. I'm glad to know someone wasn't pulling my leg. I must not look that gullible after all!!!

Interesting pictures. Does anyone know if this building used to have a sign on the top of it, perhaps in the '50's or '60's? If so, does anyone have a picture? I've heard that it used to have a circular rotating sign on top and was referred to as "The Lollopop." Pilots used it to navigate at night. The story sounds plausible, but is just bizarre enough that it could be an urban myth.

Rennovation at the Park Shops has been going on for the past couple of years, although most of the initial exterior work appears to have been done to the west end of the complex. (Personally, I'm glad to see that the ca. '80's Rainbow Piping is gone from the interior, though!). It would be great if they do open up the East side as well-- it always felt like the complex was barracading itself from that direction, as if the management didn't want people coming over from the George R. Brown to shop and eat. Hopefully, they'll rectify that problem.

I know this subject is way off topic, but history is my passion! Here's a picture taken from almost the exact same location in 1921 when the Erie Canal ran where the street is today. You can see the building in the background with the pointed roof (which I believe is city hall) in both the old and new pictures. In the new photo, it's directly behind the Times Square Building. Rochester could have been the San Antonio of the North...what a shame!!! Lesson for Houston: HISTORIC PRESERVARION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!

Yeah...it was actually in a historically significant part of town when it was built, but most of the buildings around it were destroyed in the 1950's to make way for an inner loop expressway and a Communistic looking War Memiorial and Civic Center complex. In the 1930's through the 1950's the building actually had a subway station in the basement, until the subway itself was shut down in order to build the expressway. (With a 1950's population of around 300,000, Rochester was--I believe--at the time the smallest city in the country with a working subway line. The subway itself actually ran in the bed of the old Erie Canal, which ran through the center of the city until around the 1920's and is now the current route of I-490). Houston isn't the only city with a bad habit of destroying its own history and neglecting mass transit!

Exactly. Austin seems to be snobby in a way that's all out of proportion to its status in life. They seem to think they got some unique cultural mix going on over there, but all I've ever seen driving into Austin on 71 or 290 is the same strip center development that I saw leaving Houston three hours earlier on I-10 or 290. Nothing unique about that! My wife has friends from college who live in Austin and take every opportunity to bash it over our heads about how great, wonderful, unique, out-of-the-mainstream, etc...ect...etc...blah...blah..blah...Austin is. After several years of this, we finally decided to show them some of the finer points about living in Houston. They came over a weekend, and on Saturday we took the new state-of-the-art light rail from Main Street Station to Hermann Park and spent the day going to Houston's world-class art, science, and children's museums. On Sunday, we took them to the Galleria for a day of shopping in something like five full wings of retail bliss!! Finally, we caught the Astros at MinuteMaid Park on Sunday night. (What...no light rail, no Rembrant and Picasso paintings to be seen, no Galleria-style shopping to be had or pennant-winning professional sports teams to be seen in progressive Austin?!!!) By Sunday evening, even they had to admit that they were impressed with Houston! On second thought, I guess I lied in my previous post...I DO have a dog in this fight after all!!!

I'm not originally from Texas, and so I don't really have a dog in this fight either way. I will say, however, that I've never really understood the whole Austin thing. Speaking from just my visual impressions of the city, Austin looks exactly like Houston would look if it had hills. Furthermore, Austin people do seem to be unjustifiably smug in certain respects--it would be as if College Station suddenly decided that it was culturally on par with Boston or San Francisco. College Station is a nice town that's also home to a great university and all, but let's not get carried away... As far as unique and interesting places in Texas, San Antonio takes that distinction in my opinion. It's also more down-to-earth than Austin, which is an added plus!

I know this was posted over a year ago, but I've just joined the forum. As a native Rochesterian, I can definitely tell you that's NOT city hall! That Art Deco gem is the Times Square building! (Not to be confused Times Square in Manhattan.)

I was browsing through your forum and thought you might be interested in the following link: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/panoramic_photo/ It takes you to the Library of Congress archives. Type "Houston" in the box in the upper left hand corner of the page, and the site will bring up a series of panoramic skyline photos from the turn of the century. As for postcard views, I know of at least one site that trades in such things (www.cardcow.com). Try this link for historic Houston postcards: http://www.cardcow.com/home.php?cat=65109 You can even read the notes on the backs of the cards and download favorite scenes as wallpaper. Great stuff!!