About Downtown

In order for Houston to avoid becoming a future Detroit we have to do something on the flooding issues.  Do we really think CEO' s will relocate to Houston rather than Dallas or Austin if we experience these horrific flooding issues every few years.

And parking my car while going to work cost $.35/c a day on a blacktopped lot where Two Shell was eventually built.  Man I love this web page.

Gosh and all these years I've been telling everyone it was 70 stories high.

On 9/9/2013 at 6:27 PM, matty1979 said:

I was curious what the bar scene was like back in the 70's around Houston. Was the ever a place similar to Studio 54 in town?

Also where there ever "singles bars"? What were they like and if anyone has any funny or interesting stories I would love to hear them!

It was slow to develop.  Liquor by the drink was still unavailable wink wink .  You had to be a "member" of the club and you did so by signing a card that cost you nothing and bingo you were a member of a private club that Police Chief Herman Short could not touch.

I didn't see anyone mention The Peanut.  I remember they had this huge Confederate flag tacked on the wall and peanut shells all over the floor. 

Great nostalgia here.  When I went to work downtown fresh out of college in 1963 I officed in the Niels Esperson building on the 4th floor.  My area of the Esperson building faced the Travis street entrance to Battelsteins otherwise known as their back door  Typical of those days I could raise the windows of the Esperson building but that wasn't necessary in order to hear the 4pm street hawkers of the Houston Chronicle shouting all the latest headlines and selling papers.  

The thing that stood out to me about Battelsteins was the frequent sand bagging of the back doors when our famous Houston downpours occurred and man hole covers in the street were sprouting up out of the pavement on top of gysers of water.

I got my first suit from Battelsteins and it was very good.  In looking at the old pictures I never thought about it but who officed above Battelsteins.  The department store couldn't have filled all floors.