DWah

... a two story, anodized aluminum looking retail property on the north side of Westheimer between the Beltway and Wilcrest was coming down when I drove by this afternoon.

So nine years later has there been any additional info on the status of the lofts. Any additional poltergeist events we should be aware of? The latest GoogleEarth street views show that area around the lofts hasn't improved much. The graves out front in the cement border are filled with large bushes now. I wonder if they ever moved those bodies. In looking around the web, I came across this listing for an art crawl there this Saturday. Is anyone going?

Traces of Texas now has a monthly page in the Texas Highways magazine. LINK

The video is gone. I would love to seer it if it can be re-uploaded. When my son was about nine, he asked me one Spring day if we could go to the Renaissance Fair again that year as we had done a couple of times before. I assured him that if he brought home a good report card, we'd go when it came around that Fall. Sure enough he worked harder than ever and gave me all A's and a B or two. It was on. So Fall came around and he reminded my of my promise almost daily. I got tickets and the day arrived and he was soooo excited. We're heading out early in the morning and about halfway up 249, (it was probably still FM149 at that time), he said "Are you sure this is the right way? It doesn't look right." (I assume given the subject of this thread that you already know where this is going...) We get out to the site in Magnolia and he says, in a very disappointed voice, "This isn't it", and starts describing to me the street fair where all the people were walking around with the big snakes. We still laugh about that every time either The Ren Fair or the Street Festival comes up in conversation. Am I the only one who misses Carolyn Wonderland and the Imperial Monkeys at Ming's?

Same here. 1977 or 1978

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, my class from Hohl Elementary, (Yale/Tidwell) took a field trip to Busch Gardens and toured the brewery. Can you imagine??!!?? Other field trips from elementary school: Austin, (Barton Springs, Capitol, etc.) A special Saturday trip Huntsville for the Sam Houston stuff Opera and Symphony Mrs. Baird's Bakery Sea A Rama in Galveston I don't think they do these any more, do they? Probably a liability issue.

That sign is part of the 6509 Westheimer shopping center. As noted above, it was originally a scrolling text sign but went dead for years. I worked for a brokerage company that had sold the center to a New York group, (Izzy Ashkenazy), and some years later a billboard guy approached us wanting to revamp it as it was in a very prominent, (and grandfathered), location. While the city wouldn't allow any major alterations, they were allowed to "repair" it. So the billboard guy, the broker and two lawyers did a long term lease from the NY group and went looking for a tenant. They found Select and instead of doing any kind of electronic upgrade, just fixed the spotlights and put up the plastic sign faces that are up now, (though they've been replaced a couple of times). The billboard guy, (Jeff?), had numerous health issues and passed away many years ago. He was a good guy. I'm sure the long term lease is up by now. Ashkenazy's son sold the center and is now a billionaire. Smart guy. He also sold the Page Parkes building at 2727 Kirby to Mike Atlas, as well as a few other things. I always thought that sign had a lot of untapped potential as it is visible a long way down Westheimer from both directions.

Well, I arrived in Houston in '67 and it was definitely still up then.

Funny you say that - DiMeola was very friendly and played a couple of pieces from a stool and then hung around and took pictures and chatted for quite a while before his show that night at ... I want to say The Music Hall. Fripp on the other hand played a couple of pieces from behind a barrier, said a word or two and split. Never really thought much about it at the time.

We made many a trip from Inwood Forest to the Sound Warehouse, (1212 Westheimer) in the mid 70's for music and ...ahem... "smoking" supplies. I remember attending in-store appearances with Robert Fripp on one occasion and Al DiMeola on another. That seems like a looooooong time ago. (Oh wait...)

Westchase was still an operating mall when I got out of college and moved into an apartment on Meadowglen just south of there in 1982. The last one I recall being built was never quite finished and sat vacant for several years before becoming home to Hong Kong Market on Bellaire and jump starting the Asia town boom on Bellaire. It's still going strong.