sabasushi

Thanks for shedding light on this...that explains all the rules. Though it's certianly a little frustrating at times, like when you jsut moved in, or your DL forgot to take out the trash half the times.

Thank you for the suggestions. My, the rules look like something you'd use for the security check-through at airports. :-)

Thanks for the good suggestion! I'll go look for the nearest schools in my neighborhood (I live in Hyde Park).

I guess this topic could apply to anyone living any area with trash service by the city of Houston, not just Montrose, but here it goes.... We're getting a little frustrated by all the rules involving residential trash service -- for example, you can only put stuff in the trash can provided by the city. If you have trash overflow (like when you just moved in or forgot to take out the trash the previous week), you can't just leave the extra bags sitting around -- you have to go to a supermarket and buy these so-called "bag tags" which they're always out of. And if you have plenty of empty boxes sitting around....forget it. (I've already given away most of the boxes suitable for packing and moving, but we still have these awkward flat boxes used for unassembled furniture.) I know you can get another trash can for an additional fee but it doesn't make sense for a temporary situation. And forget about so-called heavy trash pick-up -- they will pick furniture and applicances but not flattened boxes. We had called the city about what to do about the boxes, and they had told us to flatten the boxes, tape them together and leave on the curb. We did taht, but the boxes were never picked despite being there for 2 weeks. Other than illegal dumping (I've seen full trash bags stuffed into trash cans at Memorial Park -- clearly, they weren't from picnics :-) ), are there any alternatives as where you can take the trash? Like when you're going on a trip and can't take out trash for a week and don't want to have all that trash sitting in the garage for a long time, especially during August? Thanks for letting me vent, -- Angeli

Ahh -- thanks. I was wondering why I couldn't find this topic in the first place. :-) Anyway, thanks to everyone who answered my question. It did look like a nice area with trees and all (as long as you don't pay attention to the rundown conditions of the buildings). Too bad developers don't build apartment complexes like that anymore. As for a midrise (or a highrise, for that matter)...personally, I think that would have been a terrible idea. Based on my personal observation, the few new midrise apartment/condo buildings in the Inner Loop that I saw or passed by don't seem to be doing very well. There's that Trement Tower place (not sure if I got the name right but it's late at night and I'm too lazy to look up) that has been mostly empty. Also, in the past year, I lived near the two new midrise buildings at Gramercy and Kirby, and though they have been trying to sell for many months, I could see that the parking garages under the buildings were still mostly empty. If you ask me, it's probably because they have too much competition from new townhouses -- why live in a cramped condo with the same shortcomings as with a rented apartment when you could live in a townhouse with more space and an attached garage? Besides, condos usually are notoriously bad investments, especially in areas with high property taxes.

I'm refering to that old apartment complex at Dunlavy and Alabama across from the Fiesta Mart store. It looks like it was built in 1930's or 1940's. From what I can see, it looks abandoned. What is this place, and are there any plans about what to do about it? I'm not necessarily into "tear-everything-down-and-rebuild" and I usually like 30's architecture. But that place *is* a bit of an eyesore, and I wish someone would either tear down the complex or fix it up.

The endangered list doesn't make sense. For example, Willowbrook doesn't look all that old or abandoned. Methinks the OP just doesn't like shopping malls, period. :-) But if we're talking about malls we hate....can I add Memorial City Mall to a list of malls to blow up? I know it's new and all, but I really hate that mall -- it's really bland and bleak indoors, and you feel like you're shopping inside a warehouse or something.

I was at the Hobby airport several days ago, and when I stopped at the Wendy's fast food place in the central concourse there, I saw a framed large black and white photo of what looks like an old Wendy's restaurant hanging there. (It is on the side wall to your right when you face the counter for ordering.) It looks like it was taken in the 70's, judging from the cars in the photo. What got my interest about this photo was that the restaurant wasn't your standard stand-alone restaurant, but was at the end of some old strip mall that looked as if it was built in 30's, 40's or 50's. The restaurant's roofline had a round corner, which would have been Art Deco-ish, except that there were a series of panels lined along the roofline, the front and the side. Also, the sign from the front roofline was vertical -- I can't remember if it was a vertical panel like on old A&P grocery stores or just a vertically hanging sign like old movie theaters. (Sorry, this is a bit hard to describe, since I didn't take any picture of that photo, and that photo is kinda hard to get to -- you'd need a Southwestern ticket to get in and see the picture. :-) ) Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this photo also, and if so, do you know the location of the restaurant? I'm presuming it was some old Houston location of a Wendy's, since it doesn't seem to make sense to have an old photo of Wendy's in a different town.

I know that there are 2 Chinatowns in Houston, and zillions of restaurants. But with so many many choices, I have to ask you... 1) What do you think is the best Chinese restaurant in town? I"m looking for a place that serves really spicy foods -- I can't stand most American Chinese restaurants as they are mostly bland, and when someone recommends a restaurant, it's usually because they like some dish that is very syrupy like sesame chicken (which I personally believe should be served as a dessert, not a main course meal). 2) Is there any place in Houston that serves Sichuan Hot Pot (you know, like the Chinese version of the fondue where pieces of food is cooked in a hot chili oil)? 3) What do you consider the best place to have dim sums? Thanks!

You might want to check out Mi Luna, a tapas place in Rice Village -- it has many vegetable dishes (along with a few cheese dishes if you eat cheese). Their eggplant dish -- I can't remember the Spanish name, but it's cooked in olvie oil with garlic -- is to die for!

I happened to visit the Almeda mall the other weekend, and noticed that it was an old-school, smaller mall that is kinda "ghetto-y" (i.e., lots of not-so-famous small stores selling cheap clothes), so I wouldn't be surprised if the mall ends up being either renovated or razed down the road.

Hiya...I was in New Orleans last weekend, and though I'd been to New Orleans many times before, it was my first post-Katarina visit, and here are my impressions. French Quarter looks relatively normal, and it was full of tourists -- you'd never know that a hurricane had taken place. Ditto for some parts of downtown close to the river and parts of the Garden District. (However, if you look closely, you see missing trees, some businesses all boarded up and things like that. Oh, and no St. Charles streetcars -- last I saw, they were still working on the St. Charles streetline.) However, when you go outside these areas, that's when things get really bad, such as in the Bywater/Margiry (sp?) area. Rows and rows of little old houses with these notorious blue markings with the big X's on the fronts. I saw one house with the words "Cat out 9-19" spray-painted on its fountain. And oh yeah....blue tarps. It was everywhere, even on I-10 all the way back to Beaumont. I think New Orleans will come back...very slowly but surely. But it will be a much smaller city, and I think it will be more like Galvenston in some ways -- a touristy town full of history.

Very cool mod homes! But what's with the claw-feet tub at the 9406 BRAESHEATHER CT house? Looks kinda out of place in a mid-century house.... :-)

Frenchy's! My hubby and I just ate there a few weeks ago -- it was recommended in a book, so we went there. That place on Scott sure looks like it hadn't changed since, what, 60's or 70's. But it's still very popular -- the place was packed when we were there. The food was worth the wait, though -- definitely some of the best fried chicken I've eaten in a while. By the way, I didn't realize that Mason Jar was a chain. There is one near Colorado Springs, CO but since I never saw it anywhere else, I had assumed it was just a mom-and-pop place. Speaking of Brennan's...has anyone eaten there in Houston recently? Is it any good? I'm asking because the reviews on B4-U-EAT were mixed, but they seemed to be related to changing chefs. And is Felix Mexican worth a visit? I've heard that it is knd of "Gringo Mex" (read: bland Mexican, heavy on big evil orange cheese and shredded iceberg) but it's supposed to have a lot of history.

It's been fun reading these threads about the history of Houston, especially restaurants and malls, even though I've never been to Houston til 2005. Now, I have a question...are there any restaurants or stores that have been around for at least 30 years and still standing? For example, one that comes to my mind is the old Pig Stand restaurant on Washington Street -- not sure how old it is, but it looks like that particular restaurant has been there since 60's or 50's. Also, what about the restaurant The Stables between Texas Medical Center and the Astromode area? (I can't remember the street -- it's either Main or Old Spanish Trail, probably.) The menu at that place is *very* Seventies, and they serve a free veggie appetizer with a cheese dip -- something I hadn't seen since the 70's. Any other examples?

Thanks for all the replies, everyone -- you've been very helpful. It's mostly likely that we might buy a townhouse somewhere in the Inner Loop -- there are still plenty of townhouses for under $250k though some of them are in what I consider "weird" areas (I'll have to post a topic about that sometime). The thing is, we don't really need a backyard -- when you think about it, backyards are pretty useless unless you have kids, dogs, a pool or like to grow things, and are kinda expensive to maintain, in terms of water bills and gardening fees. But we're bascially exploring our options, and seeing what is out there, outside the Loop.

So Blockbusters are closing here in Houston, too. Big loss (yawning) I've stayed away from Blockbusters since the time they claimed I never returned a certain DVD, which *was* returned, and on time, too, and they made me pay $35 for the "missing" DVD. I suspect it was either employe theft or some secret practice cooked up by Blockbuster to generate extra revenue.

Hiya, folks.....my husband and I just moved to Houston from Colorado (yes, I know....we are crazy, or at least our Colorado friends and relatives think so :-) ). We're currently renting an apartment in Braeswood Place so we can get to know Houston better and wait for our Colorado home to get sold (anyone wanna buy a nice house in Westminster, Colorado? ;-) ) Anyway, as I said, we're getting to know Houston, and figuring out where we might like to buy our next home. We're just a "DINK" (i.e., a couple with no kids -- the human offspring kind, anyway) so we're looking at either buying a townhouse in the Inner Loop, or a house outside the Inner Loop but still inside the Beltway 8, for $250k or less. I know there are tons of houses for under $250k, but we're still getting to know Houston. We have a few requirements that are probably a bit weird. For example, we don't care about schools -- the last time I checked, schools don't accept kids that wear fur suits and use litterboxes, anyway. :-) But we do want to be within walking distance of bus lines and grocery stores -- I can't drive due to a vision problem. Another requirement is that we'd like to be near many good restaurants -- we don't want to drive 30 miles jsut to go to a decent restaurant. (I don't consider flea-market-on-wall restaurants like Chili and Applebee's *real* restaurants, ya know?) Also, after living in a relatively tree-less state for 30 years, I'd like to live somewhere with a *LOT* of trees, especially mature trees. Due to the reasons above, we're looking at areas not too far from the west Inner Loop and Galleria areas, between the Inner Loop and Beltway 8. We're not interested in living "too faw away" like Sugarland and Katy -- they're a bit too "suburby" for my tastes. However, I do have a concern about crime -- I'm under the impression that some places in the target areas I'm looking at have crime problems like Sharpstown. Am I mistaken? I realize that Houston can have "iffy" areas right next to really nice areas and that it has relatively high property crime, but I'd like to know about areas that are relatively safe -- that is, areas where I can walk in broad daylight without worrying about being mugged or drive-by shootings. Thanks in advance for any replies I may get.

Hiya..not sure if this applies to Houston (I just moved to Houston from Colorado), but I used to live in a house on a corner lot that backed up to a large vacant lot, and I can tell you the biggest drawback of a corner lot: WEEDS! Since the house wasn't "protected" by other houses, the side yard open to the street was getting much more weeds than other houses on the block. Oh, and trash, too....winds were always blowing parts of trash onto the yard as well. There's another drawback to having a corner lot -- people tend to park their extra vehicles on side streets by corner lots. In most cases, this isn't a biggie, but one time someone left a RV parked on the side street for many weeks. The city raised a stink about it (apparently, it was a no-no to have a RV parked on streets for long periods of time) and sent us an angry letter about it. We had to convince them the RV wasn't ours, and we couldn't track down the owner of the RV...luckily, the RV disappeared eventually.

Hiya, folks....okay, there's an urban legend about thse huge praying hands at ORU. As the story goes, each hand were built seperately for some reason, and when the time came to erect the statute and put the parts together, they couldn't get the hands to stay together. They tried many things, but the hands wouldn't stay together. Finally, someone came up with an idea and dropped an one-dollar bill in between the hands. Right away, the hands closed together, just the way they were supposed to be. -- Angeli, former Tulsan

Hiya, are you thinking of Arvada, which is closer to Westminster? Aurora is *really* out of way, especailly for someone working in Boulder (and some parts of it has gang problems, as I understand it). Besides, it's very suburb-y. If you're looking for older bungalows that aren't outrageously overpriced, you can look at the Old Town part of Arvada, as well as Wheatridge, North Denver (where the old Elitch's used to be), Edgewater and older parts of Lakewood. -- Angeli, 12 days to becoming a Houstonian and counting :-)