marym

I'm gobsmacked at the plan for Shepherd/Durham. An 8 block flyover for Shepherd/Durham to get over the RR tracks? It looks like they'll make a wasteland of all the restaurants in that area - Cyclone Anaya's, Jax Grill, Mak Chin, Azuma, etc. All the businesses along Shepherd/Durham between Washington and I-10 will be wiped out. I guess I'm one of those NIMBYs, but I hate the idea of TxDOT taking 8 blocks of property to build a giant concrete flyover. I much prefer that TxDOT make two underpasses for Shepherd/Durham similiar to Yale to minimize the effect on the neighborhoods. Yeah, it may flood a couple times a year, but that's better than destroying the blossoming Shepherd/Durham/Washington corridor.

The River Oaks/Alabama Theater fight has made The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/us/12preserve.html "Though Mayor Bill White backs their efforts, he said he had not seen the same fervor in preservation battles involving, say, Houston

If the area is in Magnolia Grove (southeast of the pawn shop), you can go to the message board at www.magnoliagrove.org for the crime stats. Rice Military (southwest of the pawn shop) has a website at www.ricemilitary.org, but I don't think they post the crime stats. You can also check out www.houstontx.gov/police/cs/beatpages/cs2a50.htm