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gonzo1976

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Everything posted by gonzo1976

  1. gonzo1976
    No. The idea is that if a B&N went up at the River Oaks site, the company wouldn't have a need for a B&N-owned bookstore at the Alabama.
  2. gonzo1976
    From KHOU.com: Why is that? On a side note, does it seem like attention is shifting from the Alabama Bookstop? It seems like that site has take a back seat to the River Oaks Shopping Center.
  3. gonzo1976
    I do. I go to bed around 3 CST and wake up around 10 a.m.
  4. gonzo1976
    THE WORST. It doesn't get any worse than that. Eh, I understand its value, but I'm not sure what use it would have served aside from being a hospital. What were the plans for it prior to demolition? I'd put this behind #1. Well, the Chronicle building actually engulfed this building. If you ever go inside, you'll see exactly where one building ends and the other begins. About 10 years ago, renovation work revealed some of the interior moldings of the older building. The Old City Auditorium (where Jones Hall is now) Southern Pacific Depot The Bowen Bus station (old City Hall)
  5. gonzo1976
    Yep! Here's a list of some (not all!) of the 19th century neighborhoods/towns and the approximate dates they were founded along with their general locations using today's maps (Wards excluded). 1. Frost Town (1822): Race and Rains streets, near Elysian. On the south banks of Buffalo Bayou. 2. Harrisburg (1826): West of Brady Island, near Manchester and Broadway. 3. Beauchamp Springs (1838): On the south banks of White Oak Bayou, near Houston Avenue. 4. Castanie Addition (1848): Likely near Fourth Ward, east of Montrose and west of the Pierce Elevated. 5. Seneschal Addition (1848): Near Smith and Bell, downtown. 6. Quality Hill (1850s): North of Congress Avenue, east of Main Street. 7. W.R. Baker Addition (1856): A line going from Sawyer and Buffalo Bayou to near Quitman and I-45. 8. Northside Buffalo Bayou Additions Platted (1860s): Across Buffalo Bayou, east of North Main. 9. A.C. Allen Addition (1860): Broad area where Quitman crosses I-45. 10. Pless Addition (1861): Narrow strip of land east of South Jensen on the south banks of Buffalo Bayou. 11. Oak Lawn (1863): Canal and Lockwood. 12. Freedmens Town (circa 1865): Fourth Ward 13. Chapmanville (1866): Broad area near Liberty Road and Staples Street. 14. Engelke Addition (1866): Near Settegast Park. 15. Factory Addition (1867): East of Pless Addition 16. Fairgrounds Addition (1889): Near Main and Elgin. 17. Brunner (1890): West of Shepherd near Washington Avenue and Westcott. 18 Denver (1891): Denver Harbor, south of Englewood Yard, north of I-10. 19. Houston Heights (1892): The Heights! 20. Fairview (1893): Near Taft and Fairview. 21. Magnolia Park (1893): Harrisburg, Navigation, 75th area. 22. Settegast-Upham (1897): East of Fairview. 23. Chew Addition (1898): West of Denver Harbor. 24. Sam Houston Park (1899): Duh! This information came from the book "Houston's Forgotten Heritage."
  6. gonzo1976
    Aw, bummer.
  7. gonzo1976
    Hasn't the Old San Francisco Steakhouse been around for quite some time?
  8. gonzo1976
    The reporter who wrote the original Chronicle article chimed in yesterday to say she is working on a follow-up.
  9. gonzo1976
    Don't forget the Quality Hill section of Houston. I'm away from my research materials right now, but I do believe that formed sometime in the late 19th century.
  10. gonzo1976
    Wow. Data. That's just awesome! Heh! I wonder if anyone's contacted Houstonians with ties to Hollywood: Shelley Duvall, Wes Anderson, the Quaid brothers and Patrick Swayze. Heck, maybe Jack Valenti might chime in on this.
  11. gonzo1976
    I see your point regarding property rights. Maybe the current owners don't realize how much the RO and the Alabama Bookstop contribute to the *identity* of the community. Sure, developers could put up a similar theater that shows similar films in the same part of town. But losing the RO and the Bookstop would erase a little more of what connects a lot of us here to that location, which is, memories. From that, it shapes our sense of community and our perception of what Houston is. No Barnes and Noble, vacant lot, or faded photograph can provide that. The Bookstop seems to get pretty good business. The RO is usually busy on Friday and Saturday nights. I remember there was a line going all the way around Starbucks when "The Blair Witch Project" opened there.
  12. gonzo1976
    I could be wrong, but I think the gas station was torn down and converted into a parking lot until the Starbucks was built from the ground up. I agree!
  13. gonzo1976
    Looks like a gas station maybe.
  14. gonzo1976
    Hear! Hear! I'm glad to have watched films at a theater like the River Oaks. There's no movie theater like it in Houston. I'd hate to see it join the ranks of the Metropolitan and the Lowes. Let's not forget the Alabama Bookstop, too. The folks there have done a good job of retaining a lot of its movie theater aspects and incorporating it into the bookstore. Losing both would kill a part of the city's identity.
  15. gonzo1976
    Sonofabiscuit! I put up a little mention about it on my blog. I'd hate to see two landmarks like that go. I'll be happy to do whatever I can to help.
  16. gonzo1976
    Milby Park gained some notoriety in 1953 when a woman walking to church was gang raped at the park. Seventeen-year-old Rudy Ramos Esquivel was put on trial for the crime, which was a capital offense at the time. The case ended in a hung jury. A retrial resulted in a 99-year prison sentence. The trial was big news back in the day. Teen rapist, churchgoing woman. It made big headlines in Houston. I can't remember where I read it, but I think the woman ended up in an institution. As for little Rudy Esquivel? He was paroled --- only to end up back on Death Row for the 1978 murder of an undercover HPD officer. He was executed in 1986.
  17. gonzo1976
    I knew a guy named Ron who managed it in some fashion or another. He ran that and a place call the Jubilee Hall (?) sometime in the late 1960s/early 1970s. ZZ Top used to play at the Liberty Hall back in the early days, too, from what I heard.
  18. gonzo1976
    This isn't such a bad deal. I would have more of a problem with it if UH planned to offer lower-level undergrad courses there. For those working folks who want to take some night classes to earn a master's degree and not have to drive past downtown, this is good.
  19. gonzo1976
    My guess is that the Gulf Freeway put an end of that. It just wouldn't make much sense to have two highways going into downtown from the southeast. Anyone? I would think so. Texas 225 (La Porte Road) went directly into Harrisburg and would have cut through Lawndale and maybe Mason Park. The Houston Country Club stood in the way, too.
  20. gonzo1976
    Heh! Well, when I lived in Houston I considered myself Houstonian before Texan. Now that I live out of state, I keep referring to myself as a Texan rather than a Houstonian. Not sure why because I haven't given it much thought!
  21. gonzo1976
    There was an article in a South Carolina newspaper about how these condos are being built closer to the shore thanks to beach renourishment. Never mind the potential hurricane that will blow it all away. But the nice thing about the beaches in the Southeast is that one can look out into the ocean and not see an offshore oil platorm or oil tanker. Now, I hear Congress wants to open the East Coast up to offshore drilling. Shame.
  22. gonzo1976
    I was at that show! It was the spring of 1994. I saw Paul McCartney's The New World Tour at the Astrodome in 1991. I also saw No Doubt open for Tears for Fears at the Compaq Center. This was during the KRBE Holiday Ball or something like that.
  23. gonzo1976
    If you watch one local newscast during the day, you've pretty much seen all the news you're going to get for the rest of the day. Jeez, if I miss the 11 a.m. newscast, I can catch one at noon, 12:30, 3 p.m, 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.
  24. gonzo1976
    There are some little treasures inside the building that I hope survived the renovation. Cenikor used it as its headquarters in the early 1970s. Some newlyweds that lived there drew a tree on one of the walls to liven up their drab room. I was told that some of the people living there refused to go into the basement because it appeared haunted. On the upper floors you could hear conversations even though no one was nearby. However, I think that may have been because of the way the building was designed, which made it easy for sound to travel down the hallways from one end of the building to the other. (That's what some people have surmised.) Graffitti scrawled by patients can also be found in at least one room. A patient apparently etched his name on one of the walls back in the 1940s. Ah well, at least one of the graves outside the building was sort of left intact!
  25. gonzo1976
    Good work at making me homesick!
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