FilioScotia

I don't remember that mono-rail EVER actually carrying passengers because it didn't go anywhere. It was just a short track built to test the feasibility and show the public what mono-rail looked like.

Their food was LOUSY. Awful. Putrido. They needed to go bankrupt and when they finally did nobody missed them. The handful of people who've signed on here to sing its praises may be the only people in Houston with good memories of Monterey House. Every time my wife and I ever tried to eat there we ended up with gastric attacks and monstrous flatulence. The new Monterey House Tex-Mex is a completely new outfit under new ownership, and by all accounts, the food is great. Larry Forehand knows how to run a restaurant. We eat at one of his Casa Ole's all the time.

Well, what would you call it? You are, after all, the one who is saying you have higher standards than the Archbishop. That's the same thing as saying his standards are not as worthy as yours, and it's loaded with the implication that you think those who don't share your enlightened views aren't as intelligent as you. I call that elitist snobbery.

Gosh! Imagine that! The person whose organization owns the structure, and the person most responsible for it, and who will be using it the most, having the unmitigated gall to tell the designer what he wants it to look like. What gall! Whoever heard of such a thing? What is it with you people? I've seen a lot of elitist snobbery in my time but you guys take the prize. You're living proof of something I've believed about architects for a long time. They don't design buildings for the people who will use them. They design them to impress other architects.

Gee I guess they should seek you out and apologize to you for offending your architectural sensibilities so egregiously, and apologize for not consulting you first. Maybe we should arrange for everybody in town planning to build something to submit their architectural designs to you for your approval. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You don't like the new cathedral design. Fine. That's your opinion, and you know what they say about opinions. Decision makers in the Archdiocese don't agree with you. They like the design and it's the one they're building. Where is it written that every structure must represent "important" or "memorable" architecture? And just who defines "important" and "memorable" anyway?

Thanks for the support, but Houston19514 isn't wrong in this. His information is more complete than mine. I was only trying to define the word "basilica" within its commonly understood Christian context, but the word predates Christianity in Roman culture by many centuries. Before the Christian era, a basilica was a secular structure of the type Houston pointed out. They were built as public markets, courts, assemblies, etc, and not necessarily for religious events. Not unlike the George R. Brown Convention Center, or Reliant Center. In the 4th century AD however, as Christianity became the official religion of Rome, Christians took over many public buildings and turned them to their own uses. They especially liked the large basilicas because they were perfect for large religious gatherings, so over many centuries, basilicas came to be identified with the Christian church. Basilicas aren't the only vestige of ancient Rome that's still around today. Think about local governmental divisions across the Roman Republic and later the Empire. The country was divided into provinces, the equivalent of modern states, and provinces were divided into Dioceses, the equivalent of modern counties. When the western empire collapsed in the fifth century, and the Church of Rome grew to replace the government that had disappeared, the church appointed Bishops to rule the local dioceses, and the term "diocese" survives today as the word for an area governed by a Bishop.

The word "basilica" is used to describe the style of architecture that's been used in building churches since ancient times. It refers to form, instead of function. Whereas, the term "cathedral" refers to function instead of form. Here's what Dictionary dot com says about "basilica." "an early Christian or medieval church of the type built esp. in Italy, characterized by a plan including a nave, two or four side aisles, a semicircular apse, a narthex, and often other features, as a short transept, a number of small semicircular apses terminating the aisles, or an atrium. The interior is characterized by strong horizontality, with little or no attempt at rhythmic accents. All spaces are usually covered with timber roofs or ceilings except for the apse or apses, which are vaulted."

That's the one. When it was built, it was outside the city with plenty of green open space around it. It was once a beautiful home. Now it's infested with lawyers.

Somewhere John Henry Kirby is weeping. A law firm owns it and uses it for offices. http://www.bgflaw.com/our_offices.html

I realize the term has become a generic word for a very large church, but there's a more precise meaning. "Cathedral" comes from the Latin word "cathedra", which was the official chair or throne of a bishop or Archibishop. In general use, "cathedral" is the official home church of the diocese, where the Bishop or Archbishop sits and presides, and the word refers to its function, not to its appearance. Unless it's the official church home of the diocese, the church really should not be called a cathedral. In every diocese, there is just one cathedral, most of the time. Galveston-Houston is one of the exceptions, with two co-cathedrals, one in each city, and a new cathedral now under construction for the Houston end of the arch-diocese. The Episcopal Diocese of Texas has one cathedral, Christ Church in downtown Houston.

Please explain how my posting was insulting? Or discourteous? Or stirring up trouble? The theater in Pasadena was called the "Capitan". Not "El Capitan". It's a small difference to be sure, but it's still different, and that's not an opinion. It's a fact. Look at the sign on the theater. In stating the facts, I made a verbal joke about redundancy, and it's clear that you didn't get it. You seem to be the one who's looking for something to be insulted about.

LOLLL....With four children, there are times when I think I'm living in a nuthouse, and find myself wishing I could live in a nursing home. I'm ready for the home now.

Is it any worse than "nursing home"? Or Mental Hospital? How would you like to live in a place called by words that mean you can't take care of yourself anymore? Come on people. Get a grip.

What's wrong with "orphanage"? I've never regarded the words "orphan" and "orphanage" as derogatory terms, and until the age of Political Correctness, nobody else did either. "Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur. It's a perfectly respectable word that comes from Greek, and it means "someone who has lost one or both parents through death. "Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur and it's not pejorative. You seem to think it's disrespectful to call parentless children orphans, and a group home that cares for them as an "orphanage". Why? Now, if just have to weed out the derogatory old words, why don't you go after the word "daughter". It comes from an old English Saxon term for the female member of the family responsible for milking the cows. Clearly it's a word for a subservient family member.

Thanks WestU. I do what I can, and I live to serve others.

I've lived here a long time but I don't remember an orphanage on Old Galveston Rd or the Gulf Freeway, but I do remember two other possible answers to your query. There was the Harris County Home for Boys on old FM 528 -- now NASA Parkway -- on Clear Lake near the Jim West Mansion. It was a big and gloomy looking old building that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. It was torn down in the sixties and replaced by a modern juvenile detention center that looked like a school with dormitories. I don't think the county owns it anymore. Another possibility is the old Moody Hall Orphanage on Avenue Q in Galveston. It was the first building occupied by Galveston College when it opened in the late 60s. The building is still there on the college campus, and it's still called Moody Hall. Here's something I cut and pasted off the Galveston College website. http://www.gc.edu/gc/GC_History.asp?SnID=61237 "For the opening of the College in September 1967, through the spring of 1970, the College occupied Moody Hall, a refurbished orphanage, as its only campus facility. The initial academic offerings were fairly broad in scope, while the occupational program was minimal but with strong offerings in vocational nursing, office occupations, engineering/drafting and law enforcement."

I agree, but a lot of people here are saying "THE EL Capitan". Which is repetitive, needless and unnecessarily redundant. Just the same, the theater's name on its signage and in common usage was "Capitan". Not "El Capitan".

Just an FYI here. I notice a lot of people here on the HAIF refer to that art deco movie house in Pasadena as "El Capitan". That's not quite correct. It was never called that. It was just the "Capitan". They never used the Spanish article "El" in front of the name. I speak with a little authority on this because I grew up in Pasadena, and I even lived three blocks from the theater on Pomeroy Street. I had an intimate familiarity with that place. Memorieees...pressed between the pages da da daaa... Check any photograph of it. Here's a couple. http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasTheaters/...tan-Theatre.htm

LOL!!!! Thanks for that. Talk about an unconscious Freudian slip. No scandal there. The Reverend Steve Bancroft -- with three small children of his own -- became Rector in 1987, and as word got around that the church had a new and energetic young priest with lots of fresh new ideas, families with young children started returning to Trinity.

Although I don't attend Trinity Episcopal Church anymore, I still have fond memories of the "gallery" of historic photos on the walls of Trinity's Parish Hall. At least they were there a few years ago -- I hope they still are. I'm talking about Trinity's annual Parish Easter photos of its church members, gathered on the Holman side of the church for a long group shot. The photographer uses one of those old clunky tripod mounted long-exposure box cameras, and he has to pan the group so slowly that kids at one end can run behind the group to the other end, and the finished print will show them at both ends. That really does work. A bunch of kids have done it over the years. I'm bringing this up here because of the way these photos contain a moving visual history of that church, and in the distant background of some of them, the history of the corner of Main and Holman. The Anglican style church building with the side-mounted bell tower was completed in 1919, and the annual parish photos began the following year. In the 1920s, the national prosperity was evident in the abundance of children, and you can see the strains of the Great Depression in the adults' faces in the 1930s. Photos of the war years of the 1940s are striking because there are almost no young men. Most of them came home in 1945, and the photo of Easter 1946 is strikingly different from the one of the year before. Clear evidence of the post-war baby boom can be seen in the following years. The church kept growing through the 50s, 60s and 70s, but it started shrinking in the 80s as people in the Parish became disenchanted with longtime Rector Arthur Knapp. The arrival of a young priest in the late 80s launched a new period of growth and another explosion of children. I have spent a lot of time walking around the Trinity Parish Hall studying those wonderful old photos and allowing myself to be moved by the way they show what people and Houston looked like in those moments frozen in time on Easter Sunday every year over more than 80 years. You can see any number of young children grow from childhood to adulthood and old age. Trinity has many middle-aged and elderly members who were baptised there as infants. It's well worth a visit to Trinity, even if you don't happen to be an Episcopalian. There are tours every Sunday after morning worship, and the collection of stunning stained glass windows is the highlight. Also check out the historic altar-piece, sculpted by the architect who designed and built the old Lovett Bldg at Rice University. There's a lot of history at Trinity Church. Here's a link to the tour page: http://www.trinitychurch.net/default.asp?id=189

I lived in the neighborhood just south of Madison High for several years in the early 70s. My house was on Simsbrook at Whiteheather, in that un-subdivided neighborhood just east of Hiram Clarke. Just east of us, the subdivision of tract homes on both sides of the bayou on Buffalo Spdwy between Orem and W. Fuqua was new then, and it was heavily promoted to people in the inner city with special FHA mortgages that let them move in little or no down payment. Even then, the area was predominantly black and it was a nice area. I'm white, and I say that because my wife and I always enjoyed our observation that the nicest looking houses in that new neighborhood belonged to black families. They were well maintained and their yards were always neat and trimmed. Even though the area was new, there were already some trashy looking houses with badly kept yards and cars on blocks in the driveways, and almost without exception, they belonged to white families. I haven't been back there in many years so I have no idea what it looks like now.

You're helping me to make my point, which is that there's considerable development outside that large oil field/landfill area south of 610, west of Almeda Rd, and east of Hiram Clarke. Every city map I know of shows that large vacant area, surrounded by development. The area around Madison HS is just one example. I thought this undeveloped and underdeveloped area is what Niche wanted to talk about when he started this thread. It appears everybody else wants to talk about other places.

Madison HS sits in the middle of a highly developed residential and commercial area. There's at least one major supermarket just several blocks down at the corner of W. Orem and Hiram Clarke. There are at least several more. Windsor Village is nearby on the other side of W. Orem.

The area south of 610, west of 288 and Almeda Rd, and east of Hiram Clarke has a checkered history. For openers, it was the scene of a fairly large oil field in the 1920s. That oil field was on both sides of what is now Almeda Road and Hwy 288, and extended east most of the way to Mykawa Rd. Remember the lawsuits filed in the early 90s by the people in the Kennedy Heights neighborhood? Kennedy Heights is east of Cullen and south of Selinsky. People there claimed living on top of former oil field sludge pits was making them sick and causing birth defects. They never produced a shred of evidence to back up their claims of deformed babies with brain damage, and it was all so bogus that even the most famous ambulance chaser in the country -- Houston's own John O'Quinn -- dumped them when it became clear the lawsuits were going nowhere. Unfortunately, memories of Kennedy Heights and houses built over sludge pits still resonate all over that end of town. Evidence of the oil field is still visible west of Almeda Rd, and to the east to a lesser extent. There was also a very large landfill on Holmes Rd. I think it's closed now, but in any event, nobody is building anything on it, and most of the area we're talking about looks like a wasteland because that's what it is. As for why no one has developed this area, I've read all the postings on this thread and I have to disagree with those who say it's because the area is mostly black. There are just too many areas around Houston where people of all races live side by side and get along just fine. The area east of 288 has developed, and, sadly, it has become a ghetto that's in a serious state of decline. I will agree that race is probably a factor in the way this area has been allowed to decay, but I don't think race figures in the lack of new development in the undeveloped area. Look at the success of the loft apartments on the edge of Freedmen's Town in the 4th ward near downtown. West of Almeda, I can't help but observe that development picks up as you get farther away from the "wasted" looking area. Almeda Plaza to the south, and the area west of there around Madison High School, and north to Allum Rd. Looking at the map, that former oil field and landfill looks like a large undeveloped island in the middle of a sea of development. I think it's because, so far, no developer has had the guts to take a chance on it. I also think that at some point, a brave developer with a lot of cash will step up and spend whatever it takes to clean it up, and when he or she succeeds, others will follow. It will happen fairly soon, and I predict the area will be completely developed within 20 years. I also think people with money to invest long term could do a lot worse than buy land in that area today, because it's going to be worth a lot more 10 and 15 years from now.

Why would it be wrong? There's been a grocery store of one name or another at that address for more than 70 years. First it was a Weingartens'. Since they closed, it's been a couple of things and now it's a Fiesta.