FilioScotia

You're probably right. New owners frequently tear down and rebuild. It's cheaper to build a new one than to bring the old building up to code. The old Weingartens' bldg was also too small for Fiesta. RIP Weingartens.

I know that corner. The green arrow is pointed at the northwest corner of the campus of John Marshall Junior High. Across Quitman to the north is Jeff Davis High. The supermarket is the building across from Marshall JrHi with the reddish strip at the front and all the cars parked in front of it. I can remember when it was a Weingarten's, but several other chains have also occupied it over the years. I have no idea what it is now.

I think, but I'm not 100 percent certain, that it may be the store in the 3100 block of Smith Street in mid-town. I lived in Montrose for a time in the sixties, and I did my grocery shopping there, and that picture looks just like it. It's also true that many of the Weingartens' stores looked like that.

It mortifies me to admit I can't visualize a Weingarten's in Pasadena, but I'm sure there was one. For some reason, my memories keep coming back to a location in a shopping center on South Shaver at Southmore, directly across Shaver from the Sears store. I could be wrong though. I frequently am. Anybody with a better memory than mine? The floor is still open.

The rehab is well underway but I don't know how far along they are with it. They've done a lot though, because the old JDH already looks a lot better than it did a year ago. It's the Elder Street Artists' Lofts now. http://www.elderstreetartist.com/

It's possible that Marrs HS was owned and managed by the Harris County School District, which was responsible for building schools in areas not served by an existing ISD. It's now called the Harris County Department of Education, and I'm not entirely sure just what its responsibilities are now.

You're welcome. Believe it or not, I found the answer to your question about Marrs HS right here on the HAIF. In a discussion on north side history a couple of months ago, the one in which someone posted an incredible aerial photo of the far north side taken in the mid 50s, I learned that Marrs HS was built in 1935 at Aldine Bender and Aldine Westfield. It burned down in 1954, and a new high school, named Aldine High, was built where it still stands today at Airline and West Road. Back where old Marrs HS used to be, the district built a new school, Aldine Junior High. It's also the present day location of the Aldine ISD Admin Bldg, the MO Campbell Center, and Thorne Stadium. Here's a link back to that HAIF page with that incredible photo. http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...?showtopic=7234

It's just possible that "Aldine" may have been someone's first name. I've known several women named Aldine over the years, in fact I went to high school with one. It's not without precedent. We know that Alief was the first name of a prominent lady who lived in that area in the 1890s. The Handbook of Texas says "In 1894 county surveyors named the community Dairy, but application for a post office in 1895 resulted in changing the name to Alief in honor of the first postmistress, Alief Ozella Magee." If you didn't know that, you'd go nuts trying to find a "local farm family" named "Alief". (An aside: This is where the name "Dairy-Ashford" comes from. In keeping with Houston's ancient habit of naming rural roads for both the farming communities they connected, Dairy-Ashford ran from the Dairy area -- now known as Alief -- north to the Ashford community -- also known as Satsuma.) While "Aldine" is not uncommon as a given name, it's extremely rare as a family name. If there was "a local farm family" named Aldine in north Harris County in the late 1800s, it's reasonable to think there would be at least a few people with that name still living in the Houston area today, but the current Houston Phone Book's residential pages -- the AT&T 2006 CD ROM -- has exactly ONE listing for someone with the last name of "Aldine". That's almost non-existent for a metro area of nearly four million people. I'm voting for the given name explanation for Aldine.

It's just possible that "Aldine" may have been someone's first name. I've known several women named Aldine over the years, in fact I went to high school with one. It's not without precedent. We know that Alief was the first name of a prominent lady who lived in that area in the 1890s. The Handbook of Texas says "In 1894 county surveyors named the community Dairy, but application for a post office in 1895 resulted in changing the name to Alief in honor of the first postmistress, Alief Ozella Magee." If you didn't know that, you'd go nuts trying to find a "local farm family" named "Alief". (An aside: This is where the name "Dairy-Ashford" comes from. In keeping with Houston's ancient habit of naming rural roads for both the farming communities they connected, Dairy-Ashford ran from the Dairy area -- now known as Alief -- north to the Ashford community -- also known as Satsuma.) While "Aldine" is not uncommon as a given name, it's extremely rare as a family name. If there was "a local farm family" named Aldine in north Harris County in the late 1800s, it's reasonable to think there would be at least a few people with that name still living in the Houston area today, but the current Houston Phone Book's residential pages -- the AT&T 2006 CD ROM -- has exactly ONE listing for someone with the last name of "Aldine". That's almost non-existent for a metro area of nearly four million people. I'm voting for the given name explanation for Aldine.

"That is a whole lot of rambling in a topic that is supposed to be about the History of Houston. How did the topic of WWII get involved in this thread?" Gosh I don't know. Do you think it may be because Houston, and countless numbers of Houstonians, played significant roles in that war back here on the home front? If that's not about "the History of Houston" I don't know what is. I consider myself a student of history, but I've learned a lot of things I never knew about that period right here in this one thread, and speaking just for myself, I find those kinds of things very enlightening and rewarding. Sorry you're so bored by having to put up with all this stuff about Houston history on a board devoted to Houston History.

Does anybody around here remember Las Casuelas? The greatest Mexican food restaurant in Houston history? In a big old house at the corner of Fulton and Quitman out in the barrio on the near north side? I think it was even better than the original Ninfa's on Navigation. Like Ninfa's, Las Casuelas catered to the Hispanic population of its neighborhood. They had the usual array of Tex-Mex stuff, and a lot of "real" Mexican food, the kind you get down in the interior of Mexico. It was open 24 hours a day, and they often had live entertainment. My wife and I would often go in very early -- around sunup -- on Saturday or Sunday morning for a Mexican breakfast. Or stop off on the way home for margaritas late at night. You know a Mexican restaurant is "great" when it's filled up with Hispanics at all hours of day and night. It was also something of a community center, with Mexican newspapers, magazines, records and tapes. It closed sometime in the 70s, and I heard it was because it couldn't -- or wouldn't -- comply with the health code. It wasn't the "cleanest" restaurant in town, but damn the food and the atmosphere were great.

Podunk? Well, you just insulted a few million people. Those of us who were raised in towns that were still using those old no-dial phones well into the 1950s. I have fond memories of our wall-mounted box with the ear-peace you had to hold to your ear, and the mouth-piece you had to practically yell into. We were on a party line, which meant about a dozen other houses on our road were sharing the same phone line. If we heard voices when we picked up, it meant someone else on our line was talking and I would have to wait till they got through before I could make my call. When I got my turn, I would turn the crank several times to ring the operator, who would ask "Number Please" and connect me to the number I wanted. My town was so small we had four digit phone numbers, and some people and businesses that had been there a long time had 3 digit numbers. Some even had 2 digits. Yes it was a very different world, but it was a much nicer time. Waiting for your turn to make a call taught us the importance of courtesy and respecting others' rights. Try that in today's world of instant gratification. As I said I have very fond memories of it. For you to refer to it as "Podunk" is elitist and ungracious.

The Texas Longhorns stayed there when they came to town to play at Rice or UH, and for that weekend only, it was called the "Coach Royal" inn. Does anyone else remember the Dinner Theater productions Marietta Marich and her husband staged in the Royal Coach dining room? I have especially fond memories of their production of 1776, because I had just gotten married, and my brand new future father-in-law played Ben Franklin in that show.

It's now the Centerpoint Energy Building. http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/BuildingDetail/2164.php

Sometime in the very early 90s, the world famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi bought that delapidated Day's Inn just north of the Pierce Elevated. The story at the time was that he was going to turn it into an international center for the study of transcendental meditation. Nothing ever came of those plans. This is the same Yogi who was so beloved of the Beatles and other celebrity devotees of Hinduism and LSD back in the 60s and 70s.

I'm sure the old building you remember has been gone for a long time. The building that's now -- or was -- a police substation was built in 1955.

The phone book lists the South Central Substation at 2201 St. Emanuel, which I believe, is the block where the old school was. I'm almost 100 percent certain that the building in the Google map photo is the former 1955 Longfellow school building. (notice how I covered my butt on that)

Actually, Chartres is the feeder for the northbound side of 59 in that part of town. It goes right past the 1955 Longfellow school building between Chartres and St. Emanuel. It's now HPD's South Central sub-station. WestUNative may be interested to know that even though the old Longfellow school she remembers doesn't exist anymore, the name HW Longfellow lives on at a newer HISD school at another location The current Longfellow Elementary is a magnet feeder school for upper grade level schools for the visual and performing arts. It's on the south side between Buffalo Speedway and Stella Link. Here's a link to it. http://es.houstonisd.org/LongfellowES/

The Longfellow school building still exists, I think, but it's not a school anymore. It's now a Houston Police Department sub-station.

Yep you're right. I guess I wasn't paying all that much attention by 1969 and 70. I was busy being married and raising two kids, and I just lost interest in drag racing. By the way, if you have Google Earth on your PC, you can still see the outlines of the old drag strips, just north of Gill Road, right up against the Gulf Freeway, about halfway between Dickinson and League City.

That was the Utah Carl Show on Channel 11, sponsored by the Gulf Coast Furniture Warehouse on Hwy 35 in Alvin. I started a thread on Utah Carl here in Historic Houston, and included a link to a wonderful biography of that famously talented local country music star. Feel free to check it out and share your own memories of Carl.

That great aerial photo had it right. The Freeway Drag Strip was right alongside the Gulf Freeway just a couple of miles north of the Dickinson exit. I spent a lot of Saturdays and Sundays out there in the late 50s helping my Pasadena buddies get their cars ready to go up to the line. A lot of beer and a lot of sunburn. Even though it closed some time in the sixties, you can still see remnants of it there on the north side of the freeway. Oh man this thread is dredging up some hellacious memories. Like the day Kent Chatagnier became the first in the country to break 200 mph in a dragster.

OK, we seem to be in 50s TV memory lane mode, with a flood tide of memories about Kitirik, Don Mahoney and Jeanna Clare and others. I had my own local favorite, but it wasn't a kid show. It was a weekly show on channel 11 featuring country singer Utah Carl and his group. And don't forget his little boy Carl Junior. Carl's full name was Carl Beach, and he was not your typical local no-talent. Carl was a darn good singer, songwriter and entertainer. A lot of people, including me, loved his show, sponsored by the Gulf Coast Furniture Warehouse on Hwy 35 in Alvin. Here's a link to a great article about Carl on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website. http://www.rockabillyhall.com/UtahCarl1.html

This is why I love the Internet, and websites like this one. You meet the nicest people. Please allow me to weigh in with my own good feelings about Don Mahoney and Jeanna Clare. I never had the pleasure of meeting them, but I've heard from countless people that they were two of the nicest and most "genuine" public personalities you could ever hope to meet.