Alpha

I used the picture from the Houston Freeways website to place where I think some of the stores were located.

I'm not sure if White's was on the north or south side of Mading's drugs. I know that Penneys was on the west end and that Palais Royal was next to it. I don't remember the exact placement of Lew's, Playhouse Toys, and Tom McAnn, I just know that they were in the general area that I indicated with the arrow.

I remember that Woolworths' had a back door that opened out on the courtyard. They had a few check-out counters there and you could buy large ice cream sandwiches in that area of the store.

Does anyone remember that the Meyerland sign blew down during Hurricane Carla? It fell into the drugstore.

If anyone has a better memory than I do, please share your knowledge.

Was it Gateway?

I can't imagine how that worked?

If you wanted your groceries sent to the pick-up window, they gave you a tag with a number corresponding to the number on a plastic crate. They loaded your groceries in the crate and they traveled along the track to the place where they were stored until you drove up to the window. They would bring out the crate and load the groceries in your car.

The Henke and Pillot store in Meyerland used to do this back in the late 50s and 60s. One time my mother had her groceries sent to pick-up and forgot about them. We drove home and when we got out of the car she realized that she had forgotten them. We got back in the car and went to get them. I don't think she ever used the pick-up window after that.

I remember it, especially the escalator, but I'm not sure if I ever went there. I think it was the first place where you could buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Does anyone remember that hamburger joint next to Westbury Square? It had a carousel in the middle of the restaurant.. It went really slow, and the animals on the carousel all had trays on them, so kids could sit on the animals and eat their hamburgers..this would have been around 1968..

There was a place just like that called Brittain's Broiler Burger near Memorial City.

I remember Winterland. Is that the one you meant? I went there in the early 60s.

The ice rink where I used to take lessons (in my early 20s) was in Town & Country (Katy Freeway at West Belt.) It was part of a building called the Farmer's Market. There were a lot of little shops in one half of the building, but in the other half were two ice skating rinks. One was regulation size and the other was a smaller practice rink. The building was built around 1970. In 1974, the roof was damaged by a tornado that passed over. After it was repaired, the rink was under new management and I stopped taking lessons. Instead of having classes just for adults, they put us in a class with teenagers. The instructor kept tapping a broomstick on the ice (kind of like a loony dance master) so most of the adults quit.

The building was torn down when the mall was built in the early 80s.

WORLD TOY IN THE RICE VILLAGE!!! Those old Jewish ladies were like Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in the barber shop in Coming to America. It was where Banana Republic and NY & Co. are now at the corner of University and Morningside. Thank God 5 & 10 is still there. No matter if you need a new spatula or a costume, they've got it!

I have the funniest story about that store.

In 1991, I was in the hospital recovering from surgery and my sister went there to buy me a Madame Alexander Doll. She was trying to decide between two of them - McGuffey Ana and Apple Pie.

After she decided on Apple Pie, the little saleslady (who had been there at least 40 years) announced to the whole store, "If anyone else comes in to buy a doll for Alpha, tell them to get McGuffey Ana, because she already has Apple Pie."

When my sister gave me the doll and told me this, I laughed so hard I nearly pulled out my stitches.

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I think this place was the first commercial strip to go downhill. It had in the early days a drug store, possibly a u-tote-um, and I think a cleaners. It seemed to be having a hard time as early as the late 1960s.

I know it had a drug store, because my friend and I would ride our bikes there to get sodas - that was around 1960-61. It might have been a Dugan's.

Trampoline centers were really popular in the summer of 1960. There was one on Beechnut close to Post Oak - across from Meyerland. I believe that the one in Westbury might have closed by the time I moved there in the fall of 1960.

Here's a picture of the bubble top car that my dad took in 1964. We went to see LBJ at Hobby Airport when he was campaigning in 1964. By this time the car had been bullet proofed.

Here's another interesting sidelight to that week. As you know, Kennedy was Catholic, and in those days Catholics didn't eat meat on Friday. He was supposed to go to a big barbeque at the LBJ ranch on Friday night. Newspeople were speculating on whether he would eat meat or not.

I've never read anything about this and don't know if they were planning to serve something other than meat.

My dad was a professional photographer in those days and a friend had given him a press pass to get in that night. He asked me if I wanted to go (I was 15), but it was one of those rainy cold November nights and I said no, so we didn't go. I still regret that decision.

Don't need any link because that day is etched in my memory. I was in Mrs. Tillinghast

A lot of good stuff happened there including my High School graduation in 1976. Talk about the greatest show on earth. lol.

I bet a lot of you also graduated at the Music Hall.

joe

My high school (Westbury 66) had our Baccalaureate at the Music Hall and our graduation at the Coliseum. The day after we "graduated" we had two more finals, so instead of diplomas, all we got was a rolled up piece of paper with a ribbon tied around it. Our "real" graduation took place in the hallway of the school when we went back to get our diplomas.

My family shares a funny story about Gaido's.

One Sunday afternoon in the late 50s, we took a drive to Galveston. Once we got there, my dad decided that it would be nice to eat at Gaido's. After we were seated, he discovered that he only had $10 in his wallet. This was before the days of the credit card, except for Diner's club, and he didn't have one.

We looked at the menu and he decided that we could just make it. Children's dinners were a dollar and regular dinners were about $2.50 or $3. So the five of us were able to eat for under $10 and he could still leave a tip.

Yes, "BEechwood 4-5789" was recorded by The Marvelettes back in the early 1960s. Their # 1 song was "Please Mr. Postman." ( I really don't know if the correct spelling is BEA or BEE).

Don't forget PEnnsylvania 6-5000, which was recorded by Glenn Miller in 1940. The interesting thing is that this was the actual (7-digit) number of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York. In Houston, during the 40s, phone numbers were only 5 digits. My grandparents' phone number was M 1165. I know this because I have my dad's U of H directory from 1945. Later on (around 1952 or so, when I was learning to dial the phone) their number was MA 1165. Shortly after I learned to dial, the extra digit was added and it became MA 3-1165.

Not to try and highjack the thread, but you all sound like you are very familiar with the area. Do any of you remember a mansion that sat on the inside corner of 610 across from Meyerland Plaza and does any one know the story behind it. It's been gone for a while.

joe

I think the info you're looking for is in this thread.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...?showtopic=7250

Ivy Spain remembered when the plane went down, a mile from her home, on Willowbend.

She remembers watching television when she "heard sirens, rushed outside and the sky was lit up. They broke in on the show and said a plane had crashed."

In the days after, Spain collected money from neighbors to establish a fund in Herod's name.

"I had been through a war myself," said Spain, who was living in her native England during World War II.

"It's so easy to be a hero in wartime because everyone is around you. But to be a hero by yourself when you are all alone ... It was a very brave thing he did. He thought of the people on the ground even though he had a family of his own to live for."

This is freaky - I went to Westbury with Ivy Spain's son. I didn't know him at the time, but 30 years later, his wife went to work at the school where I taught.

I remember the tree and the plaque. They were located on the north end of Meyerland - facing Beechnut. They were probably removed when Meyerland was remodeled.

Yes the school opened in 1965, and yes it happened at night. Obviously my memory isnt perfect, but I do remember the part about the plane staying in the air past a school yard because that's all anybody could talk about for several weeks. The crash and the school yard were equal parts of the story, and people marveled at how heroic Herod was by keeping his plane from crashing in the school yard.

Or, maybe I just think that's what I remember, and I'm just getting senile here in my middle age.

I understand where you're coming from. I'm slightly younger - I was in 7th grade at the time. What amazed me is that when I asked my 82 year old father about it today, he remembered it vividly. He even remembered the pilot's name.

I was a senior at Pasadena High School when this crash happened and it was a very big story for several weeks. I remember reading that the pilot stayed with the plane to keep it from going down in a school yard where children were playing. It went over the school and crashed in an open field not very far away. The pilot was killed because the plane was too low for him to eject safely. HISD renamed that school for Capt Herod, and the school children planted the memorial tree in Herod's memory at Meyerland Plaza, which is a considerable distance from the school.

I'm not sure that there were any children playing. It happened around 10:30 at night. If he came from Ellington Field, he would have been flying north and might have passed over Parker or Kolter school. Herod Elementary didn't open until 1965.

You can correct it on Wikipedia, right?

Did the plane crash into a field?

I'm sure it was in a field, or very close to the bayou. There were no houses where it crashed.

I just changed the entry on wikipedia.

So what happened to the pictures? Your dad still around?

I was wrong. I just asked my dad and he said that he didn't take pictures. I guess that's why I never saw them.

He said that the plane crashed just on the other side of Braes Bayou. He and the neighbor were approaching from the south and as they reached the bayou to cross over, the plane exploded. It's a good thing they hadn't crossed it yet. It would have been somewhere between Chimney Rock and Hillcroft.

I found info about Gary Herod on wikipedia, but it says that the plane crashed in the area that now contains Meyerland Plaza. Of course that is wrong. Meyerland was built in 1957 and the crash was nowhere near there.

Does anyone remember this plane crash?

http://es.houstonisd.org/herodes/About_Herod/Our_Hero.htm

We were living in Marilyn Estates and I had just gone to bed when I heard the plane go over the house and then heard it crash. The explosion lit up my window. I actually thought the Russians had dropped the bomb - this was the time of the cold war.

My dad (who was a professional photographer at the time) grabbed his camera and ran out of the house. He was joined by our neighbor who was a mortician. They got wet running across Braes Bayou and were the first ones at the site.

My dad told me that he saw the helmet on the ground and then realized that it wasn't empty. That's all he would say and I never saw any of the pictures.

A short time later a tree was planted near Meyerland Plaza with a plaque dedicated to Captain Herod.

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I was in the Singing Boys of Houston from 1966-1970. I know that the group was disbanded several years later, but I've never run into anyone else that remembers it or was a member.

I went to see them once - in the early 80s. The son of a friend of mine was in it. Some of the boys I taught were in it also - that could have been any time from 1971 to 1984.

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