isuredid

Can you scan the flyer and post on this thread? I believe Jubilee Hall and The Family Hand opened in 1969 and closed in 1971, so the flyer is probably from 1969.

The building with the flag on it in this old map is the school and the same building you are discussing. The cross street is now Griggs and a bit further north, what would become the Gulf Freeway

I believe the incarnations of Liberty Hall were: 1. A church 2. An American Legion Hall 3. Liberty Hall 4. A Chinese Movie Theatre 5. Demolished The first show I saw there was a play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that someone else mentioned. I think that was 1971 and I would have been 16. I would try to go see Lightnin' Hopkins whenever he played there. I saw Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat, Flying Burrito Brothers, Dr. John, Taj Mahal (a few times), Bruce Springsteen, Clifton Chenier (anyone remember him playing Juneteenth at Miller Theater in 1985 or 86?), Cheech & Chong, Townes Van Zandt. The last show I saw there was the Ramones in 1977. It is the only show I still have a ticket from...too bad. The folks that created Liberty Hall were many of the same folks that created The Family Hand Restaurant on Brazos. Mike Condray and Lynda Herrera along with Ryan Trimble. I remember it as looking like an small Art Deco Theater with an overhanging awning/marquee. It had a row of windows running across the front of the building above the marquee. Someone, somewhere must have a photograph of the place. I had several at one time, but they were lost about 1980. From the American Legion Hall Days:

I think the church stopped being Woodridge Baptist Church in 1993. It continued on under another name and then was sold and torn down when they redeveloped the Gulfgate property. I think that was around 2000-2001. There is still a Woodridge Baptist Church...they took the name from the church on Woodridge and moved the name to Kingwood. Our old German family bible was in a display case in that church library and dissapeared around the time they sold the building.

That was Woodridge Baptist Church. My family went to that church.

From this aerial photo of Gulfgate you can see exactly where the Winkler Drive-In was:

The Porno Picnic was at the NE corner of Bremond and Helena. I believe this was the home of (someone can correct me if I'm wrong), one of the founders of The Family Hand and Liberty Hall. The property was on the grounds of the old Oak Place Estate and may have been one of the old outbuildings. I was well hidden away from the street and was right down the street from the old Family Hand location (Brazos River Bottom bar) Brazos and McGowen. I remember Dino Lee's White Trash Revue and his backup singers "The Jam and Jelly Girls" The Ooze Brothers (Born to Ooze) were a part of that Porno Picnic scene too. Dino Lee Video on YouTube Dino Lee Video

This would have been in the late 1970s

Does anyone remember a place in Montrose where someone had built a sort-of beer garden in their yard. It had a sign that said "Frank's Radio Garden" and there were some picnic benches and , I believe, an old short wave or multiband radio. There was a soft drink machine that was loaded up with beer and you could walk up, or skate up, and put your money in the beer machine, get your beer and sit at the picnic tables, etc. I am sure it was short lived because of the obvious reasons...but only in Montrose could such a thing happen in the first place.

No, he's right. The original Leo's was on Shepherd between Welch and Fairview. The awning, as mentioned, that used to lead to the front door is still there. Leo's moved to Washington Ave after years and years of being on Shepherd. Now there is a car wash or a car detailing place there. I think the only thing they brought to the Washington location was the sign.

I could be wrong, but wasn't Air Conditioning invented in Houston? Also the Weedeater was invented here.

Could the funky bar on Westheimer have been Prufrock's?

Wow..thanks for all those postcards!

Then it turned in to a hippie-hollow kind of event while watching the movies. Do you mean you were watching movies naked?

There used to be a fairly large wooded area behind the Schlumberger building which was still fairly pristine in the 1970s. It was a mix of pines and hardwoods with a lot of palmettos in the understory. Kids in the Telephone Road Place neighborhood, where "The Orange Show" is located used that as their neiborhood woods. I remember there was the foundation of a pier-and-beam house back these. The piers were still there and some steps. I always wondered about the history of that house. The last time I checked the understory had all been cleared out, a fence installed, and there were paths and benches for the folks that worked in the building to go back there and, I suppose, eat their lunch or whatever. I believe that land was owned by Rufus K. Cage at one point. If you kept following along the bayou from there going towards U of H you would next come to a hobo jungle along the RR tracks. There was a dump full of old cheap wine bottles, beer cans, food cans, etc. After that you would come to the Blue Ribbon Packing plant (Pew!). If you had the stomach for it, you could watch them butchering animals. I think that was originally the Port City Slaughterhouse? If the wind was blowing from the SE that smell would pervade the U of H campus.

My grandmother lived in The Heights and we went there almost every Saturday evening. Nearly every week we would stop at the Shipley's on N. Main and get 2 doz donuts for breakfast Sunday morning. I remember watching the guy making donuts just as you described, stacking them on his thumb. I also remember stopping at a Bread bakery thrift store over on Center Street that was in a large old Victorian house. I remember thinking at the time that some of the houses around that bakery store were haunted because they were abandoned and dilapidated. Does anyone else remember that bakery thrift store? I remember there was lattice around the base and a pipe handrail leading up to the porch. It also had a screen door I think.

Houston does not have a sterling reputation historically when it comes to blacks and hispanics, but I have never seen any historical evidence for hatred of Jews.

This map is from 1952 and the configuration of the road looks the same to me

I see that I was wrong (again!). They are still having the Pin Oak Charity Horse Show at the Great Southwest Equestrian Center in Katy

Pin Oak Stables were right off Fournace I think in the middle of what is now the Gallariea Area. joe Pin Oak Stables was where Home Depot is now at 610 and 59. I can still see it in my mind's eye. My mom used to work at the Community Chest (United Way) and some of her friends who still worked there would give her tickets sometimes. I remember getting to and from the grandstands was usually a muddy affair. They later moved the "Pin Oak Charity Horse Show" to the Astrohall, but it wasn't the same and didn't last. I'm not sure it would have lasted anyway. It belonged to another time.

I found these quotes with Google: Five-time world champion equestrian Joan Robinson dazzled the staid sport by riding her gray mare wearing a gray riding outfit exactly matching her steed's coat. "When Joan Robinson rides Beloved Belinda, it is one of the most achingly beautiful sights in the world," wrote one newspaperman in the 1950s. A newspaperman wrote, "When Joan Robinson rides Beloved Belinda it is a poem, a waltz, it is the sculpture of Rodin and the painting of Cezanne. My goosepimples get goosepimples."

In 1985 I was driving through Montrose (I lived there) when I saw someone putting an old kitchen table on the curb. I think the table is from the 30s or 40s and has a white enameled metal top and a wooden base. It was in perfect shape except the paint was peeling badly. I grabbed the table and took it home to scrape off the paint and re-paint it. The table had one drawer in the middle and when I took the drawer out it was lined with an old Houston Chronicle from the 1960s. There was an article in that section on Joan Hill and her equestrienne exploits. It was strange to read that article knowing where her future was heading in a few short years. I believe her favorite horse was called "Beloved Belinda".

- The Warren's trail does seem to end somewhere in the 1978-80 time period, consistent with musicman's [edit: and isuredid's] comments above. - Also, I didn't find a Rudyard's listing of any kind in 1979-80 (about as late back as I looked this time - so don't know yet about earlier listings), but did find that "Rudyard's British Bar" appeared to have been located in the Kipling Pub/Velvet Elvis (now "Vintage") building (2108 Kipling) in the 1981-82 time period. The 2108 Kipling building is listed as vacant in 1980. Rudyard's British Pub opened at 2108 Kipling in 1979. During that period a lot of people from England were moving to Houston for work. The economy in Britain was very bad at the time. I believe it stayed at that location until around 1982 when it moved, temporarily, over to West Alabama while it searched for a new home. I want to say it was where T.K. Bittermans is now. I believe it was 1983 when they finally relocated to the current building on Waugh, which had previously been The High Noon Saloon - a gay bar.

Joan Hill kept her horses at the Cyandy Stables which were on S. Gessner close to the bayou. Back then this was beyond the city limits and, more or less out in the country. Houston was a much different place then. The pace was much slower, the city much smaller, and there was still plenty of greenspace even in the inner city.