Croberts

I have now heard 5 versions of what happened to the square. 1. Neighborhood went down the tubes when they started building apts, such as those next to the high school. nobody wanted to go to westbury anymore 2. Hippies loitering in the square caused the decline 3.Too far away from a freeway 4. Competition with Galleria and other malls 5. Abscentee landlords, dont care about neighborhood lets look at these one by one 1. Crime and low income residents-affects image, may decrease the numbers who will drive to Westbury a bit as well as contribute to property value declines, and an influx of poorer, not likely to shop at the square residents. Did this happen? When my parents sold their house in 1977 it had not happened yet, but the decline at the square was already evident, but slight. Business owners complaining about square mangement is what I remember 2. Hippies loitering? That was part of the ambience of the square. ZZ top premiered there. Electric Paisly was on the evening news for being the first head shop in houston. Mr Fantasy, Cargo Houston. I think they were part of the square at its heyday, rather than the decline. 3. Too far from major transportation artery? Perhaps, but when the square opened it was successful and there was no 610 loop yet, no s post oak ramp, etc. and the city was a fraction of the size that it is today. However if other shopping centers were successful and near a freeway.... 4. Competition from Galleria- I believe this is part of it, because it was already happing in 1970. If you wanted large numbers of people and chain stores, go to galleria. If you wanted to see neighborhood people and specialty shops, go to the square. 5. Abscentee slumlords- and weak neighborhood ordinances (covenents)?I think this is the biggest part of it. The land owners of the most important neighborhood centers did not care, do not care. land is an investment, not for the rent but for the speculative value in future real estate markets. But the neighborhood centers are a critical part of the perception: the square if it was in its heyday today would be a model for other new urbanist designs- WHAT CAN BE DONE? I would suggest several things. First, historic status. The 60s were 50 years ago, nearly. Historic preservation status with the state and with the national register, would help. A press campaign against blighted neighborhoods and slumlords would help. Where is Marvin Zindlers exposee of the decline of westbury square? Westbury has the reminent buildings of the square, the earliest manifestation of new urbanism. Successful until management began driving creative retail out. The square created a main street in an auto oriented suburb Houstons contribution to modern architecture should be noted. There has been some discussion on this site about it, but I dont see anything happening in west bury. The centerette sign is a gem from the past. So it the square. Are there more buildings worth noting? As energy costs escalate houston will boom (only booming housing market in the nation right now) and Westbury should be ripe for a revival if the conditions are ripe. Having shopping centers that send the opposite message does not do this.

I really appreciate the pictures, I have not been in the neighborhood since 1977, really. the last time I was on the "square" was probably about 1975. Why it started down is a mystery to me, it has all the elements of "new urbansim" (see my comments in the wikopedia discussion of the square). Hippies loitered in the square from about 1967 on, so thats not the reason. But when cargo houston went down, that seemed to be the beggining of the end. The specialty shops lasted till sometime in the 1970s. I heard that some company bought the square a few years after the townhouses were added. They supposedly put in a theater, or were going to put on in. I believe the story was that the company was owned by the chinese import store, which used to face the central fountain, now apparently the home depot lumber place. It seemed retail sails began lagging in the mid 70s, and possibly it was competition with the newly created Galleria? One problem I think was that there was not enough to do. ie needed more restaraunts with a variety of prices, and more entertainment venues. It seemed the main reason to go to the square was atmosphere and to purchase specialty retail items. I used to make sand candles with scents from the scent shop, and wax supplies from the candle shop. I bought classic San Francisco rock concert posters at Cargo within weeks of famous concerts. A;sp bought blacklight posters at the Electric Paisley, and I became a black light artist myself, painting a number of bedroom murals for friends in Westbury.Also Indian prints beadspreads, paper mache tiffany lamps. What was missing was a book store and a large record shop. The westbury centerrette (sic) sign may be the oldest surviving thing in westbury. I am sure it is the original and I expect the center predates the square and certainly the weingartens plaza. The trampoline place was the last building on the side facing away from belfort but near chimney rock. sadly the conoco that was replaced by the now abandoned exxon was a classic modern style station, with a tile mural on front, a streamlined carport, it was one of the best pieces of architecture around, and deserved preservation status.

Brazosport/Quintana Folklore BZZPORT on the Llano On slab road near kingsland, Mr. Bee built what looked like it was meant to be a small outdoor concession stand and picknic tables on the banks of the llano river. The sign said "BZZPORT" and the rumor was that he moved here from Brazosport. He was eccentric and died over 10 years ago. Last time I drove down slab road the BZZPORT sign still hung over the gate of the property. Missing bar patrons found in canal In the 1970s I heard a piece of folklore about the Freeport/brazosport area. There was a road to quintana beach that made a sharp turn before a canal. There was a bar up the road. Many people dissapeared from the bar never to be seen again. A fisherman snagged the roof of a car in the canal and it was discovered that the many missing people were in cars that sank in the canal when they could not make the turn on the way home from the bar.

That was certainly true when it comes to urban design- it was the city beautiful movement was growing, and it was the beggining of urban planning (River oaks was houstons city beautiful inspired neighborhood). However the rise of the automobile and the ensuing urban auto congestion forced cities to move from a planning and design approach to an engineering to make cars happy approach- which is self feeding, since building better auto roads always stimulates more use of the auto.

If you look in the westbury square discussion, there is an aerial photo of your street in the early 1960s, posted by 57Tbird. That photo appears in various forums, it shows up again in Sam Houston Airpark discussion.

seems like a perfect topic for this forum, and if there is a sacred architecture in houston, it is modern. Do you know when this house was built or by whom? I lived in Westbury from 58-77, had a brother in law who lived on effingham, and I was once infatuated with a girl on green somthing next to the rr track. I think this was one of the last parts of westbury east of hillcroft to be filled in.

Very good- I forgot to mention wood plank roads were more common in the south. They were called corderoy roads because of the bumps. What year was the request for bids or the baker mayorship?

The idea of MacAdam roads were that they were paved with stones in layers of different sizes, and at the top, steel shod wagon wheels would pulverise the stones, and the dust would wash into the cracks, and form a binder. The advent of pneumatic rubber tires with tread destroyed these roads because the tread sucked the binder out and the roads would unravel. This lead to oil roads, asphalt roads and concrete roads, and occured after rubber tires became common, ie 1920s. Brick for streets was around a long time. Philadelphia streets had slate tracks for wagon wheels, granite curbstones and granite bricks for pavers. Sometimes brick was used, it was plentiful because it came in as ballast but was mainly used in houses. In the post civil war boom (the mcmansions of the industrialists who manufactured for the war, around rittenhouse square) georgia pine was cut into bricks and treated and used as pavers because wooden bricks made less noise that clay or granite bricks. When and why houston started paving with bricks I do not know. I know of no brick streets in austin, but corsicana has a lot of them still. Seems like my mother used to take me past one in the heights in the 1960s.

I have now been through Andrew, Charley, a couple whose names I have forgotten, Wilma and Katrina (cat. 1 over florida). I still remember Carla as the most intense. We sat in the living room in Westbury, and watched Ronald Reagan in the Santa Fe trail after midnight. I was perhaps 6-8. We lost power for a few hours. We heard that tornadic winds took down powerpoles nearby, and found water mocassins in several backyards, from willow waterhole, we thought.

I think there is a connection between these two. I do not know the history of buffalo speedway, but I know that the speedway in austin was part of Jac Gubbels park and boulevard system, which included 15th, and I think 12th, lamar boulevard and shoal creek park. Park and boulevard systems were designed to promote leisure transportation and recreation, and were a standard feature in urban planning from about 1890 till the 1930s. Speedway was an earlier term than freeway, and contemporary with parkway, which originally meant a linear park with a recreational road. The implication of speedway was that you could do up to 35 mph (the top speed of early autos, so like parkways, they included a design speed. The notion was that the road would not have intersections at every block so that the early auto could achieve its speed potential. However the term was replaced by freeway in the 1930s.

This thread is exactly what I was looking for when I discovered HAIF last july. At that time I was researching skyscraper history for a lecture in my urban geography-american landscape course sequence. Houston has the best collection of skyscraper architecture in the 1970s-1980s for the following reasons in my view (lived there 1953-1979) 1. The early phase of industrial restructuring that resulted in global capitalism meant that large scale investments in rustbelt cities went slow. On the other hand, particularly after the arab oil embargo, there was much windfall profits to be invested by the oil companies in long term investments, ie skyscrapers. Houston in 1970s was what the rest of the world would become after 1990. 2. Philip Johnson who coined the term, intenational style pioneered the glass and steel skyscraper with Mies van der Rohe with the Seagram building in new your. Initially the reation was bad, it even had its taxes raised as punishment, but it did 2 things. It popularized the new architecture amoung people, and it promoted the interior plaza, which is now mandated for high rises in many cities. Johsons connection to the Demenils at the time that their circle was building many buildings makes Houston a virtual museum of international style, from the 1950s to about 1990. Their house should be purchased and made into a museum, or even shrine! Mirror glass office buildings are in my view the best symbol of global capitalism, every beltway in the nation is ringed with them, and they are full of office workers whose main task is to keep track of far flung corporate operation under flexible regiemes of production, ie factories in indonesia. How ever they are now thought to be passe for several reasons Johnson's environmentalism was superficial, they are not very green prone to send sheets of glass to the streets in high winds, ie the closing of downtown houston during hurricanes, when the city is not evacuated, the John Hancock experience in Boston (the plywood skyscraper), and many cities experiences in hurricanes. Finally, corporate arrogance. The interior plaza does nothing for the street, houston is the most frequently cited exaple of a non-pedestrian city, there is even an article entitled the death of the street about downtown in the 1980s. And the Enron scandle has marred the image of glass and steel towers. So it seems that "Space City" with its futuristic downtown, while a model of post 1990 capitalism, is also passe, currently. However, mirror glass skyscrapers may be a thing of the past, and johnson recognized this in some of his later designs, ie transco tower, going back to the radiant city idea, another form of international style. I think of the one architectural style that was developed in s.e. florida. That is mediteranean, by Addison Mizner. Its not really an architectural style, though, because Mizner was not really an architect. He was a designer, that had an eye for detail and a sense of taste and theatrics. He could not pass a college entrance exam, and was never formally educated. Many architectural historians then do not recognize meditteranean as a style. He built about 60 structures between 1918 and 1926 in Palm Beach county, jumping on the bandwagon of Italian renassaince, mission, and spanish eclectic, but claimed it was something new, by adding some venetian details, it was mediterranean. He was ruined in an enronesque scandal over his boca raton resort and club development, more or less banished from palm beach. The modern architects including Johnson hated his style and attacked it. Yet in the 1980s it revied, and Johnson himself built a mediteranean style museum in miami. And one of his last buildings was a mirrored Wachovia bank in boca raton. Style is cyclical, but you may not know it in houston, because things are torn down 5 minutes after they become passe. I hope that is not the fate of international houston, i really think that it is the place to see international style, and I hope the city protects this architectural legacy. That goes for contemporary and ranch style jewels as well

THats the one! Thanks, I would have never remembered it.

[ We regularly rode for miles on the flat concrete bottom of Brays Bayou, occasionally taking side "hikes" into the storm sewers that fed the bayou. There was one big pipe running up the middle of Stella Link in which you could walk (standing) all the way to Bellaire Blvd. I remember riding from rice to Herman park, stoping somewhere near stella link for bagels at a bakery I dont remember the name, and again near ost for antoines poor boys, then spending the day in the park and riding back. I never new that these woods had a name. I must have done this 50 times between about 1968 and 1972.

In 1957-1959 I lived on Redstart street in (Willowmeadows, but that might not be the right "willow" subdivision). I used to climb up on the swingset and watch the siren at the local fire station rotate. we called it the friday noon whistle. I believe it was painted yellow.

Yes, I agree, I saw pieces of the plane the day after, and they were perhaps a dozen yards north of the bayou. We got their by driving up hillcroft, and my memory may be wrong but it seemed like the pieces were just west of hillcroft. I think I was attending St Thomas Episcopal school in Meyerland, and I remember a kid talking about hearing the crash.

The arrpwhead park monorail was totally different from the Fondren road monorail (see my description in the previous posting). To get to the car I had to walk on the rail itself, wrapping my arms around the girder that the car road on-so the car was above and sitting on the rail, rather than under the rail, as in the pictures of the arrowhead park monorail. So there were two different prototype monorails and three altogether, county the hobby airport monorail.

Actually they are not building them any more. Bad Idea. Four hurricanes in the past 3 years have trashed some. All that needs to happen is one window break, and with hurricane force winds, the water trickles down. Developers dont care, since they cant get permits for new ones, the spot where trashed high rises exist are prime for new ones, since the zoning is in place. Currently there is one abandoned one in Palm Beach and another closed one on Singer Island. Rehab time for the singer island one- well its been two years and no potential date yet. One of the things that happens is that the building acts like a seawall, but with a beach in front of it, the enegy of the waves goes into eroding the sand- and undermining the foundations.

At least two others have mentioned this somewhere, but there have been no photos so far. I remember that it stridled the rail, which appeard to be a single girder on a concrete wall, it had rubber tires like a car on either side of the rail, the operator had a lever with a grip that presumably was the brake, it had thick plexiglass windows-would have been amazing to ride in, especially in a storm. The Fondren road section started on the ground and rose up 15-25 feet (im guessing) and there was a couple of hundred yards of elevated track, i would guess. I last visited it when in the 5th grade, around 1965.

I was in kindergarten or the first grade at St. Thomas Episcopal School in Meyerland. We were told to walk straight home, to never talk back to teachers, and to obey their orders immediately. We were told by teachers and parents that the children that were killed would have been saved if they had listened to their teacher and gone back into the classroom. These lessons were repeated for several years, and whenever I heard sirens during school I suspected it was a school bombing.

This may be all folklore, but my grandparents lived on Fairview near shepard when they first moved to houston in the late 1920s. My grandmother continued to live near there till the late 1950s. She told me that Bonnie and Clyde were living in a house in the neighborhood, and that they robbed piggly wigglies (more than one) on Shepards Dam road (now shepard).

I agree. I worked there shortly after it opened, when Donald Rainwater (the original head chef) was there. The food was very good then, and it was my most memorable experience as a chef. The kitchen atmosphere then was excellent- the chef, rather than the manager, controlled the kitchen and its output. This was 1978-1979. It was the human atmosphere and the physical environment that made the place then.

She is right. The article was later than the 1950s, but before the system was completed, it was probably a mid 60s article. The cameras extended quite a ways down the freeway before the elevated.

In the 1950s, houston was the first city to have cameras monitor traffic. The experiment was on the gulf freeway, the elevated downtown section. I recall there were also red/green lights on the ramps,designed to slow entry on ramps. They were timed by observers watching the cameras. They were using the cameras to monitor traffic flow, and this project was of great interest to traffic planners and engineers across the country. I never heard of it till I moved to new york and began to study urban planning and freeway design history. In palm beach county there are in the last two years, two sets of cameras at the intersections. One set is to monitor traffic flow, the other to photograph red light violators.

I was there too. They used the sound system from Woodstock, and it was late arriving so the concert was delayed many hours. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were there and circulated amoung the audience keeping us entertained. That was the first time I saw Wavy Gravy. I did not see the poster from the second similar concert, which featured quicksilver, john mayall, a third band I dont remember and the greatfull dead. At that concert there was a minor riot when the dead broke into love light, and the crowd rushed the stage. The police were beating heads, and the drummer from the dead got involved. They cleared the auditorium but before the dead left stage they said "we will be back when we have a place of our own," hence the name of the later club "Of our Own"

I was looking for skyscraper photos I could use in my Urban Geography class, particularly Pennzoil Place- instead I found a way to get answers to questions I have had since childhood- I lived in houston from 1953 to 1979. Rarely go there now, but I talk about Houston a lot in my Urban Geography and American Cultural Lanscape classes. Since I joined, I have checked new posts most every day, and started one discussion thread. I plan to start more when I have time. I am also working on scanning and posting historical maps and aerial photographs. I have also joined Kevins austin skyscraper forum and post and monitor that one. I have already learned new things about austin.