icebrg

Actually, some others have changed. Whoever it was that owned the Ritz-Carlton in Houston also owned a couple others (I specifically remember the Washington DC one). They all changed from Ritz-Carlton to other chains at about the same time. (I believe the old Ritz-Carlton in DC is now maybe a Westin? I don't remember all the details, but I believe Ritz-Carlton pulled their flag and the hotels ended up being sold... perhaps Starwood bought them.

Ritz-Carlton pulled its name and management of four hotels owned by Al Anwa USA Inc at the stroke of midnight on August 3, 1997 after a two-year dispute over the standards and quality of the hotels. The hotels were in New York, Aspen, Washington DC and Houston. By August 19th, Al Anwa USA selected ITT to manage the hotels and they were rebranded under the Luxury Collection name. Al Anwa USA sold the properties to Starwood Hotels and Resorts in January of 1998 and the Houston property was rebranded a St. Regis Hotel.

Is there a topic to discuss all the Historic Houston Hospitals? I know Houston is considered a "Medical City" due to the largest medical center on the planet, Texas Medical Center.

Who has information on all the old hospitals in town?  

What hospitals were active prior to the Texas Medical Center which was formed in the mid 1940s?

What about all those old hospitals within the TMC that were "aged-out" and demolished? What were the original Herman Hospital, MD Anderson, Houston Methodist, St. Lukes, and Baylor hospitals that have since been demolished? 

Share your knowledge, and go!

Also, according to Wikipedia (not always reliable), "many structures were demolished and moved, in what was considered a blighted area, to make room for the fair." What do you know?

Thanks for reading this!

Enviromain I wrote a good part of the Wikipedia article, which involved a lot of research on my part. The area where Hemisfair Park exists today was, in the 1960's, a blighted area consisting mostly of small wood framed houses and other smaller structures. In order to clear the area for the fair the city used federal urban renewal funds and eminent domain to aquire the property. Hard to imagine given the state of the city today, but in the late 50's early 60's the central city was not the tourism, convention and business center it its today.

I hope that clears this up. The two links below are great resources on HemisFair '68 from "The San Antonio Express-News" and the UTSA Library archives.

http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Archives/Guides/hemisfair/index.html

http://www.mysanantonio.com/visitors_guide...N.3014646e.html

There is also a 20th Anniversary special from 1988 from local ABC affiliate KSAT-TV on YouTube you might find interesting as well. The audio is weak (probably from a VHS home recording of the program) so you should listen to it using a headset. Part 2 discusses the neighborhood that existed there and the use of eminent domain to buy it.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Phoenix Tower has an interesting history and is appropriately named. Completed in 1984 the building sat mostly empty for several years and made a come back in the early '90's. You could literally see the sunset through the building if you were driving down the Southwest Freeway. The Phoenix rising from the flames analogy is not too far off the mark, in my opinion.

The exterior glass curtain wall has been a problem for years, too. The window tint deteriorated, especially on the spandrel panels, other than difficulty finding new glass to match the existing it is probably another reason they are being replaced with something other than glass. Unfortunately or fortunately it will completely alter the character of the building. It remains to be seen if it will be a positive change, but considering Gensler is doing the design I am confident it will be an improvement.

Who owns the land by the Waterwall and Transco Tower parking garage?

That entire area, including the Waterwall Park, Williams Tower, Parking Garage and running track are all owned by Hines, the original developer of the Galleria.