Reefmonkey

That explanation still leaves me with a lot of questions. If it's true, who did the gerrymandering? The district, or the state? It seems like the district wouldn't be able to just grab another ISD's land like that, and I have to assume that by the 70s, the timeframe the people in that thread are saying the land was gerrymandered, it should have already been long applied to another district. And having grown up in the Klein district in the 80s, and knowing the mindset of the residents there at that time (let alone 10 years before that), that then mostly lily-white group of voters would never have willingly agreed to annex Acres Homes and other nearby very black, very poor areas. So did the state force the annexation on them? If so, how, and why, and there must have been some record in the local papers of the inevitable public uproar and even legal fight over that. But there is another problem with this explanation, and it's related to the 1970s timeframe for the explanation. Klein ISD lists Recreation Acres Elementary School as a former campus, it was opened in 1949 "to serve elementary students in the southern part of the district." Recreation Acres is just south of the intersection of 249 and Antoine, down in that southern panhandle that our fellow Haifers say wasn't annexed until the 1970s to get federal funding for being more diverse, but Klein ISD is saying that area was already part of the district back in 1949, when the feds weren't giving out such diversity funding. Its the same story for Garden City Elementary School, which opened in 1956 and closed in the 1970s. It was in the extreme southeast corner of the panhandle, if still open today it would be the southernmost campus in the district. So unless Klein is distorting history and making it sound like these schools were opened and run by KISD when they were actually run by a predecessor district before Klein Annexed the area, it seems Klein owned this panhandle since at least 1949. That would be before anyone cared about "diversity", before the feds were offering dollars to schools for being more diverse. So the question still remains, how and why did Klein end up with that long skinny panhandle extending so far south, when the rest of the district stops at the natural and logical boundary of Cypress Creek?

I've always wondered, why does Klein Independent School District have that long, skinny "panhandle" of territory that extends south of Cypress Creek (otherwise the southern border of the rest of the district) between Champion Forest Drive and Stuebner-Airline? Seems like logically that panhandle ought to be either part of Cy-Fair, or divided up between Cy-Fair and Aldine and/or Spring (although Spring is also weirdly shaped with two "lobes"). It seems like most of the 56 school districts in the Greater Houston area (with the exception of Houston ISD's western finger) are fairly reasonably compact in shape, Klein (and Spring) seem to be outliers. Who decided on the boundaries of the school districts, anyway, and what was their criteria? Especially why was Klein given this strange appendage that would quickly become the worst part of the district? http://texasbest.com/schools/map.html https://kleinisd.net/UserFiles/Servers/Server_568041/File/District/District Quick Info/Kmap-Superintendent 2-26-18.pdf

This is a field guide TXDOT put together to help identify historically significant gas stations. http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/env/toolkit/420-05-gui.pdf Anyone have any favorite older gas stations in Houston that are still standing?

Today's Houston Matters episode on KUHF, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, discussed the Diana Foundation, and organization I hadn't heard of, that started with an Oscars viewing party in someone's apartment the night of the very first televised Academy Awards in 1953. It is the oldest continuously active gay foundation in the country. They've published a book on the history of the foundation, and you can flip through the book for free online. It's an interesting snapshot of what life was like for gay and lesbian Houstonians through the years, especially for me, to see what things were like before the 80s, when I first became aware of the gay community through my mother's theatre friends, right around the time when they first started being able to be out in public. https://www.dianahistorybook.com/

Yeah, I wonder about that too, there is a car inside the downtown one, but I don't think its the same one. Yeah, the old HAIF ad, wasn't that a kick to see?

My 12 year old daughter has been obsessed with 80s culture for the last 2 years now, so towards the beginning of her obsession I took her to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, explained that when I was her age in the mid-late 80s, Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts were a huge fad (along with Spuds McKenzie shirts until the school district banned the latter), and I bought her one of the classic shirts. Last night she told me she was outgrowing that shirt and needed another one, so we need to go back to Hard Rock. She then said something about how cool it was that she could go to the same restaurant I went to when I was her age. So I had to break it to her that Hard Rock wasn't downtown back then, it was on Kirby, and that got me curious about what years the Kirby location was open, and why they moved downtown. I found this article, didn't realize Houston's Hard Rock Cafe opened as early as 1986 (edit: opening date November 6, 1986), so early into the Hard Rock fad (I don't think I actually ate there until about 1992). Some mildly interesting discussion of the architecture of the building, and (edit) as cspwal points out, check out the old www.theHaif.com ad! http://offcite.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2010/03/RIP_Moore_Cite67.pdf Looks like they moved downtown in 2000 (edit: Kirby location's last day of service was May 20, 2000, Downtown location opened the next day). I remember to going to the "Fire and Ice" restaurant that briefly took over the space in 2001. On the "why" Hard Rock left Kirby, this HBJ article from 2001 sheds some light: https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2001/11/19/newscolumn3.html I guess it did make sense in 1986 to open a Hard Rock on Kirby (Galleria area would have worked too, hence Planet Hollywood) when downtown was nothing, but once the late 90s early 00s downtown renaissance started, Hard Rock wanted that access.

Kinda depends on the style of wine. A vintner who goes after the big bold California styles that are all about varietal, you probably would not have found wines that tasted like those centuries ago. But a lot of European wines are probably very similar to what they were centuries ago, especially certain Italian styles. And retsina is a style that probably tastes nearly identical to the way it did at least 2,000 years ago. Don't assume though that older winemaking techniques were better. Before the advent of cultured yeasts and dosing grape must with sulfites or sulfur dioxide to kill wild yeasts before starting fermentation, winemaking was much less predictable than it is now. Winemakers would of course use the lees from an old batch of wine of proven quality to inoculate the next batch with yeast that worked (although they didn't really understand why this worked), a batch could still become contaminated with a wild yeast species (both from the grapes or from the poor sanitation back then( that would give it a funky flavor, or worse, make it spoil, and wine makers would try to recoup their losses by blending this off. There was a reason the ancient Romans rarely drank wine that hadn't been cut with water and sweetened. And speaking of the Romans and sweetening wine, from Roman times through the 1800s, lead acetate was regularly added to wine to sweeten it and balance the flavor.

Yeah, isinglass, it's a fining, or clarifying agent. (I do a little home winemaking) Generally the isinglass is going to agglomerate suspended solids in the wine and cause them to fall to the bottom as lees, and theoretically the isinglass all ends up in the lees, which are discarded when the wine is racked, so winemakers don't consider the isinglass to be "in" the wine anymore, but because the wine process involved an animal product at one point, the wine can't be considered vegetarian. Wines that want to be considered completely vegetarian will use a non-animal derived fining agent, like bentonite, a type of clay. You have to use a lot more bentonite than isinglass though.

I tend to agree with H-Town Man here. Even if IM Pei designed it himself with some grand vision in mind, it's a completely unremarkable looking early 80s one-story commercial building with no significant Houston history to it, and it's not an efficient use of a parcel in downtown Houston in the 21st Century.

That was my observation this March when I was up in Austin as well.

You must have the wrong table, I don't think anyone here ordered a word salad.

Never eaten at one, how do they measure up to James Coney Island?

Here are a couple of Bobby McGee menus, probably from one of their Arizona California locations, which lasted a lot longer than in Texas. Here's one that the source I got it from says is from 1987: https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1249&context=menu_collection Can't quite tell what year this one is from, but judging from the design of the menu and the prices, which are slightly higher than the 1987 menu, (along with the lack of email address or website under the corporate address), I'm guessing very early 90s?: https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1946&context=mbf_collection FilioScotia is right, food doesn't look to be anything special at all. Interestingly, Bobby McGee's was founded in 1971, and very similar Magic Time Machine was founded in 1973, and Magic Time Machine (which still exists in San Antonio and Dallas), still serves a menu very similar to these two from 30 years ago. A lot of the prices have gone up in that time, but interestingly, shrimp scampi cost $15.99 then and now. https://www.magictimemachine.com/assets/file/magic-time-machine-menu.pdf

I get it, it sucks to have to deal with it on a daily basis, I remember it well. Just trying to walk to stores from my apartments down there in the early 00s I was constantly being pursued by aggressive panhandlers, and I do mean pursued, I had them shout at me from a block away, and start following me, it was spooky. I remember shopping in that Randall's in midtown when it was all shiny and new and being accosted by a panhandler in the frozen food section. When I lived in the Camden Midtown circa 2003, across from the Cadillac dealership, my view from my 2nd story balcony was of the homeless woman who wore plastic grocery bags for socks and always sat on the bench right below me. Couldn't even be free of their badgering when I was in my own apartment - one sunny Saturday afternoon I was grilling on my little hibachi out on my balcony and a homeless person (can't remember if it was her or another one) calling up to me for money. I haven't lived there in 15 years, but I do go down there a lot on weekends, park and walk around, eat at restaurants, shop, etc, and it's a lot better than it was 15 years ago. There is so much more development and activity now than there was back then, homeless people can't exist there in the concentrations they did back then, and when you get hit up by a homeless person on a busy street with a lot of other normal people, and a lot of brightly lit businesses, it's a lot less threatening than when it is just you and a homeless person on the lonely street between your apartment and the nearest store. And the corridor between midtown and downtown under the Pierce Elevated back then, having to pass through a Hooverville, it was a real psychological barrier between the Fourth Ward and the First Ward. Making that area gated parking was great. Again, it sucks when you're dealng with it on a daily basis, and I understand how that is going to affect someone's perspective, and I am sure there are certain times and certain areas where things get to be more like they used to be for a while, but from a longer perspective of 20 years, it looks much better overall.

As wilcal said, the Lime rep rode the scooter from the Galleria area to downtown. Matthews's tweet: " I rode the lone operating Lime scooter in Houston yesterday. Lime scooter rep rode it from the Galleria down the Buffalo Bayou trail to his downtown hotel during rush hour. Would you use these scooters instead of driving your car around Houston? "

On what do your base your opinion that it is worse? I'm looking at the statistics, which show that homeless numbers have significantly decreased over the last several years. This comes from the Coalition for the Homeless's 2018 report on the Point-in-Time Homeless Count & Survey for the Houston area, which is required by HUD. It shows a 51% decrease in overall homelessness since 2011, and a 63% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in that time. There has been a slight uptick since Harvey, but it's still significantly lower than it was 5 years ago.

Strack definitely looked brutalist on the outside, but I remember going to speech tournaments there in 6th-8th and thinking the inside seemed nicer, I guess because it was only 10 years old as opposed to 20. And up to that time I had never gone to a two-story school, which seemed cool. Klein was definitely a much nicer school my last two years than my first two years. The Commons, Pavillion, and courtyard between the two, the Hi Rise, pretty much everything south of the original building, was pretty nice. I was kind of surprised that they tore down all that stuff that wasn't that old, when they could have just torn down and rebuilt the main building. But I guess that open campus with walking outside wasn't secure enough in this day and age. Once I got my license, I used to joyride all around "up in the country" as I called anything north of Louetta, and I had my favorite "country roads." I'd take Old Louetta up to Spring-Cypress and then over to Huffsmith-Kohrville Rd, and then maybe turn on Boudreaux Road, and all that felt like the rural South at that time. I'd also take Louetta to North Eldridge Parkway, and head south on Eldridge, and it was nothing but dense pine forest as far south as Cypress-North Houston Rd. My girlfriend and I would pull off the road at the bridge over Cypress Creek and make out under the bridge. Shocking how built up that is now 25 years later.

It definitely seems better to me. I moved into Midtown in January 2000, lived there until April 2004. Any time day or night I wanted to walk from my apartment into Downtown, I had to pass under the Pierce Elevated and all the homeless camps. Turning all that into fenced parking lots some time after I moved was an obvious solution, one that was about 30 years overdue.

That 24 Hour Fitness on the Southwest corner used to be the greenhouse Kroger I was talking about. Across the street on the Southeast Corner used to be another chain grocery store, definitely a Minimax: https://houstonhistoricretail.com/grocery/minimax/ 18518 Kuykendahl Rd Spring, TX 77379 Wheat's Minimax Shoot, I would have given anything to go to Strack, I went to the original Kleb building, which was just as much of a windowless block, but older (from 1967) and run down. They moved Kleb into its current building three years after I finished 8th grade. I started out at Haude, which was Klein's first "modern" elementary school (a windowless block with open concept classrooms), then went to Brill for 4th and 5th (another windowless block), then after Kleb I went to Klein, which was pretty rundown by the early 90s. My sophomore year we had to endure all the mud and chaos and detours getting between classes while they enclosed the Commons and built the Pavillion (one of my friends of the debate team came up with the name). I haven't been in the new Klein building yet. I was in Klein Cain this February (I am the volunteer coach for my daughter's middle school speech team and Cain hosted a tournament) and was overwhelmed by the interior of that school. It felt like a major airport terminal or a shopping mall. We'll probably be going to the new Klein this fall for a tournament, I'm curious to see what it's like, but will be strange to be in my "alma mater" yet will be unrecognizable to me. Agreed on Louetta, my mom has been fighting that in the area for 20+ years, her biggest victory was convincing Kickerillo to give up the land for Kickerillo-Mischer Preserve. And Spring-Cypress and 2920, when I left for college in 1994, they were both still country roads with farms and even a few 100 year old farmhouses, now they're 21st Century Levitttown.

I did see that map, after 10 years with multiple missed deadlines, a big red block that says "coming soon" doesn't mean anything as far as I'm concerned. The theme park is what Galland led with in his promotion of the project both when he started it and for several years after - even as late at 2017, he said "We bought this land for one purpose, and that was to build a theme park.” Now when I click on the "Theme Park" link on the Grand Texas website, nothing happens, the Investor Information page mentions Big Rivers Waterpark, Gator Bayou Adventure Park, Speedsportz Racing Park, the Grand Texas RV Resort, and then says "shopping, dining, and hotels currently under construction or in planning," but doesn't mention anything about a theme park in planning. So what is it that I'm missing? I'm not just skeptical about the theme park ever being built, I'm skeptical about the wisdom of using a water park as a stepping stone to a theme park, especially out there. The Houston area already has Schlitterbahn down in Galveston, Typhoon Texas in Katy, and Splashtown just 25 minutes away from Grand Texas - and Splashtown is closer to both the Woodlands and Houston's population center. Water parks have such a short operating season with high expenses, I question whether even Houston can sustain four. I don't know enough about adventure parks to know if that'll be enough of a tie-in to keep luring Houstonians away from other water parks, and given Galland's obvious lack of knack for capitalizing projects like this or managing marketing and promotion, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't look into whether it would be enough of a lure either. Sorry to sound so pessimistic, because I like theme parks and would like to see Houston have a good one, and I initially followed this project with some excitement, but its course has been disappointing, and I worry it may make it less likely for investors to want to participate in other, better theme park projects in the area.

I don’t see anything in the Chronicle article or the Grande Texas website to corroborate that, unless you want to count a broken link to a theme park page. After a decade of delays just to get this much open, I’ll believe it when I see it IRT a theme park ever opening. Let’s see if what they’ve got now survives as long as Hanna Barbara Land or Busch Gardens Houston.

So ten years later, "Grand Texas" is finally opening next week. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/east-montgomery/news/article/Grand-Texas-theme-park-Houston-opening-2019-13840991.php?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR33ol83ZFyHf9kjXbe350nWLJ-Q0DMxWHgEEcakp39sAU_lfOLMRnLlA9c Here's what it offers: Doesn't really sound like a theme park to me. Seems to have scaled back a bit from what they were saying it would offer 10 years ago. And they ashcanned the "no admission fee" idea.

Not necessarily: https://www.completecommunitiesde.org/planning/landuse/what-is-mixed-use-development/ Also, the Houston Chronicle article uses the term "mixed-use" in regard to Memorial City in the following way: That comma, followed by "as well as", means that plans for mixed-use tenants (whether residential is part of that or not) is separate from what they are going to do with the former Sears store. And the 265 acre Memorial City campus is more than just the mall and its parking lot, it is also Memorial Herman Hospital and medical/professional buildings, as well as several office buildings and even apartment buildings which are already there: http://www.memorialcity.com/about-us/metronational/

I'm not seeing in the article any mention of any plans for anything like that, so don't know where you're getting that.

Huh. I took my daughter here two-three (maybe four?) years ago, for old times' sake for me, and because I thought she'd like the ghost stories. Interior was just as cool as I remembered it, food was a lot worse than I remember, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, especially since the late 90s revitalization of downtown and all the much better dining options. My nostalgia aside, it's probably for the best that building is going to be put to a better use.