ImTomTerrific

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 6:11 PM, Libbie H said:

Were the yellow rose bushes still in the courtyard? My parents planted them when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Mom was the head cheese of the gardening committee, and Daddy was pressed into the service of helping plant them. And did they still serve a really delicious spaghetti dish? In an old cookbook of my late mother's, I found a pencil-written recipe for "Montrose Spaghetti."

Libbie, I hope you'll see this.  I don't sign onto HAIF very often so I'm just seeing this.  When I went to Montrose there were roses in each corner of the courtyard.  I don't really remember if they were yellow.  I also very well remember the Montrose Spaghetti.  It was sent home with everyone before the Halloween carnival so everyones mother could prepare it the same..  I'm considering creating a Montrose Elementary group on Facebook.  I recently ran across one of my classmates on Facebook.

I went to Montrose from 3rd through 6th grade. (1966-1969).  I had Mrs. Hudson for 4th and 5th grade.  She had taught my older sister in 6th grade.  I also had Miss Shuttleworth in 6th.  My mother was a teacher there when they moved the deaf program there so I knew a lot of the teachers there even though they weren't mine.  I also  had Miss Womack for music.  Mrs. Ivens was the principal.  When the school was demolished in about 1980 they called my mother to see if there was anything from the school that she wanted as a memento. Mom chose one of the mosaic tile benches that sat in the corner of the courtyard.  When we moved Mom to nursing care a few years ago I took the bench so it now sits in my back yard.

I was born and raised in Houston. I fondly remember the Christmas display in the Foley's window every year. I remember the opening of the Harris County Domed Stadium and later Astroworld. I remember taking out of town guests to the top of the Humble Building because it was the tallest building in town and you could see everything from there. I remember the machines that would make 3-D plastic forms of the Humble Building AND the domed stadium while you waited and watched. How about the numbers on the shopping carts at Henke & Pillot.....you would take the number card from the slot on the cart after your groceries were bagged and a "sack-boy" would take your cart to the waiting area. You would drive around to the waiting area and hand them your card and they would load your groceries in the car.

Boy scout from '68 - '75. Eagle Scout at 15 in '73. Order of the Arrow. Junior Assistant Scoutmaster. I did the whole thing. My son was in Cub Scouts and Webelos....never could get him interested past that.

A guy on another thread talked about the Red Bluff Drive-In Theatre in Pasadena. I told him that I read on Drive-Ins.com that it spent its last years showing X-rated movies and that it had a tall fence around it so that the screen couldn't be seen. But he said that you could see it.

He was quite right

Milk and eggs of course, and some local grocery stores would take your orders over the phone and deliver the groceries to your door. Didn't Randall's try this again recently with Internet order grocery delivery? Pharmacies used to also deliver to your door.

My first job was delivering for a Rexall drugstore. The owner had a Volkswagen Beetle and actually had signs on the doors calling it the "Pill Bug".

The Washburn Tunnel goes underneath the Houston Ship Channel. It is located just south of the intersection of Federal Road (north and south) and Clinton Dr (east and west).

Here are a cpl of links to the Washburn Tunnel

http://www.texasfreeway.com/houston/photos...d_houston.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washburn_Tunnel

Thanks. I never knew about the Washburn Tunnel. What body of water does it go under? Is it near that ferry, what was that called, Mansfield? Is the Washburn Tunnel still in operation? I remember us going through the Baytown-LaPorte Tunnel many times as a kid. I always thought that the experience was great, but my mom was always apprehensive about a collapse.

No, now I just remembered that the name of that ferry is Lynchburg. I had it confused with a road over here called Mansfield Ferry Road.

The Washburn Tunnel goes underneath the Houston Ship Channel. It is located just south of the intersection of Federal Road (north and south) and Clinton Dr (east and west).

Thanks for the info. My dad is now 73. Maybe he doesn't remember things quite like he used to. He said that when we lived in Greens Bayou, I stopped breathing and he rushed me to a hospital. He said that he remembers speeding through "the tunnel." The only tunnel that I know of was the Baytown-LaPorte Tunnel. Was Greens Bayou close to that tunnel?

The tunnel is the Washburn Tunnel. It's at the end of Federal Road and only about 1 mile south of the area known as Greens Bayou. Greens Bayou is in the city of Houston and is split between HISD and Galena Park ISD. My father also worked for Todd Shipyard in the early 50's and I grew up in Northshore

Part of the name of this topic is Greens Bayou. My dad said that we lived in Greens Bayou when I turned a year old back in the late 1950s. He said that he worked for Todd Shipbuilding. I wonder if that place is still around? I'm also wondering if Greens Bayou was inside the Houston city limits back then, or was it a separate city? Would any of you happen to know?

Greens Bayou is a section that dates back to the 40's. It's in the east side of Houston. Basically, it is bordered by the Bayou on the north and east. It goes about to Industrial Road on the south and just west of Federal Road. I grew up next to the area known as Greens Bayou. I'm sure someone on here will correct me on the exact boundries, but that is basically it. Todd shipyard used to east of the old Armco Plant where Industrial Road dead-ends. It's a private dock today. Hope this helps.

In 1984 I flew to San Francisco to attend the Democratic National Convention. Among the passengers on my flight were the Singing Boys of Houston. They numbered about 40 or so and were extremely well behaved. They were flying to San Francisco to give a concert at the Cathedral. When we landed, but before we exited the plane, they sang a couple of songs for the other passengers. They sang very well and the mini-concert was appreciated by the other passengers. I didn't know the choir was defunct. That's a pity.

I'm very sketchy on the history of when they went defunct. It was my understanding that they went defunct several years after I left....say 1975-1976 maybe. However, I had also heard that they'd been resurrected which would account for the 1984 encounter. I don't know if they're still in existence today.

We were a very respected group in our day. We held a Christmas concert at Fannin Bank every year (I still have my silver dollars that they gave each member every year). We also held a concert on the grand staircase in the original front side of the Museum of Fine Arts every year. We performed with the Houston Chorale and the Houston Symphony with the guest conductor, Sir John Barbirolli. A children's TV special was produced at Astroworld in 1968 called "The Pied Piper of Astroworld" in which the Singing Boys were a part of. The year after I left the chorus they went to Austria to perform with the Vienna Choir Boys. I have very fond memories of the group and the wonderful experiences I had.

I'm sure I have some pictures somewhere, but I'm not sure there is really an interest. If someone would like to see them I'll see if I can find them and scan them.

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.

Hmmm, guess my initial recollection that the school was originally in Beth Israel downtown was fairly accurate.

Here is a link to all of the photos that I had posted on old Houston and Harris County Schools:

Old Houston and Harris County Schools

thanks for posting the pictures, idid.....it's the 1st time I've seen my old Montrose School in 25 years. I'm going to have to hunt down my class pictures from the 60's that were taken inside the classrooms and post them.

Is there a source about HSPVA being in the San Jac building?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_f...and_Visual_Arts

Is there a source about HSPVA being in the San Jac building?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jacinto_H...l_%28Houston%29

How 'bout Neisners, Ben Franklins and Perry's. Even TG&Y

"BERTHA'S" sounds like a name that would attract people. A current restaurant that I see ad of in the Chronicle called "DONARAKI'S" should do the same thing.

Berthas original restaurant was on Southmore near the old Sears on Main St. My wife and I started going to Berthas in the early 80's. At that time it was a dive on McKinney street and was demolished a few years later to make way for the George R. Brown Convention Center. It was a really cool place and she had an blind organ player named Milo. Our son was a baby at the time and Bertha would come over to the table while Milo was playing and pick up our 2 year old and dance around the restaurant with him. When you came to the rest. in the evening, she had the front register closed and you had to go into the kitchen to pay your bill. After the eminent domain of the McKinney rest, she moved to 2 Houston Center on the corner of McKinney and San Jacinto (I think)...it was across from the Southern National Bank on the east side. It was very swank and didn't really feel like the comfortable family rest. it had once been. I remained there for a couple of years until she moved to Montrose Blvd. near St. Thomas in a strip center. That rest. had a calypso feel to it and was always packed. However, Bertha had financial problems and the rest. didn't last very long. The food was FABULOUS and I still crave her guacamole and tacos. Bertha was personal friends with Mickey Gilley and she had a huge painting of him in each of her restaurants. Sadly, Bertha passed away a cpl of years ago.

You're fast! And if I remember correctly, you could dial 222-71xx (anything for the last two numbers) and you would still get it - so in the days of the old rotary phones, I got in the habit of dialing 222-7111.

I hadn't thought about that in YEARS! There also used to be a number that you could dial that would ring you back when you hung up...kind of a line test. It was fun to dial it and then walk away and let someone else answer a dead line. I grew up in Northshore and our phone exchange was Glendale. You could tell who'd lived there the longest by the number that followed the exchange. The oldest was GL3, then GL5.

The HSPVA program was indeed started in 1971 and the original campus was the old San Jacinto High School campus at 1300 Holman (now HCC) which they shared with Houston Technical Institute where trades such as welding and auto mechanics were taught. HSPVA remained at that campus for many years until the new school was built. The Jewish Synagogue became part of that campus and was used as the theatre and called, I believe, the Holman Theatre. The school was not in a Synagogue downtown, unless you call Midtown downtown. No one called it Midtown back then.

:-) I partially stand corrected. I knew that the synagogue was a part of the program, and I knew is was midtown and loosely referred to it as downtown. I'd forgotten the part about San Jacinto HS. Thanks!

http://www.hspva.org/policies/ says it is 1971.

HSPVA says it began in 1971. The original housing for HSVPA was the former Jewish synagogue in downtown Houston before the synagogue moved to Beth Israel in Meyerland.

Montrose Elementary was built in 1913, in the block bounded by Stanford, W. Main, Sulross, and Greeley. Don't know when it closed, but the High School for the Visual and Performing Arts was built on its former site in 1971. This info from a friend who attended Montrose in the 40's.

Just out of curiosity, why do you ask?

I was a student at Montrose Elementary in the late 60's. My mother was a teacher there. It has been reported in several places (Wikipedia included) that the school was demolished in 1971 to make room for HSPVA, but in actuality it was 1981. The school was a beautiful mission style stucco structure. The entire school was built around a courtyard and all of the rooms opened to an outdoor corridor that surrounded the courtyard. In each corner of the courtyard was a mosaic tile bench with climbing roses on trellis'. In the center of the courtyard was the cafeteria. All of the rooms had hardwood floors that the custodians would oil. There was no air conditioning, but large double hung windows that we would open from the top and bottom with huge fans to try and keep us cool. Plus, each room had a "cloak room". In those days the kids were the crossing guards or "The Patrol" as we were called. We had huge bamboo poles with "STOP" flags and stood at each corner of the school grounds to help the other students cross. During that period (1965-1969) Montrose was experiencing Urban Flight and much of the neighborhood stood empty. That was the period in which the "hippies" began moving in because it was cheap to live there. I always say (tongue in cheek) that I went to school with the hippies kids and their names were "Dawn" and "Sun" and "Moon". When the school was about to be demolished my mother was invited to collect a piece of memorilia. So, in her backyard now sits one of the mosaic tile benches that had originally graced the beautiful courtyard. I wish I had pictures of the school, but unfortunately the only ones I have are of the inside of the classrooms when they took our group pictures.