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plumber2

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Everything posted by plumber2

  1. plumber2
    This building was designed to have a gyroscope in the upper floors. It would have anticipated wind force and leaned the building in the direction of the wind. Real cool stuff. Sorry it didn't get built.
  2. plumber2
    The Incarnate Word Academy on Texas Ave and Jackson St.. is run by the Incarnate Word Sisters. The convent and noviate on Bissonett in Bellaire was built in 1931 on property acquired in 1924. This was the home for the nuns and novices of the order. A boarding and day school was openned in 1932, but the academy dowtown was the sisters only high school in Houston until 1955. That is the year they openned Marian High School, a co-ed campus, on the back side of the convent property facing Gulfton St. (now Fournace Pl.). The Incarnate Word sisters continued to operate both high schools until the late 70's when they decided to close Marian High School and sell the Bellaire property. Marian High was then operated for several years as Marian Christian by the Christian brothers from St. Albert's parish on W. Bellfort. It was no more successful that the Incarnate Word attempt, so it too was closed by the mid 80's. The Incarnate Word sisters used the funds from the sale of the Bissonett property to undertake major renovations to Incarnate Word Academy downtown. These overdue upgrades would have never happened without these proceeds. It was not until the early 90's that the Episcopal Church acquired the property from the original purchasers. Apparently the city of Bellaire had changed it's mind by then about allowing more high rise deveoplment along the West Loop. I attended Marian High School in 1970-71. The high school students used the convent cafeteria, swimming pool, chapel and sometimes the convent library. but the convent itself was off limits to students. The boarding and day school was no longer operating by then. The chapel was indeed unique. It had seating that faced the center, similar to an old english abbey. I'm sure the current Episcopal's appreceite this. The Incarnate Word Academy students would come out to our campus to use the Marian High School auditorium for their school events. These girls wore different colored plaid unifroms than our girls did, so us guys immediatley new when they were on campus. Most of the IWA girls were bow-wows anyway, so we were very cruel to them as I remember.
  3. plumber2
    Mabye so, but I do keep my pants up when I bend over. No plumber's crack here!
  4. plumber2
    I've noticed that modesty thing with my 18 year old son. He won't even come out of his room without being fully dressed, even if it's just to go to the clothes dryer or something. I had two older brothers and an older sister growing up. We all changed in front of each other as kids. Sis quit changing with us when she started growing tits. I think mom told her to be more careful around boys, even her own brothers. But us guys never quit changing in front of each other. The boys shared one bedroom and bathroom anyway. (Brady Bunch style.) My parents also had a beach house at Bolivar when we were growing up. There was an outdoor shower head underneath, we all used it to rinse off and change in and out of our swim suits. I guess you loose modesty growing up like that. A generation thing as they've been calling it.
  5. plumber2
    Fannin, Main and the Light Rail will close aroung 6:15AM that morning. Best street level viewing would be from Southgate looking east. The TCH campus will be locked down, not allowing the public to view from inside it's own buildings. I'm sure most of the other instituitions will do the same. Wells Fargo will come down by use of wrecking ball and big dozers.
  6. plumber2
    Yeah Josh, thanks for those pictures. My mother worked for Humble Oil in the late 30's up until around 1943 when she took a wartime job at Shell Oil in Deer Park. She wanted to go back to Humble Oil after the war but was not allowed to. It seems the returning GI's were given priority. Women were encouraged to stay home. I remember going to a wedding reception in the Petroleum Club in the late 70's. Real snazzy place. The Humble Building, along with the Tennesse Gas Building were built like forts, including fall out shelters in the basements. The floors were engineered with conduit banks inbedded in the floors for electrical service. This type of construction allowed for unobstructed workplace layouts without any service drops or stub walls to block views. Marvels in their days.
  7. plumber2
    My mother was a student at UofH in the late 30's. She told me that when they got to play Rice on any occasion, one of the Cougar fight songs always ended with this chant, "What comes out of a chinaman's ass? Rice!, Rice!, Rice!. Bless her soul, she passed away just this year. She was 90 years old.
  8. plumber2
    At that particular Price's on Bellaire, there was a painted "Humpdie-Dumpdie" on the fence with a speaker box behind it. You pushed a button on his nose and he talked to you. It was of couse the clerk inside, and somehow we all knew that but it didn't matter to a four year old kid, by gollie you were talking to "Humpdie-Dumpdie" for Christ's sakes.
  9. plumber2
    1971 at Clear Creek High School, all students had to wear school supplied jock straps and gym shorts during P.E. Class. There were three large bins marked small, medium and large to reach into. Some poor assistant coach had to wash and dry these all day long for the next classes to use. We all had to take showers, no exceptions. Another assistant coach watched us to make sure everyone showered and then handed each of us a towel as we finished. More than once we were made to swim in just jock straps. Nobody asked why, we just did what we were told. We assumed the coaches just didn't want to wash and dry that many garments.
  10. plumber2
    I don't know, Isn't it still over there off of Tate near West Dallas? Haven't been in those parts for awhile, so maybe it's gone.
  11. plumber2
    Lee, Westbury and Worthing were identical schools, approved during the same bond election. Madison and Sterling were identical, same bond election. Scarborough and Lincoln were the same, and for that matter Bellaire and Waltrip were pretty close to being the same too. My dad told me that Reagan and Milby were identical, approved during the same bond election along with Lamar, but Lamar of course was built to look different because of it's superior location at the base of River Oals Blvd.
  12. plumber2
    My dad told me that he went out to the San Jacinto Battleground in 1936 for the centinial celebration. There was no monument built at that time, and the USS Texas was still in active service. He said there was a Navy ship (a cruiser I think) on site for the event. He was allowed to crawl all over it as sixteen year old kid. At a certain point during the festivities the ship fired it's guns. The whole ship moved sideways during the blasts. Most of the battleground and park that people saw back then is now underwater, due to subsidence.
  13. plumber2
    The Maternity Center will be located on Fannin St. at the current site of the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Wells Fargo Bank Building.
  14. plumber2
    It will be open by 2010. It is part of their Vision 2010 Expansion Campaign. I have all the details and will post it later. PSP is the architect.
  15. plumber2
    I hear St. Luke's needs the money to build their expansion project planned for the X-lot. X-lot is the small driveway between their current building, TMC Garage 1 and the Joint Linen Building. However, The Methodist Hospital still has them over a barrel that crimps these plans somewhat. These two institutions share the old Joint Linen building, with the property line running down the middle of it, but TMH has no reason to vacate it's portion to allow for the demolition needed to construct the current SLEH designed expansion. The Joint Linen Building also is structurally attached to the TMH Power Plant building, and one of TMH's cooling towers is actaully sitting on top of the SLEH portion of that building. It's a sticky mess with these two competitors. They rarely talk to each other expect with lawyers present.
  16. plumber2
    #41 (Bill Williams Restaurant looks to be about the spot were the now vacant Crowne Plaza Hotel and Wells Fargo Bank Building are located. The Crowne Plaza will be imploded Nox. 11th and the bank building soon after to make way for the new Texas Children's Matenrity Center.
  17. plumber2
    There is already an existing Home Depot between Bay Area Blvd. and NASA Rd #1.
  18. plumber2
    That map is great, but why is US 75 shown in two locations, North Sheperd and Airline? Shouldn't one of these had been marked Business or Alternate?
  19. plumber2
    I've heard from an engineer friend of mine that the Harris Gully releif project is stalled. It appears that the underground boring machine is broke down somwhere under the Dick Dowling monument and that it will take several months to fix it. Parts are coming from Germany or someplace like that.
  20. plumber2
    Oh. I loved the "Witches Hat House". My mom lived on the south side as a young girl and walked by this house every day on her way to St Agnes Academy. She said it was scary looking after dark. I remember someone saved the cupola and stored it on a piece of property in MidTown for several years.
  21. plumber2
    Can anyone figure out why they built Two Houston Center first, before One Houston Center was started? Why didn't they just call the first building One Houston Center? And the Texas Eastern Transmission Co. as a developer? Sounded like an auto parts supplier. No wonder people from other parts of the country thought we were just a bunch of hicks.
  22. plumber2
    Yes, TMC garage #19 to be exact, however, there will be some retail on the ground level to support the Meyer Building and TMC parkers taking the shuttle buses.
  23. plumber2
    This was all former Humble Oil Co. land, later Fiendswood Development Co had some ownership in these parcels. Friendswood Development was a unit of Exxon at one time so that is probably how they became connected with it. Who knows now whats up with this land? I've noticed alot of the freeway frontage land has been cleared of brush lately.
  24. plumber2
    We were putting underground plumbing in one of those original Compaq buildings back in 1991 (I think). This stuff was all labratory spec. pipe, fusion joint, glass and stainless steel drain bodies, the whole works. It was complicated but great work and we were all proud of our craftmanship. Then the day after we back filled, plans had changed. Apperently they (Compaq) did not need this technology any more so we were paid through a change order to cut everything off at grade and plug it all up. Concrete was poured over it the next day for a future "storage area". Money well spent!
  25. plumber2
    There was also an L&C cafeteria on the SW corner of Westheimer and Hilcroft. 1969 to maybe 1974.
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