plumber2

Great video! My parents went to Hemisfair but I've never seen any pictures of it. I love how that video starts with construction of the Tower of the Americas and Hilton Palacio del Rio.

My whole family went to the Worlds Fair in 1968. I was age 13 at the time. HemisFair was a big effort econimically for San Antonio back then and all of the building trades in the state participated, especially the union trades in Houston. We had relatives in San Antonio that were also union members so it was a big family gathering for us. All the older guys (dads and uncles) hung out at the Lone Star or Pearl Brewery exhibits for almost the whole event. Us kids thus new were to find them when we needed more money for ride tickets.

The "La Quinta Motor Hotel" started out as a new venture in San Antonio that year.

Also, very embarrassing to the plumbing industry, a "cross connection" contaminated drinking water at the Hotel Palacio del Rio and caused several to get sick and some deaths.

I will look for photo graphs of the trip. I'm sure someone in the family was sober enough to take pictures.

The Jamail family all lived along Fairdale west of Ulrich Rd. (now Fountain View). I remeber as a child breaking my collar bone at one their backyard parties after being chased and pushed down by a couple of the Jamail girls. (they were mean).

As a kid, riding along in the back seat of the car, I always looked forward eagerly to seeing the one on W. Gray, almost as much as passing the Mrs. Baird's bakery a few blocks east and smelling the fresh baking bread and seeing the loaves moving along the production line through the big glass windows.

Dino never did much for me, but I really dug the Flying Red Horse.

Several people have mentioned Henke and Pillot in this thread. I just came across a special section in the Chron in 1922 - August 15, Henke and Pillot was celebrating their 50th anniversary. Founded in 1872 in Market Square; Henry Henke hired Eugene Pillot as his produce manager and then made him a partner. They were sold in 1956 to Kroger.

Here's a couple more I came across in the old papers that were still around in my childhood:

Waddell's Furniture - I think they were in business up until about 10 years ago.

Ineeda Laundry and Cleaners - started out doing home laundry but by the 50s I think it was mostly commercial and industrial laundry and linen supply. Used to see their trucks all the time.

It was just a few years ago that the beer & wine selections in Krogers were still refered to as and rung up at the registers as "HenPil" items. It appears that the Texas liquor license required this obscure situation to continue on for years after Kroger bought out Henke & Pilot.

Hey, guys. Galveston ISD apparently no longer lists San Jacinto Elementary School.

Did it close?

Yes, San Jacinto ES was closed this year and Alamo ES is being considered to close next year. GISD is losing enrollment.

I'm all for spiffing the area up, but the "Holcombe Square" business still strikes me as a bit pretentious. The triangle is a small lot bounded by Holcombe, Fannin, Old Main Street, and a drive-in bank. It serves essentially as a traffic island. It can't function in the same way as what most of us would consider a city square or urban plaza because it has no pedestrian destination and is isolated by major streets. That's why I find the name misleading and pompous. It just seems as bogus as the "SoDo" and "NoDo" ideas that people are always dreaming up - the idea that you add glamour by renaming.

Has anyone ever sat on that concrete bench facing Fannin St. at this location? If you look underneath, it actaully serves as a ventilation for some kind of electrical gear. Real cumfy! Don't get too relaxed!

Kinda late to reply to this message, but as I'm new to the forum, I just noticed this posting.

So, here's what I know about this log cabin. It's known as the "Pioneer Memorial Log Cabin Museum". It is owned by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. It was built in 1936, as a hospitality house, built in anticipation of all the visitors to the Texas Centenial. I don't think it was originally at that location.

More info about it can be found here: http://www.drt-inc.org/loghouse.htm

It sits on Hermann Park property, and not part of the hospital.

I found out that the Texas Medical Center operates the Laurence H. Favrot Tower Apartments.

They are only open to Texas Medical Center professionals and other staff and their dependents

See: http://www.tmc.edu/tmc-residence.html

http://www.tmc.edu/tmc-res_plans.html shows floor plans of the typical apartments

By the way, the apartments are zoned to the following Houston ISD schools:

* Roberts Elementary School

* Ryan Middle School (IMO, the area around Favrot should be rezoned to Pershing - Ryan is not too popular with Westsiders)

* Lamar High School

And what's up with those smells? Somebody in there is cooking multi-cultural something for dinner!

I know that Neiman Marcus is not owned by Simon, the company that owns the mall. The mall just came out to NM's front door. The same goes for Dillards. A skywalk would be nice, but it is unlikely a common corridor would be built for something that is not really included in the Galleria mall, even though NM is included in the mall directory. NM was built before the Galleria was and the own the land it sits on, not Simon.

Exactly....that's why the floors don't line up.

This advertisement was in the June 1975 issue of Houston Home & Garden magazine. The same units are going for $215,000 up to $329,000. The Woodway was built in 1974.

You can peruse the units for sale at http://www.har.com/highrisefinder/dispHighriseDetail.cfm.

My father ran the plumbing crew during the construction of this building. It was 1974-75. The plumbing contractor was the Sam P. Wallace Co. which my father worker for at that time. I remember visiting the site a few times during construction and walking around inside the unfinished units. I couldn't imagine anyone paying $67,000. to live in one of those at the time. Whow! how silly of me.

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.

There was also a number you could call (think it was 999-9999 or something like that) and you could

talk on the "grapevine" to total strangers. It allowed 5 or 6 people at a time to talk with each other. A service message would come on every few minutes asking you to hang up and redail, but it was real cool back then to get "on-line". This was like our 60's version of the "Internet".

don't foget 78 SUnset (West Houston west of Post Oak)

and 68 OVerland (Houston Heights)

I grew up in Sharpstown (apparently near an orphanage) and over the years from attending Sutton Elem., Jane Long JH, and SHS, I met quite a few aqaintenances. It sucks that they could not contact me after they were gone.

Does anyone know what orphanage that might be?

And by the way..........we ARE in the next century.....why haven't WE, (As The People) given this type of hopeful place a more respectable name? ~global

The orphanage was probably the Burnett Bayland Orhpanage on Chimney Rock Rd. These students would have diffinently gone to Jane Long Jr. High. The old structures were torn down in the early 60's, and new buildings built on the southwest corner of the county property, Clarewood and Alder (I think). Most of the property is now county offices and park facilities. The orginal buildings were quite impressive, large spanish style dormitories, similar in look to the Ft. Crockett buildings, still standing in Galveston.

The other end of the monorail, which never connected to the arrowhead park end, was on main, just west of fondred. I used to walk up the rail and play in the ruins of the car in about 1965. It was an interesting experience-smashed plexiglass windows and weeds growing in the ruins of something too futuristic for houston at the time

Now that's what I remember.....Thank you Croberts. I thought I was crazy. No one else remembers this for some reason.

The best way to get your bearings is probably by using main and it's

center "cross-overs" as a guide. IE: it's easy to see where the entrance

is in the 47 and 60 pix. You can see the entrance from main in each,

and the center crossing at that point. This crossing from main was just

west of where Landsdown is now. The airport roads are darker than the

new streets in the 60 pix. I was comparing them the other day, and

judging from the crossings on main, what is now Chimney rock, would

be just about at the end of the runway threshholds looking east.

Note that Chimney rock is just west of the first crossing east from the one

in front of the airport. That crossing is also east of that road/easement,

or whatever that runs to the water tower. In the 47 pix, I seem to faintly

see that easement just past the runways. I think the next two crossings

are the motor hotel area, and I think the clutter of buildings near the

top of the pix, to the left of main is Post Oak. I think the bend in the

bayou you see in the 47 pix is actually near the gasmer/willow intersection,

but not totally sure. That would be about where the old Westbury Hospital

would be. That airport covered quite a bit of area. I think you would be

able to see W. Airport in the left part of the 47 pix, if it had been there at

that time.

MK

Further out South Main at Fondren, there was an experimental monrail built with an overpass over Fondren.

This was about 1960 or 61 at the latest. Fondren was a single lane shell road then. Does anyone else remember this? Curiously, the cover of the Houston"Yellow Pages" during that period showed a monorail in place at Houston International Airport (Hobby), although I never remember seeing it there. Tell me I'm not crazy!

Moody Gardens?

No, not Moody Gardens.......it was Sea World in San Antonio!

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

This is a great link. I've scrolded through it quickly and I think I see the old Grady School house in there. It was a single story and located on the corner of Westheimer and Post Oak Rd. were Neiman Marcus now stands. For years before the Galleria was built it was used as a Purina Feed Store (that's the part I remember). The new Grady School on Sage Rd. was built in the 50's. All the snooty Tanglewood kids went there.

archstone smith owns the site and are planning to do apartments.

across the street is not townhomes but more apartments. originally owned by farb, mccombs purchased his plans and will develop around +/- 400 units.

This backs up to the old Robertson Public Warehouse. The warehouse's location and the building you are talking about on the south side of Buffalo Bayou is why Southern Pacific had to build the railroad bridge across the bayou way back when. The wooden bridge was torn down not so long ago. The concrete abuttments are still visible on either side of the bayou if you look close enough. The bridge was kind of a landmark.....too bad!

I defiantly agree open ground parking lots are and eyesore for the inner-city, but if a car dealerships opened up downtown with a parking structure with ground level pedestrian access and large widow displays to allow the public to view their showroom. I bet you would think it was cool and urban.

The fact of the matter is that when developers build in the inner city they need to rethink how they build, and not just build designs meant for the suburbs. I don