Subdude

Back on topic, please...

This is also on the calendar. 1940 Municipal Air Terminal Museum's Wings and Wheels Open House this Saturday, April 15th Enjoy vintage aircraft and cars!!! Historic Houston would like to invite you to the monthly Wings & Wheels Open House at the 1940 Municipal Air Terminal Musuem this Saturday, April 15, 2006. The event features aircraft displays, vintage vehicle displays, ramp tours, lunch and lots of fun. Families and fly-ins are welcome. Admission is $10 for adults and $5.00 for kids under 12. Admission includes admission to the Museum and its static displays, lunch and special attractions. If you bring a plane or car for display, admission is half price. (Ramp space is limited so fly-in visitors are encouraged to RSVP). The 1940 Municipal Air Terminal Museum is located at 8325 Travelair, on the west side of Houston's Hobby Airport, just east of Telephone Road. For more information contact The 1940 Municipal Air Terminal Museum at 713-454-1940 oor visit their website at www.1940airterminal.org or call Historic Houston at 713-522-0542. Help support the Houston Aeronautical Heritage Society and the restoration of the 1940 Municipal Air Terminal Museum. Lynn Edmundson Historic Houston -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- email: info@historichouston.org web: http://www.historichouston.org

I thought the area around City Hall and the Colisseum wasn't considered part of 4th Ward. Originally there were some nice houses in that area. But you are correct that the Pierce Elevated and Allen Center were built in an historically African-American area, as were San Felipe Courts (APV). That was a common tactic for routing freeways at that time. The land value in poor neighborhoods was less, making acquisition cheaper, and the residents tended to be less politically organized to fight it. In Houston the Pierce Elevated was built right through the Fourth Ward, bisecting the neighborhood. The third photo posted by Torchlight is a perfect illustration. This dates from approx. 1968 (One Shell is under construction). You can see the original east-west street grid of the Fourth Ward, except almost all of the buildings have been razed. Ultimately all in that section would be, with the exception of Antioch Church. Now not even the original street alignment remains in that area.

It wasn't one of those big presidential heads that a local sculptor is making, was it?

Pretty funny. Actually, Houston already has a good example of a pedestrian oriented zone with on-street parking: the Village, especially along Rice Blvd. Rice Village has been a successful retail area for decades, and even with all that distracting and dangerous on-street parking, there doesn't seem to be a major problem with pedestrians being run over.

You do have to be more cautious. Part of the whole point of adding on-street parking is to slow down traffic. If you are careful, there's no reason to expect to hit pedestrians. At least we hope. I'm not sure I understand. How does narrowing streets with parking impede future development or alternative uses? Where have narrowed streets led to stagnation?

No prob. I have stacks of them.

Thanks for the catch. The two topics were merged.

Here you go. This is from about 1961. There's plenty more available.

Done. I also added a "no thanks" option.

Plenty of cities get by just fine with relatively narrow streets and on-street parking. There's no reason to think it's a "recipe for disaster" as long as the streets are wide enough for emergency vehicles and people follow the rules about yielding to emergency vehicles. I don't think you can create an effective pedestrian zone unless it is designed to emphasize sidewalks, not traffic flow. Zaphod's comment makes great sense:

It doesn't look like you can add a poll in an existing thread. If you start a new topic with the poll, then they can be merged.

Note that two similar topics on the Olympics were merged.

You're talking apples and oranges here. The "Granduca" (it's hard to write that without getting a bit ill) isn't meant to be a true luxury hotel or resort. It's just a hotel using fairly standard construction and design that is meant to serve visitors to the Galleria. Think of it as "luxury" marketing applied to a standard "suites" hotel, and you get the picture.

Generally nice neighborhood. You may want to also look south of Braeswood down to the South Loop. There are some nice neighborhoods there, but less so as you approach Main or Stella Link. Braes Heights has been very proactive in improving the area. At one point the YMCA was some terrible apartments that really hurt the neighborhood. Braes Heights has some nice mid-centuries. There's probably some teardown activity however.

Interesting project! It's too bad the Texas Room will be closed, because the city directories etc in there would be a great source. You should post findings/questions - I'm sure a lot of us can provide support. The entire building wasn't purpose built as a bank, but the banking hall facing travis was. Along with the National Bank of Commerce (later TCB) and Gulf, another big tenant was Sakowitz, which had the space at the corner of Main and Rusk. As far as I know, it remained the Gulf Building until Gulf was acquired.

A lot of cities tried the pedestrian mall concept back in the 1970s, and in almost every case they were converted back to streets. Denver and South Beach were about the only consistently successful examples. The malls usually tended to drive away business, not attract it. That was one objection I had to "Main Street Square". It seemed they were ignoring the poor track record for that kind of project.

They were all over the place once.

No, I believe it's just a parking garage there now.

I don't think it was anything wrong with Simpsons, it's just that people aren't used to the diner concept as they seem to have once been. That space has been taken up by fast food joints and places like Denny's. With all the bars downtown, I think now they could possibly be more successful back at their original location on Main.

I don't think it's spectacular, but it is OK. At least they're building something fairly innovative. It's interesting that the new design has a lot more surface design. That helps break up the blockiness of the original rendering.

It turns out that Simpsons Diner was briefly revived in the 1990s. Link Original Simpsons: As reincarnated:

You know, I'm surprised they kept the Foley's/Macy's at Sharpstown, since it is so close to the Galleria.

"Pancake makeup" is a good analogy. The surprising thing to me is how ubiquitous that stucco has become, especially as used to "update" or "modernize" older buildings. Particularly with respect to commercial architecture, I think it will be remembered as the signature style of this decade, especially when painted beige. Is a scary thought, but perhaps future generations will treasure examples of beige stucco from the 2000s, and fight to preserve them.