Ross

800 Bell is empty. Before it can be marketed as a residential conversion, or pretty much anything else, it needs to be completely gutted and the asbestos remediated. I used to know some network guys that worked there, and any time new wiring was needed, whoever ran it had to put on a Tyvek suit, respirator, and gloves, to minimize asbestos exposure.

There's a perfectly good Kroger just a few blocks up the street.

That seems like a really bad idea, given the amount of traffic Kirby carries. It would also eliminate a good chunk of the North South capacity from that part of town. If Shepherd went all the way to Holcombe, it wouldn't be as bad, but having go use Greenbriar, then Rice Blvd, then Shepherd to go North would be a huge pain and traffic would be bad.

Thanks for the link. Hard to believe anyone would think that burning old batteries would be a good idea. This is the sort of article that people whining about the EPA and environmental regulations need to read

In 1944, there is an airport on the West side of what is now MLK at the Loop In 1953, there is an airport at what is now the SE corner of 288 and the Loop. The 1944 airport from above is gone, plowed under to build the South Park subdivision that has street names based on WWII battles and commanders, like Bataan, Dunkirk, Chennault, etc. These two pictures tell me that the 1953 airfield is possibly the Linda Sue Airport, and the 1944 aerial is of Modern Transportation. I haven't confirmed it yet, but I think the portion of Holmes Road that turned Northeast towards Griggs is now MLK, while MLK South of 610 was South park Blvd/Dr/St(don't know the type) There was another airfield at Almeda and OST in 1944, looks pretty much gone in 1953. This is directly across OST from the VA hospital, and is now a condo/apartment complex.

1012 is the empty space just West of Shake Shack on Westheimer.

The Freeman historic airfield site doesn't mention the Minor Stewart airfield, but it does appear on the Houston sectional he shows at the top of this page, East of the town of Almeda http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Airfields_TX_HoustonS.htm The 1944 aerials don't show any sign of the airfield. The text stream from July 1934 Aero Digest has this paragraph Air Show Features Dedication THE NEW Minor Stewart Airport on Alemeda Road, Houston, Tex., was dedi- cated recently when an air show, under the supervision of Hugh Thomasson, at- tracted thousands of spectators to the new project. Included in the program was a num- ber of speed races, stunting and pre- cision contests. Not sure if this is related, but Minor Stewart was a co-founder of Stewart Title https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91264367/minor-stewart

It is now Conroe North Houston Regional Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe-North_Houston_Regional_Airport

The fieldhouse would have been the predecessor to the Rice Gymnasium, which was built in 1950 or so. Here's the old field house from the Rice archives https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/76212 I think the old field house is the building circled in red on this 1943 aerial, but that's a guess. The stadium on the SE corner is now the track stadium

Game 2, Astros pitching looking as sharp as ever. Pressly had them fooled for the second day in a row. The work the Astros do with pitchers is amazing.

I am going to assume the airport mentioned is the old Main Street Airport that was located North of Brochsteins, sort of across the street from Playland Park. There was another airport, Sam Houston, further out Main. I do not see a skeet field at either airport location in the aerials, but they could be hard to miss. Houston Gun Club was probably the range I mentioned in another post as being East of the railroad tracks at Westheimer, where Highland Village is now. It stretched to about where Restoration Hardware is

Humble is now Exxon. One of the reasons Jersey Standard changed its name was to be able to harmonize station names. It was operating stations under the names Humble, Enco, Esso, Carter, and some others, before the Exxon name was created. That allowed Jersey Standard to operate with one name across the US, where Esso was a trademark for other former Standard companies after the anti-trust break up in the early 20th Century. Overseas, there are still Esso stations. I do not think this Humble station is still there. Old Main Street Road is long gone, subsumed by Fannin except for a short stretch near Holcombe.

1. Save some money on property taxes. Not a lot, but some 2. No need to maintain the buildings if they aren't there 3. Owners are not in the property rental business, and don't want to deal with it 4. Reduce liability issues from people squatting or breaking into the buildings. 5. Annoy people who liked the buildings

Unbelievable. 17 K's for the Astros pitchers. Pressly was making the Yankees batters look bad with the nasty breaking stuff in the 9th inning. Verlander is Verlander...

I saw those two standing next to each other the last time the Astros and Yankees played here in the post season. It was funny. Judge is 13 inches taller.

The parking would be angled so that drivers would pull into the spaces on their left. No need for one way streets -------------------------------------------------------- lane headed to the left ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Parking Lane headed to right ---------------------------------------------------------- Drivers pull into spaces on the left(driver's side), then back out when leaving

Amtrak doesn't own any of the tracks it uses in Texas, and it's not going to spend any money building passing tracks. Amtrak is at the mercy of the freight line operators.

The track is clearly visible in the 1944 aerial from Google Earth In 1953, there's a subdivision there, but traces of the track are still visible. Note the drive in theater to the Southwest Today, not traces of the track exist, the EastTex freeway runs right through the middle of the location

That should be Yale and 24th not Yale and 11th

I was shocked that the Chronicle endorsed Mealer. The entire piece reads like it was written by people who haven't been paying attention to what's happening. If Mealer is elected, and Cagle and Ramsey are still there, we will end up with crappy county government that will ignore the poor and spend as much money as possible for the benefit of the rich people who speak the loudest. Cagle and Ramsey have already shown how clueless they are on budgeting, and I don't think Mealer has a clue on that either with the "we can come up with $100 million for 1,000 law enforcement officers without raising taxes" thing. Where is she going to cut? What services are going to be removed?

The Eastern portion of the ranch that became Bellaire was subdivided into truck farms and named Westmoreland Farms. https://www.bellairetx.gov/457/Bellaire-Historical-Marker-Information

I said several times I wasn't opposed to the project. The ridership numbers were way over inflated, and far too optimistic, and the projected costs were too low. The comment on I-45 lanes was in response to another comment that said that TxDOT would never give up space where it could build more lanes. Well, if the train was going to be successful, the need for more lanes would go away, since the number of riders would reduce the use of the freeway. I don't have a family of 4. However, I've seen any number of comments that the rail would mean families wouldn't have to drive to get to Dallas. That's weak thinking, because very few people are going to spend $400 to save 2 1/2 hours in teh car. Again, that's all part of the overly optimistic ridership projections. There may be a market for alternatives to driving. However, the demand is not nearly as high as the TCR projections for riders. What does "not costing us anything" have to do with my comment? My point, which you clearly missed, was that if TCR built a less expensive project, then the fares wouldn't have to be as high, nor would the required ridership have to be as high. If speeds were reduced, then the I-45 RoW could be used, and the eminent domain issues would be far fewer. Instead, TCR enabled the "this stupid commie project will drive people off of land that's been in their families for 600 years" faction, which made the project even less likely to succeed.

Or even better, leave the Pierce there, carrying traffic and give up this foolish plan to bury multiple freeways. I know I am on the losing side of this battle, but that would be my preference if I was ever asked.

If the high speed rail was going to be so great, there wouldn't be a need for more lanes on 45. That was supposed to be one of the benefits. Of course, a family of 4 isn't going to take the train when they can drive for less than half the cost of going by rail. Or, make it a 140mph train that can use smaller radius curves. I think people got so wrapped up in the bullet train concept and its 200mph+ speeds that hey failed to look at other alternatives that would be less expensive to build and still provide a reasonable transit time between Houston and Dallas. As it is now, there won't be any highish speed rail in Texas for 50 years. I am not opposed to or fighting this project. I just don't see how it works using the current route and design. There's no way it makes any money. I don't think they considered alternatives to bullet trains that would make other routes more feasible while still providing reasonably fast travel to Dallas.

The route could have gone up the I-45 RoW without any eminent domain issues. I don't think you understand the desire of people in rural areas to not be bothered, especially for a project that does nothing for them.