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There was one on N. Shepherd between Victory and I-45.

A parkway is a controlled access road that goes through a park-like setting. An expressway is a controlled or limited access road, meaning it can have intersections and driveways, unlike a parkway. U.S. 90A between 610 and I-69/US 59 in Sugar Land would be considered an expressway since it has driveways and some intersections are signalized.

Officially, Spur 527 is also the Southwest Freeway, since it was where US 59 formerly transitioned from the Southwest Freeway and onto city streets until the early 70s.

Perhaps it had air conditioning and the owner didn't want to turn it on because he was too frugal, like the scene in "Driving Miss Daisy."

I heard that Lavinghousez liked the decayed look. I was told that a relative of mine saw the inside of the mansion years ago and supposedly, there was a horse living in the mansion at the time. Can anyone else confirm that?

There are oases over some tollroads in the Chicago area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Tollway_oasis

The Cimarron was Cadillac's response to the BMW 3 series, the Mercedes-Benz W123 (since the W201 190E was still a year or two away when the Cimarron came out in late 81), and Audi. You'd think they would've learned what happens when you barely tart up a lower car to become a luxury car from Ford and their Lincoln Versailles, which was a barely disguised Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch. The 80s weren't a good decade for Cadillac. Besides the Cimarron, there was also the V8-6-4 cylinder deactivation system, the diesel engines (which pretty much had their problems sorted out by the mid 80s, but their past reputation had already done its damage), the FWD 1985 DeVille and Fleetwood, and the HT-4100 engine.

The older tile mosaic street name signs were black and white instead of blue and white. There are some in Riverside that are black and white. I guess they date from the late 20s at the earliest. I think there was some overlap between the days of the obelisks and the tiles, especially if the street didn't have curbs. I've seen obelisks outside of Houston, too. I've seen one in Fresno in eastern Fort Bend County near the Brazoria County line on E. Dallas (turns into Brazoria Co. Rd. 59 about a 1/4 mi east) at Laurel. In its current condition, the obelisk is either oriented the wrong way and E. Dallas was once known as Magnolia St., or, its orientation is correct and E. Dallas was once known as Laurel and Laurel was formerly Magnolia St. You can see it here: https://www.google.com/maps/@29.539915,-95.438677,3a,15y,250.62h,66.67t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sMoiicthVczw8j5QSSKzQNQ!2e0 There's an unmarked obelisk on Wilburforce and Joe Louis Ln. (yes, the boxer) in Acres Homes. Remember, Acres Homes wasn't annexed until the 1970s, and these obelisks date from the 50s and 60s. The interesting thing about some of these obelisks is that they don't have the street names carved into them. I'm guessing the street names were painted on and the paint has simply worn off over the past 60 years. In addition to the unmarked obelisk in Acres Homes,there's another unmarked one at the intersection of Canfield and Rosewood in Third Ward.

My brother worked at Jamail's as a sacker when he was a student at Lamar High School back in the late 80s. He would carry groceries out to people's cars and would even drive the van to deliver groceries to River Oaks residents. He would receive nice tips, some would tip $20 if I recall.

I went to Mixers and Elixirs tonight. If you stay in the lobby of the museum, it would probably be more ideal for conversation and drinking than in the exhibit hall where most of the action takes place.

In the 1960s, FWD was more of a novelty than it is today. While the 67+ Eldorado and Toronado were FWD, they were still massive cars. In the 80s when GM switched most of its lineup to downsized FWD cars to meet CAFE standards, many Cadillac owners switched to Lincoln since they were still producing the traditional, large, RWD Town Car. It's interesting because in 1980, Ford was planning to kill the RWD Panther platform and switch to a FWD platform for their big cars (LTD Crown Vic/ Grand Marquis/ Town Car) by 1986. They would've switched to FWD around the same time that GM did if they had the money, but Ford was having a financial crisis, and most of the money they had was going toward the new Taurus/Sable program. As a result, Ford delayed their decision of whether switch to FWD. When they saw how GM's FWD products were failing, they were able to decide to axe those plans. Town Car sales jumped 300% over 1980 levels in 1984 due to an improvement in the economy (gas prices didn't rise as much as predicted) and also due to Cadillac owners rejecting the new FWD offerings. Cadillac still had the B-body Brougham/Fleetwood at that time, but if you didn't want to pay Fleetwood money for a RWD Cadillac, you were out of luck. Now, Cadillac is starting to do the reverse. The FWD DTS was dumped a few years back. The ATS and CTS are RWD, and Cadillac will introduce a large RWD vehicle soon, possibly called the LTS. It will be Cadillac's first large RWD car since the 1996 Fleetwood and is meant to compete with the Mercedes-Benz S-class, Audi A8, and BMW 7 series. Meanwhile, Lincoln just announced a few weeks ago that they don't have any plans for a large flagship car. 1989 LA Times Article about how Cadillac owners flocked to Lincoln after the downsized FWD cars hit the market http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-08/business/fi-523_1_town-car-luxury 1966-1970 Oldsmobile Toronado history http://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/oldsmobile-toronado-1966-1970/view-all/

It's funny how tastes change. I think Cadillac was one of the first to have digital clocks with a LED display. If you had the trip computer option in the Seville, you got the LED clock. I believe that was for the 78 and 79 model year.

I was just thinking about Green's BBQ on Almeda at Prospect. I loved those link sandwiches. They closed around 2005.

Speaking of the K-car, here's a video from 1980 about the development of it. Gotta love that music.

Analog clocks were in luxury cars long before Infiniti was conceived. 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V Cartier I'd love to take one of those big barges on a drive around town. People will let you change lanes when they realize that you can park a Suburban on the hood of a Mark V, and those big chrome 5 mph federally mandated bumpers will make mincemeat out of of their 3 series. 1959 Cadillac with the clock above the ignition Those are just two examples. If you'd like to read more about clocks in cars, see this blog: http://watchismo.blogspot.com/2007/06/time-on-road-dash-of-dashboard-clock.html

Brad Woodard passed away sometime this week at his home. Investigators say there was no sign of foul play. http://www.khou.com/community/Remembering--KHOU-11-reporter-Brad-Woodard-265735141.html

The high mast lights first appeared at the Gulf Freeway/South Loop interchange in the 70s. They started getting widespread use in the mid 80s.

Thanks! HPD said they were surprised that someone would kick in a door on a house located on one of the busiest intersections in the neighborhood, where there's two heavily used bus stops nearby, during daylight and during one of the heaviest traffic periods. In fact, when I first saw the guy walking back toward the trail, I noticed how heavy traffic was along S. MacGregor. He walked past some cars that were sitting still at the light, so I know some passers by got a good look at him. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if people driving down S. MacGregor, Ardmore, or even walking or hiking or biking along the Brays Bayou trail witnessed the actual kick-in. A member of the civic club called that night after someone told them they saw cop cars around the house and said that two people came to their door that same day and left. The resident on Oakmont I referenced earlier whose home has been hit numerous times called and said that he'd been hit FOUR times in the past year. Truth is, HPD probably won't investigate it any further. All that can be done is now is for the residents to continue to look out for one another and to protect themselves. My parents have lived there for 35 years, and while Riverside is no means a low crime area, it seems like it's been within the past 5-10 years that there's more burglaries, robberies, and assaults.

At approximately 5:45 pm on June 30, 2014, the front door was kicked in at my parents' place at S. MacGregor and Ardmore. My mom and I were in the house at the time. The perp ran when my mom yelled for me to go get the gun. Nothing was stolen, but about 5-10 minutes prior, there was a light knock at the door, so light that I could barely hear it. By the time I got to the door, the man was walking away and I saw him walk onto the Columbia Tap Hike and Bike and start heading south. We think he was scoping out the place and thought nobody was home. I don't open the door for strangers. I usually say "who is it?" or something similar through the door when strangers come to the door to let them know there's somebody in the building per the prior advice of an HPD officer, but he walked away before I could do so. He was a black male, about 5' 8"- 5' 10", medium build, dark complexion wearing a horizontal striped blue polo shirt, knee length light colored shorts, and had a large white towel draped over his shoulder. This is just the latest concerning break-ins and robberies in the area. About a month ago, the residents on S. MacGregor at Oakmont were robbed in their yard, and the home across from them has been broken into at least twice during the daytime in the past year. Then, about 2 weeks ago, there was the story that made national news about the man and his daughter who drove up to their Riverside home after a trip to find thieves leaving in a truck, and chased them down until the thieves rammed them trying to run them off of the road, but caused the thieves themselves to crash into a ditch instead.

I think that's Memorial Dr. at Houston Ave.

Before this was announced, I was looking at the schematics for the 290 project and thought it was odd that the plans didn't include the reconstruction of the T-ramp to the Pinemont P&R from 290.

The 50s had tail fins, the 60s had muscle cars, the 70s was the decade of the malaise land barge brougham, the 80s started the FWD-ization (not a word) of today, the 90s brought about the jellybean shape, and the 00s the full size SUV craze. I guess the 2010s will be the decade of the silver or beige crossover?

In this article on Texas transportation, the author states that highways like I-45 are a necessary regional link, but then advocates for the demolition of I-345 and mentions that he was one of the individuals that pushed for its demolition. How do you support necessary regional links and also support tearing down the connections to those very regional links? http://tribtalk.org/2014/06/22/why-the-fate-of-a-dallas-highway-matters-to-all-texans/

A lot of people don't know this, but if you ever experience a blowout while on the highway, the key is to accelerate briefly to keep control, drive straight, and stay away from the brake pedal and keep from turning the steering wheel until the drag of the blown tire slows the car down to about 30 mph. When you get below 30 mph, then you can gently apply the brakes and steer gently onto the shoulder. See #1 and #2 on this list. http://www.edmunds.com/driving-tips/how-to-survive-the-top-10-driving-emergencies.html

I've passed them countless times, but only in the last week have I really paid attention to the older homes on MLK near OST. When they were built, MLK wasn't even known as its prior name of South Park Blvd. It was known as Holmes Rd. If you look at old aerial views from the 40s, you can see where Holmes Rd. made a curve to the north at what is now the intersection of 610 and MLK. Part of that curve still exists as the right turn lane from MLK to the 610 WB feeder. But, back to the homes. Most of them sit on slightly less than an acre of land. The one in the best condition is the mansion at 5151 MLK. It's owned by a church now and was built in 1910 according to HCAD, but it looks more like a 1920s or 1930s build to me. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.704455,-95.33413,3a,75y,119.58h,91.16t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sqMOCcisJ8t4e6_XV5mNqHg!2e0 The next one is hidden behind a bunch of trees. The only way you can really see it is on Bing maps. It's at 5302 MLK and was built in 1939 according to HCAD. http://binged.it/1lFNK34 5306 MLK is also owned by the same church that owns 5151 MLK. HCAD says it was built in 1958, but Google Earth aerial views from 1953 show otherwise. It's also shrouded by vegetation http://binged.it/1nmyZPZ 5320 MLK is also owned by the church. HCAD says it was built in 1947, but Google Earth views from 1944 show it to be present. It's surrounded by trees and doesn't look to be in good condition. http://binged.it/1nmzcT4 There was another one next to 5320 at MLK and Stuyvesant, but it was torn down for some apartments in the 60s or 70s, which were owned by the same church in the 90s, and torn down recently and replaced by KIPP Academy. I wonder, who built and originally lived in these homes? They seem more like something you would've found on S. MacGregor or N. Parkwood Dr. When most of them were built, they were in what was still considered the outskirts of town. It's amazing that most of them have survived the developments that have surrounded them.