JLWM8609

More parkway madness. One of the proposals from TxDOT regarding the Pierce Elevated is to tear it down and replace it with a 10-12 lane at grade parkway. Looks a lot like an arterial boulevard to me.

http://offcite.org/2014/07/28/the-rebuilding-of-i-45-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-to-improve-houston

It's been rumored by some Riverside residents for over 30 years that there are plans to link all of those campuses via a grand boulevard and redevelop the Riverside area as a giant research campus. When you think about some of the institutions that have been placed in the area, like DeBakey High School (HSHP) in the early 80s (though it's moving soon) and the Harris County Psychiatric Center in the mid 80s, you can see where some of this train of thought comes from. Some of the people interviewed in "This Is Our Home, It Is Not For Sale" mention that in the film. One of the rumors I've heard is that planners in favor of this grand boulevard and giant research campus would like N. MacGregor and S. MacGregor to be re-striped as one way from Ardmore to Calhoun to make it into a grand boulevard with Brays Bayou in the middle. Institutions like UH, TSU, and the Texas Medical Center would slowly acquire properties along N. and S. MacGregor to have their campuses form one giant research park along the stretch. I can see that being a reality in the next 50-100 years. Think about the placement of the new health careers high school with the super long name at N. MacGregor and 288. There was also the planned UT Health Science Center that was going to be built on the site of the old Wright Morrow Mansion on S. MacGregor, but another location was chosen, and the Villas at MacGregor occupy that site.

From the 1976 directory for Houston six of the seventeen listed McDonalds are gone now:

 

6333 Martin Luther King Blvd.: McDonalds sold in 1991, currently gas station (remodeled)

I think the one on MLK was the first black owned McDonald's franchise in Houston. I recall the owner of the franchise died a few years back and that was mentioned in his obituary.

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

 And what's the difference between a park way and an expressway? more landscaping?

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.

In the 1950s air conditioning was probably the single most expensive option available on an automobile and it was very expensive; often as much as 10% or more of the total price of the car.

 

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?

I feel like theres a pedestrian bridge across a highway somewhere that has integrated retail (mcdonalds).

Cant remember where though...Indiana maybe? 

There are oases over some tollroads in the Chicago area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Tollway_oasis

Cimarron was actually a J-car.  Hard to believe in retrospect, but I remember reading that that was meant to be their response to the BMWs that were becoming popular at the time.  Instead it practically destroyed their reputation for decades.  The Chevette was utter junk.  I can't see the point in a RWD subcompact.  It's not like a Chevette driver would have been concerned about better handling!

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.

Perception, and packaging.

 

It was significantly cheaper to do FWD, so a lot of brands were going FWD wherever they could and it fell to marketing departments to explain to customers that FWD was better.

 

RWD packaging is still more expensive than FWD, but not by as much. add to that the companies that held onto RWD were sought after and their marketing departments said RWD is better than FWD (BMW mainly), and people believed it (which if you're concerned about performance, it's true, so good on them).

 

At least, that's the best I can figure. 

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/

I should have clarified about Infiniti and the analog clocks.  Of course they weren't the first, but I do think they were the first to bring back analog clocks to luxury cars.  If you look at car ads from before that, a lot of them emphasized having digital clocks as a desirable feature.  It would have been considered very futuristic at one point.  Infiniti even made a point of advertising their analog clocks as a selling point, which struck me as a bit OTT at the time.  

 

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.

If I'm not mistaken Infiniti was the first with the analog clocks, so that would have been early 1990s I think. 

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 tower lights along the freeways weren't installed until 1988 or 1989, and I believe the North Freeway was the first to see these erected in Houston.

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.

Glad no one was injured!  What has HPD said about anything?  Probably quiet...unfortunately.

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.

A few remarks:

• What's the highway at :15?

 

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.

2015 Ford Edge

 

2015-ford-edge-sport-4-1.jpg

 

2015-ford-edge-sport-2-1.jpg

 

2015-ford-edge-sport-5-1.jpg

 

2015-ford-edge-sport-13-1.jpg

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?