IronTiger

Was the "hate gate" the media's term for it at the time, or yours? Kinda reminds me of a similar issue locally in the late 1990s where some residents pulled the same thing on a through road that they didn't want people cutting through, and the fact that at the time a lot of influential people lived there (including Sen. Phil Gramm), it took maybe a year and a half to get the city to reopen it, which was difficult because said influential people had enormous control on the city council. Makes me wonder why COH approved the gate in the first place...or did they?!

I'm sorry for your loss.

Wait, they want to add a public market to Rice Village? I'd be down with that.

66 mph?! Wow, why CAN'T this be a starter line to a Sugarland commuter rail? I thought their top speed was maybe 40-45 at best.

Hmm.....now that I think about it, the Foodarama (I was in the area trying to collect stuff for my blog) did seem a little big for the general Safeway size. Knowing that one could tell where the Safeway ended and the Eckerd began makes me a little upset that I didn't check it out when I was in the area (and that's why I was in the ETCJ/19th area anyway) a few months ago.

Any renovations would make a house go up in value, but HCAD covers Harris County, not just Houston, so that includes houses in unincorporated areas. The real question is if it's sound or not, as there's all sorts of questionable remodels/expansions. One of the stories I remember reading about locally was a house that had an extra bedroom attached to it. Unfortunately, the house bordered a creek, and guess what got consistently flooded every time? Eventually, one of the later owners had enough of it and replaced it with a covered porch. My brother lived in an apartment in Tennessee where the basement of a house had been converted to apartments (the work had been done by one person, his widow still lived in the floor above). The apartment had a kitchenette but the wiring was kind of iffy. I lived in a rental house for a while, but the house had an extra room built onto it at some point in the past (aerial photographs showed that it was there since at least the late 1970s, if I recall correctly), and it had practically no insulation (even after improvements, it still sucked), so it was sweltering hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter (the rest of the house wasn't all that much better).

I would say the coolest office is where you can crank the thermostat down as low as you want. Actually, I remember reading some survey where to a woman, the most important thing to a good office is a window, for men, it was access to a thermostat. (also being a man, I agree) On subject though, that looks like a nightmare to heat and cool properly. I'll stick with my thermostat.

Honestly, from a safety perspective, the whole line is a bit questionable, as Class I railroads specifically try to avoid things like unprotected pedestrian crossings or running in the middle of the street. I had to avoid not getting stuck in the middle of an intersection for the roads crossing Red Line. That was kind of scary.

Tropical Storm Bill expected to hit in a few hours, so watch those bayous, underpasses, tunnels, and depressed freeways.

I know for a fact that after Allison, the local flood authority bought up hundreds and hundreds of homes in flood prone areas and leveled them. This may have reduced the damage this time around, but I wonder if we'll see more neighborhoods wiped off the map that did flood?

There was one at Jones Road and West Road now a Food Town. I'm pretty sure they never made it to 40 stores...I know they kept on until 1997 before pulling out...but their plans to invade Houston were spoiled by the fact that H-E-B Pantry came first. Part of the problem was that their distribution center was in Dallas (I don't think they ever had a Houston distribution center), so they were marginally more successful there, and the distribution center was sold to Tom Thumb in 1999.

OK, so I read a few more forums, and in at least one I lurk, and there was a discussion that talked rather harshly about bicycles (Critical Mass, in particular), which argued that bicycles do not have a "right to the road" since roads are paid with gas taxes and bicycles don't pay them, making them worthless freeloaders. Now, any issues on Critical Mass aside, that is a wrong statement since city streets aren't paid with gas taxes (that's highways)* (* If I'm correct/incorrect in saying that city streets aren't affected by gas taxes, tell me) But it brings up an interesting point, while bicycles aren't freeloaders on city streets since they don't pay gas taxes, electric cars on highways are. Since the gas tax would need to be raised dramatically to repair the highways and adjust for inflation, and no one wants to see all toll highways, why not create some sort of alternative gas tax that could be used to maintain freeways where every car pays their share? (plus the fact that a move toward more fuel efficient cars creates less income for the gas tax) So a few ideas I had included... - Creating a new fee for drivers license renewals...and if you pay more, you can bypass the DMV entirely! (Disadvantages: out of state traffic become freeloaders) - Keep everything as is, but create new fees for electric cars (Disadvantages: new tax stigma, looks discriminatory toward electrics, hybrid cars still get away with it) - Local counties pay a new fee for how many miles of highways, and TX vehicles get gas tax rebates (Disadvantages: counties with more highways pay more, and rebates can be taken advantage of illegally) - Utility companies give portion of funds to highway maintenance (Disadvantages: while electric/hybrid cars still would end up "contributing", might cause local utility bills to rise) - A tire tax, as that affects everyone and vehicles pay for that for how much they damage the road, that way 18 wheelers pay more (Disadvantages: encourages out of state buying, possible black market for tires) Obviously, some of them are better than others...I would personally favor the second one. The first one looks good on paper but it sounds like it would create more problems than it solves, the third one would just complicate things, the fourth one looks like it would hurt everyone, the fifth one has some good ideas but is fundamentally flawed. I decided to post in the Way Off Topic section instead of the Traffic/Transportation forum, because the latter seems to be inviting trouble.

The adjacent abandoned Nat'l Guard Facilities would lend itself to have the whole block redeveloped. So, what's the odds on the business replacing this? Fiesta? There's one a little over a mile west, but then again, there was a Kroger a mile west, too. Fiesta's not known for store overlap though. Randalls? Not outside the realm of possibility that they'd remodel and reopen, but just a year and a half earlier, there were rumors the entire chain would disappear, and while it seems to be out of danger, it's still not in expansion mode, so...unlikely. H-E-B? I can't see it happening without total demolition and redevelopment. Food Town? Probably the most likely to happen if the building will be grocery again and not demolished for redevelopment.

This sucks. I wanted to visit, check out the decor on the inside (any old AppleTree remnants??) and maybe get a chance to try those oxtails I've heard they served certain days.

That would make sense, I remember when CVS rebranded Eckerd in 2004 or 2005, they repainted any blue trim red.

Obviously the Eckerd went bust in just a few years, and the Albertsons never became a grocer again. It was twice the size of the HEB, which could've put the Pantry to a merciful death and given it full line departments...

Apparently this configuration isn't even all that old, 1995 before they continued TC Jester south is totally different, with an awkward four-way intersection between continuing east on West 18th, northwest to TC Jester, or northeast to 19th & 20th. As for the potholes, that's arguably a result of the "no zoning" principles, almost immediately after I managed to get ONTO West 19th, traffic immediately ground to a halt as an 18-wheeler tried to squeeze itself into the parking lot of the Southern Floral Company. Fun times!

OK, here's one intersection that I've personally witnessed and just have no idea what's up with it. It's a black hole for retail, with victims on all three sides (the fourth is to close to a bayou). There's the Kmart (surviving since the 1970s but closed in 2002-2003, though whether it made a real profit is up for debate) now Restaurant Depot (not open for general public IIRC), an Albertsons (also closed around 2002 and now self-storage), and an Eckerd (based on the fact that it was never repainted to CVS red, I have to assume it's been sitting vacant for over a decade now). There seems to be pretty constant traffic for all those retails to have set up there in the first place, but the other thing is it seems kind of dangerous. It's a four way stop for two four-way roads, then the right hand lane disappears if you want not go to 18th, and then immediately splits again between 20th and 19th. You'd think that back in 2001 when it had retail that would justify putting a stoplight there, but did they say "Well, there's already two stoplights just west of here" and then just not put one up? Have Heights residents been putting up with this for years? Who knows? The least they could do is cut off West 18th and then make the right lane go into 19th, which would probably be cheaper than installing a stoplight...

Well, I was hoping for something that actually went into the detail of the area, not just a small thing on the houses on one particular neighborhood. There's some token mentions to Town & Country Village, but...

Nice memories. I'd say you probably have enough memories and information that you should start assembling a website or the blog about the area. I'm serious. I enjoy aforementioned West Houston Archives or South Belt Houston Digital Archive (honestly, I prefer WHA because it tends to be better organized and have a broader appeal, though SBHDA has some great stuff on Almeda Mall). There's a great picture out there from a site called Traces of Texas that features the Kmart and the adjacent Jack in the Box (yes, with the clown head--and my god, those prices. Tacos for 30¢ each? Sign me up! This was the link originally sent to me. The sentiments about the Kmart were pretty much the same as WHA too interestingly enough. Alfie's was a chain, I have a scan of a College Station-Bryan phone book from the early 1970s that has the logo. Because of the scan (black on yellow pages), it came out pretty bad, and scanning my photocopy will only make it look worse, but if you really want to see it again, I might be able to be make that happen. And I can't imagine a teacher at least today implying (divine power or not) that war is necessary for population control.

Ironically, it WAS a Krispy Kreme from 1998 to 2006.

What was there before?

I do know the center out in Fairfield is getting an Academy.

Not sure what part of West Houston you're interested in, but if you like the area in the Copperfield/Bear Creek area and parts adjacent, I would highly highly recommend West Houston Archives. Anyway, it looks like the original anchor of Woodlake was a Handy Andy (which Randalls bought and turned into their Flagship locations). Anyway, there are a couple of things I wanted to say about your post. - "Piccadilly Circus"?...I think you mean Picadilly Cafeteria. - I've been inside the Kroger at Echo and Katy, and I do believe it's the only store under AppleTree that remodeled. You can see the original outline of the Safeway before they remodeled it. I went inside there a little less than a year ago. Did it have the neon signage for all the departments like the former Safeway/AppleTree in Bryan that highly resembles the Kroger did? - The Target hasn't been in the area with Marshalls for over 10 years. As I understand it, Target was built in the early 1970s with an adjacent food store (which may have become Handy Andy later after they parted ways), though in 2003 Target moved to Memorial City Mall and the center was reconfigured and included Marshalls post-redevelopment. I do wish you'd hang out in HAIF, there are a lot of questions about the I-10 corridor that do interest me, like what the apartments were called that STØR (later IKEA) replaced, or other things. Already I've learned some things like Price Club opening and closing, then Costco (the company it merged with) opening a new store (with a similar footprint and all) just a mile or so already. Memorial City Mall and Town & Country Mall are fun topics, too, there's old topics on them.

Hasn't London already had subways for nearly a century?