marmer

Could this be out around far Westheimer? Like out around Clodine? Or maybe farther out toward Wharton County. I'm not completely convinced that there are any post-1948 cars, but I will look more closely at home later. Could possibly be very early 50s, I guess. Looks more like forties for most of the ones that aren't thirties, though. I think the oval sign could be Esso. Maybe "Neptune" Courts?

It was a 50's ladies clothing store. It's still there. Check out the pictures. http://www.hpb.com/020/

Art Cinema was, as I said, more or less where Cafe Chino was. Next door to what became Le Peep. I believe there was Jack in the Box at the corner of Kirby and Times or something like that. Maybe Kirby and Rice. University Boulevard, north side, was University Men and Boys Shop, World Toy and Gift, Village Theatre, and Eckerd Drugs. Next block was Weingarten's grocery store. South side, other than replacing Poor Man's Country Club with some dumb bank, is basically the same set of buildings, just different tenants in some of them.

That was Moeller's. There was also a candy shop. See's? Kegg's? Don't remember.

I don't have a lot to add to David Kaplan's wonderful article except to note that now many of the remaining funky old spots that he mentioned are gone nearly twenty years later. The Village Theater was a porn house back before video and there was also a little one called Art Cinema that was right next to where Le Peep is (was?) on a cross street. The building that became Hungry's was a mom-n-pop owned Dairy Queen in the early 1980s. Before Caribana, that was a country bar called Cowboy on Rice Boulevard. Caribana later became notorious for its 3 for 1 happy hour. The Village Theater was indeed quite nice in its day; it was a MacKie and Kamrath project. I don't remember the name but Half Price Books on University was originally a fancy department store with a terrazzo sidewalk and large grand staircase up to a mezzanine level. There were a small handful of businesses that tried to cater to the University student body: Collegiate Cleaners and Ed Nirken's University Men and Boys Shop for a couple. I remember having a map of the Village listing all the businesses when I started at Rice in 1980; it's possible that I might still have it but it would be hard to find. It might not really count, but Hamburgers by Gourmet was right across Kirby. Parking was not particularly an issue in the Village until it became yuppified. Back in 1980 it was actually a little scary at night in some places.

Not to digress, but Otto Woestemeyer, who was a Rice guy, designed this little cutie in about 1937. Also, a spectacularly boring brick rectangle storefront a couple of blocks away for the local gas company. http://arch-ive.org/archive/freeport-drug-store/

There's a little dip in the rear door chrome under the window that was introduced in the '54. The '53 has a perfectly straight chrome strip under the window. Excellent catch on the AC duct.

Travis Broesche, in Sweeny. St. Luke Lutheran, 1969. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.046451,-95.71119,3a,75y,258.65h,82.42t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sUVpyEwC-ZffwOO07wD4kkA!2e0

Holly Hall sure looks like Kamrath, doesn't it. Probably not Borget; Lloyd wasn't usually that angular. Maybe John Chase?

Ha! I like that. But I think the beginning of the end of that was Brazos Mall and it was well and truly split off by the time I officially moved away in 1985-ish. It was certainly true in the 50s and 60s, and my Freeport girlfriend in high school and I talked about that some. My guess is, that between this transplant from the Energy Corridor and the PBK remodeling of the First Methodist Church interior, that LJ will have a lot of (or rather, even more) trouble pretending it's not a Houston suburb.

We've had it since the creation of 281. At least ten years.

This old gal went down hard yesterday. Corner of Riverside and Almeda.

Yeah, I'm gonna bump this old post. Who did Berechah Church by the Galleria, anyone know?

I know this is a very old thread and research has advanced rather far since this was posted, but I've found a few things in Brazoria County that are interesting. Joseph Reynolds designed a fair number of relatively traditional tract houses in Lake Jackson and Freeport. A. Carroll Brodnax (with Brodnax, Phenix, and Associates) designed the First Freeport National Bank building in downtown Freeport, now Freeport City Hall. It looks like a stripped down interpretation of Yamasaki's Northwestern National Life Building in Minneapolis. Brodnax also developed several small subdivisions or better, enclaves, in Pearland, lived in Pearland for a while, and designed the Pearland State Bank Building. I'm pretty sure he owned, and probably designed, the striking butterfly-roof mod on Orange Street in Pearland. There's one very Miesian courtyard house on Oak Drive in Lake Jackson by Jay G. Carroll of Crochet and Carroll. Just a little ways down from that house is an owner-designed 70's contemporary with input from L.B. Wootters. I just heard that Francis Giese lives in Brazoria and I may try to contact him soon. There's also an Ed Langwith house, a surviving CRS elementary school by Tiny Lawrence, a couple of surviving Emory White schools, some folded-plate classroom additions by Robert Talley, and a whole bunch of schools by Koetter, Tharp, and Cowell and churches and houses by Harvin C. Moore. I know of two for sure and I strongly suspect at least one more "plan-catalog" houses.

I know I've already had my three, but I'm not just real super-comfortable with the economics that killed Wilshire Village and downtown Foley's. I honestly think the city was better off with thriving downtown department stores and moderately priced, architect-designed, centrally located apartments with a historic pedigree. So I might want to save those. Or Cullinan's house, "Shadyside."

I guess you're right, it's just north of the official Alvin city limits. However, a difference which makes no difference is no difference. Google calls it Alvin. But -- what is the structure?

Someone should save that mid-90's Chevy wagon! ;-)

Shamrock, Prudential, Astrodome. Hard to limit it to just three, though. If I borrow strickn's logic, Montrose's housing stock. Also: Maryland Manor! and Josephine!

One hour and ten minutes about three Saturdays ago. Expect them to be sold out by mid-afternoon on weekends. Transcendent beef and sausage, choice of three sauces. Certainly reminiscent of meat I've had in black-owned establishments. (but also some in central Texas, also)

Probably means the loss of the historic MacKie & Kamrath Administration Building (now A.P. Beutel Building) in Freeport. Next time you're down that way, take a good look while you can. It's a beautiful building.

Talk about a "Grave-dig!" Found it, in Stephen Fox's _Rice University Campus Guide._ "… a one-story house of 1965 designed by the Dallas architect Frank D. Welch for Helen Cummings and Ghent Graves. A modern house, the Graves house is raised on a high grass berm, as were several of the early houses in Shadyside. Its pyramidal roof and encircling gallery evoke Texas regional architectural prototypes." Apparently it was bought and demolished by Anthony Petrello, rumor has it as additional tent space for events at his Shadyside house. The lot is currently vacant but wooded.

There's been some discussion about what appears to be a pony ride track with some small carousels on the corner of Main and University across from the old Rice Stadium. It's there in 1940's aerials until the 1957 aerial on historic aerials.com. After that, it became the site of the Tidelands. Sanborn maps also show a filling station right at the corner c. 1950. So, what was there? Was this an earlier location of Kiddie Wonderland? Or a smaller cmpetitor in the crowded pony ride market?

Yes, and there have been Galveston teams off and on in the Texas League through the years. (Buccaneers, Pirates, Sand Crabs etc. mostly in the '20s and '30s.) (also the Class B White Caps of the Gulf Coast League and Big State League of the '50s, who apparently gave their name to Galveston College's sports teams.)

I generally have a soft spot for late-50's buildings but I've always thought that one was just ugly. Never been in the fieldhouse but I have been to the stadium for a football game and it was by far the worst high-school stadium I've ever been to. But they did have HPD officers with hand held metal detectors at the entrances.

Two of the 50's mods we drove by on Circle Way during the October Docomomo tour of Lake Jackson are for sale. One by Allen R. Williams, Jr. for John and Grace Keselik: http://www.trulia.com/property/1087268036-530-Circle-Way-St-Lake-Jackson-TX-77566 And one by Ernest Shult for Russell and Bernice Gibbs: http://www.americanrealtylj.com/default.asp?content=expanded&search_content=office_listings&this_format=1&mls_number=54796&page=2&sortby=2&listing_off_id=10