FIREhat

My dad moved to Houston in 1951 and at one point lived off Law just north of West U. I was told there was a drive-in there by my mom (who married him much later, but I have never heard of that from anyone else.

She has toned it down the past couple of days, not a scary as usual, maybe she reads this blog.

No, that's Lisa Foronda (but only when she's drunk).

I wonder if the marker you are thinking of between the two houses is getting mixed up with something else. President Burnet's wife is actually buried between two driveways under some bushes, IIRC. That's the marker I am thinking of between two houses in Lakewood. I don't know of another Burnet-related marker there. Maybe I am mixed up, it's been awhile since I saw it but I am pretty sure it's a grave and not just a historical marker.

I'm surprised to hear of this bombing, I'm going to dig into this a little deeper and see what I can come up with. Does anyone have a better date? I work for the Baytown FD and we still have quite a few guys who were around in the early '80s.

Dominique has chemistry with the city, is more than competent, AND is ridiculously hot. I have also heard that she is extremely nice in person.

I'm surprised to see so many people here ragging on her.

I was surprised to see her go. And laying off just one person seems odd to me, but maybe not at a single station.

Phoenix Tower has darker windows every few floors, so unless that's an old picture I doubt it's Phoenix.

I'm a terrible photographer but I thought these three pictures looked pretty good.

That's the 24-hour lounge area, it's adjacent to the main entrance. The main entrance has the state seal on the ground and opens into the giant atrium. It's really a nice place to study.

This was a very interesting program but I missed the very beginning. Does anyone know the access rules to the HMRC? I know some historical collections like that require you to have academic or professional needs.

I work for the Baytown Fire Department and used to work in this district. It's a very interesting neighborhood for anyone interested in urban exploration; two abandoned hospitals, old whorehouses, abandoned stores and shops, bomb shelters, disused streets. The area where that theatre-turned-church is was one of the original Humble Oil communities around World War I. Back behind that church about two blocks there are some shotgun houses built by Humble (Exxon) for the workers that are still occupied.

That's incredible, I had no idea anything like that was anywhere around here.

In the Briargrove neighborhood, I don't recall where exactly, there is a house that supposedly has a large fallout shelter underneath it. That lot and part of the lot next door, which is empty, are clearly elevated a few feet so it would make sense. Anyone know the place I'm thinking of?

Yeah, I don't see how any advocate of growth in Houston could be unhappy about an 80-storey building in one of the most vibrant parts of the city. If anything, it will accentuate Transco, which looks pretty lonely now from most perspectives.

I got this photo off of Navsource.

I'll also add that a great place for people interested in street name changes is Baytown. Because Baytown was formed by the merger of three other cities a lot of the street names have changed or become muddled. An example is Market Street still having curb terrazo markers saying Pelly Rd..

Adding to the confusion is the ever-expanding Exxon refinery that has bought up quite a bit of land as buffer. Whole neighborhoods are now on plant property and the streets are more or less intact. Baytown Ave. and San Jacinto Ave. are two of the older examples while Aves. J and K are more recently acquired. The streets are mostly still there and either used by the refinery or, in some cases, still a few holdout homeowners.

Also in Baytown, Eugenio Santana was once Cedar, M.L. Wismer was formerly South Main Extension, and there are dozens of abandoned streets in the former Brownwood neighborhood that is now the Baytown Nature Center.

Probably the most frequently changed street name in this whole area, maybe state, is in Southside Place. The one-block street that runs along the west side of what is commonly called Fire Truck Park has a new name every year. For a long time it was called Childs St. but I don't know what it was originally. As of a few years ago the city began auctioning off annual naming rights to the street to raise funds for the park. The sister one-block street on the other side of the park is called Lew Hill, named after a long-time resident of Southside who was fire chief, fire marshall, and city council member at one time or another. There is also a hill on Lew Hill that is rumored to contain some of the detritus from the original Southside Place pool, which was fed by an artesian spring.

Someone also mentioned Holcombe in a reply above. Holcombe and Bellaire change names at Buffalo Speedway according to the most prominent signage, but if you look at teh side streets you'll notice that the West U street signs on the north side continue to say Bellaire all the way to Kirby. The north half of the street between Buffalo and Kirby is in West U and retains the old name of Bellaire Blvd. while the south side is in Houston and was renamed Holcombe with the rest of the street going eastward.

Last I heard Khambrel was producing at KPRC. Why on earth would he become a weather reader when he could so easily just go back to the anchor desk?

I saw Elizabeth Scarbarough reporting on the baby flushed down the toilet in Baytown last night. When it was clear she was doing her stand up in front of a toilet in front a fire station I immediately thought of this thread. How wildly inappropriate.