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Highrise Tower

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  1. Highrise Tower
    A little confusing, but I believe this Joseph Finger building did not get built. Jesse H. Jones hired Alfred C. Finn to increase the height and change a few things. The original design by Finger was not selected.
  2. Highrise Tower
    wow!! I discovered a new (to me) department store in Houston! I searched around HAIF and there was only 2 or 3 mentions over the past 15 years. Figured I would create an official thread so people can gain more knowledge about the company. In terms of the company name, and searching around the internet, the name was spelled many ways. Levy Brothers Department Store Levy Bros. Department Store Levy Brothers Dry Goods Company Levy Brothers Dry Goods Co. Levy Bros. Dry Goods Co. Levy Brothers Company Looks like the official wording, per company letterhead and invoices, was Levy Bros. Dry Goods Co. From an invoice dated December 12, 1952: Several online Houston history blogs indicate the address was 309 Main Street. The 1907 Sanborn Houston map had the company surrounding the addresses 309, 311, and 313 Main Street. I searched through old newspapers for both 309 and 313 Main Street and did not find any information containing Levy Bros. When searching for 311 Main, I got results. From the newspaper The Houston Post. dated March 8, 1914: Department Stores Dexter, Fred F. 230 W. Seventeenth Ave., H. Hts. Taylor 205 Levy Bros., 311 Main. Preston 36 Munn Co., W.C., Travis St. Capitol Ave. and Main St. Preston 218; A1131. The Houston Post. dated June 24, 1914: J.B. Westover, Adv. Mgr. Levy Bros. Dry Goods Co. Dry Goods and Women's Furnish'gs 311 Main St. Phone P675 From a 1907 Sanborn Houston map: A photo of the Levy Bros. Dry Goods Co. building at 311 Main Street.
  3. Highrise Tower
    Learned something new today! Joseph Finger designed a Battelstein's Department Store in Montrose located at 2010 South Shepherd Drive. Very cool!! I wasn't aware of this store. From the newspaper The Bellaire Texan dated May 6, 1964: Now Available at Battelstein's The Amazing New Finnish Sauna Portable Sauna Bath Have a Beauty SPA in your own home for pennies a day! It cleanses the body, relaxes tension, offers much pleasure and well being. Battelstein's 2010 South Shepherd Interior photo I found online: Interior of Battlestein’s Department Store, 2010 South Shepherd, ca. 1950. This suburban Battlestein’s was designed by Joseph Finger who also designed earlier downtown incarnations of Battlestein’s. The store’s interior was reminiscent of Foley’s Department Store, which opened in 1947.
  4. Highrise Tower
    Originally constructed as the Carnation Dairy and later, the home of the Oak Farms Dairy, this Art Modern building stood as a landmark at 701 Waugh for many years. Designed by Modern specialist Joseph Finger, the dairy was completed in 1947. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Houston had several dairies located within or adjacent to the city limits, another indication of how rural much of the Houston area was at that time.
  5. Highrise Tower
    Throw Back Thursday with demolition pictures of the Houston Methodist Mary Gibbs Jones Hall that was demolished in 2020.
  6. Highrise Tower
    I was looking into the works of Kenneth Franzheim and discovered a rendering for San Jacinto Memorial Hospital located in Baytown. Looks like the hospital was built in 1947 by W.S. Bellows. Was the hospital purchased by Houston Methodist and eventually demolished? I'm not that familiar with Baytown.
  7. Highrise Tower
    Can anyone tell me more about Alfred Charles Finn? I know I could simply Google, but HAIF has more first-hand knowledge than Google. Did he practice architecture solo or was their a firm behind him? Before he died, did he create a firm to carry-on his legacy? Was there any "competition" from fellow "Stararchitects" of the time? Looks like both Kenneth Franzheim and Wyatt Hedrick did major projects in the Houston area at the same time. The "Houston Big 3" I call them. Back in the day, I don't think global firms was a thing. You did not have Gensler, SOM, HOK, HKS, HDR, AECOM, KPF, Stantec, etc. Instead, you probably had drawings single handedly drawn by Arthur Gensler, Louis Skidmore, Gyo Obata, Eugene Kohn, I. M. Pei, etc.
  8. Highrise Tower
    I discovered a proposed hotel called The Red Wolf Hotel designed by Kenneth Franzheim. One of Rice's architectural pages has this blurb about the hotel: Red Wolf Hotel. 1948, Kenneth Franzheim, architect. A 20-story hotel planned for a site in uptown Houston near the Texas Medical Center. My question is, do we know where this was supposed to go? Where exactly in Uptown? The tower in the background looks like San Felipe Plaza by SOM. Anyone else agree?
  9. Highrise Tower
    Can anyone tell me more about Wyatt Cephus Hedrick? I know I could simply Google, but HAIF has more first-hand knowledge than Google. Did he ever practice solo or was he always apart of firm? Was there any "competition" from fellow "Stararchitects" of the time? Looks like both Alfred Finn and Kenneth Franzheim did major projects in the Houston area at the same time. The "Houston Big 3" I can call them.
  10. Highrise Tower
    I did not know Kenneth Franzheim designed the "New Hermann Hospital Building". Very cool!! You can always tell this Memorial Hermann building apart because of those large Corinthian columns in front. I've never seen those "grand entrance" stairs before! I wonder if they were eventually demolished? That looks like a photo and not a rendering. Is it just me or did Kenneth Franzheim and Alfred C. Finn dominate the Houston architectural scene back in the day? Seems like those two were the main, big name, architects around. Wyatt C. Hendrick as well, but he was based in Forth Worth.
  11. Highrise Tower
    Architectural Modernism had so infused Houston by the mid-twentieth century that Kenneth Franzheim even used the style for this proposed A-framed building, ca. 1955, meant to serve as headquarters of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A.).
  12. Highrise Tower
    Alfred C. Finn designed this proposed "Name Here Department Store" in the 1920s. Alfred Finn’s office prepared this rendering in the 1920s for a massive, but ornately designed, department store. The tile work along the eaves suggests that this store would have been another addition to the many Mediterranean style buildings that were constructed in Houston during this time period. Had several proposed Mediterranean-style buildings actually been completed during the 1920s, it would have helped to produce a more uniform architectural style throughout the city.
  13. Highrise Tower
    wow!! I never knew there were two different Woolworth's in downtown! The original F.W. Woolworth Co. 5-10 and 15 Cent Store was located at 920 Main Street. This building was designed by architect Alfred C. Finn. The other building at 613 Main Street was designed by Kenneth Franzheim. Almost every city and town of any size or importance in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century had a Woolworth’s Department Store. Houston’s downtown branch was located at 920 Main Street. The photo can be dated to 1917–1918, because during that time architect Alfred C. Finn maintained an office, visible on the left side of the second floor, in the Woolworth Building. When Woolworth store chain founder Frank W. Woolworth died in 1919, there were over one thousand Woolworth stores in the United States alone.
  14. Highrise Tower
    Alfred C. Finn renderings and some interior photos. The architect titled this as Exposition and Convention Hall.
  15. Highrise Tower
    Rendering of the Contemporary Arts Museum, ca. 1948, by the firm of MacKie & Kamrath. This simple, but modernistic A-frame structure was designed as the first gallery and exhibition space for Houston’s Contemporary Arts Association, founded in 1948. Eventually, this building, located at 502 Dallas, became too small for the needs of the CAM, and it moved to its present, more spacious location on the northwest corner of Montrose and Bissonnet in 1972.
  16. Highrise Tower
    The classically elegant Miller Memorial Theater, located in Hermann Park, was designed by William Ward Watkin in 1921. The theater was demolished beginning in 1967 to make way for the present Miller Outdoor Theater, completed in 1969. The only remnants of Watkin’s original theater are the columns, which flanked both sides of the proscenium. The columns were moved in 1968 to help create the Mecom-Rockwell Fountain and Colonnade at the north end of Hermann Park near the ZaZa Hotel.
  17. Highrise Tower
    Rendering of the South End Christian Church designed in 1922 by Alfred Finn. The imposing neoclassical edifice stood at 4000 Main Street and was constructed at a time when the South End was populated by many of Houston’s more affluent citizens. The Pastor was Dr. A.E. Ewell
  18. Highrise Tower
    Do we have an address for this building? It wasn't the Sam Houston Coliseum was it? That building was located at 801 Bagby. The internet has both buildings at the same location. I forgot this was designed by architect Kenneth Franzheim.
  19. Highrise Tower
    Looks like the City Auditorium was designed by architect Alfred C. Finn. I believe this was located on Main Street. Does anyone have an address? One website has an address of 615 Louisiana, where the current Jones Hall is located. Can we get a confirmation of the address and location?
  20. Highrise Tower
    Could this have been the manufacturing plant of Black, Sivalls & Bryson located at 9901 South Main Street? Found this on the 1950 Sanborn map. BSB designs and builds world-class process equipment systems and plants for the oil and gas, chemical and refining industries. From my knowledge, in the 1950s, there were the following manufacturing plants located in the South Main/Willowbend area. There is probably a few more. Black, Sivalls & Bryson (9901 South Main Street) Brochsteins (10002 South Main Street) Smith Monument Company (10001 South Main Street) Waukesha Pearce (12320 South Main Street)
  21. Highrise Tower
    A few articles I found. From the newspaper Southwestern Times dated August 5, 1948: New Plastics Plant Planned In Section Construction will begin soon on a $1,000,000 plastics plant at the intersection of Post Oak Road and the S.A. and A.P. railroad tracks, just north of the Bellaire city limits, according to J.B. Dannenbaum, consulting engineer. Designed for a 16-acre site, the plant will house the Wright Manufacturing Company. An office building, a factory, and a plant facilities will be contained in approximately 130,000 square feet of floor space. Mr. Dannenbaum stated that 300 persons would be employed at the company for the purpose of manufacturing rubber tile and plastics products. Paved roads and parking spaces, as well as a railroad spur track, are included among the appurtenances on the plans. From the newspaper Southwestern Times dated March 3, 1949: Plastics Plant Will Open In Southwestern Section This April Football Cleat and Rubber Floor Tile To Be Among Items Made The Southwestern section bids fair to become the football cleat capitol of the world, among other things, with the opening sometime in April of the $2,000,000 Wright Manufacturing Company plant. Located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Post Oak Road and the S.A. and A.P. railroad tracks, the plant will specialize in rubber floor tile, offering in addition an assortment of other item including plastic teacups, motor bearings, sink strainers, or for that matter “anything in plastics,” as President Thomas F. Millane has phrased it. More than 125,000 square feet of floor space is represent in the architect’s sketch above the Wright Manufacturing Company plant, which is now nearing completion at the intersection of Post Oak Road and the S.A. and A.P. tracks at the northern fringe of Bellaire. The office building at the front has an area of 7000 feet, while the factory at the rear contains 116,000 square feet. The plastics firm, one of the largest manufactures of rubber tile flooring in the country with plants in Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin, has scheduled an April opening.
  22. Highrise Tower
    I was browsing the 1950 Sanborn map when I saw a manufacturing company next door to the Pin Oak Stables located near the present day Westpark & 610/59. Anyone remember this plant? Would love to see some photos. I could have sworn me and a fellow HAIF member was talking about this last year. I was under the assumption the plant was located on South Post Oak and West Bellfort where Meyer Park Shopping Center would eventually be built. Searched and couldn't find it. Wright Manufacturing Co. made rubber tile, and I think plastics. Looks like the plant and associated buildings was built in 1949. It's possible their plastic facility was located further down South Post Oak Road. Or maybe I'm just confused.
  23. Highrise Tower
    I was browsing the newspaper Southwestern Times dated July 31, 1952 and came across an article and business advertisement for Idlewood Kennels located at South Main Street & South Post Oak Road. Idlewood Kennels Open Dog Hotel The most modern dog kennels in America will be opened formally Sunday when Idlewood Kennels, on South Main where Post Oak road ends-ends into the main thoroughfare, opens its doors to the public. The opening will be on the 49th anniversary of the original Idlewood Kennels, which were the most modern in America before the Houston edition of the famous dog hostelry was founded by Leo Schelver, son of the founder of the original Idlewood Kennels. Houston’s newest and ritziest hotel for dogs is the last word in comfort for the pampered canine. It has air conditioning, all-tile stalls with running water and individual faucets, a beauty parlor for dogs where a pooch can get anything from a manicure to the fanciest poodle-doo. The founder is Leo Schelver, of Atlanta, GA., one of the nation’s best known dog handlers. The manager is Robert Hermanson, formerly of Detroit, Mich., who majored in animal husbandry at Michigan State. You Are Cordially Invited to Our Formal Opening Sunday August 3 Located 1.7 miles south of South Main underpass, we offer the finest appointments and services in the South • Air Cooled and Air Conditioned • All Glazed Tile Walls in Each Kennel • Running Water in Each Pen • Individual 25 Foot Runs • Completely Equipped Tile Kitchen where all food is prepared • Large Completely Equipped Beauty Parlor No Sick Dogs Accepted Nationally Famous in Atlanta Since 1903 Idlewood Kennels, Inc. South Main at Post Oak Road Houston, Texas MO-0630
  24. Highrise Tower
    One Discovery Way: Unknown path: Collaborative Building: Parcel G being cleared. Great news!! Helix Park, section 1: Helix Park, section 2: Helix Park, section 3: Helix Park, section 4: A structure is forming!! Unknown Path: Two Discovery Way: Mixed-Use Garage:
  25. Highrise Tower
    2nd tower crane was going up this weekend.
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