57Tbird

After more research on locations and verified addresses, I came up with these notations, which I have added to a 1953 Historic Aerial.

Filio... I agree that it was probably short-lived, but the Target is at 8510 Main, and this was at 8301, on the odd number side. Also, the ad is from July, 1947, and your link says Gateway was built in 1946.

I just came across the attached ad in an old 1947 paper. Looking at its location and description, I have no recollection of it at all, and I thought I was pretty well informed about all the recreation facilities in the South Main area in the '40's - 60's timeframe. Its address puts it right inside the intersection of South Main and OST. The ad says, ..."behind Price's Restaurant.", but I think it should have been Prince's Drive-In, which was near that location. Looking at blurry 1953 Historic Aerials and Google Earth views in that location show something that might have been it.

I remembered a Camellia Ice Cream place on Westheimer in this area from a long time ago. They had the biggest shakes and malts in town. I looked around and found an ad from 1947 that I've atttached below. I then did a map search street view for the Camellia address given in the ad and look what came up... also attached below. Looks like Oak Farms replaced Camellia. Interesting that in the Camellia ad, it says it's located one block north of Shepherd, when it's actually one block east of Shepherd.

The Cyclorama was still there, just out of view to the south, next to that vacant area.

Since I went to Lanier Jr High and Lamar High in that time era, and the drugstore was not far from both, I went there many times. It had a good selection of comic books and milk shakes. I found the attached 1953 aerial view on Google Earth. It's not real clear but a little better than the Historic Aerial view. The circle around the intersection was on the view. It's not mine. That's the drugstore, I remember, on the northeast corner.

The Center Pavilion Hospital located at 1700 Holcombe Blvd. Here is the other side of that postcard picture. It was the Park Towers Apartments at one time. Here is the front and back of a Park Towers Apartments postcard.

Since I lived and worked in this general area in the late 50’s – early 60’s, this piqued my interest, as you can see from some of the detail that follows. I attached a larger view of JLWM8609’s picture that shows a little more detail. I have also attached another photo that puts the relative location of the questioned buildings in a better perspective. Other attachments include a 1964 HistoricAerial view that shows the line of sight from the Astrodome to downtown from the original picture, along with a couple of others in the area near the dome. It does appear that the Prudential building is not in the picture to the left, and what is seen to the far left are medical center structures.. The building just to the left of the dome looks to be the Mayfair Apartments at 1600 Holcombe. The building to the right of the dome top must be the Pavilion Apartments at 1700 Holcombe that was mentioned in a previous post. However, it doesn’t look like the building shown in the HistoricAerial view from above. The shadows are about the same length indicating they are about the same height. The two seem to be the closest to the dome and would show up in the original photo. This is still a little puzzling to me. Any Ideas?

JLWM.... I was looking farther out, and I really didn't notice what you saw that looked like an airfield until I visited Google Earth again and looked closer at a 1944 view from above. See attached. That's the intersection of OST and Almeda in the left-center. Sure looks like something was there. There is no reference to one in that location that I could find on the abandoned Texas airfields website.

I think you're right about the Sky Ranch airport, Filio. It's in the general direction stated in the original post, but looking at its location, I'm not sure it's visible in that photo above. I took the location given for the Sky Ranch airport and put the coordinates on Google Earth. What came up is in the 1953 attachment below. The VA is at the top between Holcombe and OST (ALT90) and next to Almeda (FM521). A yellow stick-pin is at the Sky Ranch coordinate location at the bottom.

You're probably right. The HCAD build date has been wrong before on several places that I know of.

Found this info on HCAD: 7661 Park Place.pdf Looks like the 7661 address is for three lots. No 7657 or 7659 there now on this map. Other info says this address is a strip shopping center, originally built in 1950 and remodeled in 2013

Off subject a little... The video is titled, Houston 1954 Cotton Bowl. Actually, it was the Dallas 1954 Cotton Bowl with Rice playing Alabama. It was notable for the instance where an Alabama player, Tommy Lewis, came off the bench/sideline and tackled Dicky Moegle, who was in the clear on a long run for a touchdown. Moegle was given the touchdown by the referee. I was watching that game on TV when it happened. The two players later made an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I think this may be the one you're thinking about. I believe it was across the street from Rodney's on the west side.

Rodney's was in that location in the 50's-60's. I went there many times. Also went to Harris' Men and Boy's Wear on University.

Filio, Do you go back far enough to know Tim Nolan and Bob Byron? I listened to them faithfully. What a riot they were. I believe they were on KPRC. I'll always remember one morning when they told everyone to keep their telephones covered because SWB was going to be blowing the dust out of the phone lines.

I think I remember the Kinkaid private school being across, or almost across, the street from the Richmond Weingarten's. Correct??

Jesse came to my wedding, so I looked back at the wedding book and saw he signed his, and her, name... Mr & Mrs J. C. Cardwell. Thinking back, I guess I was a bit premature in thinking he might have retired in the late 60's. I guess, when you're in your teens, someone who's in his 30's seems old, and in your 20's, someone who's in his 40's looks "old". I did some research and found a Jesse C. Cardwell, who was born in 1917 and died in 1994. That would have have him at 33 in 1950. Wonder if that's our Jesse?

Is this the one?

I remember it well. You mention the barbershop with Shortie and Jesse. Jesse moved from that location in the early 60's, as I remember, to his new location farther west on Richmond near Weslayan. Then that area started being taken over by the Greenway Plaza development in the late 60's, and I think he retired about that time. I went to Jesse for my haircuts from about 1950 to the mid-60's. His name was J. C. Cardwell. I guess the name, Jesse, evolved from his initials. Also at that intersection, on the northeast corner, was a little diner by the name of Phil's. I went there for lunch many times in my youth. I have never had another chicken-fried steak as good as the ones I got there.

Well... I'm going to show my age again here, as I have in some previous posts. My favorite house in Riverside Terrace was the one where I lived on Oakdale in the late 1930's. We moved there soon after I was born. We lived there about 5-6 years before moving again. We had some neighbors who became well known Houstonians. Across the street was an elementary schooler, Bill Archer, who would become a U.S. House Representative. Down the block was a young attorney by the name of Leon Jaworski, who would earn national fame as a Watergate prosecutor. Here are a couple of recent pictures of my house. The first one, I took when I drove through my old neighborhood in 2007, and the second is a 2011 Street View. The first looks pretty much the same as when I lived there, except for the portico we had on the right side, which has been enclosed. The second, as you can see, is very different. The old neighborhood appears pretty much run down and uncared for these days. Sad... Our place was not as opulent as many of the homes in the area, but I have many pleasant memories of that neighborhood..

I'm not sure, but it was probably Summer, and could have been 1942. Since it was a military plane, it was probably based at Ellington. Looking at a map, I was more due north and less than 1/2 mile from SJ. I vaguely remember another crash that was in the Lovett/Montrose area back then. It was not far from where a relative lived.

I lived on Elgin, a few blocks NW of San Jacinto High School, when I was a kid during WWII. i was playing outside one afternoon and heard a plane coming over very low. I looked up and a single engine plane that looked like a military trainer was coming down with smoke pouring from its engine. I remember hearing a boom and then smoke coming up from a short distance away. I ran into the house and told my mother what I had seen, and that I was going to see what happened. She told me to stay put. We heard a lot of sirens soon after. I think it must have been 1943-44 time-frame We later heard heard that the plane had come down on the San Jacinto High School campus. I do not remember if the pilot died. I don't think there were any injuries at the school. It was late afternoon or on a weekend. I cannot find anything about this incident. Can one of you research experts help on this. Surely there is an access to a Houston Chronicle archive. I tried the Houston Public Library, but I don't have a card. Thanks for any help!

Ad in the Chronicle from 1969.

I just returned from a trip to SE Asia. One of my stops was Singapore, where I was extremely impressed with the modern architecture and cleanliness of the entire area that I visited. I did a search to see if any Singapore pictures had been posted here before and did find a previous post by Editor, but the pictures posted were no longer available and the building that I am showing here was not built at the time of that posting. I thought this structure was very unusual. It is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel... 55 stories tall with a boat-shaped recreation area on top called Skypark. The last two pictures were taken from the nearby Singapore Flyer ferris wheel... one of the tallest in the world at about 500 feet. You can see some of it on the side of the third picture.