sevfiv

How unfortunate. There are so many parking lots. And uglier buildings.

Sorry if I'm late in the game on this one. It's just frustrating when good looking stuff comes down instead of the things that need to go.

I am sure folks would argue that the majority of the block wasn't "good looking stuff," but I share your sentiment.

Unfortunately, no one was able to come forth with the vision or money to do something good with the properties, so they just sat...and sat...and sat.

Demolition by neglect.

here's the regular HAR link:

http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cf...mp;backButton=Y

Forgive my ignorance, but are all of those buildings coming down for this project?

Everything on the square block except the Stowers Furniture building (white brick building on the Fannin/Walker corner).

edit - what he said above

I certainly want to see Main Place go up, so don't get me wrong. I was wondering though, how are some of these buildings allowed to be demolished? I would think the Houston Historical Society would be screaming bloody murder. Has this already been addressed? How does something like this get passed if historical buildings are to be demolished?

m.

Even if buildings are historic landmarks they can still demolished - only protected landmarks have legal...protection, and the owner of the property has to initiate that.

The only progress that has been made in Houston recently is the Protected Historic District designation for Old Sixth Ward, and many folks had a cow over that.

here are some pictures of the Santa re-enactment:

It's history

Here's the Chronicle link:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/fabulous/5361630.html

ack!

The commerical is great:

Two burglary suspects shot by a Pasadena homeowner last month were illegal immigrants from Colombia, and one man had been deported nearly 10 years ago, authorities said Thursday.

Authorities also said they are investigating whether Diego Ortiz, 30, and Hernando Riascos Torres, 48, were part of a crime ring linked to burglaries and the use of fake immigration documents.

The two — killed by a Pasadena man Nov. 14 after he said they were trying to steal his neighbor's property — were in the country illegally, according to Leticia Zamarripa, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Joe Horn, 61, shot Ortiz and Torres, who went by the alias Miguel Antonio DeJesus. Horn called police after hearing breaking glass. He ignored an operator's warning to not go outside with his gun.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/5359290.html

I have been looking through a lot of Block Book maps lately and have come across a few proposals that never seemed to take off.

Then there's some that had streets built, but nothing else. My favorite is still the one near Baytown off of Tri City Beach Rd:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...p;z=15&om=1

Concrete barriers would be hit left and right - maybe a sort of zapper if you change lanes past a certain point (I am thinking like the Oracle in the Neverending Story).

I LOVE breakfast, but I rarely eat it (which I have been repeatedly told is bad and I should start).

Breakfast for any other meal is great, though.

I am not sure about the specific rules about riding on paths on Rice property, but the sidewalks tend to be wide - and I see RUPD partaking (and like Jax said, there are places at Rice with no street access - only paths - like the quadrangle).

There are heavy German influences in some types of music from Mexico/Texas

http://spanish.about.com/cs/culture/f/germanmusicqa.htm

Norteno:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norte%C3%B1o_%28music%29

and Banda:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banda_music

I guess it's "official" now:

Cherry Demolition and the Houston Police Department have completed their investigation and both confirm no one was inside the hotel when it was demolished November 11th.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=...&id=5816782

Now the neighborhood is pursuing a court order to ban protests...

Pasadena city officials are researching how to ask a judge to block any more protests in the neighborhood.

[...]

KPRC's legal analyst, Brian Wice, said neighbors might succeed in getting a judge to restrict the time, place, and manner for any future demonstrations.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/14785213...ou&psp=news

Hmm...

For those interested, a vigil is planned for Saturday night at Hiram Park (anyone know where that is?), and the funeral will be either Saturday or Sunday:

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/kho...o.6d6748f2.html

Business lunch. The corporate housing company we use took me and my boss to Brio. Not too bad, and I got dessert to go as well.

Not familiar with that restaurant, but sounds lovely.

This place wasn't by chance located off of Beamer Rd. in southeast Houston, was it?

i'm sure it got glowing reviews LOL

Haha!

Funny that someone would name a restaurant Brio in the Houston area of all places!

At least it's up north...

Here's the b4-u-eat page:

http://www.b4-u-eat.com/houston/restaurant...ews/rsv3313.asp

and here's a picture of the other Brio:

I second Green Mountain. I pay more, but not enough to make me want to switch to someone else.

I have also had positive experiences with customer service, too (which I can't say for TXU, which is my previous provider).

Cool - gives me a little vertigo, but still

here is the embedded video: (you put the video ID between [ youtube ] [ /youtube ] tags

Nice write-up.

I am glad they decided to go with a picture of the house standing, and not a depressing one of it in pieces.

I believe Jetero was a typo for the original "Jet Era".

Jetero was a misspelling of Jet Era, which is what the airport was called before it actually opened. Could you imagine coming into Houston on "Jet Era Rd."? Maybe it's a good thing they changed it to "Will Clayton".

Yep, from the Houston Freeways site:

The site for Bush Intercontinental Airport was originally purchased by a group of civic-minded Houston businessmen in 1957 to preserve the site until the city of Houston could formulate a plan for a second airport. The holding company for the land was named the Jet Era Ranch Corporation, but a typo-graphical error transformed the words “Jet Era” into “Jetero” and the airport site subsequently became known as the Jetero airport site. Although the name Jetero was no longer used in official planning documents after 1961, the eastern entrance to the airport was named Jetero Boulevard.

http://www.houstonfreeways.com/preview_ch5.aspx

Yeah, those are pretty bad...

They have a site that lists all of the types (and the drop-down list shows even more!):

http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Def...30&id1=1027

Aaaand, here is a pdf of all the "cluster narratives:"

http://bic.library.nd.edu/help/documents/P...definitions.pdf

A couple of gems:

44 Shotguns and Pickups

Rural Blue-Collar Workers and Families

Found in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Great Lakes, and the Piedmont industrial regions of

the United States, Cluster 44 is the least affluent of the R1 clusters. They lead the group in bluecollar

jobs. Most are married with school-age children. They are church-goers who also enjoy

hunting, bowling, sewing, and attending auto races.

Middle (43) Age Groups: Mixed Predominantly White

50 Family Scramble

Low-Income Hispanic Families

Although Cluster 50 is found in many markets, it is centered across the Southwest and Pacific

areas. It ranks third in Hispanic population and has an above-average number of Native

Americans. Ranked sixty-second in higher education, Cluster 50 shows all of the scars of

poverty, but is managing through working in transport, labor, and service jobs.

Lower Middle (52) Age Groups: Under 18, 25-34 Predominantly Hispanic, Some Native American

^Neat - would be interesting to see those.

There was a discussion here from a while back about the bridge near the Goodyear plant:

http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...?showtopic=6209