Vampires, Dinosaurs And Spaceships In Houston

[SchwinnChopper68]

If I remember correctly there used to be a nocturnal animals room at the zoo. This was around the 1965 to 1972 period. I seem to remember entering a darkened room with a bunch of different animals and when you got to the other side of that room you would enter a pitch black room lit with red light bulbs. Inside this room they had a ton of vampire bats with little dishes of blood set out for them to drink.

Around the middle of the zoo by the snackbar I remember 2 vacuum injection machines that would make you a dinosaur in front of your eyes in a minute or so. That was one of my biggest thrills as a kid. Stick the quarter in the machine and watch those silver molds slide slowly together then a warm green stegosaurus falls down the chute into my waiting grubby hands. Just anticipating the smell of that fresh warm plastic would make my day. I suppose no more 1,000 degree hot melting plastic injecton machines so close to kiddies, alas...what happened to those simpler days.

I also seem to remember Sinclair sponsoring a huge display of dinosaurs at the sharpstown mall parking lot. Mid to late 60's. There were all kinds in the lot. Lifesize ones! Not 2 feet tall.

Here's one for the old timers. Who remembers the 1920's firetruck in the park next to the zoo? Man o man, that thing would fire my imagination for hours. Remember the 3 story rocket with the prison bars, ladders and the slide to the ground. Heck today I'll bet nothing like that could be built nowadays due to massive liability. I never got hurt on it nor do I remember any others. Back then if you fell off a 5 foot tower you swallowed your pride, got back up and continued to play. Nowadays I suppose kids head to a lawyers office. There was also a highly polished metal slide that only can be described as a triangle set at a 45 degree angle with railing. You would start at the small side and pull yourself over to the larger, longer side then let go.

And yah, I do remember that kids lion drinking fountain at the front gates of the zoo. Near that long pond with all the water lilies. Along with the gigantic collection of helium balloons that were for sale. Turn right after entering and the first thing you buy/watch is the cotton candy being spun in that little shack. Don't get too close to it when they are spinning it unless you want a new sugary hairstyle. Back in the days they kept the raccoons in an outdoor cage you could walk inside and feed them. I think feeding them was frowned upon but we did it anyway. They were pretty tame.

Edited October 13, 2008 by SchwinnChopper68

[Vertigo58]

The bat exhibit at the zoo was always a favorite of ours. I recall the exhibit area or cave like appearance being very dark and cool, but it was the creepiness of the bats that used to freak up kids out.

I am so glad you mentioned spaceships and I will do a backwards flip right now if anyone can remember when Hermann Park had a play area I think was encircled and had dirt or sand all around with a very TALL cage like spaceship like the typical ones you would see like on Buck Rogers? It had a long slender shape with a needle at the top. We used to run to it and I remember there were what seemed like hundreds of crazed kids climbing inside and to 1st and 2nd and 3rd levels inside?

What really used to boggle my (kid) mind was that it used to rock and almost tip from the kids shaking it so much! I can swear that one day it finally fell over and or was removed from parents complaining of the imminent danger.

Again, who can remember this spacerocket? It was multicolored and my last guessed running aorund inside with brother and sisters was approx 1970?

Wow thanks for the memories Chopper!

Another Houston to solve!

Guess what I think I found a similar pic below! Looked like this everyone!

[marmer]

I remember the red-lighted nocturnal animals room and the vampire bats. I think they still have the injection mold machines there. If not, I've certainly seen them in other zoos recently (Dallas and San Antonio)

Those rocket ship climbing things used to be really common in playgrounds. There was one in Jasmine Park in Lake Jackson.

I don't remember the fire truck (wish I did but we didn't get to Houston all that much when I was little) but I certainly remember the train engine. Of course that only moved when Minute Maid Park opened. Jasmine Park had a couple of strange things -- a jet airplane from the Korean War era and a wooden sailboat. Both deteriorated so much that they were gone by the mid-70s. Wonder what other old junk used to be "donated" to parks for kids to play on in the "pre-liablilty" era?

I remember the first time I went to HMNS, about 1970 or so. They had so much cool stuff I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I think the coolest thing was a bunch of really detailed ship models, including a sailing ship and an aircraft carrier.

[Vertigo58]

I remember the red-lighted nocturnal animals room and the vampire bats. I think they still have the injection mold machines there. If not, I've certainly seen them in other zoos recently (Dallas and San Antonio)

Those rocket ship climbing things used to be really common in playgrounds. There was one in Jasmine Park in Lake Jackson.

I don't remember the fire truck (wish I did but we didn't get to Houston all that much when I was little) but I certainly remember the train engine. Of course that only moved when Minute Maid Park opened. Jasmine Park had a couple of strange things -- a jet airplane from the Korean War era and a wooden sailboat. Both deteriorated so much that they were gone by the mid-70s. Wonder what other old junk used to be "donated" to parks for kids to play on in the "pre-liablilty" era?

I remember the first time I went to HMNS, about 1970 or so. They had so much cool stuff I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I think the coolest thing was a bunch of really detailed ship models, including a sailing ship and an aircraft carrier.

Thats what blew me way when we all (family) went to the original Schlitterbaun and I saw the Pirate water ship in the kids water pool area. I wanted to push the kids out of the way so I could go up there and have a blast!

I do remember as kids when our parents would go to other parts of town we would see other playgrounds that had the spaceships that outerspace aliens would fly in. Kids could climb inside and poke heads out of top and pretend to be flying around. I simply cannot remember where was the one we recall but it was of a dark grey metal appearance with large port holes on stilts....MAJOR COOL!

Guess the only spaceships we see as adults are after a few margaritas! Just jokers! lol

Edited October 13, 2008 by Vertigo58

[roym]

I believe the Bear Creek Park playground had a rocket ship as well. I think it was part of a slide. That was a loooong time ago. I don't remember Hermann park having one, but do remember the fire engine.

Wasn't there also a spaceship looking/themed sculpture in between the two office buildings at Kirby and 59 back in the 70s?? Does anyone else remember this? This was across the street from what was the Digicon building in the mid-70s. The two office buildings were 4-5 floors or so. Btw, the buildings are still there. The old Digicon building is either at Kirby and Norfolk or Kirby and Portsmouth (probably Portsmouth). This is on the North side of 59. I believe the sculpture sat right between the two buildings in the courtyard facing Algerian Way.

Edited October 13, 2008 by roym

[KimberlySayWhat]

SchwinnChopper68:

If I remember correctly there used to be a nocturnal animals room at the zoo. This was around the 1965 to 1972 period.

That sounds familiar to me, but the years you listed were before my time. I don't know what I'm thinking of, but I thought I remembered something like that as well.

Inside this room they had a ton of vampire bats with little dishes of blood set out for them to drink.

Eww! That sort of thing makes me weak in the knees.

Regarding the rocket jungle gym, I think they had one at Lake Houston. They've been discussed on here before.

Edited October 13, 2008 by KimberlySayWhat

[Vertigo58]

We used to play hide and go seek in crazy places like under the house, but it wasnt very dark and scary but it was funny seeing the other kids run past us totally unaware.

It backfired on me one night when a certain nightmare had me running from and hiding under the house from a giant Tyrannasauraus Rex!

It was growling and snapping its teeth but also went past me. Who would think it would become a movie years later. Thanks alot Speilberg. Thats actually where most of these screen writers and film directors get their ideas from childhood dreams/nightmares.

[NenaE]

Those rocket ship climbing things used to be really common in playgrounds. There was one in Jasmine Park in Lake Jackson.

I remember a rocketship in a small neighborhood park in Bellaire...you could see it from the 610 West Loop Freeway, across from that HCC campus.

[SchwinnChopper68]

Again, who can remember this spacerocket? It was multicolored and my last guessed running aorund inside with brother and sisters was approx 1970?

Response composed under the influence of The Wedding Song (There Is Love) 1971.

Thank-you Vertigo58, I owe ya one. That's the rocket I remember climbing and playing in. Yes, I remember very clearly all the little rabble rousers would get inside it then start to shake it back and forth in a violent frenzy. Heck that was the great special effects of blast off!! If I remember right there was a spinning wheel in the top compartment to "steer" with. I think if you were small enough you could even climb inside the nosecone.

Now with all that shaking, shoving, pushing, horseplay and carrying on you would have thought 3 or 4 kids an hour would fall from the top of the slide to the ground. No one ever did while I was there. If you look at that picture closely a 6 year old falling off the side of the ladder would have been in for quite a trip to the ground if he/she was not prepared. I know I jumped off the top of the slide a lot of times on purpose. You were landing on Mars and had to get to the surface. Had a thing for forts in the rafters of our garage and jumping off our garage to the grass below. It helped to wear a Batman cape.

Loved the see-saws too. They had some big ones. Is there anything better than coming slowly down to the ground, then jumping off the seat watching your partner heading for the ground like a rock dropped from a window. Yea, we were little devils.

After the picnic near the playground all us kids would pile into the backseat of 63 Galaxie (4 kids in the backseat, no seatbelts whatsoever doing around 85 or 90 going back to South Post Oak while the tunes of These Boots Are Made For Walking are coming out the rear speaker. Stop off at the brand new Burger King on S. Post Oak for dinner and the Sunday afternoon would be complete.

Edited October 13, 2008 by SchwinnChopper68

[marmer]

I'll be darned. I don't get out enough.

Fire Truck Park in Southside Place

[Montrose1100]

Remember the 3 story rocket with the prison bars, ladders and the slide to the ground. Heck today I'll bet nothing like that could be built nowadays due to massive liability. I never got hurt on it nor do I remember any others. Back then if you fell off a 5 foot tower you swallowed your pride, got back up and continued to play. Nowadays I suppose kids head to a lawyers office. There was also a highly polished metal slide that only can be described as a triangle set at a 45 degree angle with railing. You would start at the small side and pull yourself over to the larger, longer side then let go.

I saw this rocket ship you speak of... However in the early early 90's it was boarded up, so I never got to play. Saw it twice, then never again.

[hadooga]

I remember a rocketship in a small neighborhood park in Bellaire...you could see it from the 610 West Loop Freeway, across from that HCC campus.

It was in Jaquet Park, or at least what is now called Jaquet Park - no idea what the name was back then ("that park with the rocket slide"). I remember the one at Hermann Park, too. My park-playing years would have been mid-late 70's/early 80's. I guess by the time they disappeared, I was older & just wasn't playing in the park much anymore. There was one still standing in the Holloway Day Nursery playground, on S Rice near Bissonnnet, as recent as a couple of years ago. At the time, they told me it had already not been in use for many years and was going to be removed soon, but I know it stayed for quite a while after. I honestly haven't paid attention enough recently to notice if it's still there.

I loved getting those plastic dinosaurs (were they all dinosaurs?) & very much remember the nocturnal animal area. There was a reptile building - which I think is still there - and then a small mammal building which is where the bats & such were. I remember being on field trips and of course the boys thought watching the bats feed was the coolest thing ever and all of us (girls) would be saying "ewww! gross!" I believe that building has been quite remodeled and is now called Nature Encounters or something like that. Last time I took the kiddo there was over a year ago, and it was still being renovated/built/whatever.

Also, any excuse to post this is good:

Wasn't this near the hippo house? That looks like it in the background.

[Vertigo58]

Response composed under the influence of The Wedding Song (There Is Love) 1971.

Thank-you Vertigo58, I owe ya one. That's the rocket I remember climbing and playing in. Yes, I remember very clearly all the little rabble rousers would get inside it then start to shake it back and forth in a violent frenzy. Heck that was the great special effects of blast off!! If I remember right there was a spinning wheel in the top compartment to "steer" with. I think if you were small enough you could even climb inside the nosecone.

Now with all that shaking, shoving, pushing, horseplay and carrying on you would have thought 3 or 4 kids an hour would fall from the top of the slide to the ground. No one ever did while I was there.

Funny some memories just stand out. If I am not mistaken I do remember us kids running back to this rocket at Hermann Park only to see it laying sideways on the ground and kind of beaten on the side.

Now it could have been that workers had to lay it down and dropped it or that it actually finally toppled over with kids in it? If that was the case then the media really did not divulge but then again this was over 38 yrs ago so its likely that it could have been hushed up. Oh well the world will never know now. I just remember kids all over it like ants! Fun days!

PS, the image on the right is exactly as I remember it! Thanks for the trip back in time Chopper!

[devonhart]

The thing that really impressed me at the time, was the zoo was free--no admission. I just couldn't figure out how to get there without my mom and dad. Bummer.

[Vertigo58]

The thing that really impressed me at the time, was the zoo was free--no admission. I just couldn't figure out how to get there without my mom and dad. Bummer.

These are what used to scare the you know what out of us! Especially when they would start chomping & fighting on each other? Much tooooo much! Run kids!

[Heights2Bastrop]

And yah, I do remember that kids lion drinking fountain at the front gates of the zoo.

I have a not-so-fond memory of that drinking fountain. I went to the zoo with my mom and my sister’s first-grade class, so I would have been 4, and the year would have been 1952.

There were two drinking fountains side-by-side; one being the loin and the other was, I think, a hippo. The group stopped for a drink, and there was a mad rush for the fountains. Well, even though I was only 4, I was a heck of a lot smarter than those durn first-graders.

The dummies were all in one long line at one of the fountains, and no one seemed to notice that the other one wasn’t being used. So I walked up to the second one. Just as I started to take a drink, the whole group (it seemed) started laughing at me. I was at the “wrong” fountain.

OK, it’s 1952, and it was Houston, so I think you get the picture.

I believe that incident, as traumatic as it was being taunted like that, actually made me more aware growing up to the idiocy of and the mental pain caused by segregation, and of Jim Crow attitudes. So there was a positive side to this bad experience.

But I will always remember that lion, and how it had such a huge influence in my thinking growing up.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Heights2Bastrop

[Subdude]

If I remember correctly there used to be a nocturnal animals room at the zoo. This was around the 1965 to 1972 period. I seem to remember entering a darkened room with a bunch of different animals and when you got to the other side of that room you would enter a pitch black room lit with red light bulbs. Inside this room they had a ton of vampire bats with little dishes of blood set out for them to drink.

Around the middle of the zoo by the snackbar I remember 2 vacuum injection machines that would make you a dinosaur in front of your eyes in a minute or so. That was one of my biggest thrills as a kid. Stick the quarter in the machine and watch those silver molds slide slowly together then a warm green stegosaurus falls down the chute into my waiting grubby hands. Just anticipating the smell of that fresh warm plastic would make my day. I suppose no more 1,000 degree hot melting plastic injecton machines so close to kiddies, alas...what happened to those simpler days.

I also seem to remember Sinclair sponsoring a huge display of dinosaurs at the sharpstown mall parking lot. Mid to late 60's. There were all kinds in the lot. Lifesize ones! Not 2 feet tall.

Here's one for the old timers. Who remembers the 1920's firetruck in the park next to the zoo? Man o man, that thing would fire my imagination for hours. Remember the 3 story rocket with the prison bars, ladders and the slide to the ground. Heck today I'll bet nothing like that could be built nowadays due to massive liability. I never got hurt on it nor do I remember any others. Back then if you fell off a 5 foot tower you swallowed your pride, got back up and continued to play. Nowadays I suppose kids head to a lawyers office. There was also a highly polished metal slide that only can be described as a triangle set at a 45 degree angle with railing. You would start at the small side and pull yourself over to the larger, longer side then let go.

And yah, I do remember that kids lion drinking fountain at the front gates of the zoo. Near that long pond with all the water lilies. Along with the gigantic collection of helium balloons that were for sale. Turn right after entering and the first thing you buy/watch is the cotton candy being spun in that little shack. Don't get too close to it when they are spinning it unless you want a new sugary hairstyle. Back in the days they kept the raccoons in an outdoor cage you could walk inside and feed them. I think feeding them was frowned upon but we did it anyway. They were pretty tame.

Wasn't there a house in the Heights that had some dinosaur statutes in the yard?

[SchwinnChopper68]

I'm not even sure if the Zoo has a current vampire bat exhibit. Here's a HAIF exhibit. Use your imagination on the pitch black room lit vaguely by 50 watt red lights.

Oh yea, my brother, my next door neighbor and myself loved, I mean LOVED practical jokes. We were the Meyerland experts on practical jokes. Our little heaven was that joke/magic shop at the galleria. (Also the Johnson Joke Company ads in the back of the 12 cents Spiderman & Fantastic Four comics) To date this I remember the cinema at the galleria showing A Clockwork Orange. Anyhoos, I reckon what we did as kids might come off a tad different with today's overly restrictive PC climate. One of our best scores was when we released a couple mice on the floor of the pitch black bat cave. Didn't take long before something furry scurried across a pair of open sandals. Let the fireworks begin. That little gag worked great in crowded theatres too.

Edited October 15, 2008 by SchwinnChopper68

[Vertigo58]

[jetbeetle]

Strawberry park in Pasadena still has one of those Rocketship slides to this day

[Vertigo58]

Strawberry park in Pasadena still has one of those Rocketship slides to this day

Wow! I am on my way!