Memories Of Montrose

[HTX]

You did not take a picture of my place,  Should I be offended?

 

Htx

[Gary]

Fun pics! Next time would be great if you could get some of the homes behind Anderson Fair. Some neat places in that section.

[rsb320]

 

You did not take a picture of my place,  Should I be offended?

 

Htx

 

 You did take a picture of my place, should I feel stalked?

[Michelle C]

In 1957 my mom and dad left the West end area and moved to the Montrose area at 1525 Sul Ross. The next year I started junior high at Lanier. I have very fond memories of that neighborhood and it was a great place to be raised. The house we lived in is not there anymore nor is any other house on that block. They have all be torn down for a large building that now occupies the entire block surrounded by Sul Ross, Mandell, Mulberry and Branard streets. The building is the Menil Collection art studio. I hate it that our old house is no longer there but the Menil Collection is very worthy of replacing it and the other homes that used to be there.
 
Dunlavy pool was not far from us at Dunlavy and what is now the Southwest Freeway. It was a favorite hangout in the summer. I think the area is now called Evan Chew park. We spend endless hours there whiling away the summers. We even watched the infamous 59 Freeway trench as it was being dug when construction on US 59 was started. I smoked my first and last cigarette on the way to that pool one day. A friend came by me house and she and I had decided to walk over to the Dunlavy pool for an afternoon dip. On the way she ask me if I wanted a cigarette and I said yes I will take one. After a few puffs I was coughing and carrying on and threw it down and said to her, that is enough, they taste bad and they make me cough, I have never picked up another one since.
 
I remember getting ready for a camping trip that a friend and I had planned going on with the Girl Scouts. My friend came over and my dad helped us pitch a tent in the back yard, this was supposed to be our dry run. I had two Tabby cats and during the night one of my cats came into the tent and was meowing and I got up and put her out of the tent, after a few more times of putting her out of the tent I finally drifted off to sleep. The next morning when I awoke I found a littler of kittens laying between my legs on my blanket. What a surprise.

 

One of our many haunts in the area was Phil's café at the corner of Mandell and Richmond. Phil's had some great food and was a very nice man himself. When I first started visiting his café I met a very nice waitress named Dotty. She would always wait on us and not only myself but her and my mom became very good friends over the years. She is now retired and lives near Lake Livingston. The café started out as a small diner with about three of four tables and a counter with stools. Phil later added onto the side of the building a nice dinning room more than doubling the size of the building. In later years he moved over to where south bound traffic from Shepherd splits off to go to Greenbriar, he is right about Norfolk street. It is now called 59 Diner. Phil was known for his good food and had many established customers.  
 
Lanier was not very far from where I lived and it was not uncommon to walk to school. Sometimes my mom would take me to school and sometimes the mom of girl that lived across the street from us would take us. It wasn't long before my first cousin that lived a few blocks from us that went to Lamar bought a 31 Ford A model. He would come by our house and pick up my girlfriend across the street and myself and take us to school in his Model A. That was a real treat to ride to school in the Model A. It wasn't long before a couple of neighbor boys near me also wanted to get in on the ride. The two guys would lay on the two front fenders and wrap their arms around the headlights and ride to school that way. For some reason I do not think that would sit very well with the law now days, but back them no one ever said a word about it.
 
One cold winter morning my mother was taking me to school and when we stopped at the traffic light at West Alabama and Mandell there were several police cars and several ambulances parked on the street at the intersection. Their attention was focused on the house on the northwest corner of the intersection. I didn't learn until I got home after school that three people in the house had died overnight from asphyxiation.

 

Another tragedy that happened in the neighborhood came in July of 1959 when twelve year old William, affectionately known as Bill Bodenheimer was killed. He was a neighborhood kid that most knew and liked and lived not far from West gray on I think Driscoll street. He had been to Dunlavy pool one day and left the pool and went home only to leave the house a little while later close to dusk. He didn't return home that night and his mother and her boy friend went out looking for him only to give up sometime after midnight. Early the next morning the continued their search and finally found him in a small tin building on the back of a lot on West Gray stuffed in an old icebox. His murderers were later apprehended and charged and tried. There is some serious doubt that the ones arrested were the actual one that killed him.

 

I am sure many on this board have heard of the Poe school bombing in Sept. of 1959. At the time I was at Lanier Jr. High and remember all the sirens that just kept on coming past the school that morning. The teachers would not let us get up and look out the windows and we had not clue as to what was going on. Of course we later learned of the bombing that happened that morning at Poe. We had no security police at our school and the school went on lock down with all doors locked except for the front door. The school had several of the biggest football players guarding the front door with baseball bats until the school got the all clear that the incident was confined to Poe. Right after the incident at Poe that morning my mother got a call from a friend of my mom and dads that was a deputy with the Harris county sheriffs department. He did not remember if I was going to Poe or if I was at Lanier. Hesitating to ask my mom if I went to Poe, he ask her if I was home, she said not she's at school, and he ask which school, in which she replied Lanier. He then told my mom what had happened and why he was calling. Had I been at Poe he was going to come by and pick her up and go to the school with her.

 

These are some of my memories from the Montrose neighborhood that I was raised in from about twelve years old until I started college in 1963. Many good memories and some not so good.

 

This was our house.

 

 

 

[Subdude]

I love hearing this stuff.  Thanks for posting.

 

 

[mkultra25]

What a great-looking, classic Montrose bungalow. The Menil Collection has been there for almost 27 years now. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but my memories of what the area looked like before it was built are fuzzy. 

[Michelle C]

It don't seem like it has been that long since I lived there. Time sure does march on quickly now days. I think it must be an age thing, it seems like it took me longer to get from four years old to twenty one than it did from twenty one to now. Those were some great day and filled with good memories. I often wish I could go back to that simpler time. You can never miss anything that you have never had. We had only one phone in the house and it was in the hall. We had a couple of room air conditioners for A/C and we were lucky to have that.

 

I remember once my mom threw out about a half can of lard. I had a couple of Cherry bomb fire crackers left over from the fourth of July. When I found the can of lard I removed the top and lit one of the Cherry bombs, dropped it in the can and shoved the can upside down into a flower garden in the back yard and took cover. When the thing went off pieces of the can and lard went everywhere. The pieces of the can was easy to clean up but the lard was all over the back of the house, I liked to have never got out of trouble for that incident.

[IronTiger]

If I haven't said so before it my previous posts, Westheimer is a cool street, hitting up all the major spots of Houston as it unceremoniously ends at the Westpark Tollway. It starts low with its blocks with the 300 and 400 blocks in Montrose and going up to 10000 after the Beltway, until I noticed something. There doesn't seem to be a 700 block of Westheimer! 

 

Westheimer starts at 100, with some of the following blocks west of downtown:

 

100 - Jus' Mac; that one house from the 1900s that burned down (bummer)

200 - Bistro 224; former home of Feast Restaurant

300 - El Tiempo Cantina; Numbers

400 - AvantGarden; Planet of Sound

500 - Indika; The Cat Doctor

600 - Katz's, Women's Home

800 - Cottage Thrift Shop; police substation

900 - Uchi, Aladdin, Valero

1000 - Blacksmith, Burger King

 

Notice there's no 700 block at all, and Montrose Blvd. cuts through Block 900. Was there a 700 block that was later renumbered? With the current arrangement of streets that should be...

 

100 - Jus' Mac; that one house from the 1900s that burned down (bummer)

200 - Bistro 224; former home of Feast Restaurant

300 - El Tiempo Cantina; Numbers

400 - AvantGarden; Planet of Sound

500 - Indika; The Cat Doctor

600 - Katz's, Women's Home

700 - Cottage Thrift Shop; police substation

800 - Uchi, Aladdin, Valero

900 - Valero

1000 - Blacksmith, Burger King

 

...with the Valero occupying a whole mini-block, just like how Chances occupied the whole 1100 block.

 

Is there an interesting story as to why there's no 700 block?

[BigFootsSocks]

Not to derail your post but Westhiemer goes into Katy, past 99

Edited July 27, 2015 by BigFootsSocks

[IronTiger]

Not to derail your post but Westhiemer goes into Katy, past 99

That's Westheimer Parkway, not quite the same thing, different road

[Purpledevil]

That is interesting, Tiger. I've never noticed a lack of a 700 block. As long as they leave 616 alone, I'll be ecstatic. Aw man, got me craving a fried pickle now...

Anyway, the original alignment of Farm to Market 1093's (a.k.a. Westheimer Road) western terminus was Farm to Market 3013 in Eagle Lake, Texas. Eastern terminus was the West Loop. Once they cut the Westpark Toll through there, I couldn't tell you where it ends now. The Westheimer name used to drop from the road at FM 1463, not too long before you hit Fulshear. Now, that makes me want to stop in at Dozier's market for some of the best BBQ down here. I wonder if it's even still there? The kids HAVE to be running it by now. Of course, Westheimer has always switched names to Elgin @ Bagby, as far as I go back. We used to use 1093 when making our way to Altair. You'd think 10 would've been faster, but not even close given the headache that was the Katy Freeway.

[Ross]

The stretch between Elgin and Katz's or so used to be Hathaway Street. That may have something to do with it.

[BigFootsSocks]

That's Westheimer Parkway, not quite the same thing, different road

I see that now. The more you know..

Edited July 27, 2015 by BigFootsSocks

[mollusk]

One of my favorite road signs was beside the West Loop frontage road at Westheimer... an FM1093 sign, and below it a green one with an arrow pointing west that read "Fulshear 23."

[Purpledevil]

One of my favorite road signs was beside the West Loop frontage road at Westheimer... an FM1093 sign, and below it a green one with an arrow pointing west that read "Fulshear 23."

That's awesome, mollusk. I remember that very sign. We still have a gem or two of those signs here in Houston, that given how Houston has grown seem a little out of place. 2 right off the top of my head are both on FM 525, Aldine-Bender. Coming west from 59 to your right there's a green sign proudly displaying "Aldine-4". At the intersection of 45 & Aldine Bender sits another advising you that Houston is still another 17 miles to the south, and equally as many miles for a visit to Conroe heading north on 45. I mean, I guess it IS 17 miles to City Hall from Greenspoint technically, but it's about time that sign was retired, lol.

[mkultra25]

One of my favorite road signs was beside the West Loop frontage road at Westheimer... an FM1093 sign, and below it a green one with an arrow pointing west that read "Fulshear 23."

 

 

That's awesome, mollusk. I remember that very sign. We still have a gem or two of those signs here in Houston, that given how Houston has grown seem a little out of place. 2 right off the top of my head are both on FM 525, Aldine-Bender. Coming west from 59 to your right there's a green sign proudly displaying "Aldine-4". At the intersection of 45 & Aldine Bender sits another advising you that Houston is still another 17 miles to the south, and equally as many miles for a visit to Conroe heading north on 45. I mean, I guess it IS 17 miles to City Hall from Greenspoint technically, but it's about time that sign was retired, lol.

 

I remember that sign as well - it has added resonance for me now, as I've recently been driving out to within spitting distance of Fulshear several times a week. 

 

Up until a year or two ago, there used to be a very old street sign near downtown where Preston feeds into Washington. It was rusty but still legible, and had to be close to 40 years old. I kept thinking I should take a picture of it, as it was unusual to see a metal street sign that old still in service, but I never got around to doing so until one day I was dismayed to see it had finally been replaced with a new sign.

[innerlooper]

Numbering may have something to do with how the blocks are staggered. This is from 1925, before Montrose was run north of W'heimer.

 

 

[hindesky]

Reddit/houston u/jessiuser posted this map.

[mkultra25]

I think this may have been posted here before, as I had another copy of it saved, but this version is far more legible when viewed at full size. 

Another one, from a somewhat earlier era:

 

[Highrise Tower]

 George H. Hermann lived in Montrose before he died? This would have been around around 1913 or 1914.

I'd love to know more! Does anyone know where his house was? Or maybe I'm reading it wrong and he's actually building 15 house at Cook and Sutton streets?

I went onto Google maps and discovered a city park at that intersection. Usually, the estate benefactors leave their land to the city for park purposes.  The West Webster Dog Park is located at 1913 Gillette Street. Any relation?

*Houston, Tex. - Geo H. Hermann, Cook and Sutton streets, 15 houses of four rooms each, $4500.

[sixthwardguy]

One of the 15 four-room houses on Sutton Street that Mr Herman built was relocated in the 1990's to the NW corner of Sabine and Lubbock Sts where it still stands today.