Roast -A-Member

[TowerSpotter]

Make fun of a member on their behalf.

[brijonmang]

Uggggh. Midtown

[Pumapayam]

I have a laundry list, but Wayne/the Mods would quickly delete my comments, I will just sit and watch this thread...scrolling...silently judging.

 

*grabs popcorn*

[Montrose1100]

So the only way to have any kind of future in this city we must build rail, and completely tear down every freeway, at the expense of GM. Have a valid point? ha, jokes on you, I have more in my hat of tricks to avoid the question.

[Howard Huge]

The suburbs are awesome and Katy is the actual center of Houston.

[brian0123]

The suburbs are awesome and Katy is the actual center of Houston.

 

No, actually CityCentre at Beltway and I-10 is the center, and all corporations are/should be moving to the burbs near my house because then I could walk to work and traffic would disappear.

[brijonmang]

Railways were introduced in England in the seventeenth century as a way to reduce friction in moving heavily loaded wheeled vehicles. The first North American "gravity road," as it was called, was erected in 1764 for military purposes at the Niagara portage in Lewiston, New York. The builder was Capt. John Montressor, a British engineer known to students of historical cartography as a mapmaker. 
 

The earliest survey map in the United States that shows a commercial "tramroad" was drawn in Pennsylvania in October 1809 by John Thomson and was entitled "Draft Exhibiting . . . the Railroad as Contemplated by Thomas Leiper Esq. From His Stone Saw-Mill and Quarries on Crum Creek to His Landing on Ridley Creek." Thomas Leiper was a wealthy Philadelphia tobacconist and friend of Thomas Jefferson, who owned stone quarries near Chester. Using his survey map, Thomson helped Reading Howell, the project engineer and a well-known mapmaker, construct the first practical wooden tracks for a tramroad. Thomson was a notable land surveyor who earlier had worked with the Holland Land Company. He was the father of the famous civil engineer and longtime president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, John Edgar Thomson, who was himself a mapmaker. In 1873 the younger Thomson donated his father's 1809 map to the Delaware County Institute of Science to substantiate the claim that the map and Leiper's railroad were the first such work in North America.²

In 1826 a commercial tramroad was surveyed and constructed at Quincy, Massachusetts, by Gridley Bryant, with the machinery for it developed by Solomon Willard. It used horsepower to haul granite needed for building the Bunker Hill Monument from the quarries at Quincy, four miles to the wharf on the Neponset River.³

These early uses of railways gave little hint that a revolution in methods of transportation was underway. James Watt's improvements in the steam engine were adapted by John Fitch in 1787 to propel a ship on the Delaware River, and by James Rumsey in the same year on the Potomac River. Fitch, an American inventor and surveyor, had published his "Map of the Northwest" two years earlier to finance the building of a commercial steamboat. With Robert Fulton's Clermontand a boat built by John Stevens, the use of steam power for vessels became firmly established. Railroads and steam propulsion developed separately, and it was not until the one system adopted the technology of the other that railroads began to flourish.

 

John Stevens is considered to be the father of American railroads. In 1826 Stevens demonstrated the feasibility of steam locomotion on a circular experimental track constructed on his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey, three years before George Stephenson perfected a practical steam locomotive in England. The first railroad charter in North America was granted to Stevens in 1815.⁴ Grants to others followed, and work soon began on the first operational railroads.

Surveying, mapping, and construction started on the Baltimore and Ohio in 1830, and fourteen miles of track were opened before the year ended. This roadbed was extended in 1831 to Frederick, Maryland, and, in 1832, to Point of Rocks. Until 1831, when a locomotive of American manufacture was placed in service, the B & O relied upon horsepower.

Soon joining the B & O as operating lines were the Mohawk and Hudson, opened in September 1830, the Saratoga, opened in July 1832, and the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, whose 136 miles of track, completed to Hamburg, constituted, in 1833, the longest steam railroad in the world. The Columbia Railroad of Pennsylvania, completed in 1834, and the Boston and Providence, completed in June 1835, were other early lines. Surveys for, and construction of, tracks for these and other pioneer railroads not only created demands for special mapping but also induced map makers to show the progress of surveys and completed lines on general maps and on maps in "travelers guides".

 

Planning and construction of railroads in the United States progressed rapidly and haphazardly, without direction or supervision from the States that granted charters to construct them. Before 1840 most surveys were made for short passenger lines which proved to be financially unprofitable. Because steam-powered railroads had stiff competition from canal companies, many partially completed lines were abandoned. It was not until the Boston and Lowell Railroad diverted traffic from the Middlesex Canal that the success of the new mode of transportation was assured. The industrial and commercial depression and the panic of 1837 slowed railroad construction. Interest was revived, however, with completion of the Western Railroad of Massachusetts in 1843. This line conclusively demonstrated the feasibility of transporting agricultural products and other commodities by rail for long distances at low cost.

 

Early railroad surveys and construction were financed by private investors. Before the 1850 land grant to the Illinois Central Railroad, indirect Federal subsidies were provided by the Federal government in the form of route surveys made by army engineers. In the 1824 General Survey Bill to establish works of internal improvements, railroads were not specifically mentioned. Part of the appropriation under this act for the succeeding year, however, was used for "Examinations and surveys to ascertain the practicability of uniting the head-waters of the Kanawha with the James river and the Roanoke river, by Canals or Rail-Roads."⁵

 

In his Congressional History of Railways, Louis H. Haney credits these surveys as being the first to receive Federal aid. He notes that such grants to States and corporations for railway surveys became routine before the act was repealed in 1838.

The earliest printed map in the collections of the Library of Congress based on government surveys conducted for a State-owned railroad is "Map of the Country Embracing the Various Routes Surveyed for the Western & Atlantic Rail Road of Georgia, 1837". The surveys were made under the direction of Lt. Col. Stephen H. Long, chief engineer, who ten years earlier had surveyed the routes for the Baltimore and Ohio.⁶ Work on the 138-mile Georgia route from Atlanta to Chattanooga started in 1841, and by 1850 the line was open to traffic. Its strategic location made it a key supply route for the Confederacy. It was on this line that the famous "Andrews Raid" of April 1862 occurred when Union soldiers disguised as railroad employees captured the locomotive known as the General.⁷

 

The possibility of railroads connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was discussed in the Congress even before the treaty with England which settled the question of the Oregon boundary in 1846.⁸ Chief promoter of a transcontinental railroad was Asa Whitney, a New York merchant active in the China trade who was obsessed with the idea of a railroad to the Pacific. In January 1845 he petitioned Congress for a charter and grant of a sixty-mile strip through the public domain to help finance construction.⁹

 

A large-scale grant map dated 1893, showing the alternate sections of public land granted to the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railway. Such maps were used by land speculators to advertise railroad lands for sale to the public.

Whitney suggested the use of Irish and German immigrant labor, which was in great abundance at the time. Wages were to be paid in land, thus ensuring that there would be settlers along the route to supply produce to and become patrons of the completed line. The failure of Congress to act on Whitney's proposal was mainly due to the vigorous opposition of Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who favored a western route originating at St. Louis.

 

In 1849 Whitney published a booklet to promote his scheme entitled Project for a Railroad to the Pacific. It was accompanied by an outline map of North America which shows the route of his railroad from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, across the Rocky Mountains north of South Pass. An alternate route to the south of the pass joined the main line at the Salmon River and continued to Puget Sound. Proposed lines also extended from St. Louis to San Francisco and from Independence, Missouri, to New Mexico and the Arkansas River. This is one of the earliest promotional maps submitted to Congress and was, according to its author, conceived as early as 1830.¹⁰

 

Although Congress failed to sanction his plan, Whitney made the Pacific railroad one of the great public issues of the day. The acquisition of California following the Mexican War opened the way for other routes to the coast. The discovery of gold, the settlement of the frontier, and the success of the eastern railroads increased interest in building a railroad to the Pacific.¹¹

Railroads were also needed in the West to provide better postal service, as had been developed in the East, by designating railroad lines "post roads" in 1838. Strengthened by other proposals such as those of Hartwell Carver in 1849 and of Edwin F. Johnson in 1853, such leading statesmen as John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, and Jefferson Davis declared their support for linking the country by rails. The lawmakers, however, could not agree on an eastern terminus, and they did not see the merits of the several routes west. To resolve the debate, money was appropriated in 1853 for the Army Topographic Corps "to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."

Under the provisions of the Army Appropriation Act of March 1853, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was directed to survey possible routes to the Pacific. Four east to west routes, roughly following specific parallels, were to be surveyed by parties under the supervision of the Topographical Corps. The most northerly survey, between the 47th and 49th parallels, was under the direction of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, governor of Washington Territory. This route closely approximated that proposed by Asa Whitney.

The ill-fated party under Capt. John W. Gunnison was to explore the route along the 38th and 39th parallels, or the Cochetopoa Pass route, which was advocated by Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. After Gunnison's death at the hands of hostile Indians, Lt. Edward G. Beckwith continued the survey along the 41st parallel. Capt. Amiel W. Whipple, assistant astronomer of the Mexican Boundary Survey, and Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives surveyed the route along the 35th parallel westward to southern California. This line was favored by Jefferson Davis and was essentially the route traversed by Josiah Gregg in 1839 and later surveyed by Col. John J. Abert. The most southerly survey, which followed the 32d parallel, was surveyed by Lt. John G. Parke from California along the Gila River to the Pima villages and the Rio Grande. Capt. John Pope mapped the eastern portion of the route from Dona Ana, New Mexico, to the Red River.

 

A fifth survey, following a north-south orientation, was conducted under the direction of Lt. Robert S. Williamson. This party reconducted topographical surveys to locate passes through the Sierra Nevadas and the Coast Range in California in order to determine a route that would connect California, Oregon, and Washington were made under the direction of Lt. Robert S. Williamson.¹²

These surveys showed that a railroad could follow any one of the routes, and that the 32nd parallel route was the least expensive. The Southern Pacific Railroad was subsequently built along this parallel. The southern routes were objectionable to northern politicians and the northern routes were objectionable to the southern politicians, but the surveys could not, of course, resolve these sectional issues.

 

While sectional issues and disagreements were debated in the late 1850s, no decision was forthcoming from Congress on the Pacific railroad question. Theodore D. Judah, the engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, became obsessed with the desire to build a transcontinental railroad. In 1860 he approached Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker, leading Sacramento merchants, and soon convinced them that building a transcontinental line would make them rich and famous. The prospect of tapping the wealth of the Nevada mining towns and forthcoming legislation for Federal aid to railroads stimulated them to incorporate the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. This line later merged with the Southern Pacific. It was through Judah's efforts and the support of Abraham Lincoln, who saw military benefits in the lines as well as the bonding of the Pacific Coast to the Union, that the Pacific Railroad finally became a reality.The Railroad Act of 1862 put government support behind the transcontinental railroad and helped create the Union Pacific Railroad, which subsequently joined with the Central Pacific at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, and signaled the linking of the continent.

 

[august948]

No, actually CityCentre at Beltway and I-10 is the center, and all corporations are/should be moving to the burbs near my house because then I could walk to work and traffic would disappear.

 

Here, here!  Let's move the museum district and the theater district to George Bush Park, flatten downtown and repurpose the loop for a landfill.  We could keep the light rail as a way to move garbage from drop off points to the various landfill sections.  Move UH and Rice just north of City Centre and TMC to the new west campus it just built in Katy.  That way, everything will be right on I10.  Then it might actually make sense to build a rail line in that corridor.

 

[arche_757]

I'm going to be a little snide here:

member a: "This [image] is a proposal to build a new class a office tower in West Chase"

member b: "Wow!  I can't wait to see it!  It'll be great!"

member c: "I wish this was located inside the Loop"

member d: "here we go again with that nonsense!  You really must do that with every. single. project.  You drive me crazy!"

member c: "And its a garbage design to boot."

member e: "Don't feed the trolls"

member f: "I wish this building was taller"

member g: "this is great   Too bad its not taller"

member h: "I wish this project had ground floor retail!"

member f: "I know!  Too bad it doesn't!"

member a: "Here are some additional renderings [iamge], [image], [image]"

member h: "Boy!  This is great Houston's a world class city!  This iconic building is going to be great on our growing skyline!"

member j: "Too bad this isn't a 1,000 foot tall building!"

member k: "I know right?  We need another super tall somewhere!"

member l: "This would be great if it was a supertall, located in downtown with ground floor retail"

member m: "Do you guys think that we will ever get a super tall again?"

member n: "Nope.  But I heard Dallas could."

member p: "Dallas has x.x% vacancy rate and therefore couldn't handle a building that size"

member a: "Here is the site plan [image]"

member c: "This would'a been great in midtown or downtown!"

member d: "Don't you have anything better to do?!"

member c: "Nope"

member q: "If only this was 60 floors!  Then it would be something!"

[august948]

I'm going to be a little snide here:

member a: "This [image] is a proposal to build a new class a office tower in West Chase"

member b: "Wow!  I can't wait to see it!  It'll be great!"

member c: "I wish this was located inside the Loop"

member d: "here we go again with that nonsense!  You really must do that with every. single. project.  You drive me crazy!"

member c: "And its a garbage design to boot."

member e: "Don't feed the trolls"

member f: "I wish this building was taller"

member g: "this is great   Too bad its not taller"

member h: "I wish this project had ground floor retail!"

member f: "I know!  Too bad it doesn't!"

member a: "Here are some additional renderings [iamge], [image], [image]"

member h: "Boy!  This is great Houston's a world class city!  This iconic building is going to be great on our growing skyline!"

member j: "Too bad this isn't a 1,000 foot tall building!"

member k: "I know right?  We need another super tall somewhere!"

member l: "This would be great if it was a supertall, located in downtown with ground floor retail"

member m: "Do you guys think that we will ever get a super tall again?"

member n: "Nope.  But I heard Dallas could."

member p: "Dallas has x.x% vacancy rate and therefore couldn't handle a building that size"

member a: "Here is the site plan [image]"

member c: "This would'a been great in midtown or downtown!"

member d: "Don't you have anything better to do?!"

member c: "Nope"

member q: "If only this was 60 floors!  Then it would be something!"

 

You left off endless arguments about how rail would make the tower better, how the windows wouldn't fit HAHC guidelines and how if they put a Walmart in as ground floor retail it would ruin the neighborhood. 

 

[Subdude]

It's a discussion board!  People are supposed to bitch and moan and engage in endless arguments!

 

Sorry, but I don't think we need a topic to diss other members.  We don't want to be intimidating to people.  Once a board goes that way it gets hard to turn around.