Henke & Pillot South End Grocery Store At 2800-2816 Travis St.

[capnmcbarnacle]

FWIW from my Architecture guide...

Former Henke-Pillot South End Store (1923)

The original segment of this complex, facing Travis Street, was resurfaced with the rest of the building in 1948, and the result has been modified piecemeal over the years. What distinguishes this building is that it was the prototype of the 20th century American suburban shopping center: it introduced the concept of off-street parking, toward which the grocery store itself was oriented. Its present role as an Indo-chinese retail center demonstrates the durability of the concept. Vietnamese names appended to city street signs in 1998 recognize the distinct identity this section of the South End acquired in the 1980s as a center of Vietnamese commercial life in Houston.

[sevfiv]

FWIW from my Architecture guide...

Former Henke-Pillot South End Store (1923)

It's a shame it was allowed to cross the (unscientifically calculated) "too rundown to re-use" threshold.

Argue all you want about what you consider "urban" and what you consider "suburban", but there's a huge difference in Houston's Bellaire Chinatown and the Chinatowns we were referring to (San Francisco, Toronto, etc.).

Yeah, Midtown has strip centers, so maybe it's not as "urban" as San Fran, but you've got to admit, it's more uban than Bellaire.

Bellaire is great, but yeah, geographically speaking it is out there compared to midtown. Now we get another prosaic 253-unit Camden project. Whoop de doo.

[dbigtex56]

FWIW from my Architecture guide...

Former Henke-Pillot South End Store (1923)

It's a shame it was allowed to cross the (unscientifically calculated) "too rundown to re-use" threshold.

You too, eh?

What a charming (and practical) space this could have been....