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mollusk

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Everything posted by mollusk

  1. mollusk
    OK, how about more homogeneous than a half gallon of Borden's? By income stats, by place of birth, by any measure, The Woodlands is far less diverse than Houston as a whole. Even the boosterish first chart showed that, albeit to a lesser extent.
  2. mollusk
    ^^ I have no science to back this up, but intuitively it seems that having masses of trees beside the freeways, in medians, etc. would help with noise control, and not just look nice.
  3. mollusk
    A suitably pretentious name that has the advantage of some historical accuracy.
  4. mollusk
    Do you, or does someone you love, post photos? There can be help for that...
  5. mollusk
    Bonus - all you have to do to go in and check it out is have a critter in need of veterinary care.
  6. mollusk
    Here's some more... http://www.areavibes.com/the+woodlands-tx/demographics/ Whiter than Wonder Bread.
  7. mollusk
    (*chortle...*)
  8. mollusk
    Fourteen hours with no comments. I can think of some Swampers that would be all over this like locusts.
  9. mollusk
    According to the notice I got, to facilitate demoing that side of the building.
  10. mollusk
    Mother of mercy those windows and spandrels came out fast. I would swear that they were there yesterday. That block of Travis will be closed from 8 PM this evening until 5 AM Monday.
  11. mollusk
    Funny thing about the civil courthouse - while the outside deserves all the oppobrium it gets (I've called it banal and derivative), it functions very well. The courtrooms are a good size, well laid out, and are well equipped and well appointed, as are the staff areas and judges' chambers. There are four courtrooms per floor, one for each quadrant, with the lower district numbers on the lower floors and then up in numerical order. Before it was built, the civil courts were spread around among up to four or five different buildings, with a wide variation in quality among the facilities. I've seen bigger closets than some of the jury rooms that used to be in the 1910 building, and clerks' offices were sometimes on a different floor, or accessible only through the courtroom. Every time a bench became vacant there was a bit of a reshuffle, usually with the newest judge being exiled to the Cotton Exchange Building. So overall it's an improvement, cringeworthy fake dome notwithstanding.
  12. mollusk
    A lot of the elements of the proposal ended up on the final building - see http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/Building/2072/Congress-Plaza.php The bottom dropped out of the Houston economy in 1984 - the reason this got built at all was because of the county's needs. FWIW, I agree that the flat dome on top of the civil courthouse is one of the most awkward details on a building that has a bunch of them. The dome was added at the behest of the judges on the design committee (one judge in particular was rather proud of it). As a side note, that building was also designed with gargantuan file rooms and an elaborate dumbwaiter system to deal with what had been one of the more persistent problems in the prior quarters - paper files literally everywhere. As it opened, electronic filing came on line (and is now mandatory), leaving those eagerly anticipated miles of shelves...empty.
  13. mollusk
    I don't think it's much of an effect at all. My perception is that condos are more difficult to finance because of significant pre sale requirements by the lenders.
  14. mollusk
    ^ When the alternative is going to be setting Splendora's Finest out in the middle of South Main stopping traffic at whim, maybe having the garage traffic lights ain't entirely a bad thing.
  15. mollusk
    I recently had an old friend come into town who hadn't been here in a bit over 30 years. What initially blew her away was just how much bigger downtown has gotten. Then, after a couple days, it was seeing what's going to be in place on Buffalo Bayou before long, trying to play "stump the host" on dining options and losing (she and her husband both have well stamped passports), seeing how walkable downtown has gotten around Market Square, and the museums. They will be back, much sooner than in another 30 years. As we gain convention capacity, and as we have a ton of people come in for things like the Super Bowl (I'm not holding my breath for a World Series, dangit), word will get around.
  16. mollusk
    Hard to say - we're still infested with ants and Methodists, as one early critic put it (if you insert megachurches in place of Methodists) Is losing the gigantic "OWNER HAS BRAIN DAMAGE" car lot sign that much of an improvement? I kinda miss it
  17. mollusk
    That sort of foresight would really be great.
  18. mollusk
    Would it not be more accurate to say that Houston was founded by Slick Northern Land Promoters?
  19. mollusk
    I am SO glad to hear that the plan includes "Modern, adequate - sized restrooms." Though I guess living up to stereotypes would involve oil dispensers or some such.
  20. mollusk
    Rail leaves Main at Wheeler, and goes through the TMC on Fannin. It was inserted long after so many of the surrounding buildings put their garage access on the same street. IMHO, this segment would be an ideal place to put the rail underground, specifically because of the density. Main in that area ain't so bad, though it would probably look just like Fannin does now if the rail were on it.
  21. mollusk
    The structure as built has more parking garage than the original concept plus a number of office suitable floors above that, all of which was facilitated by the county's need for space at the time. What didn't get built as planned was the SW corner of the block, which is now a "moo" small parking garage. I don't know if it's got the structure to be built on top of, but I somehow doubt it. Edit: Every time I try to insert the Yiddish expression of disinterest spelled m - e - h, it gets auto corrected to "moo." Feh.
  22. mollusk
    One doesn't have to slavishly mimic the existing surroundings in order to complement them. With the latest renderings, the palette and the massing seem to have hit the sweet spot pretty well.
  23. mollusk
    My vote goes with "simply doesn't work." Downtown used to be real easy with old fashioned clockwork, largely because of the tidy grid pattern of alternating one way streets. During off hours lights were synchronized so that one could pass from one end to the other at roughly 25 mph, albeit with a frequent interruption crossing Main due to its two way traffic. If one came flying up to an intersection at a stale red, did the turn after a pause, and then poured on the coal for the cross street, one could also just catch the wave of green lights. Timing was adjusted at peak hours so that all lights in a given direction were red or green on all parallel streets. It worked. The allegedly high tech, computerized, optimized system in place now sort of works on the north/south streets west of Main, plus Fannin and San Jacinto, so long as it's not peak traffic. East/west (particularly trying to cross Main with the insane headroom overkill Metro puts in front of the trains), east of San Jacinto, or at peak traffic times, it just bites.
  24. mollusk
    I've no idea who drafted the writeup, but it's outdated except in the sense that Congress Plaza's major function is parking. Originally it had jury assembly on the ground floor, a good chunk of the county attorney's office, a number of courtrooms for civil courts, all topped off by the county law library. The civil courts moved out several years ago when the new civil courthouse was completed, followed by jury assembly a year or so ago. The law library is now downstairs, and the county is apparently repurposing the upper floors, judging by the construction equipment on the Fannin side.
  25. mollusk
    The Medical Center is the poster child for not being able to go around the block instead of turning left. Edit: That's why I park elsewhere and take the train when my destination is in the Medical Center.
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