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mollusk

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Everything posted by mollusk

  1. mollusk
    True. The Market Street Subway in downtown San Francisco is a prime example. It has Muni Metro (light rail) on one level and BART (heavy rail) on another. And the F Market street car on the street level (along with busses IIRC).
  2. mollusk
    Speaking of bygone department stores, one of my favorite unintentionally funny TV ads of all time had a gaggle of young schoolgirl types excitedly jumping up and shouting "Weiner's!!!! Weiner's!!!! Weiner's!!!!!!!!!!"
  3. mollusk
    ^ oh, it's a crown all right. If it was about one third the way down, I suppose we could call it the architectural equivalent of a Wonder Bra.
  4. mollusk
    ^ Sakowitz was close to Needless Markup in perception, but not quite there. In terms of actual quality of goods, though, perhaps a bit better in reality. Stanley Marcus was a tremendous marketer.
  5. mollusk
    To me it looks more like the supporting structure for a Roller Derby venue.
  6. mollusk
    I always perceived the pecking order (from the top down) as Sakowitz - Battelstein's - Joske's - Foley's - and then Britt's rolling around with Palais Royal, a notch above buying your clothes at Sears.
  7. mollusk
    River Oaks and Memorial have had their share of pretty creepy and dangerous people, too. I'll grant perhaps not as many, but those that are sure get blown all across the media.
  8. mollusk

    DKR Expansion

    mollusk replied to urbanize713's topic in Austin

    Egad. That's close to the population of the Greater San Angelo metropolitan area.
  9. mollusk
    "Baja Oklahoma" is stolen from the title of a Dan Jenkins novel (actually set in Cowtown).
  10. mollusk
    just a contemplation from someone who's always cherished his neutrality in what used to be known as the Southwest Conference - Wouldn't keeping snark on the very real Orange/Maroon rivalry out of an architectural forum be at least as good an idea as forbidding snark concerning a certain large city in Baja Oklahoma? Edit: I just realized upon posting that my avatar includes an orange tent. The color of the tent is a mere coincidence. Its predecessor was a large blue dome my friends named "The Yurt," yet I have no particular allegiance to Rice, either.
  11. mollusk
    I'll come above ground long enough to pile on with Nate and swtsig. The tunnel system in general evolved as a way to get from one office building or parking structure to another, as an amenity built and paid for by the building developers. A tunnel to Allen's Landing from private buildings would require burrowing under a bunch of existing structures, few if any of which would have much interest in being hooked up. The closest access would be the county system among the courthouses, but I really don't see much desire to put in a spur from the tunnel to the criminal courthouse.
  12. mollusk
    BWAH!!! They're also kinda oozing into 801 Travis (the adjacent nondescript black cube).
  13. mollusk
    I strongly suspect NOT like chicken.
  14. mollusk
    My guess is that they will use the current drop off/pick up bays as a loading dock. But you are right - the logistics of getting all that debris out of there are going to be challenging.
  15. mollusk
    It is occupied while the reskin is going on. The interim lobby/security area has all the charm of Penn Station; however, the new elevator cabs look sharp. BTW, I'm as perplexed as the next guy as to why it's taking so long to finish, but I have to point out to the gummint haters that the work is being performed by private contractors. I wouldn't be surprised if the new lobby area being added on had a couple of unforeseen issues to work through, and/or the sawtooth corner wasn't going together correctly, since those seem to be the general neighborhood of the delay. IIRC one of the reasons for the reskin was the original wall system leaked, and I can see both of those being potentially problematic details.
  16. mollusk
    They're a place holder for the stick on stars.
  17. mollusk
    It's interesting how the break at the top of the podium acts to re-scale the building to be closer to the size of some of the nearby older building masses.
  18. mollusk
    Building not-at-grade (whether up or down) is usually going to cost more up front, simply because there's more prep work to do. However, soil type and elevation really aren't a negative factor here. If anything, the soil type helps, because it's layers of sand and clay, both of which are much easier to dig through than solid (or even rubbly) rock. As far as elevation is concerned, the downtown tunnel system has had a grand total of one catastrophic flooding incident that I know of, during Alison. What happened then was the relatively thin wall between the Tranquility/Theater District underground parking gave way, and nobody had submarine doors at the time (since corrected). During the same event, the Medical Center did have flooded buildings from overtopping, as did the then brand new criminal courts building (in that case, through the grade level elevator vents). The previous time downtown saw flooding of that magnitude was back during the 1930s, so this is clearly a "worst case" event.
  19. mollusk
    The one constant is change. When I first moved into my corner of the Heights 30 years ago right out of school, I was the only Anglo under sixty on my block. The majority of my neighbors were first or second generation immigrants, and on the whole some of the nicest, most neighborly people you would ever want to have next door or on the other side of the back fence. There was at the time a wide range of incomes, from retirees and laborers to bankers, lawyers, and the mayor of Houston. Over the years, the percentage of renters reduced as people bought places to fix up and move into as their homes, because (as with me) there was a pretty good bang for the buck ratio. Still, largely neighborly and willing to look after one another because that's just what neighbors do. There seemed to be a bigger transition when the people looking to remodel were replaced by spec builders cramming McMansions onto every buildable square inch. Obviously, there are exceptions, but by and large the people whose only investment has been writing a really big check are far less neighborly. As an annoying example, the young but clearly more prosperous than I recent grads renting next door refuse to park in their driveway or on the street in front of their place (I speculate because of a fear of disrespectful birds) and instead park squarely in front of neighbors' houses, in such a manner so that only one of their expensive cars can be between any two given driveways (where two normally cars easily fit). A polite mention only gets a grunt in return (if that); they'll only take a single street space if there's no alternative because others got there first.
  20. mollusk
    I still put it up in the "done deal" category, since it's basically build to suit.
  21. mollusk
    Iron, Passover started Monday, Easter is this weekend... pay some attention to your poor mother, for cryin' out loud!
  22. mollusk
    Thanks for the photos. It's a much different perspective than what one gets driving past.
  23. mollusk
    What a lurvely parking garage. Seriously, though...four cranes on three projects on that tightly cropped a shot? Just flippin' amazing.
  24. mollusk
    Dunno. If not, could it be related to what is rumored to happen to all the pigeons and cats that are never seen around skeevy all you can eat ethnic buffets?
  25. mollusk
    Well, yeah. The 1.x, 2.x, 3.x is obviously a gross oversimplification, the point being that all three go back to Abraham. And for what it's worth, poke around enough in the Torah/Old Testament, and in parts of the New Testament, and you'll find more than a couple of instances of Yahweh not exactly being all warm and cuddly, either.
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