Subdude Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 Wasn't Chelsea's the name of the bar that used to be in the basement of the old Plaza Hotel?That was Che's, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagnabbit Posted September 26, 2012 Share Posted September 26, 2012 On Chelsea off Montrose South of US59. A cool club that featured local singer/songerwriters, featured great acts like Townes Van Zandt and a lot of fun.The Name of the club came from the street address where it was located 804 Chelsea (between Milam & Travis). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margo Mitchell Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 (edited) ........... Edited October 22, 2012 by Margo Mitchell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forever123 Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 Does anyone on here remember the club in the 80's called Struts? Remember its exact location? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumbleweed_Tx Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Struts was at I-45 and Aldine Bender in the northwest corner of the intersection. I did many, many shows there with lots of local bands Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specwriter Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 That was Che's, I think. Che (there should be an acute accent over the 'e') was a very nice restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel at the corner of Montrose and Berthea. The main entrance was on the Montrose side of the building. I took a date there in the late 70's and she was completely impressed (we were very young). IIRC we had rack of lamb for two. Reservations were required. When we arrived there was a matchbook at the table with the restaurant's logo on on one side and my last name on the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forever123 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 We will be travelling back to Houston this week for some reminiscing. Does anyone remember the location where Confetti's was? Also, does anyone remember an upscale disco near Greens Road? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedScare Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 We will be travelling back to Houston this week for some reminiscing. Does anyone remember the location where Confetti's was? Also, does anyone remember an upscale disco near Greens Road? Confetti was in the Galleria area south of the mall on Alabama. It was where the Roxy is located now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
queenwest Posted June 8, 2013 Share Posted June 8, 2013 oh the 80s in houston. such great memories. cool things were the champs on 290 and bingle(i worked there). eating at sals pizza, . going to the dome for oilers games, astroworld, klol, 97 rock( mr moby) remember when kilt was rock? kikk radio. all the great newspeople who kept us informed every night. so many things from that time period. too bad houston isnt the same any more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torimask Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 I've only gotten through the 1980s in the stacks from the South Belt Leader offices, but pulled together most of the history of the uncovering of the Brio DOP dumping that had come out by the end of the decade. Will take me another trip back home to get into the 1990s, but I think it's a pretty good overview of how things unfolded in the early days. http://southbelthouston.blogspot.com/2014/06/brio-1980s-leader-coverage.html 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevfiv Posted July 2, 2014 Share Posted July 2, 2014 This is excellent...thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 (edited) 12 bars in Houston Marfreless, 2006 Peden.Kay’s, 2324 Bissonnet.Nick’s Fish Market , First City Tower, 1001 Fannin.The Last Concert , 1403 NancePark Lane , 2010 W. AlabamaThe Jockey Club , 4714 RichmondThe Remington Bar & Grill , 4608 WestheimerThe Backroom , Hyatt Regency, 1200 LouisianaWhite Horse Cellar , 1211 FanninLa Carafe , 813 CongressGrif’s, 3416 RoselandRichmond Ice House , 4700 block of Richmond 5 still exist with the same name, 3 still exist with a different name, 1 changed business type (to Hebert's Meat Store) and 3 are gone. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/89-greatest-texas-bars Edited August 8, 2014 by kylejack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I can't believe I read through most of that article before realizing it was over 3 decades old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I put the year in the title of the topic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 I put the year in the title of the topic! Yeah, I did catch a glimpse of that. I saw "83" in the topic title, so I assumed it was the 1980s, and then was somehow basically allured into thinking that it was far newer than it actually was since they formatted it like every other article they've posted...and...... Anyway, it makes sense now that they would bring up fern bars at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 On Google Books I found an old copy of the actual article scanned in. On there they include some pics. Pretty cool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted August 11, 2014 Author Share Posted August 11, 2014 White Horse Cellar - Wow. That old building was torn down 3-4 years later. Remington Bar on Westheimer was sort of the opposite of the White Horse. It had a rep as a sort of yuppie pick-up bar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mollusk Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 It's not like I was trying to do a grand tour or anything, but I visited (if not frequented) over half of them. And yet I still have a liver. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 Remington Bar on Westheimer was sort of the opposite of the White Horse. It had a rep as a sort of yuppie pick-up bar. Yeah, this article introduced me to the term fern bar. I'm going to bring it back into fashion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trymahjong Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 that list of bars. . . . . . back then we were still in Midland. Once I went to the 007-the darkest bar I ever encountered! -a really scruffy guy in dirty red coveralls like mechanics wear was there-- everyone i was with told me he was a regular and the guy acted like a regular-- all seemed fairly friendly with him etcetc later i found out the scruffy guy was Clayton Williams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChannelTwoNews Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/houston-and-oil/ The Chronicle has uploaded a special report that originally appeared in the Sunday June 2nd, 1985 edition of the paper, with a series of articles looking at life roughly three years after the plunge in oil prices began. Like most other articles from the paper, just googling the headline will give you the free access view. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swtsig Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Fascinating piece.... Glad the chronicle put this back out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devonhart Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 A clip from a 1983 training film made in Houston. Dig the office equipment at the beginning. Full film at http://texasarchive.org/library/index.php?title=2011_02146 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torimask Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 New post covers 1990 - 1993 when things really got going: http://southbelthouston.blogspot.com/2015/01/brio-superfund-south-belt-ellington.html Fair warning, this feels like it reaches epic novel length! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ej35401 Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Bump - seems appropriate to bring this topic back up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msteele6 Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 I was working in the construction business in the mid '80's and when the S & L's went busted (after de-regulation allowed them to turn from places where people saved money to make big purchases like homes, into casinos) that busiuness tanked incredibly quickly. I well remember speculative building projects setting empty for years afterward. The one that always comes to my mind was the Tang CIty Mall on South Main, an attractive Chinese themed mall that I can never remember having a tenant. The mall itself was finally demolished a few years ago. Of course, that wasn't the only speculative building project that tanked. In the mid '80's you could drive all over town and see building after building advertizing for tenants, usually to no avail. At about that time (1984?) I was looking to buy a house and attended several auctions for foreclosed properties, the most fertile area was out past what is now Beltway 8 in an area called Mission Bend. You could drive through that neighborhood and see multiple houses on every block that had been foreclosed on. Maybe de-regulation isn't the answer to every problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UtterlyUrban Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 (edited) I bought my first house in Houston in 1982. Things were still going pretty well - so well in fact that I had to buy a negative amortization loan with increasing interest rates. (Who said that all these creative mortgages are new?)It was in Concord Bridge - the SW corner of Eldridge and Little York. I think we paid about $69k for a Gemcraft home, and the interest rates went from 11% to maybe 13% (I cannot recall exactly) and the equity amount increased for the first four years. In other words, we weren't even paying all the interest we owed!By the fourth year the house was worth much less than we paid for it, and the interest rate was 13%! About 1/3 of the houses in the neighborhood were abandoned. All the surviving neighbors got together to mow the lawns of the empty houses. It was a stinking mess.I bought a house in The Heights (420 West 23rd - you can look it up) for $112,000 in 1988. (the house is now appraised for $402k. Not really such a big deal - that is only about 6.5% annual increases). We rented out the Concord Bridge house (on Lyndonville) for what we were paying on the mortgage. We finally sold it in 1990 for what we owed. I felt extremely lucky to get that much.I keep telling people that we have seen this movie before. I just hope it has the same ending.I personally know people who simply walked away from their homes in some of these "far away" (at the time) sub-divisions. They couldn't rent them and the value of the homes had gone from ..... Oh, something like $70k to $10k. Office buildings, some brand new and never opened, were called "see throughs". There was nobody in them and you could see right through them.The economy went from red-hot to dead-flat in about three years and stayed that way for a while. There were a lot of reasons for this other than oil: The banking system having mostly all local banks with lots of local exposure, the S&L crisis generally, etc. Houston's economy is a bit different now. It is somewhat less dependent on oil. But, this is still an oil town. As with the last bust, it will take a while for the impacts to unfold. If oil stays at these levels or goes down over the next 1-2 years, there will be much more pain, but likely not as bad as the 80's. I do expect a decline in housing prices over the next two years however. How much is anyone's guess. Bad local economy, low oil prices, and likely some rising interest rates and possibly a bad national economy. That doesn't bode well for housing. Edited November 3, 2015 by UtterlyUrban Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MirrersTrucking Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Is this why they built and never opened the Kingwood Mall? ( Now Kingwood hospital) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Is this why they built and never opened the Kingwood Mall? ( Now Kingwood hospital)There were several malls in the area proposed but not opening. One intriguing one I read about on the HAIF (might be in papers, but they're not online) was a second mall across from Greenspoint but even more upscale (this from a time when Greenspoint was considered to be a nice mall, on par with Memorial City today). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9075 Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 I was still a kid when all of this went down, but I do remember a few things about this period in Houston's history: There were a lot of auctions. You saw them advertised everywhere. My aunt and uncle bought a house in Clear Lake in 1987. It was a foreclosure and they paid $18k in cash for it. There was a large apartment complex under construction on Dixie Farm Road in Friendswood that sat unfinished for years. All of the windows were broken out, and the exposed framing eventually started to rot. It was finally torn down, and I think a nursing home was later built on the property. The twin towers on the 610 West Loop near Memorial Park got into some sort of financial trouble and sat vacant until the late 1990s when they were renovated and received new curtain walls. There was another office building at 59 and Weslayen that sat vacant from the mid '80s until it was demolished about 5 year ago. I had some other relatives that lived in Fondren Southwest. Their neighborhood went from very desirable to a complete dump in a very short period. Lots of gas stations closed, as this was also the period that new environmental laws regulating underground storage tanks went into effect. Along with less revenue from lower fuel prices, many operators could not afford to replace their leaking tanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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