  Rhymeswithrawk Member Username: Rhymeswithrawk Post Number: 8 Registered: 11-2005 Posted From: 12.34.51.2 |
FIGHTING THE WRECKING BALL TO SAVE HOUSTON LANDMARKS By RALPH BLUMENTHAL c.2006 New York Times News Service HOUSTON — This fast-spreading metropolis of see-through skyscrapers, clogged freeways and antipathy to zoning has long worn its boomtown history lightly, freely consigning cherished landmarks to the wrecking ball. Though only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have more people, and it covers more acreage than Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Detroit combined, Houston has one of the nation’s weakest urban preservation statutes. Any owner wishing to demolish a landmark must only give notice to the city and allow 90 days for discussion. After that it can be torn down. But with a rallying cry of Alamo-like fervor - “Remember the Shamrock Hotel!” — many Houstonians are now drawing a rare line in the sand in defense of some particularly beloved architectural treasures threatened with demolition. The sites at risk include Houston’s two oldest movie theaters, the River Oaks and the Alabama, both dating from 1939, and the 1937 Art Moderne River Oaks shopping center, which is the oldest in Texas and the second-oldest in the nation. The streamlined black-and-white mall has been a “veritable icon,” said Stephen Fox, adjunct professor of architecture at Rice University and one of Houston’s leading architectural authorities, at a City Council hearing last week. The longtime owner of the properties, Weingarten Realty Investors, one of the nation’s largest real estate investment trusts, told a number of tenants recently that it had plans to redevelop the properties in 2008, and that some demolition would be necessary. But the company, based in Houston, has declined to be more specific, turning away questions with a prepared statement saying in part, “We do not comment on market rumors.” Bill Banowsky, the chief executive of Landmark Theaters, said through a spokeswoman that the chain had not been told of any demolition plans and expected to continue serving Houston “for a very long time.” (The Landmark River Oaks Theater still shows movies, but the Alabama’s interior is now a bookstore.) Once the word began to spread, however, the local citizenry began to mobilize. And because the site is adjacent to Houston’s wealthiest enclave, River Oaks, that citizenry includes some of the city’s leading philanthropists. Though Mayor Bill White backs their efforts, he said he had not seen the same fervor in preservation battles involving, say, Houston’s black neighborhoods. In an interview, White said Weingarten’s chairman, Stanford Alexander, “assured me the demolition ball was not about to swing.” But the packed City Council hearing last week rang with alarm. “We’re here to preserve yet another endangered species,” said Carolyn Farb, a socialite who has raised more than $30 million for charitable causes and wrote “The Fine Art of Fundraising.” “Let’s not wipe away history with a big eraser.” Farb ended with an appeal to remember the Shamrock, the much mythologized 1940s celebrity magnet known as Houston’s Riviera, which was demolished in 1987 for the expansion of the Texas Medical Center. Jane Dale Owen, granddaughter of the founder of the Humble Oil Co. and president of a clean-air group, said she was the first property owner in River Oaks to use a new city ordinance to designate her home for preservation in perpetuity, and vowed to fight to save the endangered properties. “I’m in Rhode Island right now,” Owen said by telephone, “but if you want me to come back and lie down in front of a bulldozer, I’ll do that.” The building that appears to be the most endangered, preservation groups said, is the Alabama Theater, which closed in 1983. The next year, with its Art Deco facade and ornate interior intact, it reopened as a bookstore, the Bookstop. The Barnes & Noble chain acquired it in 1989, and neighboring merchants say Weingarten Realty has discussed demolishing it, perhaps in favor of a new Barnes & Noble in a redeveloped River Oaks shopping center. There is a precedent for such a move, said Jeffrey Mills, a documentary filmmaker who has researched the history of the theaters. In 1994, Mills said, Weingarten tore down the 1940s-vintage Village movie house in the Rice Village shopping center near Rice University. Unlike Galveston, San Antonio, Dallas and other Texas cities, Houston has a long history of zealous defense of property rights, opposing government’s efforts to limit what owners can do. City voters last rejected zoning in a referendum in 1993. But in 1995 the city passed its first preservationist ordinance, offering property tax exemptions to owners who restore historic structures. It also provided for a 90-day waiting period before demolition. The program, while voluntary, has proved successful, said Randy Pace, Houston’s historic preservation officer. In almost all cases, he said, owners can be talked out of demolition. “We still lose 10 to 15 percent,” he said. In August 2005, the City Council expanded the statute to allow owners themselves to designate as “protected” those properties that the city agrees are worthy of preservation, according to specified criteria. This essentially preserves the properties from demolition in perpetuity, barring special applications of hardship by subsequent owners. Since then, 21 owners have won the designation, Pace said, including Owen. The new law, he said, also provides for the city’s historical commission to designate certain properties as historic, offering them some protection from demolition. But the owners can file for a “certificate of nondesignation,” which would forestall any city action for six months, during which time the structure could be demolished. The city is also working to restore landmarks of its black community, including the 1926 Gregory School in Freedmen’s Town, an enclave of deteriorating cabins going back to freed slaves that has been steadily dwindling in the face of encroaching lofts. Across town, the 1925 cavalry armory of the Houston Light Guard is scheduled for renovation as the Hispanic Cultural Center, but the money has yet to be raised. Landmarks do have an odd way of vanishing in Houston. As recently as January, a fixture of the downtown skyline — the William Penn Hotel, built in 1925 by the noted designer Joseph Finger — disappeared virtually overnight. It was knocked down even as its owner, the Spire Realty Group, declared on its Web site, “We are in the early stages of evaluating the highest and best use for this building, so that we may bring this fine historic structure back to life.” The company did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment. | ||
Knocturnal Member Username: Knocturnal Post Number: 159 Registered: 10-2004 Posted From: 24.247.222.121 |
Detroit's population is nearly as fat as Houston's as well. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 868 Registered: 05-2004 Posted From: 68.40.119.216 |
Except they haven't had tons of people showing up from New Orleans lately. |
