The Past is a Foreign Country

 

         

                                                                        

I have collected a series of before and after images of Houston spanning from 1940- 2024 that started while watching my mother shoot (with cameras) and print (in the darkroom) everything including the kitchen sink, but I loved her “Mom and Pop” series, so I stole her idea in the 1980’s.

Chick-fil-A and Whataburger are so fun and yummy, but independently owned establishments are more appealing to me. They have a culture, what my dad called “folksy,” with life- long employees and “regulars,” so I document my favorites within a 3-mile radius of my house. The process has become an obsessive ritual, and I can’t stop doing it.

While gathering photos, I found myself conjuring up non existent images to match my memories with questions in my head for my mom like “Why didn’t you shoot the uniformed white guy who pumped the gas at the service station on Sunset Blvd.?” or “I wish you had a photo of the old waitresses wearing 100% polyester uniforms at Alfred’s Deli.” (Wait, maybe they weren’t that old.) So for a minute, I considered including third party images, but that got too complicated.

I decided to keep the photographers in the family, limited to myself, my mom , my grandmother, who shot shot these images, this one from my Aunt Johnna Lee’s collection, and my nephew, Micky Braeger, who shot the after pic of the River Oaks Country Club because I didn’t want to.

Driving around to revisit her photos was a favorite pasttime, but I walk through downtown, which makes me feel like I am a tourist in my own city. Just the other day, I watched two young European guys ahead of me looking for coffee shops, wearing flip flops, taking pictures, and I felt like them. Walking to revist her photos slows me down, I get my steps in, allows me to see how we have matured with age, maybe even gracefully.

The Old

The oldest images represent a 100-year-old city full of 300,000 people who weren’t afraid to throw themselves out there, and the newer images show how we evolved but stayed on a similar path with young lives and a refined new urbanism.

· We lived in a city where a boy scout and his troop brought newspapers to the owner of a recycle center every Saturday morning.

· A time and a place where the eldest sister of six fell in love with a big historical home, and convinced her husband to buy it for $15,000 so she could throw all the parties in the family.

· A neighborhood where apartments became a grocery store and right across the street, a grocery store that became apartments.

· A place where we all drank water from the tap, and didn’t need a membership to a country club.

· A city where the owner of a restaurant was the daily manager, and the owner of the liquor store took a note and a check from underage kids to deliver their parents smokes and booze.

The New

The newer images show remnants of the past, but a few stay static throughout this 80-year period which is comforting to document, and an excuse to think I am still sort of young, or maybe just not that old. I watch myself and Houston age and grow. The growth is stimulating, but I have been in denial about the aging for at least twenty years.

· My favorites are houses, like the house my father grew up in is still here, but the house I grew up in looks like this.

· Today, I work in my dad’s favorite restaurant from 1998 until the day he died, while I stare out the same window of the liquor store where my mom bought her booze in the 1970’s.

· For two years, I lived in a high-rise that used to be a recycle center. Now I live in an eight-plex where my landlord, Forest, prefers to live on property, expects a physical check for rent, and greets me in the morning while he feeds the neighborhood cats, but Forest doesn’t live here anymore.

· Today, I pump my own gas in a car that drives itself to HEB, I recycle, drink from the tap, and I am older than those waitresses at Alfred’s Deli.

This is a hybrid series, so download your favorites, see them in real life at my favorite Vietnamese drive through, or buy me lunch and we can swap stories about it all. I recommend the Vegan Egg Rolls, and Chargrilled Pork Vermicelli.

It’s good therapy to look out the window, acknowledge where we came from, and where we are now, so take the long way home because we may never pass this way again.

Building Conditions

I live in Midtown Houston (the old part of Midtown where old people live,) and walk through downtown every morning, it feels so urban, and if I pay attention, I discover something new and interesting every day.

I'm fascinated by structures and enjoy watching them evolve and adjust to their owners, inhabitants, and environments through time. 

Some buildings make me cringe, others inspire me, a few give me hope, and some make me sad.

I feel sorry for this modern who lost all his windows, we can see right through him, he must be so embarrassed. And this former beauty, had so much work done she’s unrecognizable, but my heart goes out to this one. He used to be the tallest in the land, but it’s the other way around now, forced to exist in the shadows of his former self. 

They don’t even let him spin around anymore, but he is getting old, so he is probably ok with it. There he sits, trying to make the best of his views, longing for the good old days when all the swinging dicks would visit him, I bet JR Ewing was a regular. 

It’s true what John Huston said in the hit movie Chinatown; “Ugly buildings get respectable if they last long enough,” but buildings are stuck here, they don’t get to die like us, they waste away until humans “play god” and do something about it. 

So, I started a new ritual on my morning walks. I shoot structures and give them a condition, something like a DSM-IV for buildings, so here you go.

The Kirby Mansion-Alzheimer’s

Built in 1897, and owned by John Henry Kirby, noted as “Houston’s first tycoon.” In the 1950's my mom and her girl scout troop went to the mansion to cheer up a bunch of Army War Vets housed there. It’s been vacant for years, but I think it could be a great high-end retirement home. This poor building has been reused so many times it doesn’t even remember what it used to be.         

                                                           

Greenstreeet- Poser 

This is the most god-awful combination of mixed-use spaces I have ever seen. I guess young people think it’s cool to work out, eat, drink, and rent a cheesy office space where they pretend to work, I don’t get it.

First Church Of Christ Scientist, Penis Envy

This one's so obvious I shouldn’t have to say, but it speaks to me, claiming to be the best there ever was. See and add to the list here. 

Some Things Never Change

Life in Houston during this time of growth; with traffic, townhouses and high rises being built at every corner as I ask myself “why do I live here?” When its 100 degrees inside my car, I defensively drive down Richmond full of potholes alongside drivers with their heads buried in their phones, I wonder “what is good about this?” As I look down the street I see people in their imaginative summer regalia walking down the street, I wonder “what are they doing out there” “where did they come from” and for gods sake I know it’s summer but can they please put some clothes on?

It feels like the city is closing in on me. I scrupulously analyze the radius of my drive to save trauma, time and energy. I develop new rules to survive the day i.e.- never take Kirby to south side of 59 unless you have to, especially on a Friday, opt for Alabama VS Richmond when driving towards town, and my new favorite never go to the Galleria unless someone pays you. 

Despite my complaints, Houston is where I came from, this is where I belong and part of my purpose here is to ensure that Houston, it’s people old and new, be reminded that there is still a culture here that hasn’t changed. We are often criticized for tearing things down and building new but there are a few things that haven’t changed- so I went for a drive and came up with a little list to cheer myself up.

Nielsens on Richmond- 60 years later, same sandwiches, same service, same spread.

Southland Hardware- I was a traitor to Southland with my Home Depot credit card back in the 90’s but that was short lived. Home depot sucks.

Bellaire Broiler Burger- Still a favorite after 50 years if you venture out those parts- worth the trip. 

River Oaks Theater- Same seats, same smell, same popcorn, don’t eat it though. 

M and M Vacuum. When your vacuum cleaner breaks- go here- they will make you feel better even when they scold you for using carpet fresh. Just go and do what they say.

So when the heat, the traffic and the people start to wear on you, visit a favorite old institution, it’s like comfort food for a Houstonian yearning for familiarity and a reason to live. On the other hand maybe this is all a rationalization from a stubborn city girl who really needs Club Med and a cocktail.

 

Tear Down or Keeper?

I always wonder and predict how the inside of people’s houses look especially when I walk around the neighborhood and try and peak in their windows. This is a house on our street recently listed on HAR and OMG the photos were worse than I expected.

I think it’s great to stay fit and watch our weight but seeing the “healthometer” scale facing you might not be the ideal way to wake up every morning- and if you are trying to sell your house I think this bedroom photo of the healthometer scale, along with the prescription medication on the nightstand are the kinds of things we could move out of the frame- it sort of takes away from the ambiance and charm of the house.

Location is everything and this is a great one but really, it might sell better without the photos for lot value. I do love the portrait of the sweet couple at the headboard I wish them all the best in their next move. If I lived in this house I would certainly keep that portrait and I hope they do too, but when I look at all the photos and consider the location it’s hard to call this house “a keeper”. So many of us end up finding ourselves in this same predicament, even when we keep it updated. We simply outlive our houses.

A family friend told me last night that the people of the “old south” would tear down their house before they sold the land to keep their memories. I think this is what these owners should do- keep the portrait, ditch the scale, have a couple of margaritas and move on- yes?

Link to HAR listing