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Published: January 13th 2007
Victorian Heights
Some of the Victorian style houses in the HeightsIn this urban hike, I travelled from the Heights to Japhet Creek.
I had to drop by car off at the repair shop located in the Heights. The Height was once it's own city before Houston incorporated it. It's principal features are the Victorian style houses and the Boulevard that runs through the center of the area.
As one of the older parts of Houston, it houses older churches and buildings such as the Odd Fellows Lodge where I once took Scottish Country dancing lessons.
Heights Funeral Home used to be called Roberts Funeral Home. A resident at a Retirement Community told me that she had attended the local high school, Reagan High and one of her classmates was Roberts' son. He took them to the funeral home one Halloween night. She said that it was one of the scariest nights of her life.
The Height's public library has just undergone renovation. The WWII memorial was built in 2000, but it took a long time to finally finish the project. I caught a bus from near the memorial to the Sixth Ward near downtown.
Houston was divided into seven political wards at one time but the
contrast
A contrast between the bungalows and the newer houses informal names keep getting used. The rap group, The Geto Boys, made the Fifth Ward famous because of their descriptions of the violence present in this historic but poorer part of the city. My friends Jim and Eileen live on the south part of the Fifth Ward and Japhet Creek, my final destination lies there as well.
The bus dropped me off outside the Pig Stand. These restaurants once populated Houston and Dallas, but this one was the only one remaining in Houston. The food was deep greasy spooon, but I actually heard a waitress use the term, "surf and turf" when someone ordered the steak and fried shrimp plate. The only time I've ever played one of those crane games was here. I won a yellow stuffed mouse. I took it to my friend's art opening as a birthday present. He put it on a table between rooms at the gallery. People kept stopping by to view this piece of art nouveau.
Sixth ward has been gentrifying for some time now. Many people are restoring old historic houses while other build huge new townhomes that contrast with the smaller, older houses. Artists inhabit many of the older
church
One of the older churches in Houston warehouses and their homes reflect their art.
One of the gems of the Sixth ward is MECA. MECA stands for Multi-Cultural Education and Counseling through the Arts. This organization primarily teaches traditional Mexican art and music to youth. It's housed in the old Dow school which was originally built in the 20's. MECA has raised funds to restore the building which still has many of it's old features such as the Boys and Girls' entrances to the building. The art surrounding the buildiing was created by many of the students who studied at MECA.
The Dow School also houses Urban Harvest. Urban Harvest promotes gardening as a hunger relief and community building effort. Houston routinely scores in the top seven in the number of community gardens in North American and this result is largely due to Urban Harvest's efforts. They have a teaching garden on the side of the building.
Nearby, a local woman grows organic lettuce and greens that she sells to some of Houston's most affluent restaurants in the city.
Closer to downtown, the bail bonds shops signal growing closer to the Central Police Department and the criminal courts. The mural on the side
odd fellows
An Odd Fellows Lodge of St. Joseph's church shows their church's outreach efforts to immigrants and the homeless. Many homeless people congregate near downtown because of the number of parks. Many of the new "aggressive panhandling" laws have driven them to other parts of the city such as my neighborhood.
Buffalo Bayou separates downtown from the northside of the city. Over the last few years, the city has cultivated the bayou as a tourist destination for downtown visitors. They've sculpted the banks and planted dense rows of hardy plants.
The parks downtown are frequently used for a variety of festivals. The largest is the International Festival which features a focal country. On the off times, the parks host many homeless people. They typically sleep during the day and stay up at night when it's more dangerous for them.
The Hobby Center hosted the Rockettes for the first time ever. On this day buses dropped off thousands of school kids and seniors into the new theater.
While the city works on renovating the new Central Library, the older Ideson Library shuttles books from the stacks to patrons. Usually homeless people stay in the Central Library during the day during the hot
odd fellows exterior
An Odd Fellows Lodge exterior summer days. They sit at tables with open books in front of them to keep the librarians at bay. At one point, the city council was debating an ordinance which would give the librarians the ability to throw out people who smelled too offensive or used the bathrooms for showers.
The Ideson library holds many historical documents on the second floor. Patrons are forbidden from taking anything other than paper into the room. They give pencil to patrons who want to take notes on the books that no one can check out.
Most of the trip through downtown is like many city, much steel and glass with serious people in business suits hurrying from one place to another.
On the other side of downtown lies the George R Brown Convention Center. It normally holds many ... conventions. After Hurricane Katrina, it housed thousands of evacuees. Volunteers also flooded the center to help people out. I served as a volunteer for Writers in the Schools where I used to work as a writing teacher for elementary schools. We worked with some of the kids.
Hearing about thousands of evacuees is one thing, but actually seeing the thousands
Heights Funeral Home
Used to be called Roberts Funeral home. of cots, banks of phones, indoor showers and medical tents reminded me of what happens in Third World Countries after disasters. The kids were cautious and bored for the most part. Some wrote about their experiences but other wrote fantasy stories. One girl I worked with told me a long rambling tale about The Shadow Boy who followed her from New Orleans hidden in her suitcase. When we finished, she took five of the marbled notebooks and carefully placed her name on each one with the the subjects of her classes. Even in the midst of chaos people search for order and small containers to hide their hope.
I-59 or the Southwest Freeway stretches over the GRB and on the other side lies the Old China Town. A handful of Chinese markets and restaurants are all that remains. I visited the Kim Hung Market. Outside of the market in what would be the food court is a little shop that sells Vietnamese food. I stopped and ate a combo Vietnamese sandwich and a Thai iced tea. The sandwhichs consist of a long crunchy french roll that's stuffed with ham, a kind of pate along with cilandro and jalapenos.
Between China Town and the East End are older warehouses. Some have been converted to studios while developers are reconditioning them for upscale townhomes. Still, this place serves as a junction between the ritzy and the ramshackle. It's also home to one of Houston's most famout theater companies, Infernal Bridegroom Productions. They produce avant garde plays in spectacular fashion. I saw a spellbinding version of Ionesco's Rhinocerous. Michele and I had our first day there watching The Hotel Play which was equally as mesmerizing.
Outside the theater a man with ratty clothing and a wispy beard asked if I wanted to make five dollars quick. I quickly made my way down the side streets. you know you're looking shabby when the homeless people feel sorry for you.
Harrisburg Road connects downtown to the East End. Harris County is also named after the Harris brothers who, along with the Allen brothers, were some of the city fathers. They convinced people to settle down in a city that was mostly swamps. When Sam Houston first visited the city, he could only arrive by boat, sneaking past alligators along Buffalo Bayou.
Though East End was a prominent middle class suburb
Heights Blvd
The esplanade down Heights Blvd during the 30's and 40's, it has since become more dilapidated. Currently, it's undergoing a regentrification. Though many of the mostly Latino areas have a long history of families living there for generations. Many of the yerbecia, barber shops and markets have signs only in Spanish. It's one of the handful of enclaves in the city in which people who know little English can conduct almost all of their business in Spanish.
The Maxwell Coffee plant stands as one of the prominent business in the area. On certain days, the wind will carry the smell of burnding coffee towards downtown.
A left hand turn at Sampson crosses Buffalo Bayou again. Sampson is an example of one of Houston's quirks. Throughout the city, streets change names. Sampson and York are one way streets in the East End. York eventually turns into Cullen and intersects I-45 or the North Freeway as it was once called. On the other side of the bayou, it turns into Hirsch. Two blocks later it becomes Waco street and crosses I-10 or the East Freeway.
Buffalo Bayou divides Fith Ward and the East End. Usually, north of I-10 constitutes the Fifth Ward proper, but
fungus
More fungus among us this part contains some notable landmarks such as Finnegan Park and Wheatley High School Wheatley was the alma mater of notables such as Barbara Jordan.
My friends Jim and Eileen live in a small pocket neighborhood between Clinton Drive and the bayou. We've been working together for three years to restore Japhet Creek. Japhet runs a mile long to Buffalo Bayou.
Today Jim and Eileen were pouring concrete for a ramp for one of their tenants who just had leg surgery. Roy has double digits quanty of cats living in and around his house. If he were an older woman, people might call him a crazy cat lady, but seeing as how he only slightly fits those categories, people don't call hiim a crazy cat lady. At least not to his face.
After pouring the concrete, Jim and Eileen take me back to the East End to Ninfa's famous Mexican restaurant. I had tacos carnitas, pork with onions, cilantro and jalapenos. The perfect ending to a day of travels.
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Jim
non-member comment
Cool blog !!!
A great personal look at Houston from the sidewalks. The only error is that Waco/Hirsch/Sampson-York's next leg is Scott. Oh... thanks for the help with Roy's ramp.