Eastwood Thoughts Wanted

[vegankris]

Oh...one other thing. Everyone talks about a 10-15 min drive into great areas, but what about cycling? I know this may sound redundant from my last post, but I wonder about the existing infrastructure of cycling into downtown areas that are popular. I want to ask about public trans., but I assume the answer is the same as always... public trans. in Houston is terrible and not worth considering.

[thesouthwest]

Originally Posted by vegankris

Oh...one other thing. Everyone talks about a 10-15 min drive into great areas, but what about cycling? I know this may sound redundant from my last post, but I wonder about the existing infrastructure of cycling into downtown areas that are popular. I want to ask about public trans., but I assume the answer is the same as always... public trans. in Houston is terrible and not worth considering.

If you like cycling live in the heights. They have a bike trail that takes you straight to downtown. Also the Braeswood area has the bayou bike trail that takes you to TMC where you can take rail to downtown.

[travelguy_73]

Originally Posted by vegankris

Oh...one other thing. Everyone talks about a 10-15 min drive into great areas, but what about cycling? I know this may sound redundant from my last post, but I wonder about the existing infrastructure of cycling into downtown areas that are popular. I want to ask about public trans., but I assume the answer is the same as always... public trans. in Houston is terrible and not worth considering.

I think I mentioned before the Columbia Tap trail that runs down to Hermann Park. It's a pretty relaxing ride, and the destination is nice as well . There isn't a trail to downtown, per se (other than taking the Columbia Tap the other direction, but it ends shy of downtown), but you can just take the surface roads to downtown since it's mostly all a grid, you have a number of options. It's very easy, and the traffic is nearly always non-existent. From there, you can go through downtown to Midtown or Allen Parkway. It's all very easy.

I think the main reason people focus so much on the driveability of a certain area isn't because we are all lazy, or even because Houston was built around the car. Really IMO the weather is a major factor. Yes, you could bike to the office downtown from Eastwood, but the summer heat will deter you pretty quickly.

[TxHustla]

Ok im from Eastwood..born and raised.

While some sections (3-5 street areas) can be nice..its mainly a mexican,hispanic area. The crime is something thats common there being that most residents are low to poor income families. So there's a ton of teenagers on drugs and looking to break into your car or home. The schools are'nt so great with Lantrip being the excpetion..Your middle school (jackson) and High School (austin) are horrible. You'll find the next gen of criminals and jersey Shore kids there to be completely honest. LOL

And being thats it mainly mexican/hispanic. There are several drug houses throught the area. Its sad because i was born and raised there but im not going to sit here and lie about it. I went to jackson and Austin in the mid 90's and many of my friends still reside in the area. Needless to say things i mentioned are true and happening every day.Not all of us left the gang and drug life behind. I moved out of the area in 2008 for a reason.

[travelguy_73]

Originally Posted by TxHustla

Ok im from Eastwood..born and raised.

While some sections (3-5 street areas) can be nice..its mainly a mexican,hispanic area. The crime is something thats common there being that most residents are low to poor income families. So there's a ton of teenagers on drugs and looking to break into your car or home. The schools are'nt so great with Lantrip being the excpetion..Your middle school (jackson) and High School (austin) are horrible. You'll find the next gen of criminals and jersey Shore kids there to be completely honest. LOL

And being thats it mainly mexican/hispanic. There are several drug houses throught the area. Its sad because i was born and raised there but im not going to sit here and lie about it. I went to jackson and Austin in the mid 90's and many of my friends still reside in the area. Needless to say things i mentioned are true and happening every day.Not all of us left the gang and drug life behind. I moved out of the area in 2008 for a reason.

You are right about the schools, but the rest sounds like it describes the Eastwood of your youth--it doesn't sound like current-day Eastwood proper to me. Like all gentrifying areas, there are issues to overcome, but what you describe sounds more like down Harrisburg or Telephone from Eastwood, deeper into the East End.

Car break-ins seem to be the biggest issue I hear from other residents in the area, and those are generally consider crimes of opporunity since so many old homes lack garages.

Unless my rose-colored glasses are so rose-colored, I can't see 2 feet in front of me .

[vegankris]

Ok, all I've done for the last week is research schools in HISD during my free moments. From what I understand, the middle school, Jackson, has a GT program that is good and the administrators are working hard to turn things around and they have a really awesome principal. The whole idea of the magnet, GT programs in HISD were to minimize so much segregation. Of course, it's not working as well as one would hope, but that's not to say things won't continue to improve.

Now, as far as Austin High School, it is true that the school has problems. But, Eastwood Academy which is a charter school and in the neighborhood is a blue ribbon school 3 years in a row. If you look at the school profile it's quite amazing what this school has accomplished. It was started as a respite for students who wanted to do better than what was offered at Austin. The school is 97% hispanic and 88% economically disadvantaged. The school boasts a 98% attendance rate for both teachers and students, only 1 out of school suspension in 2 years, 100% graduation rate and the TASC test scores are phenomenal. 21% of teachers have a masters degree, 11% of teachers have a phd. In just 2 years the school went from academically acceptable to exemplary. They have been exemplary for 3 years now. The school is small, only 320 students or so and so class sizes are small, just 10-15 per class. I'm really encouraged by what has been accomplished at this school. I think it's a hidden secret in HISD and will gain popularity as more people move into the East side with kids who want to succeed and do well in school.

Sometimes, all it takes is a few who really care about making a place better to really turn things around. Eastwood Academy is something that anyone in Eastwood should be really proud of from the numbers I can see.

[vegankris]

Not to keep harping on this, but here is another stat for Eastwood Academy.

Three HISD schools made the list of top 100 of America's best high schools.

Carnegie #13
DeBakey #61
Eastwood Academy #37

Now these numbers are based on 27,000 high schools evaluated.

[vegankris]

Ok...I guess I forgot to mention....

Eastwood Academy doesn't just have 100% graduation rate, but they also have a 100% college enrollment after high school!!!

Well, I'm impressed

[TxHustla]

Originally Posted by travelguy_73

You are right about the schools, but the rest sounds like it describes the Eastwood of your youth--it doesn't sound like current-day Eastwood proper to me. Like all gentrifying areas, there are issues to overcome, but what you describe sounds more like down Harrisburg or Telephone from Eastwood, deeper into the East End.

Car break-ins seem to be the biggest issue I hear from other residents in the area, and those are generally consider crimes of opporunity since so many old homes lack garages.

Unless my rose-colored glasses are so rose-colored, I can't see 2 feet in front of me .

Yes im speaking more of that area..Harrisburg/Lockwood/Telephone/Dumble area.

But within 5-10 years this area might/should be completely changed with property taxes continuing to rise, it will drive out alot of the lower income families out...along with petty crime. So anybody thinking of investing should be seeing the upside to it in that time frame.

[Svensk08]

Broadmoor - a subdivision adjacent to Eastwood - is one East End neighborhood where things are steadily improving. There are some neat 1930's bungalows that are currently being renovated and a few new houses as well. Most homeowners there would really like to get rid of the tacky month-to-month rentals owned by absentee landlords who couldn't care less about quality of tenants or property maintenance.