Remembering the late 60's and early 70's in Houston (Bellaire: sales, apartment)

[slingshot]

Originally Posted by Weatherguy

I was 8 in 1960, and didn't move from Houston until I was 18. I recognized everything in the video. My best memories of restaurants and other things in about 1960 are:

Felix Mexican food
Christie's Seafood on S. Main (there were three large rooms in the restaurant)
Valian's (pizza)
Youngbloods (fried chicken?)
Bill Williams
Phil's Diner on Richmond (incredible plate lunches for $1.95)

Foley's downtown. What a classy place. Everyone dressed up to go to Foley's. They had a restaurant which I think was called the Venetian Room. The hostess was a very old lady with extremely short hair. Anyone remember the restaurant and the old lady?
The Shamrock Hotel's pool
Playland Park on S. Main (huge wooden roller coaster)
Kiddieland on S. Main
Gateway pool on S. Main
Channel 2 studios where the Galleria is now. I think the studio was in an old quonset hut, like you see at a lot of air fields. Channel 2 had the Captain Bob Show for the kids.
Channel 13 on Bissonett. They had the Kitterick show for kids.
Post Oak Rd from Westbury north to Oak Forest area. The loop didn't open until the mid 60s. That long stretch of Post Oak was jammed with traffic and if you think potholes are bad now, you should have seen Post Oak at the time.
The horn sounding at the Hiram Clarke power plant. We lived about 4 miles from there, but the horn would go off frequently. Never did know what it was for.
The snowfall during the winter of 1960. I don't know if there's been one that heavy since then. It was probably 4 inches or so, which is significant for that area.
Hurricane Carla in September 1960. Tremendous damage to the city and surroundings. There were thousands upon thousands of shingles everywhere. We kids used them as frisbees for a long time.
The drive out Westheimer to Lakeside Country Club. It was mostly rural west of Post Oak Rd., and Lakeside Country Club was out in the country in a very nice piney woods area (as was all of the Memorial area, which was starting to develop).
Hobby Airport, which was called something else at the time. You could go up on top of the concourses and watch planes. Also, there were open houses at the airport where you could walk through the new jet airliners. The planes were very fancy back then.
The many mid-century mods. I loved the ultra-modern decor of the homes and furnishings. You can still find a lot of them in Meyerland and Glenbrook Valley, and some other areas as well.

That's enough for now.

I remember almost everything in your post. I graduated from Bellaire High School in 1962. I lived about a 5 minute drive from the South Main Theater. In the 50's and early 60's I lived across the street from Pershing Jr. High school. I remember when Stella Link Street was a two-lane paved country road with ditches on both sides.
Thanks for the memories.

[Svensk08]

Originally Posted by Weatherguy

I was 8 in 1960, and didn't move from Houston until I was 18. I recognized everything in the video. My best memories of restaurants and other things in about 1960 are:

Felix Mexican food
Christie's Seafood on S. Main (there were three large rooms in the restaurant)
Valian's (pizza)
Youngbloods (fried chicken?)
Bill Williams
Phil's Diner on Richmond (incredible plate lunches for $1.95)

Foley's downtown. What a classy place. Everyone dressed up to go to Foley's. They had a restaurant which I think was called the Venetian Room. The hostess was a very old lady with extremely short hair. Anyone remember the restaurant and the old lady?
The Shamrock Hotel's pool
Playland Park on S. Main (huge wooden roller coaster)
Kiddieland on S. Main
Gateway pool on S. Main
Channel 2 studios where the Galleria is now. I think the studio was in an old quonset hut, like you see at a lot of air fields. Channel 2 had the Captain Bob Show for the kids.
Channel 13 on Bissonett. They had the Kitterick show for kids.
Post Oak Rd from Westbury north to Oak Forest area. The loop didn't open until the mid 60s. That long stretch of Post Oak was jammed with traffic and if you think potholes are bad now, you should have seen Post Oak at the time.
The horn sounding at the Hiram Clarke power plant. We lived about 4 miles from there, but the horn would go off frequently. Never did know what it was for.
The snowfall during the winter of 1960. I don't know if there's been one that heavy since then. It was probably 4 inches or so, which is significant for that area.
Hurricane Carla in September 1960. Tremendous damage to the city and surroundings. There were thousands upon thousands of shingles everywhere. We kids used them as frisbees for a long time.
The drive out Westheimer to Lakeside Country Club. It was mostly rural west of Post Oak Rd., and Lakeside Country Club was out in the country in a very nice piney woods area (as was all of the Memorial area, which was starting to develop).
Hobby Airport, which was called something else at the time. You could go up on top of the concourses and watch planes. Also, there were open houses at the airport where you could walk through the new jet airliners. The planes were very fancy back then.
The many mid-century mods. I loved the ultra-modern decor of the homes and furnishings. You can still find a lot of them in Meyerland and Glenbrook Valley, and some other areas as well.

That's enough for now.

Foley's downtown store had several restaurants. The fancy one was The Azalea Room. There was also one called The Men's Grill that didn't admit women!

My family lived in Bellaire when Hurricane Carla hit in 1961. We never lost electric power and were able to view the widespread damage on our B&W TV.

[slingshot]

Originally Posted by Svensk08

My family lived in Bellaire when Hurricane Carla hit in 1961. We never lost electric power and were able to view the widespread damage on our B&W TV.

I was going to Bellaire High when Carla hit. We lost a tree but not the power.

[madrone2k]

I'm also a kid of the 50s-60s in Houston. I remember a few of those tiny, privately owned amusement parks for kids. I suspect that most of their income came from hosting birthday parties ... I recall having a couple of mine like that.

I have faint memories of some places like that, but I can't recall exactly where they were. I remember the one on South Main and one ("Wee Wild West") on Westheimer near where Ruth's Chris and the Aloft Hotel are now. Playland Park and Peppermint Park are familiar names, but I don't recall where they were.

I imagine such tiny establishments were common across the US at that time, but virtually all have disappeared. I can't imagine that being a profitable business anymore, at least at that scale.

Another type of establishment that I don't see anymore around here is the "rent-a-horse" business. Westheimer Stables was one, which I first visited when it was located where Woodlake Square is now -- between Fondren & Gessner. (Westheimer Road was a 2-lane blacktop road at the time, with pretty much nothing along it to the west.) I recall that they moved farther west on Westheimer once or twice as the city grew in that direction.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by hbcu

my father remembered the same but had way different experiences...lol

You mind sharing some? Would be nice to get a different perspective for once.

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by Svensk08

Foley's downtown store had several restaurants. The fancy one was The Azalea Room. There was also one called The Men's Grill that didn't admit women!

My family lived in Bellaire when Hurricane Carla hit in 1961. We never lost electric power and were able to view the widespread damage on our B&W TV.

Azalea Room...that's the one! You had to go up or down about 3 steps on azalea colored carpet. They had great lunches.

Edit: Might it have been the Azalea Terrace instead of Azalea Room?

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by Trae713

You mind sharing some? Would be nice to get a different perspective for once.

These threads tend to be nostalgic, which is great, but not everything was something to be nostalgic about. For example, air pollution was so bad back then (mainly from Ship Channel industries) that one would rarely see a clear view of the skyline, which was there although fairly small. During the summer especially, the visibility was often less than a mile even during the afternoon, and the air would sometimes be orange or green. Only Pittsburgh and L.A. had worse visible pollution at the time. Although air quality is still not great on some days, it is tremendously better than it was. Younger people don't realize how much improvement has been made since then as a result of the partnership between regulatory agencies at all levels and industry. My career has been in that field so I'm aware of the big changes.

Water quality was horrible back then as well. The Ship Channel was just awful. It's still needing improvement, of course, but there's no resemblance to what it was like in the 60s.

Back then, littering (all over America) was just a way of life. You can still find trashy areas, but back then there were no city cleanup programs in Houston. Medians were just weeds and trash, whereas these days the city and private interests have landscaped and kept clean many of the major thoroughfares. If only TXDOT could keep the freeways cleaner, but they've been restricted by legislatures that have reduced highway cleanup budgets over the last decade. But as for the 60s, it was far, far worse.

So there's a different take on the subject matter. I still prefer to be nostalgic about things that made me happy as a youngster.

[Trae713]

Thanks for that. It is good how much better the Ship Channel is nowadays. Brings a lot of commerce, but a lot of pollution too. Many cities back then had pollution problems until the EPA was formed in 1970. But, I was meaning how Houston was from a minority's point of view.

[Svensk08]

Originally Posted by Weatherguy

Azalea Room...that's the one! You had to go up or down about 3 steps on azalea colored carpet. They had great lunches.

Edit: Might it have been the Azalea Terrace instead of Azalea Room?

You may be right about the name! Sakowitz's flagship store across the street had a restaurant called the Sky Terrace on its top floor; both are long gone so I might have confused the names.

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by Svensk08

You may be right about the name! Sakowitz's flagship store across the street had a restaurant called the Sky Terrace on its top floor; both are long gone so I might have confused the names.

I checked online...it was Azalea Terrace. It brings back so many good memories of my Mom and Grandma taking me to Foley's to shop, and then to the Azalea Terrace for lunch. They had these little sandwiches with toothpicks in them, and vegetable soup that was so good I haven't found anything like it since then.

Foley's had an incredible toy shop and great selection of model planes and cars. The only better toy store was Playhouse Toys in Meyerland Shopping Center in the 60s.

I can't believe I'm 62 and still remember all those things!