Heading West Through Texas, October 2023

We were in a hurry heading west. It had been stressful to escape Houston via US290, but at least we could use the HOV lanes. As dusk approached, we passed through Somerville, a town about half way between Houston and Austin. I saw a large BNSF rail yard and had to stop and take a frame or two in the gloomy dusk light. 

The view west, Somerville, Texas (Fuji Acros film, 135mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens hand-held)

A day later, we were still driving west through Texas. Wow, what a large state. Long-term readers may remember that in November of 2022, we drove to the Rio Grande Valley. That took two days, also. 

Lockwood Street, Tahoka, Texas (55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lens)

Drizzle was falling, and we need to take a stretch break. As I recall, there was no coffee shop in Tahoka. 

Sorry, I could not resist, a gaudy phone pic. of a former gas station with a cover to keep off the rain. 

This was a frustrating trip. I wanted to spend at least two weeks on the trip and do some creative photography, but we had to rush to Olympia to meet the moving truck. One of us should have flown to Olympia and then returned to some airport en route to continue a more leisurely drive. Texas offers a lot of interesting photo subject matter, even in small towns like the examples above. It has been fun exploring Texas. But will I ever return to the great open expanses? 

Please type "Texas" in the search box to see previous articles. 

I took the black and white frames on Fuji Acros film with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 55mm and 135mm lenses.

Another Look at the Fifth Ward, Houston (TX 12)

 

Fifth Ward

The Fifth Ward is one of Houston's former former political wards. They are no longer political entities, but people still think of them as geographic places. They include historic neighborhoods, and some blocks in other wards have been renovated. The Fifth Ward is rather rough; I posted black and white pictures in an earlier Houston post (please click the link).

 

Mary Street (alley) view north (35mm ƒ/3.5 Supar-Takumar lens)

Former school and recycling company (out of business?), Semmes Street

This molded concrete building, which I am sure was originally a school, resembled the aesthetic of the unused Culkin Elementary School in Vicksburg. I do not know details, but this type of construction appears to have been common during the New Deal era for schools and possibly other public buildings.

Noble Street

Restored shotgun house, Semmes street

2318 Hailey Street

Poison ivy farm, Semmes Street

No services today, 2623 Estex Freeway

A rainy/drizzly day made the Fifth Ward a bit gloomy and ominous. It was perfect for my type of photography. But I did not take my wife to some of the the rougher blocks. 

Follow-Up

After a few hours photographing in the Fifth Ward, what next? 

Flash Drive mobile photography education unit

The Houston Center for Photography at 1441 West Alabama has interesting exhibits and an active education program. Their Flash Drive, housed in a repurposed ambulance, is a working camera obscura.

How about some jazz at the Menil Collection Museum? This was a concert in commemoration of the famous museum curator, Walter Hopps. The estate of Walter Hopps at the Menil included original silver gelatin prints (i.e., real photographs) from William Eggleston, Eugene Atget, Robert Frank, Allan Ginsberg (the beat generation denizen), Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Dennis Hopper, and W. Eugene Smith. Amazing, what a treat.

The Menil does not have the vibe of a Mississippi juke joint - it is more oriented to the wine and canapés set.

Niko Niko's on Montrose

After a long day, one is tired and hungry. Where to eat? Why that is obvious. Find Greek. There are Greeks in Houston! And they make delicious food and baklava big enough for two. And they have Retsina. Ahh, contentment.... 

(I could handle living in Houston again - but we did that in the 1980s, so not again.)

I took the Firth Ward photographs with Kodak Portra 160 film using a venerable Pentax Spotmatic camera and Takumar lenses. Pentax's Takumar lenses were top grade in the 1970s and are still totally usable on film or adapted to digital bodies. The Spotmatic's light meter works in stop-down mode, meaning the viewfinder darkens as you stop down. For best results, be careful to avoid large areas of bright sky in the measuring area. I still have the correct mercury (mercuric oxide) V400PX batteries for the meter. The camera and lenses are reliable and compact, well-suited for travel. 

Copyright note:

I recently saw some photographs from this blog reposted on Flickr and Pinterest. Some anus lifted them them without my permission. I'm sorry I need to note something as basic as this: these are copyrighted. Ask permission if you want to use some of this material.

Another Look at Tower 26, Houston (TX 11)

My wife and I revisited Houston in March (2023). The weather was too wet to visit NASA, so I suggested we revisit the Fifth Ward. She is very patient with my photographing grungy neighborhoods and industrial sites. The light was soft and gloomy, my favorite for urban decay exploration. 

Tower 26 Railroad Junction

Lyons Avenue view north

Tower 26 diamonds

Tower 26 junction view west from Mary Street

Waiting for the light to change, Mary Street

View east from Mary Street

Tower 26 was once a 2-story railroad control tower. There is no building any more, but three railroad lines still cross here. Google Maps shows the location. Early in the 20th century, this was a complicated network of intersecting rail lines, all manually controlled. 

Tower 26 in the early-1950s (from Texas Railroad History)

Note the handsome wood construction. "The tower architecture gives unmistakable evidence that it was built by Southern Pacific (SP), resembling many other SP towers,"

Brooks Street cottage (Gold 200 film, Kodak Retina IIa camera)

A group of cottages on Brooks Street formerly had their backs to the railroad tracks. I photographed them in late 2022. As of March, they had been totally removed and the land was freshly graded.  

I took the railroad photographs on Kodak Portra 160 film with a Pentax Spotmatic camera and the Super-Takumar 35mm ƒ/3.5 lens. Takumar lenses were top grade in the 1970s and are still totally usable on film and on digital. The Spotmatic camera's light meter works in stop-down mode, meaning the viewfinder darkens as you stop down. For best results, be careful to avoid large areas of bright sky in the measuring area. I still have the correct mercury (mercuric oxide) V400PX batteries for the meter. The camera and lenses are reliable and compact, well-suited for urban decay. 

Revisiting the Wards, Houston, Texas (TX 10)

Introduction

The Wards are former political subdivisions of Houston, Texas. They no longer officially exist but still represent approximate regions of the city. Their inhabitants associate with their home ward. 

Houston Wards in 1920 (from Wikipedia, in the public domain)

This 1920 map shows the Wards at that time. Note that Hermann Park is in the bottom center of the map, in the countryside then. A hospital was already at the south side of Hermann Park. Just south of this today is the huge Texas Medical Center, with world-famous hospitals including the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

The little rectangle at the lower left is West University Place. The community, first developed in 1917,  never became incorporated into the City of Houston. Today, West U is a fashionable and upper-crust community to call home. 

Fourth Ward

Shotgun house, 1410 Robin Street (Ilford Delta 100 film, Rolleiflex 3.5E camera)

Historic wood houses, 1320 Robin Street (Ilford Delta 100 film)

Much of the Fourth Ward that I remember from the early 1980s has been totally transformed with modern townhouses and condominiums. A small cluster of wood houses on Robin Street is (or was) being preserved.

These buildings are in the Heritage Freedman's Town. This was the oldest African-American part of Houston and pre-dates 1865. A local resident told us that the City was trying to preserve a small cluster of the worker shotgun cottages. She said the local residents were upset because a contractor had been chosen without local input and there had been little or no progress in a long time.

The Houston Freedman's Town Conservancy is trying to preserve the heritage and the brick streets.

Fifth Ward

Locomotive approaching Lyons Avenue (Panatomic-X film, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar lens)

The Fifth Ward was formerly a working class neighborhood, where many of the men worked at the Port of Houston and at associated industries. Several rail lines cross through the Ward (see my previous article on Tower 26), and I saw warehouses, workshops, and other commercial activity.

Brewster Street, view north (Panatomic-X film, 250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Brewster Street cottages (250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Bleker Street (250mm Sonnar lens)

Waco Street (250mm Sonnar lens)

As I wrote in my earlier article, some of the Fifth Ward is really rough. Some blocks of row houses look reasonably well-maintained, but others are horrifying. I did not feel too comfortable exploring on my own and did not take too many photographs. It reminded me of west Jackson, Mississippi.

Third Ward

Restored row houses, Holman Street (Ilford Delta 100, Rolleiflex 3.5E camera)

The Project Row Houses is an art program at 2521 Holman Street. Art exhibits are in some of the houses, while residents occupy others. According to the Row Houses web page:

Project Row Houses is a community platform that enriches lives through art with an emphasis on cultural identity and its impact on the urban landscape. We engage neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action to help materialize sustainable opportunities in marginalized communities.

Project Row Houses occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods. The site encompasses five city blocks and houses 39 structures that serve as a home base to a variety of community-enriching initiatives, art programs, and neighborhood development activities.

PRH programs touch the lives of under-resourced neighbors, young single mothers with the ambition of a better life for themselves and their children, small enterprises with the drive to take their businesses to the next level, and artists interested in using their talents to understand and enrich the lives of others.

Although PRH’s African-American roots are planted deeply in Third Ward, the work of PRH extends far beyond the borders of a neighborhood in transition. The PRH model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world.

Former local store, Holman Street at Emancipation (Fuji Acros film)

Fixer-upper house, Bastrop Street at Francis (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens)

No more ice cream, Ennis Street

Unity of Color, 3611½ Bennett Street

The Secret Recipe - well, not any more, 3801 MacGregor Way

The Third Ward is a mixture of light commercial and residential, partly decayed, and partly reviving. 

North of the Gulf Freeway (I-45), the area now called East Downtown has become very sophisticated with restaurants, town houses, and garden apartments. Brass Tacks is a very nice coffee bar and casual restaurant. I biked there several times on the Columbia-Tap Rail Trail.

Further south, the scene becomes a bit more earthy without as much redevelopment (yet).

This completes our short and semi-random tour around three of the Houston Wards. There is plenty more to see. Next trip. Thanks for riding along.

From the Archives: Washington Avenue, Houston, 1981 (TX 09)

In the long-ago earlier life, my wife and I moved to Houston, Texas, in 1980. The big city! There was so much to see and explore! 

Having a real job and some income, I bought a used Rolleiflex 3.5E camera at Southside Camera Center (long gone). What do you do with your first medium format camera? Well, start looking for interesting urban decay topics. Back then, Houston was full of grunge and decay. (Some critics say Houston is still full of grunge, but we better not go there this time.) As you long-term readers can see, I have been doing this decay topic for a long time. 

My 1956 Rolleiflex 3.5E camera with its superb 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens - why did I stupidly sell it when I though digital might be the next great thing?

Washington Avenue runs approximately east-west out of downtown Houston, Texas, through the former Sixth Ward. Washington Avenues in US cities are typically older streets that run through well-established and often run-down neighborhoods. This one fit the pattern in 1981. Here are some samples. Please click any frame to see it enlarged.

Turney Motor Company occupied a 1920s gas station building. You could drive a Chevrolet Nova for $35/week - it says so!

The building is gone, and the lot provides parking for the trendy Ivy House cocktail bar next door. Washington Avenue was not very trendy in 1981....

Houston Junk, now possibly Rose Recycling on Center Street

Time for a 50¢ beer, corner of Center and National Streets

Historic 1872 Glenwood Cemetery, an oasis of green and peace in the city

June 1980 view of Houston from Glenwood Cemetery (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Nikkormat FTn camera, 28mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

Early 20th century brick commercial building, 1722 Washington Avenue 

In the mid-20th century, all American cities had commercial buildings of this type. The families who ran the shops or small businesses often lived in apartments on the second floor. White flight to the suburbs after World War II destroyed many traditional and mixed inner city communities that would have depended on local shops in such buildings. 

This building is gone and a modern town house/condominium is in its place. At least in Houston, the cycle is turning and professionals are returning to live within the city. 

Early 20th century wood cottage Washington Avenue. 

This was one of my early examples of photographing dilapidated houses. This building is gone, probably demolished years ago. A large framed print of this scene has hung in my house for four decades, but the print has changed colors and faded.  

This handsome old fire station is still extant

Gent with his laundry, 1712 Washington Avenue

This is another example of an early-20th century commercial building. Note the formerly handsome tall arched windows. The lower floor had ventilation transoms. 

I took these photographs on 120-size Kodak Vericolor II Film with my Rolleiflex on September 5, 1981. The colors are a bit muted, but all in all, the film survived the decades quite well. In those days, you could buy 120 film in many camera stores, but professional emulsions, like Vericolor II, came from larger stores with a film refrigerator. This roll probably came from Southside Camera Center on Bellaire Blvd.

Thank you for joining me for this look back to 1981. I also wrote about Main Street in 1982 (click the link).

Downtown Houston in November 2022 (TX 08)

In November (2022), I wandered around downtown Houston. Everything is so modern, big, and overwhelming, it was hard to find the type of subject matter I like. Thanksgiving Day was gloomy but also uncrowded compared to normal. Here are a few scenes from the area near the Amtrak station and around Buffalo Bayou just north of downtown.

Amtrak

Bail bonds, a ubiquitous part of the American justice system, 1418 Washington Avenue

I found some 1981 negatives of Washington Avenue. Stand-by for a future post.

Houston's decidedly uninspiring Amtrak station (250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Waiting for the train, Houston Amtrak station

Houston once had three passenger railroad stations. Only one remains, the magnificent 1911 Union Station. The main concourse of the former railroad station has been reused as a clubhouse, cafe, team store, office space, and lobby at Minute Maid Park (previously known as Enron Field until the financial scandal). They did a superb job of refurbishing the elegant entry hall. 

Today, Houston, once the railroad hub of the southern United States, has one uninspiring Amtrak station. The waiting room looks like a bus station. But, if you are energetic, you can take the sleeper all the way to Los Angeles. 

I arrived at the Amtrak station before the eastbound train was scheduled to arrive. When it rolled into the station, it was pulling two private rail cars at the end of the Amtrak cars. Then another locomotive pulled these two private cars away and shunted them to a siding, connecting them to a third private car. The elegant way to travel.

Downtown and Buffalo Bayou

Apartment blocks east of the Gulf Freeway (I-45) (250mm Sonnar lens)

Houston now has hundreds of residential units downtown. Compared to the 1980s, when I recall the downtown being mostly commercial, the city has become trendy.  

Buffalo Bayou and University of Houston Downtown (Panatomic-X film, 50mm Distagon lens, orange filter, 1/8 ƒ/11.5)

The University of Houston Downtown occupies the 1930 Merchants and Manufacturers Building. The building is over the site of Allen's Landing, where the Allen brothers landed and established the city of Houston in 1836. The bridge in the distance is the Main Street viaduct.

“Main Street viaduct, Houston, Texas, 1910,” Houston Waterways, accessed April 5, 2023, https://digitalprojects.rice.edu/wrc/waterways/items/show/1310.

Under the Main Street viaduct (80mm Planar-CB lens, 3-sec. ƒ/4.0½)

This 1910 concrete arch bridge carries the tram as well as cars over Buffalo Bayou. Despite the no camping signs, a group of homeless were camped there. They shared space with Muscovy ducks, who waddled around without concern. 

Waiting for the tram, view south towards downtown Houston (50mm Distagon lens)

Victorian House on Hamilton Street - being moved? (80mm Planar-CB lens, 1/15 ƒ/4.0½)

Third Ward

The MacGregor Tire Shop - but I'll pass (80mm, yellow filter, 1/30 ƒ/8)

Fourth Ward

No shopping today, 1122 West Grey (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens, 1/250 ƒ/5.6)

There are still bits and pieces of an older Houston on West Grey, but most of it has been redeveloped with modern condominiums. I have negatives from this area from the early 1980s when it was more "earthy." Another project to scan....

Corrugated metal warehouse, 1515 Spring Street (Panatomic-X film, 80mm Planar-CB lens)

This interesting warehouse and the store above are remnants of older structures in the Fourth Ward. Not many are left. I will write more about the wards in a future article.

Texas Medical Center

Room with a view: Greenbriar Drive and the Houston METRORail (250mm Sonnar lens)

The area south of the Texas Medical Center is commercial and rather uninspiring. But hundreds of apartments and temporary residential units cater to medical patients. Huge parking lots serve thousands medical staff. But it is a food desert if you can't stomach fast food. Fortunately, Rice Village and its amazing restaurants are only two miles away. 

The METRORail tram can take you to the Medical Center, Hermann Park, the Museum District, with its 19 museums, or all the way downtown. METRORail is free if you are over 70.

Port of Houston

The Port of Houston is an immense economic engine for Texas and the USA. It is the second largest port in Dollar terms in the USA, after Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach. Annually, some 22,000 deep-draft ships come in and use the 50-mile Houston Ship Canal and the Port's complex of wharfs, terminals, and refineries. The Houston Ship Canal needs regular (almost constant) dredging from its opening at the Gulf of Mexico mouth at Galveston, across Galveston Bay, and up the Buffalo Bayou. My 1981 car (still in use) came in through Houston. 

Take the free tour of the Port of Houston. Cruise right by these immense freighters. 

This ends out somewhat random wandering around Houston in November and early December. Thank you all for riding along! Click any photograph to see it enlarged. Most of these photographs are from my Hasselblad 501CM medium format camera.