Jeffrey, it isn’t just ‘economics’(greed). It is because Houston has some of the most LAX preservation laws in the nation. San Antonio has some of the strongest. They have a refurbished theatre, The Majestic, in downtown, which has been converted into a live performance venue. Houston, though, couldn’t do that. We demolished our grand movie palaces in the early 80’s, to build more office space!
westawesta, don’t let your guard down. Fight as hard as you can. Weingarten’s only care about what hits their pocketbook. There’s been mention of Trader Joe’s moving into the Alabama. Most recently, though, the report is that murals have been removed & the floor filled in with sand & no mention of Trader Joe’s whatsoever.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema company has shown some interest.
Even better, our Angelika Film Center, downtown, suddenly closed, about 2 months ago. Landlord disputes. I see a physical theatre needing a tenant & a living film company, needing a home.
“The decision is less about sales than about offering
more at the new store. We’re able to add a full range of services
that we couldn’t retrofit into an old building like this.”
That means it’s still about sales. Perhaps not the sale of books, but the sale of services.
Another action to take, if one is interested in saving the River Oaks & Alabama Theatres, is to contact the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance @ www.ghpa.org & see what they suggest. They’re involved in the fight.
Mina, on 9/10, you said a pic explained about the ticket box being in the Rocky ‘storage room’. What pic, what link & where is the ‘Rocky storage room’?
Sorry about those repeat posts. My computer jammed up. It wasn’t doing anything, so I clicked ‘submit’ more than once. You’ll note they’re several minutes apart.
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
Thanx, William. Not very representative of the theatre, but it wasn’t an architectural marvel outside or anything. It WAS a very nice theatre inside—w/a smoking loge, in which the seats had ashtrays on the backs, so viewers could ash their cigs in them. The original intention of making it a twin screen has a little trivial interest, too. Funny, that, in the ad, it gives the phone # as ‘HO8-7948’. The ‘HO’ stood for ‘homestead’. Not too long after that, phone #s here, started using the numeric equivalents, on the phone dials. ‘HO*-7948’ became ‘468-7948’. Now it’s ‘713-468-7948’, due to the fact that we have 3 area codes in town now—or WOULD be, had the theatre not become a furniture store. it’s nteresting to see oshops in town, w/their phone #s long painted in their windows, which have never added their area codes.
Incidentally, the link you posted on 8/31, concerning
You may recall that Weingarten owns the entire River Oaks Shopping Center—both sides of W. Gray. They floated a rumor, that they were tearing down the Black Eyed Pea restaurant & the rest of that part of the gorgeous art deco center—to build a multi-story Barnes & Noble. Public was pissed. The rumor includes the ROaks theatre possibly being razed for a highrise(they’re cluttering the area already)—so Weingarten could rent the space for more. the theatre is NOT doing badly.
We’re trying to get city council to strengthen preservation laws. Houston has some of THE weakest in the country.
Here: http://houstonist.com/
Oh—no. Weingarten still owns them.
Prob is, w/the Alabama Bookstop, they had a lot of cross pollination w/Whole Foods & Cactus Records. Whole Foods moved out 2 yrs ago—in part, because Weingarten is a bottom-line company that refused to do some requested improvements. The Dailey brothers, who owned Cactus retired & shut down. Bookstop’s biz dropped off markedly. They’re still making a profit, but not as much as B & N want to. They want to pull out. Spec’s Liquor (which is BOOMING) wanted the Whole Foods space—w/improvements, which, as stated above—Weingarten can’t see happening. They’d rather sell to someone for a highrise.(end Pt 1)…………………………………..
Well—when I went there, on Saturday mornings—it was a dance school. LOL.
Are you still in Houston? You know there’s a power struggle of sorts over the Alabama (Bookstop) & the River Oaks Theatre?
John—I took ballroom dance classes @ Dance City USA about 1963, during Junior High (translted to Middle School—for the youngsters), but didn’t realize that it was the same bldg I saw Hall & Oates @ around ‘80.
I saw The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Rollerball, Shenandoah &, best of all—Ice Station Zebra @ the Windsor. Wow! WRoatching that submarine navigating around those icebergs on that incredibly wide screen!!
Bill Bremer, if this theatre was built in ‘23 & it was the 3rd 'Majestic’ in town, & your gramps was treasurer of the first one—on Congress—where was the 2nd one? Any addresses or dates on the first 2? Why did they close?
According to the 8/3 Chronicle, “with the River Oaks Theatre threatened, more are joining the drive to change preservation laws.”.
US Rep Sheila Jackson Lee was in attendance @ the 8/2 City Council meeting, voicing her support for preservation.
Jeffrey, it isn’t just ‘economics’(greed). It is because Houston has some of the most LAX preservation laws in the nation. San Antonio has some of the strongest. They have a refurbished theatre, The Majestic, in downtown, which has been converted into a live performance venue. Houston, though, couldn’t do that. We demolished our grand movie palaces in the early 80’s, to build more office space!
The Greenway was a Landmark Theatre & has, sadly, been closed for several years now.
westawesta, don’t let your guard down. Fight as hard as you can. Weingarten’s only care about what hits their pocketbook. There’s been mention of Trader Joe’s moving into the Alabama. Most recently, though, the report is that murals have been removed & the floor filled in with sand & no mention of Trader Joe’s whatsoever.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema company has shown some interest.
Even better, our Angelika Film Center, downtown, suddenly closed, about 2 months ago. Landlord disputes. I see a physical theatre needing a tenant & a living film company, needing a home.
Oppinger, the Barnes & Noble manage said:
“The decision is less about sales than about offering
more at the new store. We’re able to add a full range of services
that we couldn’t retrofit into an old building like this.”
That means it’s still about sales. Perhaps not the sale of books, but the sale of services.
Sept 15th—it closed.
Weingarten’s Realty, the owner, issued a statement, meant to reassure the public, saying they have no intentions, of tearing down the theatre.
Interpreted, this means, they haven’t yet received an offer, which would make tearing it down, profitable for Weingarten’s Realty.
This does not assure us that they have intentions to NOT tear it down—or that they’d turn down any such offers.
We need stronger preservation laws here.
Yep. Gorgeous. A friend of mine manages the cafe.
Another action to take, if one is interested in saving the River Oaks & Alabama Theatres, is to contact the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance @ www.ghpa.org & see what they suggest. They’re involved in the fight.
Mina, on 9/10, you said a pic explained about the ticket box being in the Rocky ‘storage room’. What pic, what link & where is the ‘Rocky storage room’?
Sorry about those repeat posts. My computer jammed up. It wasn’t doing anything, so I clicked ‘submit’ more than once. You’ll note they’re several minutes apart.
Sorry about those repeat posts. My computer jammed up. You’ll note they’re several minutes apart.
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
William, the links you provided on 8/31 & 9/10, to Chronicle articles, are null & void. Expired, apparently. What victory are you referring to? Which Houston landmark was saved w/23,000 signatures?
Thanx, William. Not very representative of the theatre, but it wasn’t an architectural marvel outside or anything. It WAS a very nice theatre inside—w/a smoking loge, in which the seats had ashtrays on the backs, so viewers could ash their cigs in them. The original intention of making it a twin screen has a little trivial interest, too. Funny, that, in the ad, it gives the phone # as ‘HO8-7948’. The ‘HO’ stood for ‘homestead’. Not too long after that, phone #s here, started using the numeric equivalents, on the phone dials. ‘HO*-7948’ became ‘468-7948’. Now it’s ‘713-468-7948’, due to the fact that we have 3 area codes in town now—or WOULD be, had the theatre not become a furniture store. it’s nteresting to see oshops in town, w/their phone #s long painted in their windows, which have never added their area codes.
Incidentally, the link you posted on 8/31, concerning
Cool. Looks just like it did, when I drove by last night.
Jack—where’s the pic?
No prob, John.
You may recall that Weingarten owns the entire River Oaks Shopping Center—both sides of W. Gray. They floated a rumor, that they were tearing down the Black Eyed Pea restaurant & the rest of that part of the gorgeous art deco center—to build a multi-story Barnes & Noble. Public was pissed. The rumor includes the ROaks theatre possibly being razed for a highrise(they’re cluttering the area already)—so Weingarten could rent the space for more. the theatre is NOT doing badly.
We’re trying to get city council to strengthen preservation laws. Houston has some of THE weakest in the country.
Here: http://houstonist.com/
Oh—no. Weingarten still owns them.
Prob is, w/the Alabama Bookstop, they had a lot of cross pollination w/Whole Foods & Cactus Records. Whole Foods moved out 2 yrs ago—in part, because Weingarten is a bottom-line company that refused to do some requested improvements. The Dailey brothers, who owned Cactus retired & shut down. Bookstop’s biz dropped off markedly. They’re still making a profit, but not as much as B & N want to. They want to pull out. Spec’s Liquor (which is BOOMING) wanted the Whole Foods space—w/improvements, which, as stated above—Weingarten can’t see happening. They’d rather sell to someone for a highrise.(end Pt 1)…………………………………..
..
Well—when I went there, on Saturday mornings—it was a dance school. LOL.
Are you still in Houston? You know there’s a power struggle of sorts over the Alabama (Bookstop) & the River Oaks Theatre?
John—I took ballroom dance classes @ Dance City USA about 1963, during Junior High (translted to Middle School—for the youngsters), but didn’t realize that it was the same bldg I saw Hall & Oates @ around ‘80.
I saw The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Rollerball, Shenandoah &, best of all—Ice Station Zebra @ the Windsor. Wow! WRoatching that submarine navigating around those icebergs on that incredibly wide screen!!
Bill Bremer, if this theatre was built in ‘23 & it was the 3rd 'Majestic’ in town, & your gramps was treasurer of the first one—on Congress—where was the 2nd one? Any addresses or dates on the first 2? Why did they close?
I saw Soylent Green (Edward G. Robinson’s last film) & Jaws there, too.
According to the 8/3 Chronicle, “with the River Oaks Theatre threatened, more are joining the drive to change preservation laws.”.
US Rep Sheila Jackson Lee was in attendance @ the 8/2 City Council meeting, voicing her support for preservation.