After we wrap up the series in Philly tomorrow, how many games do we have left in NL cribs?
When you think about H-Town’s Fifth Ward, you think African-Americans. When you think about H-Town’s Heights, you don’t.
The Heights has been my hood for a long while and I know my demographic data and I can see my demographic data every time I go out around here.
I chuckled when I saw this on the Chron’s website this morning. Here is the online headline:
Home builder sees Fifth Ward as ‘the next Heights’
Here are parts of the story:
By Nancy Sarnoff, Houston Chronicle
July 25, 2017 Updated: July 25, 2017 7:00am
Camilo Parra started buying land in the Fifth Ward five years ago and has purchased 100 lots — most of them empty — to build homes relatively affordable by inner-loop standards.
His company, Parra Design Group purchased many of the lots at county tax auctions. Most of them are between Waco and Lockwood, north of Lyons Avenue.
“Our approach has always been to go to find empty land. We don’t want to displace anybody,” Parra said. “That’s what creates a strong neighborhood. The residents are what makes the neighborhood special.”
He designed three-bedroom floor plans of roughly 1,600 square feet, and began building two per lot priced at about $235,000 apiece.
And this:
So far, the company has built 24 and sold 22.
The buyers, Parra said, have been “mostly young urban professionals” who may have been priced out of other neighborhoods close to downtown.
“We believe it’s going to be the next Heights,” he said.
Here is the entire article:
Stop laughing, please.
Here is from the Texas State Historical Association’s website:
Eventually, the Fifth Ward population became predominantly black. At Frenchtown, a four-square-block neighborhood in the ward, 500 blacks of French and Spanish descent from Louisiana organized a community in 1922. Black-owned businesses, including a pharmacy, a dentist’s office, an undertaking parlor, a theater, and several barbershops, operated after 1900 on Lyons Avenue and numbered forty by 1925. Working-class blacks were primarily employed within walking distance of the ward; many worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad or at the Houston Ship Channel. Others commuted across town to work as domestics and servants for wealthy Houstonians. By 1927 Phillis Wheatley High School in the ward, with 2,600 students and sixty teachers, was one of the largest black high schools in America. Other new businesses developed in the 1930s, including printing plants, photography studios, and the Club Matinee, which came to be known as the Cotton Club of the South. Local businessman Grand Duke Crawford organized the Fifth Ward Civic Club.
Houston’s second housing project for African Americans, the Kelly Court Housing Project, opened after World War II. Early community activists included Lonnie Smith and Lilly Portley. Peacock Records, a recording company founded by music entrepreneur Don Robey and named after his popular Bronze Peacock Club, started in the ward, as did C. F. Smith Electric Company, one of the state’s early licensed electrical-contracting companies. Finnigan Park, the second public park for blacks in Houston, opened in the community in the postwar years, and the Julia C. Hester House, a black community center, began service. Nat Q. Henderson, long-time principal of Bruce Elementary School, was the mayor of the Fifth Ward and became known for his leadership.
With passage of integration laws in the 1960s, many residents left the community and sought wider opportunities. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Fifth Ward fell into decline, with rundown abandoned buildings, and developed a notorious reputation as a crime-ridden area. Texas Monthly described it as “Texas’ toughest, proudest, baddest ghetto.”
In the 1990s and 2000s the area saw significant housing and commercial growth as the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, organized in 1989, worked to revitalize the neighborhood through new home construction as well as an increased focus on job training, access to technology, and access to the arts. A cultural arts festival celebrated the artistic, culinary, and musical heritage of the area. By 2008 the neighborhood had an estimated population of more than 22,000, and by 2015 revitalization efforts had included the construction of more than 300 new homes, two multifamily complexes, two new commercial developments, and two commercial renovations, as well as the installation of public art and monuments. Restoration had begun on the DeLuxe Theater, and the Fifth Ward was the site of community fairs, neighborhood cleanups, and educational programs for homebuyers.
The Chron article was a bit silly. I love my hood but it ain’t getting more diverse if you know what I mean. We have like 3% African Americans and that is probably stretching the data. The Fifth Ward is a long, long way from being the new Heights and I don’t know if they want to be the new Heights. Silly, silly, silly!
Commentary is thinking the AG likes being punked regularly by Donald Trump. Why else would he be showing up for work?
With the Texans fixing to open up their training camp, I hope the Chron and the local TV stations will continue to give the ‘Stros top billing, after all, they do have by far the best record in the AL and second best record in MLB.
FYI: this is a prediction from USA today in the Texans’ upcoming season:
Houston Texans (8-8): We know, Bill O’Brien has never failed to go 9-7 in any of his three seasons. But when your team’s top two quarterbacks have two combined NFL starts, it’s easy to foresee a season that serves as one step back before two steps forward occur in 2018.
Just saying.
After the ‘Stros leave Philly tomorrow they will have two games left in Arizona of course next month.
After scoring 13 runs last night, the team is batting a ridiculous .293 – ridiculous.Steve Houston
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