o (I ll I W i n I e i 21 I T I w tury erasun BY STEVEN R. S T R O M n the late 1930s, reporters from a heavy historical price: the Hobby As that change has progressed, the wide has been exemplified by a prolifer- Architectural Record toured 16 Center for the Performing Arts meant communal memory of place so neces- ation of books on "lost" cities: Lost IAmerican communities to ask lay the destruction of the Sam Houston sary for a cohesive public attachment to London, Lost Huston, I.oft C/jfCJffo, people (i.e., non-architects) which among Coliseum and Music Hall, while Knron urbanitas and a sense of civic identity and, in I louston, forgotten being as the recently constructed buildings in their Field required the demolition of the has been virtually eliminated. My job as good as lost, Houston's Forgotten cities were their favorites. In I louston, Metropole f [otel. architectural archivist for the Houston Heritage. At the same time, a good deal 24 leading citizens were polled, and their This frenzy of demolition is a sad Public library's Archives Department of receni historical scholarship has top choices (in descending order of votes capstone to a century that in I louston has given me a heightened awareness ol focused on what has been described as, received) were the new City Hall, the Oil has been notable for the number of sig- the depth of the obliteration of to use Norman M. Klein's term, the and Cms Building, the I louston Fire nificant CIVIC, commercial, and residen- Houston's architectural past. Dense, "history of forgetting," the attempt of Alarm lUulding, Miraheau H. Lamar tial structures that have fallen to the complex layers of the city's infrastruc- present-day society to recreate the past High School, the River Oaks Community wrecking ball. Despite the gains made ture have vanished with scarcely a trace, m order to recapture lost communal Center, Jefferson Davis 1 lospital, the Sam by the local preservation movement, it or no trace at all, remaining. F.ven highly feelings. It is in that spirit that the fol- Houston Coliseum and Music Hall, and is the destruction of Houston's architec- knowledgeable researchers who utilize lowing images of demolished 20th-cen- St. Joseph's I lospitaPs Maternity and tural heritage, rather than its conserva- the library's archives are often totally tury buildings of Houston are presented. Children's Building, tion, that truly marks the past 100 unaware, to use just a few of dozens of While it is impossible to actually recre- Though the arbitrary nature of those years. The cycle of this destruction can examples, that Main Street and the ate the past, these photos and drawings chosen to participate in the poll might be surprisingly quick. 1 have friends South Knd were the locales ol a fabu- impart some idea of the wide variety of lous residential area in the early part of call into question the actual importance who, in the late 1970s, lived in areas of notable structures that we once had, but of their favored structures, in f.Ki almost the city that consisted entirely of new the century; that Eugene Heiner and no longer do. Remarkable for their style all of the named buildings won some construction. Yet when these friends (leorge Dickey created beautiful and and range, the buildings seen on the fol- architectural recognition at the time of returned to visit after an absence of as impressive Victorian-era buildings, both lowing pages give some idea of the scope their construction. And they proved to be few as I 5 to 20 years, they were able to public and private; or that Joseph of what we have lost during the past lasting: in the six decades following the recognize only scattered landmarks Finger's and Alfred linn's now-isolated 100 years. And, perhaps, they might from then p.isi neighborhoods. November 19.59 publication ol the poll's Art Moderne buildings once dominated remind us to be careful of what we results the buildings became comfortable 1 veil to tliosi- who have never the city skyline. (Unfortunately, the could lose in the next 100. • fixtures in I louston's cityscape. Then, in moved, the pace of the city's change <..ni archives can be a double edged sword. a tragic twist lor the city's architectural be overwhelming. Ol course, feelings of While its architectural drawings have history, three "I I louston •• t ight top dislocation are anything but new for enabled architects to redevelop the Rice (Except where noted, the photos on vote-getters were demolished during I ioustonians. In 1910, Salvation Army Hotel and other historic buildings, they the following pages are courtesy of the 1998-1999: the Sam Houston c oliseum, Major )ohn T. Milsaps, who was born also showed demolition crews just where Houston Public Library, Houston Jefferson Davis 1 lospital, ,wc\ St. Joseph's in Houston in 1852, returned to the city to place the dynamite when the Sam Metropolitan Research Center.) maternity wing. after an absence of several years. I louston Coliseum ami (he Jefferson I hose demolitions were part of Milsaps visited his childhood haunts Davis Hospital were imploded.) Houston's periodic need to reinvent and noted in his diary that, "I scarcely In recent years, the feelings of loss itsell at the expense of us past. I'he recognized the locality, so great has over the destruction of familiar and redevelopment of downtown has exacted been the change." beloved architectural landmarks world- 22 fall I 1 t 9 R 1 T I HOUSTON CITY HAI.I AND MARKET, 1904. (ieiirge I . Dickey, .ircbilct I, Mtirkri Square. Demolished I960. For many years after its completion, George E. Dickey's grain) Victorian City I (all and M a r k er dominate d M a r k e t Square. Hut the construction ot Joseph Finger's current City I l u l l , completed in I9 V), guaranteed the building's demise, even though it lingered on in truncated f o r m for t w o more decades. Dickey, a prominent turn-or-the-century Houston architect, received the contract to build Houston's fourth city hall in N o v e m b e r 1902. The stone and brick edifice's Victorian Romanesque style was stylistically anachronism., since In the early I 900s most large public buildings on the east a m i west coasts were being built in the classical style. Dickey was able to keep construction costs below $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 , which was the main reason his plan was accepted over a hid by I.S. (.lover and Son, w h i c h came in at $ 2 5 0 , 0 0 0. I he |9(M City 1 lall bad t w o towers, one lor a clock and one for a fire hell, b o t h of w h i c h have been reinstalled in the Friedman Clock Tower (1996] at the corner of Travis and Congress. The vendors of the first-floor market stalls sold ,i wide variety ol agricultural produce, meat, fish, and retail products. D u r i n g the hot 1 louston summers. City I lall w o r k - t ers complained ot the heavy odors f r o m the stalls, w h i c h per- a meated the building's offices. Well before the 1939 City H a l l was finished, the Dickey <«E&L^ structure was viewed hy many I lonstonians as an unseemly, outdated eyesore; the Houston Chronicle edimriali/ed that it "presented an unsightly appearance lor (lie government seal o f a t h r i v i n g , progressive city." The city constructed a new farmer's Mat ke I ouisiana Street in 1929, and that, COU - pled w i t h the economic impact ol th< d r e a l D< pression, .4»N (TV meant that most of the building's tirst floor stalls were vacant d u r i n g the I 930s, Alter city government moved to its new location in 1939, the 1904 City I tall was used as a bus terminal. The t w o towers were demolished in I94K because o f structural instabilities, and the rest of the b u i l d i n g came down on August X. I 9 6 0 , f o l l o w i n g a devastating fire the preceding May. II! D l 1 o u u I W i n I I T 1. 23 m r mfium f S^KH?*, *- # COLORED CARNEGIE BRANCH HOUSTON PUBLIC: LIBRARY, 1913. WUUam Sidney Pittman, architect. 1112 Frederick Street. Demolished 1962. The Colored Carnegie Library was a product of the thriving African-American community that once exist- ed in the Fourth Ward, a community that was disrupt- ed, if not actually destroyed, by freeway construction and a lack of intelligent urban planning. Efforts to establish a lihrary lor 1 louston's African-American community began as early as 1903. The Negro Library :. • • .inJ 1 iceum Association was organized in I l 'i>~. and .1 circulating lihrary for African Americans was estab- lished inside I louston's Negro High School in 1909. A subscription drive was then initiated to build a new "colored" library, and although a moderate amount ol money was obtained from local supporters and the i in ol Houston, Lmmetr J. Scott, a Houstoniat) who had once worked as Booker T.