To say that Westheimer Street is scuffling with an id disaster could be an understatement. The storied road is a colourful buffet of all that’s Houston, and it’s straightforward to make a case that it’s, in actual fact, Houston’s most well-known road, all 18-plus miles of it. From its origins in Midtown to its unceremonious conclusion on the earthen levy of Addicks Reservoir, Westheimer showcases each side of Houston—excessive, low, stylish, shabby, overseas, funky. You’ll find all of it there. However the Westheimer that holds essentially the most secrets and techniques of Houston’s historical past is Decrease Westheimer, from Elgin to Shepherd, the place at present upscale is slowly changing rundown, the place decadence is changing decrepitude.
The road’s host, the historic and artsy Montrose neighborhood, is a confederation of small residential, early-twentieth-century subdivisions. The artsy vibe stays attributable to its proximity to the world-renowned Menil Assortment and Rothko Chapel, and the fixed inflow of school college students from the College of St. Thomas, those who reside in ramshackle storage flats and sleep on futons. Literary stars like Larry McMurtry, Phillip Lopate, Al Reinert, and just lately Bryan Washington helped introduce the world to the Montrose.
The Westheimer we all know at present is a patchwork of beforehand present roads, from the extension of Elgin Avenue in Midtown that merged with the residential Hathaway Avenue, which intersected with the then-termination of Montrose Boulevard. German immigrant and impressive service provider Michael Westheimer constructed a non-public street that led to his model of a plantation, the place Lamar Excessive College and St. John’s are at present, on the southern border of River Oaks. In the end, the namesake street related Houston to Fulshear, Sealy, and Columbus, and stays his greatest legacy.
Paved Westheimer would take up Hathaway and connect with Elgin. Zigging on the southern boundary of the Cherryhurst subdivision, Westheimer straightened out on a western path to the sprawl horizon. Because the street grew to become a serious path into downtown, the properties developed. Most of the owners moved on, and left behind the unique buildings for another person to reuse. Small ethnic eating places, wine bars, well being meals outlets, and because the neighborhood aged, homosexual Houstonians discovered a rising group, and motion, there.
Even at present, because it has been for many years now, the easiest way to take pleasure in Decrease Westheimer is to ditch your automobile and easily wander. The place else in Houston are you able to stroll and discover retail outlets, eating, ingesting, and as quickly because the Tower Theatre reopens, a reside present? Say what you’ll about gentrification, however Decrease Westheimer nonetheless has the biggest focus and number of nightlife in Houston. And loads of tattoo parlors, junk and secondhand outfitters, too.
Sure, the sidewalks, corresponding to they’re, endure from a relentless battle for supremacy with randomly parked vehicles or the aggressive roots of our storied reside oaks. At the moment, the Metropolis of Houston is making a great begin at bettering sidewalks alongside the historic road. Whereas they’re at it, can they relocate the utility poles smack dab within the in any other case accessible path? It labored for Higher Kirby. OK, perhaps the Higher Kirby therapy is an excessive amount of infrastructural surgical procedure.
In 2023, Radom Capital scored large with its Montrose Collective, which constructed on the neighborhood’s present density and pedestrian scale. The imaginative developer is embracing Houston historical past with a present renovation of the 1936 Tower Theatre, simply essentially the most vital landmark nonetheless standing on Westheimer. Relying in your age, you would possibly bear in mind it as a movie show, cabaret, video retailer, or restaurant.
Different notable historic buildings embody the unique Arts & Crafts–type Cherryhurst Shops at Yupon Avenue (present dwelling to Catbirds); Hugo’s in a modest 1925 brick constructing—designed by legendary Houston architect Joseph Finger as a drugstore and soda fountain, later Imperial Plumbing Provide; and Lanier Junior Excessive, simply as solemn because the day it opened in 1926. Southland {Hardware} has been serving the Montrose from its present location at Morse Avenue because the Fifties, though the constructing itself may hardly be known as vital. At this level, the one factor holding it up is the paint, of which they nonetheless promote loads.
The 1924, one-story brick Hearth Station Quantity 16 at 1413 Westheimer remains to be standing, though the hearth vans left in 1979. Behind Lanier, a former gasoline station (circa 1930) on the nook of Westheimer and Hazard was bundled with two adjoining buildings in a 1996 renovation into the Winlow Westheimer Heart, and designated a Protected Landmark in 2023. Happily, the stately home at 411 Westheimer remains to be with us as AvantGarden. The previous dwelling provides modern Houstonians proof of the unique residential nature of Westheimer Street (nonetheless named Hathaway). Many nonetheless bear in mind its stint as The Mausoleum in 1996, or as Helio’s.
Within the Eighties, Decrease Westheimer grew to become an ideal storm of unregulated automobile tradition and low-cost medication, mingling with growing old hippies and ascending homosexual tradition. It was a weekend vacation spot for teenagers from throughout city on the lookout for no matter, and a slow-moving, bumper-to-bumper parade in each instructions, with the authorized ingesting age at 18.
By the Nineties, the cops and politicians ended the site visitors snarls, however the occasion environment remained, although moved indoors. My pals and I had been neither punks nor goths, however we beloved to scoff at suburban youth on their safari into the Montrose, in search of something “various.” That phrase grew to become a model unto itself, then principally misplaced its unique which means, however was shortly reborn in chain retailers that we dubbed as “mall-ternative.” In the meantime, the punks had been probably sneering at us. Runaways, hustlers, and drug sellers mingled with these artsy HSPVA children at Emo’s, Lola’s, Numbers. It acquired scarier the farther you ventured down streets away from the intense lights of Westheimer. In the event you had been on the lookout for hassle, you needn’t wander too far.
Grown-ups had their joints too, like Ruggles, and, earlier than everybody else had a Sunday Funday, La Strada with its bellinis and bottomless mimosas, often resulting in topless mimosas. El Tiempo now occupies the previous occasion spot on Westheimer at Taft. Costume code is absolutely enforced.
Throughout the road from the Tower Theatre was the strip membership Boobie Rock, with its windowless, futuristic facade asserting that Decrease Westheimer was as near Bourbon Avenue as you may get in Houston. You would possibly bear in mind its later incarnation as Possibilities, or extra just lately as Underbelly or Georgia James. The present velvet rope in entrance indicators one thing upscale is being perpetrated inside.
Whereas the homosexual crowd has turn into extra subtle lately, just a few bars stay to the north of Decrease Westheimer, on Fairview (Mantrose, anybody?). Lengthy gone are Mary’s Lounge and the celebratory Homosexual Delight Parade. After greater than 40 years, EJ’s, nearer to Dunlavy, grew to become La Grange in 2015, now the très fancy Melrose.
The early years of the Nineties noticed the delivery of two immediate landmarks for Decrease Westheimer: Cafe Brasil and Empire Cafe. Prior to those two, espresso tradition in Houston was restricted to Cuban eating places, Greek diners, and IHOPs, catering principally to Child Boomer Houstonians after an evening of bridge, or med college students cramming in a quiet third house. The closest Montrosians had was Mai’s on Milam, which served (and nonetheless serves) killer Vietnamese espresso. Now we will drink espresso wherever in Montrose, and share concepts, or simply stare at our telephones.
Many would argue, myself amongst them, that Poison Woman, the splendidly unfancy bar close to Dunlavy, seems to be prefer it’s at all times been there, due in massive measure to its otherworldly again patio, the place they, modestly, host a month-to-month poetry studying. Who says the Montrose isn’t artsy?
In a metropolis the place the unofficial motto is “What was there?” it could possibly usually be laborious to rattle off an inventory of former landmarks. Nonetheless, for Montrose, there persists a collective historical past the place each present and former resident fondly laments their favourite long-gone retailer, venue, or occasion as vividly as a primary love. This inner-city neighborhood stays preoccupied with its previous in a means no different Houston neighborhood is. Regardless of its many modifications, Montrose historical past lives, particularly on Decrease Westheimer.
