[AGL] future skyline

[Frances Morey]

I totally agree with you Mike. I love the Frost Bank tower and it's impressive presence from a variety of places. It is ubiquitous, like the Westgate was at one time. I can't wait to see the changing skyline from my pov over here on the East side. I wish I had the money to set up a time lapse camera to chart the changes as they appear. 
  As for the unfinished building downtown, it is just a foundation and shell of a building. You'd think that someone could figure out how to utilize the existing structure for residences since Austin is so hell bent on populating the downtown. I think that's a dang good idea. One only has to spend some time in the formerly vibrant downtown in San Antonio now that it seems like a well worn bus stop with sad businesses slanted towards low incomes and vacancies where highly respected stores once stood. Houston downtown is a scary no man's land after dark. Dallas' downtown, as I can only recall from 25 to 30 years ago, was dominated by hotels and girlie clubs a la Jack Ruby, i.e. unsavory. l love living downtown but sixteen stories is about as high as I wanna get. One day the elevators were down and I had to be somewhere and flew down the stairs, in high heels, in short order. Now returning home was not such a cakewalk and someone suggested that I might want to get a hotel room
 if the elevators were not fixed by the time I needed to get back to my apartment.
  FM
  
Michael Eisenstadt <michaele at ando.pair.com> wrote:
  Harry Edwards called the highrise projects cancerous.

I live downtown and the highrises we already have lift
my spirit. The new Frost Bank tower is the best, 33
stories (would that it were 66 stories; what a statement
that would be!) My favorite used to be the Trammell-
Crow highrise with a well-resolved top to the building.
Blue grey glass which changes color with different skies.
The Federal Bank building on 2d, up from Gerry's Crest
Hotel (now the Radisson, it was a Statler) is impressive.
>From some angles its complex facades seem to flatten
out and seem one dimensional. But the Frost is best
of breed with its signature slitted glass top. Its Architect
claimed he was trying to reproduce the spirit of the
Chrysler building.

I can't make out the buildings very well in the rendering
Harry sent us. I do know that a 36 story combined
offices and condominiums, on Congress Ave, is slated
to break ground soon. The abandonned Intel building
on W 5th street is still there, concrete structure with
rusting rebar sticking up out the top of the columns. It
looks strangely like a computer CPU chip with its many
pins upside down. This resemblance is of course due to
cosmic indifference.

As for Gerry's brown cloud over downtown, see
attached photo.

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerry" 
To: "survivors' reminiscences about Austin Ghetto Daze in the 60s" 

Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: [AGL] future skyline


> Incredible! Who'd a thought it?
>
> Something tells me that it will never come to completion. Glad I'll not
> likely see it. What are the plans for traffic arteries to get people in 
> and
> out of the area? Can you imagine the great, brown cloud that will envelope
> it all? Visible from 30 miles distant?
>
> I recall the excitement when the original Crest Hotel was completed, where
> Congress meets the river. It was like an architectural spaceship in the
> city. For the musicians of my era it was a goldmine. Worked many a gig 
> there
> as it went through a series of owners and identities. I remember it as the
> Sheraton Crest. Do you remember Geneva Rawlins? A classy Black lady who
> played keyboards and sang? Geneva and the Gentlemen. I worked with her a 
> few
> times so I guess that qualifies me as a Gentleman...I guess today's
> musicians will be working atop the Congress Condos, don't you know there
> will be some highrolling parties up there?
>
> This afternoon we had .8" of rain in about 20 minutes, heaviest rainfall
> since last October. Marble size hail fell for 15 minutes and pummeled the
> garden plants. Too wet and too soon to take a toll. Sure feels and smells
> good. Early enough to replant whatever got waxed--unless it got the
> apples...
> G
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harry Edwards" 
> To: "ghetto 2" 
> Cc: "ghetto survivors" 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 5:22 PM
> Subject: [AGL] future skyline
>
>
> This is a rendering of the proposed and under-construction high-rise
> buildings for downtown Austin as of 05/10/2006. The newer buildings
> have names on them in the photo and most are scheduled to break ground
> before mid-2007. Our skyline is gonna look cancerously different in
> the coming years. The condo tower called Spring, on the far left, will
> go up right over where I currently work:
>
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