HoustoricProject

All photographs by Abrahán Garza HoustoricProject.org 2010-2018

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WEDU ARTS PLUS - Episode 118

Photographer Abrahan Garza roams the streets of Houston, Texas, finding the locations of old postcards and creating new images that blend the historical with the modern.

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4537 Leeland Street - Eastwood Theater.

Opened in March 1936, featured four screens and had 1,057 seats. The Eastwood Theater was modeled after the Tower Theater (now El Real Tex-Mex Cafe on Westheimer).

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4537 Leeland Street - Eastwood Theater.

Opened in March 1936, featured four screens and had 1,057 seats. The Eastwood Theater was modeled after the Tower Theater (now El Real Tex-Mex Cafe on Westheimer).

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315 Milam - Moulin Rouge Burlesk Exotics

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6100 Main Street - Rice Stadium Rice Stadium seems frozen in time since it was built in 1950 on the campus of Rice University. Preserved since the days of John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon” NASA speech as well as Super Bowl VIII in 1974.

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2901 Canal Street - Morales Funeral Home

Felix H. Morales moved to Houston in 1931 and opened the original Morales Funeral Home on Navigation with a $150 loan from his brother. They moved to the current location with after the Great Depression and have been there ever since.

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10700 Kingspoint Road - BEST Products Store 

Façade brick pile 1975 - Commissioned by SITE Architecture Art Design. 

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401 Franklin - Post HTX

Formerly the Barbara Jordan Post Office and currently the home of the annual Day for Night Festival. Designed in the early sixties by the same architects that designed the Astrodome - Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson. It was home to the United States Postal Service from 1965 until Lovett Commercial purchased the 16 acre property in 2015.

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December 9th, 2012 - Ben Milam Hotel Implosion

The 80 year old building that stood across from Union Station had been closed since the 1970s and was imploded to make room from a 380 unit apartment complex covering the area where the Ben Milam Hotel was built in 1926. 

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September 22, 2013 - Macy's / Foley's Implosion Houston Texas. 

 Filmed from the corner of McKinney and Louisiana.

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1300 Travis at Polk Street 

Sometime in the 1990s with the Exxon Mobile Building in the background.

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Robertson Stadium, University of Houston, in the 1940s.

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Astrodome. In 1968, the Astrodome attracted more than 4 million people. Referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. It was the biggest project of its kind ever built.

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Houston Astros and AstroTurf. 

The history-making facet, originally called ChemGrass, was added in 1966 and was a product of the Chemstrand Company, a division of Monsanto Chemical Company. Major league baseball had never been played on carpet before and it was expected to become the regulation surface for all of baseball.

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7539 Avenue K - Immaculate Heart of Mary Church

Founded in 1923. The original building is still serving the Magnolia area today.

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La Moderna Store. Avenue I and 76th Street The building was a religious bookstore for as long as can be remembered. Currently closed, but last was home to Libreria Kaliman.

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7320 Navigation Boulevard - The Sociedad Mutualista Benito Juarez Hall.

The Sociedad Mutualista Benito Juarez Hall was the first purpose non-religious public institution built in Houston's East End by and for Mexican-Americans. Constructed in 1928, it was often referred to as El Salon Juarez and later The Magnolia Hall. It was demolished in 2009.