It is nuts how in 1980, mustachioed men in leotards were simply “court jesters” that told the story of TV ratings success, and not big flaming homosexuals doing pirouettes.

This is really worth a watch — for a number of reasons. It offers a glimpse into a world of broadcast television that used to spend lots of money to develop strong brand images, and it also offers a glimpse into the world of leotard-wearing fancy men circa 1980 in The Metroplex.

I stumbled upon a few old maps of Austin that illustrate this fact, but they also tell an interesting story about the names of our highways today versus what they were called then.

Here is Austin, 1940. Population 87,930!

Today:  Highway 290 runs through Southwest Austin via Ben White Boulevard, about 4 miles south of downtown, then runs along IH-35 northward through the central corridor, then vectors northeastward about 5 miles north of downtown, heading for Houston.

Then:  Highway 290 ran along what is now Lamar Boulevard (then called Fredericksburg Road), then eastward on Barton Springs, overlapping with Highway 81 on Congress for a few blocks before aligning itself along East 1st Street (aka Cesar Chavez) before taking the current alignment of south Highway 183.  This map says it still leads to Houston, so it must have connected with the current alignment of 290 somewhere further east of Austin.

Other interesting things to note:

• While Hghway 81 still exists in much of the US, running through North Texas and West Central Oklahoma, it no longer exists in the Austin area.  It is roughly the north-south arterial route that Interstate 35 would come to occupy — some Austinites might remember as late as the early 1990’s that the Highway 81 designation could be seen on signage along the IH-35 frontage road.   In 1940, Highway 81 ran along Congress Avenue, Lavaca/Guadalupe (which may have been erroneously listed on this map as Guadalupe Boulevard; it is actually Guadalupe Street, at least today), then followed Georgetown Road past the city limits.  I believe 1940’s Georgetown Road is now today’s North Lamar Boulevard past the Triangle shopping center / 45th Street area.
• State Highway 29 no longer comes anywhere near central Austin, but did back then.  Today it runs from Georgetown (30 miles north) to the city of Burnet (60 miles northwest), and was appropriately named Burnet Road.  Today’s Burnet Road no longer takes you to the city of Burnet, but remains a large arterial road through North Austin.  29 also goes southeastward on this map, emptying out near today’s Bergstrom Airport.  Where it eventually would lead in 1940, I have no idea, as this is no longer the street’s designation (it is now 183).
• Highway 81 was paired with Highway 79, which now ends in Round Rock, 20 miles north.
• State Highway 20 no longer exists, at least anywhere near Austin.  It was also known as Manor Road, which is still a major road today.
• East Avenue is the road that would become Interstate 35.  However, it ended at Manor (at least in naming) and became Cameron Road.  Cameron Road still exists today, but due to the freeway being built out now begins at 51st Street, 2 miles north of where it did in 1940.
• Dam Road is now known as Lake Austin Boulevard.
• There is a road called State Street, roughly where Perry Lane is today, that I believe no longer exists in name (or may take the alignment of other roads).
• Airport Road seems to be the same thing as today’s East 51st Street and also appears to be different from the current Airport Boulevard, which runs along the railroad tracks northwest/southeastward.
• Mansfield Dam (on Lake Travis) was known as Marshall Ford Dam, and the way to get to it was via Hancock Drive (this likely connected as it does today to Ranch Road 2222).

Let’s fast forward to Austin 1953:

The differences in just 10–15 years:

• Lamar Boulevard is named and built out as it is today.  It is still, however, the alignment of Highway 290 on the south side of town.
• The “Interregional Highway” is partially built.  That is today’s Interstate 35; the alternate name Interregional was popular in usage until the 1980’s.  Old school Austinites like myself remember it from maps and street signs, but it is probably an unknown name to many people — Interregional generally only refers to the original build-out of IH-35 from the Colorado River to Cameron Road.
• Highway 290 East now follows its current path, picking back up right past Cameron Road as it does today.
• Highway 183 is built/designated, although it now follows what was Highway 29’s alignment (Guadalupe/Lavaca) in North Austin, and now follows East 7th out of town.  From the Colorado River southward, 183 today is pretty much the same as it was then.
• Highway 71 appears, at least on the east half of the city (overlapped with 183).
• Airport Boulevard is built out.
• Balcones Road seems to follow the current path of Mount Bonnell Road, along the Dry Creek canyon.
• The Yacht Club, which may or may not have existed in 1940, appears on this map where the current Westlake Drive is.
• Barton Springs is listed as Zilker Springs on this map.  That may have been a factual error, or perhaps it was also known as such back in the day.
• Guadalupe Street is actually labeled “THE DRAG”, the enduring popular nickname for the portion between 19th/MLK and 29th.

And finally, here’s a 1956 Humble Oil map of Austin:

• The Interregional Highway now crosses the Colorado River, but does not carry the Interstate 35 designation just yet.
• Highway 183 is now aligned along Airport Boulevard.  Today, 183 is about 2–3 miles east of Airport, but also follows a NW/SE track.
• East 7th Street is also designated as Business 183 and Highway 71.

Subtle things to note on all maps:

• Dean Keeton/26th does not yet exist as built out today, so there was no northern connector road on the UT campus.
• Koenig Lane (2222) does not exist on any map, and therefore was probably just a local street or non-existent until the mid 1950’s.  Given the architecture of the houses/businesses on this street, which are late 1950’s-early 1960’s in origin, it might have just been a residential street that they picked because it connected with 290 at Airport.
• Do Alice Avenue (near 45th and Lamar) or Forest Trail exist anymore?
• Mopac is not even shown as a railroad track much less a proposed highway.  It was not built until the late 1960’s-late 1970’s.
• West Lake Hills or Rollingwood do not exist on the map (and I am not sure if there were any subdivisions in this part of town yet).
• Austin was balanced in terms of east vs. west.  Today, the west and north sides sprawl many many more miles than the east or south sides do.  There are suburbs in continuous development for 25 miles north and west, but Austin pretty much ends about 6–7 miles east and about 10 miles south.

In 1940, Austin had 87,930 people; in 1950, 132,459 people, and in 1960, 186,545. As a frame of reference, Austin’s city population is 757,688 today (as of the 2007 census estimate), and the metropolitan area is 1,652,602, the 2nd fastest growing in the nation.

Other cities boundaries end where Loop 610 is located, thus allowing them to be judged based solely on their pre-war contents, which are, as you know, very hip things these days. To put it in geographical perspective, pretend to start talking about how great Williamsburg is, and mention that it’s on Long Island, and you start to see how large boundaries tend to obfuscate the good and bad that is present in any metropolitan area. To play reverse psychology, we would have to start saying “Webster, We Have A Problem.” Compton would be judged as a neighborhood of LA and not as an independent bedroom community. So why do we judge Houston on that which is really not “Houston” but Cinco Ranch, Kashmere Heights, Greenspoint, South Park, and Klein? We look at the Houston area’s smog, its menacing freeways leading to freeway spurs and limited-access parkways, we look at its religious nutbags, we look at its poverty-stricken industrial neighborhoods, and we insist we can’t see the Menil Collection, the joggers in Memorial Park, the universities, the theatres, the housing, the bayous, and we do ourselves a disservice.

If one is to look at the sense of ‘place’ and ignore the political sharpie maneuvers that make up American suburbanization, Houston stands on its own. It’s not the BEST city in the US, and most of what everyone accepts as truth is in fact truth. But what’s also true is that Houston has neat stuff, too, not “neat for Texas” but unique.

To be fair, Houston is a live and let live city. If you can handle the flat terrain, checkerboard development, and if you can handle a city that repeats its own basic recipe over and over in 8 directions, then you can enjoy the fruits thereof — affordability, flexibility, mobility. It’s laughable to say that Houston resists urbanization, true urbanization, when Houston’s generally eager to please and let itself be the largest test grounds for suburbia. Big lots, small lots, McMansions, tax abatements, great rooms and phase III’s, they form a type of classification all their own — suburbia’s sub-suburbs.

But Houston loves skyscrapers, and puts them wherever it can fit them. If you want a 40-story tower, Houston assumes you must need one if you’re asking to build one. If you want a rowhouse downtown, or a high-rise with a view of another downtown, Houston has a place for you. It’s not picky, and it has one of everything just in case.

It is a place of Southern gentility, of art deco chutzpah, of black families between railroad tracks and power lines, of black families in colonials, of Republican businesswomen who dine with their gay “best friends” at a restaurant that allows you to park in front.

I like Houston, and I don’t know why more people don’t. You won’t find a catchy disco theme song with TV’s Patrick Duffy in the credits, and you might be hard pressed to catch Renee Zellweger proudly professing her nostalgia for Katy.

But I’ll profess my nostalgia for the Katy Freeway, the now 26-lane-wide freeway that makes straight lines and cruise control seem like a conveyor belt to a suburban death squad, priced from the 180’s. This is Houston’s Champs-Elysees to many who reach Houston from a western approach. It is ugly, but it is also AMAZING. You drive it wondering what was below the main lanes before they were added; was it a frontage road, a pine tree, a warehouse, or was it just an empty lot like all the other empty lots in Houston? It is a driving tour of what America sometimes feels like to the old-world provincial — bewildering, seemingly unncessary, brash, brutal and overly functional, but serving a perverse function at that, evacuating middle class money as far away from downtown as possible.

But then you look at the other side of Katy Freeway and you see people in smaller cars, people with Obama stickers, people with parking garage tags to places between traditional downtown and traditional exurbia, places with phase numbers and building numbers and small, discreet corporate logos on the top right margin. It works both ways in Houston, including rush hour, commuting, new money and old money. People get to go where they want to go in Houston — they can live downtown and work downtown, or live downtown and work in the Woodlands, or they can live in the Woodlands and work in Conroe. If you want a 15 minute commute, you can have one. If you want a huge huge huge house, you can have one (but you might not have a 15 minute commute.) You may escape blacks and Latinos, once living in Sharpstown, but then the blacks and Latinos move up too, and then someone else takes over. Houston reinvents parts of itself in a modest way that is never showy.

Houston is nothing if not daring for carrying a speculative and deregulated environment to its most literal conclusion. I like Houston despite its blatantly ugly appendages, and despite its curried favor by Republicans with duallys and minivan-driving Vietnamese women who hiss at you under their breath.

I feel like I fell in love with the only one who’d accept the ring when I say that I like Houston and might consider moving there. I do know that I could take my pick of high-rise, low-rise, garden apartment, or loft and work in the energy industry, in the shipping industry, in the tech industry, in the puppy boutique industry, in the French business magazine industry, in the widget industry, or in the heroin trafficking industry. I can take my pick in Houston.

I don’t know about you, but I need to get out of town; I am getting so tired of photographing the same things over and over!

I don’t even like to drive down to San Antonio anymore, for half the reason I enjoyed it was seeing the Adams Extract building all alone on the prairie, commanding a strong presence with its post-war industrial optimism. It must have been demolished sometime after 2003, because if I had been living here while it happened I certainly would have made a stink, at least a supine complaint in the form of a blog post. That was a landmark, whether the executives of Adams Extract believed so or not. If anyone is familiar with the story of this building’s final sentencing, I am very curious to learn more.

That being said, Austin’s overall architectural “value system” is an example of this city’s subtle but profound hypocrisy when it comes to urban identity. Politicians and locals submit the Capital View corridor restrictions as counter evidence, since the law regulates building heights in order to keep architectural greatness within view. I am convinced that the law is a smokescreen which actually seeks to reinforce conservative ideas.

Some of the corridors, like #4 from the dome to the French Legation, are symbolic in intent and largely pointless. After all, #4 links Austin’s “greatest” building to Austin’s oldest building — the French Legation having been completed when Austin was 3 years old, in 1841. Anyone who is from Austin can tell you that you can’t see the French Legation from the Capitol, nor can you see anything from the French Legation — it is a short building, no taller than a large McMansion; live oak trees tower over it. When it was built, the parcel of land it sits on was the highest in the general area, but even so, it does not have the topological prominence of, say, Portland’s Pittock Mansion. And #4 is effectively submerged by the other two corridor views that exist from Interstate 35.

Let’s not forget that the State Capitol is a beautiful building, but its beauty isn’t solely determined by how great it looks from afar. The regulations should have been set up to focus on a few wide corridors, perhaps with real AVENUES leading up to the building. Very Haussmanian I know, but trying to enact corridors that radiate out in vectors while the street grid is square helps exacerbate the parking lot and ugly building conundrum that much of downtown currently faces.

In an ironic twist, one of the corridors is meant to protect the view from a building that no longer exists and was also demolished without fanfare. Several buildings, in fact. Actually, an entire college campus. Concordia University’s campus was simply razed in favor of a suburban alternative off of 620, 20 miles northwest of its original site. It wasn’t an architectural marvel, but the main buildings were worth preserving.

Question to nobody: does the parking garage and midrise that has replaced Concordia inherit the special “view”? The view that seems to consist solely of the hospital across the street?

Either way, I still feel bad for the loss of the Adams Extract building. Maybe if it had been in one of the Capital View corridors it would have survived, with a sea of parking lots to protect it for eternity.

Their mascot is the “Ranchers”. Definitely unrelated.

That was a drawing of mine from 1990 or so, back when everything had spiky hair, sunglasses and earrings. And back when Texas had normal temperatures. Or did it?

For example, on July 16, 1990, the high temperature in Austin was 78, and the low was 68. That’s actually well below normal, but then again, today’s forecast high of 102 is well above normal. Last year’s high of 97 was also above average. So was 2000’s, and 2004’s, and 2006’s. Almost every day I click seems to suggest an average closer to 100.

I have yet to experience a single summer where the high in July or August was routinely within a few degrees of 94 and 95, which are the stated high temperature averages for each respective month. Perhaps there was one month out of 10 or 12 years like that, but it’s the AVERAGE. The only way this could make sense statistically is if the previous decades were below 94 and 95, for example, and I don’t find that to be the case across the board. It always seems to be summer that’s out of whack; January’s average high of 59 seems to be within the ballpark of most years.

The all-time record warmest month (both high and low temperature combined) for July in Austin is 89.1 F. The 30-year normal (1971–2000) is 84.2 F.

So far, we are tracking at 88.7 F.

The results speak for themselves.