AUSTIN | Modern Austin Residences | 658' | 56 FLOORS | Complete

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by the Genral

fwiw, I really like this tower as presented. Secondly, I frequented Rainey when it was ONLY a neighborhood of pretty much old houses and not the wealthiest part of town at that. But to beat a dead horse, it was charming and inhabited by honest, hard working and retired people with kids and animals playing in the street. No bars, no highrises, just houses. After they were bought out, the bars came in, fairly recently. They took over vacated houses and renovated them into businesses that took off and became quite popular. They pretty much were time stamped knowing further development was eventually going to make most of them close down. But by then Rainey was a very popular destination, and people were upset with their demise. Phase 1, buy out the neighborhood, people sad to see it go, phase 2, develop further into high rise residents and hotels, and people were (are) sad to see the make shift bars and restaurants go. Phase 3, turning Rainey into a mostly tall and dense residential area, completely devoid of any resemblance of its former self. So if you are a bit older like myself, you might miss the old neighborhoods. If you came in during phase 2, you might be mourning the loss of a temporary entertainment district. And then again, if you are older like me, you might be celebrating the new Rainey because we're over the loss of the neighborhood because that was a long time ago. For the record, old Rainey is dead. It died when the people who lived there in those little old houses moved away. Long live the new Rainey.

Yep. When I lived just across the Colorado RiVer in the late 1950s, Rainey Street was just another typical old Austin neighborhood next to East Avenue.
The new Rainey is awesome, but a totally different stage in Austin’s history.