Austin | Historic Images & Postcards - Page 4

H2O · #1 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 9:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

:

b]Missouri-Pacific Lines - Depot Opening - exterior view - 1949[/b] To me this looks more like a remodeled & renamed I. & G. N. R. R. Station at Congress & 3rd. Plus I don't think 1949 would be the right year because it's visible in the 1948 photos of Harry Truman's Whistle Stop Tour posted above and it looks like it was already open then.

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Missouri-Pacific Lines - Depot Opening - Two men standing by railroad tracks. Tips Engine Works is in background. - 1949 This station looks like it was where the Amtrak Station is today. I recognize those buildings across from the tracks.

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Aerial view looking NW from about the north approach to Lamar bridge. At the lower right, RR tracks cross Lamar Blvd. - 1950

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I wonder when the original train station on N. Lamar was torn down, because that's definitely not the station that's there today.

March 6, 2009

Missouri Pacific acquired the I&GNRR out of bankruptcy around 1949, hence the opening of the depot under the MOPAC banner. Shortly after, they built the new depot west of Lamar. I think it is the same building that is used by Amtrak today, but initially there was a canopy over the passenger platform that was later removed.

Downtown_Austin · #2 Posted **Oct 16, 2009, 10:31 PM**

Great job guys. These are great finds. Let's keep it rolling... more historic photos!

KevinFromTexas · #3 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 2:00 AM**

It very well may be the same building. There are some luggage carts on the track side of the building just on the other side of this awning. They look quite old. At least 50 years old I'd say. They even have spoke wagon wheels. We used to go to the train station in the evenings and sit on those carts and talk and watch trains.

hookem · #4 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 5:06 AM**

kinda off topic, but...

60 years old or not, I have got to say that is one of the crappiest railroad stations in the whole country, perhaps among the lamest ever built. Even for a city as small as Austin was 50 years ago. Heck, they could have just moved into the factory across the tracks (whenever it closed) and it would be 100X better. Not a bad location though, especially now.

I wonder how we got stuck with such a dud. Would be nice to remedy that, someday.

LoneStarMike · #5 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 10:12 AM**

Well, after looking at the aerials from Bing.com posted by hookem, I guess it is the same station. And I agree it's a pretty pitiful station for a city of Austin's size.

I don't know how to post an image from books.google.com, but here's a link to a September 1985 advertisement in Texas Monthly for Lamar Financial Plaza - one of Austin's cancelled highrises. The project would have also included a Crowne Plaza Hotel.

I was working for Lamar Savings at the time and remember seeing the model in the lobby of the original downtown branch in the Brown Building.

More info from the Austin Chronicle in 1992

Quote:

Best Cursed Location: Site of Former Alamo Hotel

The Alamo was a low-cost high rise hotel in downtown Austin. It housed many homeless and low-income people. When Lamar Savings & Loan president Stanley Adams ordered the Alamo torn down in 1984 to make way for a new Lamar headquarters, Brother Tony Hearn, a homeless advocate, poured animal blood around the building and pronounced a curse of unprofitability. He rescinded it in 1986; nonetheless, since then, Lamar has failed and been taken over by the federal government, and Adams has been convicted of S&L crimes and is facing prison. Grass is growing high on the still-vacant tract.

Not sure why they refer to the Alamo Hotel as a highrise. I think it was only 5 stories.

An Extended StayAmerica now stands on the site of the former Alamo Hotel on the NW corner of Sixth & Guadalupe immediately north of the downtown post office.

arbeiter · #6 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 1:57 PM**

I've been reading the article (which is actually an advertisement) on Austin in that issue of Texas Monthly - it's an interesting read. Plenty of facts are interdispersed in the writing, and it seems to have pretty much predicted the future.

LoneStarMike · #7 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 2:39 PM**

Wow, I hadn't even realized that the ad for Lamar Financial Plaza was part of a bigger special advertising section about Austin. (It starts on Page 85.)

Some things I noticed on other pages:

Page 86 - The gold tower that's now Chase Bank Tower still says American Bank on it and you can see the Hobby Building under construction on the far left.

Page 95 - Rendering shows the Four Seasons, One San Jacinto Tower and the never-built Two San Jacinto Tower.

Page 118 - Shows the rendering for the Radisson Plaza Hotel (Now the Omni)

Page 121 - Nice Skyline shot and you can see 816 Congress when it was all white before the makeover.

H2O · #8 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 3:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

Wow, I hadn't even realized that the ad for Lamar Financial Plaza was part of a bigger special advertising section about Austin. (It starts on Page 85.)

.

From the rendering, it looks like the main tower was to be located where the Comerica building is, and the Alamo Hotel site was to be a parking structure or something.

LoneStarMike · #9 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 4:19 PM**

I think you're right. I do remember Lamar Savings making a big deal about the project. It was even the cover of one of our employee newsletters - The Lamar Leader. We employees were very excited about the new building but things just kept getting delayed and delayed some more. I remember asking my boss one day what the holdup was and she said it had something to do with a skybridge over Guadalupe. At the time I thought the skybridge would connect the hotel and the main tower, but now that I think about it, I'll bet it would have connected the parking garage with the main tower.

It wasn't too long after this ad appeared in Texas Monthly (September 1985) that our CEO Stanley Adams, Jr. was forced out by federal regulators. His last day was December 31, 1985. There was some kind of arrangement where his three children - Hazel, Naomi and Stanley Adams III would be principal owners.

We limped along for another two and a half years before being shut down by the FSLIC and turned over to Southwest Savings of Dallas on May 18, 1988.

Here's something else I found in the September, 1986 issue of Texas Monthly called Shoot-out at First & Congress that has a photo of 100 Congress and One Congress Plaza under construction.

And check this out from Texas Monthly - June 1982. There's an ad and a rendering for a proposed residential project (two 21-story towers) on an island in Town Lake at the foot of the Congress Avenue Bridge called Watersmark

This one isn't even listed over at Emporis under the never-built category, unless I missed it.

Raining Inside · #10 Posted **Oct 17, 2009, 6:10 PM**

I remember the Watersmark proposal. Can you imagine a developer today making a proposal like that? He would be run out of town. Even midrises along the shore face uphill battles nowadays.

KevinFromTexas · #11 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 5:25 AM**

Neat. I've never heard of that Island project. I'll have to add it to Emporis then. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of projects that had been proposed in the 70s and 80s that we've never heard of.

LoneStarMike · #12 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 2:02 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I'm willing to bet there's a lot of projects that had been proposed in the 70s and 80s that we've never heard of.

Here's a project from the 1990's that I don't remember (sorry no photos or renderings) that was mentioned in a July 4, 2003 Austin Chronical article

Same as It Never Was
Some airports, forts, and boondoggles were never meant to be

It was called Capitol Town Center and it would have been built in the Robertson Hill area.

Quote:

A mall, a movie theatre, office space, and a hotel by both the interstate and downtown on a hilltop offering a postcard view of the city ... That was the Austin development dream of a California company in the late Eighties.

[...]

On June 21, 1991, Bennett Consolidated presented the plan to the city for the 1.2 million-square-foot development (which would make it larger than Highland Mall in terms of actual square feet). The company solicited input from East Austinites. Some welcomed the opportunity for new jobs and shopping. Others resented the idea of a megacomplex invading their residential area. The complex was to include: a 400-room hotel; 200,000 square feet of office space; 500,000 square feet for major anchor stores; 200,000 square feet of mall shops; and an eight-screen theatre.

The developers were shooting for a spring 1994 opening. The theatre could have been showing The Lion King and Forrest Gump. The development was big news for the desolate hillside that had been empty by this time for several years. The city gave permission, but only if construction began before July 1, 1993.

Not much seemed to be happening. One article in The Austin Chronicle said the city had sent a crew out to cut the overgrown weeds and billed Bennett Consolidated for the trouble. Then came July 1993. Construction had still not commenced. Some utilities were moved, but the city said that did not a construction project make. The property was finally sold in March 2000.

The above article also mentions Le Palestra at 1008 Baylor - the failed condo project directly beneath the TMI Castle.

arbeiter · #13 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 9:00 AM**

To be fair, the rendering of the proposed "Watermark" building looked fairly good for contemporary standards. What's $200,000 in today's dollars?

arbeiter · #14 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 4:50 PM**

The Robertson Hill mall project (which I think that is referring to) is well known.

LoneStarMike · #15 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 7:17 PM**

I guess it wasn't well known to me since I wasn't really into skyscrapers back then. (I know, I know. I must have been crazy.

)

Were the hotel and/or office components of this project supposed to be highrises and if so, does anyone remember approximately the number of stories for each?

Back to old photos, here's a few photos from my pre-digital camera days.

Dogpark views from around 2001/2002 (?)

Skyline from late 80's/early 90's

Arboretum from about 1986/1987

KevinFromTexas · #16 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 9:11 PM**

I remember the Robertson Hill project. We posted about it on the forum when it was proposed. The development would have included a 200 foot building.

LoneStarMike · #17 Posted **Oct 18, 2009, 11:46 PM**

Wait a minute. That article in the Austin Chronicle said the Capitol Town Center project was presented to the City Council in June, 1991 and the developer had until July 1993 to start construction.

There was no internet back then.

KevinFromTexas · #18 Posted **Oct 19, 2009, 4:55 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

Wait a minute. That article in the Austin Chronicle said the Capitol Town Center project was presented to the City Council in June, 1991 and the developer had until July 1993 to start construction.

There was no internet back then.

There was a later project for Robertson Hill about 10 years ago or so that would have included similar uses. One of the buildings was supposed to be 200 feet tall. I can't remember if it was supposed to be a hotel or office. I want to say a hotel.

Mopacs · #19 Posted **Oct 19, 2009, 2:27 AM**

Love the images of the Arboretum Lonestar. I've never seen pics of the office structures under construction.

LoneStarMike · #20 Posted **Oct 19, 2009, 3:06 AM**

Thanks. I first moved to Austin in 1982 and until September 1987, I lived in what were then known as Highwood Apartments at 9417 Great Hills Trail. There was another complex called Hamilton's Mark at 9617 Great Hills Trail and two other complexes between mine and Great Hills Trail & Loop 360. Back then, about the only other buildings on that stretch of Great Hills Trail between Loop 360 & 183 was Triumphant Love Lutheran Church and a small Jack Brown Cleaners.

The nearest grocery store/shopping center was the Balcones Woods Shopping Center. I used to shop at the Safeway there and I seem to remember there was also a McDonald's. I can't remember any of the other stores, though.

I remember once they started developing the Arboretum, they first carved out where the roads and drives would be but the area was still heavily wooded. I used to walk my dog there.

I moved from that neighborhood about the time they were getting ready to open the Simon David's.