Nero might need to get out a little more if he thinks Reliant's current location is anywhere close to the crummiest part of town. This is Houston, you can find crap neighborhoods next to affluent ones all over the map. Obviously downtown would be the ideal place for it(if there was room) but it's current location is hardly ghetto.
So which distant suburb do you live in? You are saying it is a dump. High real estate values and things like a huge medical center contradict that with facts. How many years has it been since you have actually seen the astrodome? Because now you have just stolen my joke that I said for a laugh. There isn't razor wire. Do you sort of get scared when you approach 610 and wish you would have taken the toll way around to avoid Houston completely?
The people that seem the most opinionated are the ones that won't have their lives altered no matter what happens. They don't live in the state, in the city, anywhere near the dome yet they tell those of us still here what we should be doing.
To be fair, some of us are native Houstonians who go to Houston pretty often, have relatives and friends there, and haven't lost any interest in the city at all.
The "it's only $8 you cheap b*stard!" is even better than "I guess Houston doesn't give a poo about history!" guy. For me, it wasn't about to demolish it or not demolish it or the history or whatever. I voted on the PROPOSAL. Which was a crap proposal. The end.
This whole argument in favor of preservation because the Dome was the "first" of its kind just seems weird to me. How many other architectural "firsts" have been preserved? And for that matter, how many of them are still in use? The first suspension bridge? The first "skyscraper"? When you talk about things like the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, or Roman Coliseum, you're not talking about architecture and structure as much as you are talking about art. Those are beautiful structures endeared with hundreds of years of history, and some even have a continual purpose. The Astrodome is an ugly pile of concrete and plastic with a few sports games played in it. Nobody would ever, ever come to Houston to take a picture with the Astrodome. There is nothing that can be done in the Astrodome that couldn't be done better somewhere else in Houston. If we wanted to save the Dome, the time to do so was 15-20 years ago, not now. Its purpose was removed, its aesthetics (which were terrible to begin with) were never maintained or upgraded, and now it has been replaced by bigger and better things. Waiting until the 11th hour to slap some lipstick on it was never going to work. I want Houston to have an identifiable, historical landmark as much as anybody. But this hamfisted, cockamamie convention center idea was just awful. Really, we never should have tied our cultural identity to something with such an obviously terminal lifecycle in the first place. That was where we really went wrong.
It' been sitting for 15(?) years.....and their proposal was a photoshop equivalent of a sketch on a napkin. Renovating the dome would most certainly go OVER budget, and the operating costs would explode, making it a perpetual money pit. On the other hand, if they would have just blown it up a decade ago, the demo would have been recouped by now with the operating cost savings and parking revenue. Blowwww it up.
Settle down man. The Astrodome has been decaying for years, and is now filled with asbestos, rats, and asbestos rats. The last stand was housing evacuees after Katrina. Since then it has been condemned. This isn't the same Mike Scott/Nolan Ryan Dome circa '86.
NO. He's right. MANY more people leave NORTHWEST-WEST-SOUTHWEST than any other areas, so WEST and between the South and North is where it is the most amounts of people (density). Here is the racial distribution (which also shows where the most people are, regardless of race): Spoiler Look at how it is shifted: Spoiler Go WEST, young man. It would have been HELL to drive through I-10 BEFORE or AFTER games, though. Maybe the Toll Road was a little too late?
The Brooklyn Bridge was the first major suspension bridge built and is still in use. Skyscraper is a subjective term but many early skyscrapers like the Flatiron building in NYC or the Tribune tower in Chicago are still preserved. The Sydney Opera House was built after the Astrodome so it is even less historical. The Eiffel Tower doesn't really serve much of a purpose now. Of course we are talking about art. Art and history are entertwined when it comes to structures like these. There is no doubt that the Astrodome is an iconic structure and is as much as an icon to Houston as any of those structures are. There is a reason why the pinnacle of the Bad News Bears was when they got to play in the Astrodome, there was a reason why stock shots of Houston showed the Astrodome like stock shots of Paris show the Eiffel tower. Last time I was in Houston I took pictures of the dome. Also if you are talking ugly consider that many Parisians hated the Eiffel tower initially while many in Sydney mocked the Opera house as looking like bunch of turtles humping. The same things you are saying were said about all the other landmarks you mentioned. Houston's legacy is Space City and the Astrodome was part of that. Considering now the Astros play in a retro stadium referential to train station and we are going to tear down the Dome I guess I am not surprised anymore that NASA didn't give us a real space shuttle. We might've just let it rust and then chuck it a bigger space craft comes along.
Yes it should've been preserved earlier. Also for all those eager to blow up the dome remember it will cost millions to tear it down, especially since asbestos is most serious during demolition, and potentially could damage Reliant Stadium.
The most dense part of houston is gulfton. Basically between 59, bellaire, hillcroft, fountainview. Really the entire stretch near 59 between 610 and beltway 8 is very dense with lots of apartments.
The massive problem you are avoiding is both of these structures serve a big purpose (bridge) or pay for themselves. The Eiffel Tower paid for it's construction in the first year right? It is a revenue gold mine. Nothing proposed for the dome promises anything close to the $ or functionality of those. Out of curiosity can you explain the best you can in layman's terms what is so special about the roof? How is it different than all the other domed stadiums that followed?
Well it pains me to see it go, but if there were a viable business opportunity to be made out of the dome, it probably would have reared its head by now. We do not need yet another convention space in Houston -- it was just a bad idea. da1 -- I'm sure you're sad it can't be used as a future intermodal terminal, Grand Central Station style, linking a future light rail, bus and subway network.
