Houston Never Ceases to Amaze Me

I have driven up and down 45 hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times. I always see the very large building as I cross over I-10. I was told many years ago that it was some kind of hospital, maybe even a mental hospital. For some very odd reason I never went by to look at it until today and I found a rare hidden jewel at 2015 Thomas St. This is a must-see for anyone who loves old architecture. The building was built as a hospital for the Southern Pacific railway in 1910!!

According to the very little research I've done, and the tiny bit of information about it on the web, it seems that the Southern Pacific was called the Galveston Harrisburg and San Antonio RY Co. at the time. Unfortunately the only information I could really find is that it's thought to be haunted.

The building now belongs to the Harris Health System. It's called the Thomas Street Health Center and according to Wikipedia it "was the first freestanding HIV/AIDS clinic in the United States, and today treats nearly a third of all HIV/AIDS patients in Harris County."

Here is a view of the doorway.

Behind the building there is this really interesting boarded up building. It would be amazing if they could renovate it to use it. It kind of reminds me of shape of the Alamo building with that little curved front center.

I love it when I find new buildings like this. It just reminds me that I haven't seen all of Houston and that there's so much more to see in this amazing city of ours.

Houston Is So Cool but HOT!

Since I had to blog on here about my big FALL, I didn't blog about Houston and all the quirky or interesting things I notice about it when I walk somewhere. I did blog about the architecture over on skirt! If you want to read more about that go on over to skirt!

Bank of America Building

Yesterday I went around the corner to Pad Thai, a really good little Thai restaurant (and by little, I mean really narrow) on the ground floor of the Hogg Building. (I love the house at the top but I've never been in it, but would love to) I was walking back when I saw this beautiful view of one of my very favorite buildings downtown, the Bank of America building. I found that it has it's own Wikipedia page with all kinds of interesting tidbits. In fact, there's a whole page for Houston buildings, but some of the really old ones that I really like on Main Street aren't listed. Many of those even have historical markers on them.

After I posted this picture on Facebook one of my friends, and one of the only workmates that I have as a friend on FB, stopped by my cubicle to ask me if I had taken that picture yesterday during lunch. She had commented on another photo that people who see me taking pictures probably think I'm a tourist. I joked that taking pictures was probably the reason I fell down.

I'm off to pick up a check from a client downtown. Maybe I'll be inspired to write the original post I intended to write on Wednesday before I was side-tracked.