Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Washington Avenue: Bizarro Heights

Washington Avenue: Bizarro Heights

For better or worse, Washington Avenue now provides all the elements that the Heights traditionally could not: trendy bars, restaurants, and large apartment complexes. Please see the table below.

Bizarro Heights

The Heights

No trees

Lots of trees

Bar after trendy bar for miles

Two barstools at Textile

Liquor store next to a school (the chutzpah!)

What’s a liquor store?

Street after street of three story townhomes

Vehement opposition to any demolition

The explosive growth along Washington can be partly attributed to the support from the neighboring Heights area. The Heights has benefitted, but clearly there have been negatives associated with this brisk development along Washington.

What’s your take?

8 comments:

  1. No liquor store in the Heights? You need a tour guide to take you to H Liquor on White Oak. It's the little white building right next to that hip and trendy Onion Creek place, but it was there long before the pseudo-slackers showed up. But I guess it doesn't count because it's just a liquor store, and not some kind of cultural/social center.

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  2. I've patronized H Liquor for years--but it is NOT within the boundaries of the defunct city of The Heights. Just in The Greater Heights Area?

    There's another nice little liquor store on 11th Street, run by a friendly Pakistani family. And several convenience stores in the neighborhood have better-than-average wine selections. All these businesses profit from their proximity to The Dry Heights, with its antiquated liquor ban.

    Onion Creek isn't in The Heights, either. But Dry Creek is. (Hence the name.)

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  3. My impression of the Heights was that it was more family-oriented than the Washington Ave area.

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  4. H Liquor store is a crappy shack and the lady that runs it on Mondays & Wednesdays short-changed me by giving me change for a $10 when I gave her a $20. I walked out and then immediately back in to ask her and she started yelling at me. I told her that if she was going to verbally accost me then I'd take my business elsewhere. All this while her 14 year old son was laughing.

    The dudes that run the liquor/convenience store on 11th are cool.

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  5. So interesting that the tongue in cheek comment about the liquor stores generated ALL the comments here. I plan on having a recurring post about beer/wine finds specific to the stores in the Heights. So far, I have visited the Kroger on 11th/Shepherd and Fiesta Liquor. Thanks to the comments; I will definitely add similar posts for H Liquor and the "place on 11th."

    Any other suggestions on places to visit?

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  6. I think you mean HOUSTON Heights is dry - that's just one Heights neighborhood, and certainly doesn't own the rights to the name "Heights".

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  7. I like the Heights
    I work in the Bizarro Heights and although it's okay it's not the real 'heights' and I will forever yearn for those nice tall trees that you find on Harvard or Heights blvd that make those lovely branch archways over the roads

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