[Political Junkie Too]

I was there until mid-1985, so I knew what it was like in the first half of the decade.

I kept up with the city news in the next five years because my old neighborhood (energy corridor south of Westheimer) was decimated by worker flight. Much of the housing was taken over by the government (foreclosures) and used for low-income housing.

The area now is crime-ridden, but back then it was just beginning to make the change as corporate workers relocated to other states.

-PJ

[ansel12]

I was born and raised in Houston, home delivered and sold on downtown street corners all three newspapers at different times and have always read all of them, it is my hometown.

I moved back to Houston from about 82 on of the 1980s before taking off again and know what you are talking about, and part of that time I was surveying residential properties for resales.

The Councilman was right to ask the questions and want to know what happened to that office, both in hiring and production.

[Political Junkie Too]

I used to go to the Sharpstown Mall all the time.

I was talking to someone last week who bartends at the Arena Theater. I said I'd been to that place a couple of times and it's a great venue (I saw Manhattan Transfer in 1983-ish). I said it's across from the Sharpstown Mall, and he said yes.

I decided to google the Sharpstown Mall and found that it's now a Tejano mall called PlazAmericas that is Hispanic themed. The Arena is now almost exclusively a Tejano venue, which is a shame because it's a marvelous theater-in-the-round, the only one I know of in Houston. But it serves the area, I suppose.

That was my stomping ground back then. Hwy 6 to the west (West Oaks Mall), Bissonnet to the south (Westwood Mall), Post Oak to the east (Galleria Mall), and I-10 to the north (Memorial City Mall).

Alief... I wouldn't go back there in the daytime. I live near The Woodlands now.

-PJ