It’s Official: Austin’s Been Vanishing Over the Last 30 Years

At year’s end, the Austin Business Journal looked back over its three decades of publishing in Austin, and found Austin vanishing.

In a special issue examining 30 years of business trends in Austin, Austin Business Journal devoted a two-page spread to Vanishing Austin by Jann Alexander—showing “some of the landmarks that have been lost, mostly due to redevelopment.”

—Austin Business Journal, December 23-29, 2011
Photographs © 2011 by Jann Alexander, VanishingAustin.com

Even in just the most recent decade, Austin has seen some notable losses: the Frisco Shop, Las Manitas, Little City, Jaime’s Spanish Village, the Bitter End, Lucy’s Boatyard. Soon to be added to the collection: Katz Deli, Forbidden Fruit, Emo’s, MoMo’s and more. Some of Austin’s iconic businesses have relocated and reopened, but most have been permanently lost.

There’s a permanent photographic record of those that still thrive, and those that didn’t make it out alive, at the Vanishing Austin World Headquarters inside Austin Details Art + Photo gallery, and online at VanishingAustin.com.

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• Where oh where will the Warehouse go? (vanishingaustin.wordpress.com)

Where oh where will the Warehouse go?

Noodlin' Around the Warehouses ©Jann Alexander / VanishingAustin.com

The freight lines brought the low-brick industrial warehouses that once dominated Austin from I-35 to MoPac, and in the early 20th century, the building known locally as the Spaghetti Warehouse was part of a busy commercial district, warehousing groceries. Reincarnated as a brothel during Prohibition, and serving up spaghetti with mystery dinner theatre since 1975, the 1902 building maintains a small foothold in today’s much smaller Warehouse District, now dominated by somewhat taller structures.

The historic building above, known locally as the Spaghetti Warehouse, was sold to new owners in June 2011.

But will the warehouse continue serving spaghetti under new ownership? That seems unlikely, according to the Austin Business Journal‘s July 29 story, calling the former Spaghetti Warehouse site “a hot potato.”

Fries, anyone?

Take It Easy

This gallery contains 1 photo.

There’s a ghostly story they like to tell about Speakeasy, in Austin’s Warehouse District: Ghosts have haunted its historic home in the Kreisel building since July 1916, when a fire trapped a fireman and two women in its antique elevator (now suspended above the main music stage). Most patrons today take it easy on the rooftop [...]

Facadism Rarely Satisfies Anyone

Take it from Wikipedia: “Façadism (or Façadomy^[1]) is the practice of demolishing a building but leaving its facade intact for the purposes of building new structures in it or around it.”

“While there are aesthetic and historical reasons for preserving building facades, the practice of facadism is often seen as a compromise between property developers who need to develop properties for modern uses and standards and preservationists who wish to preserve buildings of historical interest. It can be regarded as a compromise between historic preservation and demolition — and thus has been lauded as well as decried.”

—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facadism

Is this the fate of the facade of the 1897 Historic Bosche-Hogg Building — a landmark building at 804 Congress — when it becomes another downtown hotel? Boutique though it may rise, surely there will be some sacrifice when the choice becomes luxury v. historic.

And where, we wonder, will the merging of the two properties at the northwest corner of 8th & Congress leave that old keepin’ it weird Austin haunt, the Hickory Street Grill, located adjacent to the new hotel? Can boutique hotel visitors and Leslie actually peacefully coexist?

What does it take to vanish?

It takes a certain knack to make the Vanishing Austin list and actually do the unthinkable–Vanish.

from the ongoing photography series, Vanishing Austin: Little City, Big Coffee by Jann Alexander © 2011

That’s what Little City did on May 13, after 18 years on Congress Avenue as an original, independent, Austin-style coffee house. Only by necessity, though, when it found itself homeless after the historic building at 916 Congress Avenue was purchased by the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Little City Espresso Bar & Cafe was kicked out.

What makes an Austin landmark prone to vanishing?

1. It’s beloved by a certain crowd (like Las Manitas)
2. It’s unique (with an identity a chain store could never replicate)
3. It’s in a vulnerable section of town (translation: desirable and/or developable real estate)
4. It’s a small business (not always woman-owned, though Little City and Las Manitas were)
5. Its owner (after dedicating energy, passion and resources for years to its care) cannot summon up what’s required to fight the big guys
6. Its city nods to the notion of ‘keeping Austin weird’ as a marketing slogan for tourism (but doesn’t actually support the unique character of small businesses who underpin the city’s rich fabric)
7. It had its own style (not replicable by a corporate giant, surface parking lot or lobbying firm).

It’s not so hard to spot the ones that will vanish. They are always the ones that are most photogenic, too.

 

 

Sources: Ashley Furness, Austin Business Journal; W. Gardner Selby, Austin-American Statesman

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• You’re the Boss: Why Austin, Tex., Is a Good Place for Small Businesses (boss.blogs.nytimes.com)

Since 1931, but not past 2010

Since 1931, Jaime's Spanish Village served up plain Mexican and a healthy dose of local community spirit. Until it closed its doors a month ago.

At a recent open house reception for my new downtown Austin gallery, Austin Details Art + Photo, the former owner of Jaime’s Spanish Village found his way over to me to ask about my Vanishing Austin photography series. “Did you get Jaime’s?” he wanted to know.

Yes, in fact, I did, thanks to a call on its closing day from KXAN’s Josh Hinkle. See the video and online story that aired on KXAN on Jaime’s last day, after all 79 years of serving up its simple Mexican fare and local Red River soul.

At left, from the Vanishing Austin photography series:
Vanishing Austin/Since 1931 by Jann Alexander © 2010

What kind of city will Austin be?

Vanishing Austin / Mean Cat Meets Condo by Jann Alexander (c) 2010

The question that emerged from the Vanishing Austin interview on KOOP 91.7 FM today was, what kind of city will Austin be?

Will we become another Dallas (as some fear); will we allow development to overtake our historic fabric, in effect, stealing our spirit (much as some Native Americans feel about photographic images made of them)? Will we face this question and control our own destiny here by determining to hold on to what makes Austin unique?

Your feedback and guidance is what makes Austin rock. And what makes it roll the way it rolls. Speak out. Let your voice be heard. Make sure Austin’s spirit is alive and thrives.

Download the MP3 and listen to the full KOOP 91.7 FM interview during Wednesday’s A Neighborly Conversation hosted by David Kobierowski about Vanishing Austin.

See a slideshow of the entire Vanishing Austin photography series at my website or on facebook.

Talking about our neighborhood

Wednesday, February 10 from noon-1 pm on KOOP 91.7 FM Radio

KOOP Radio Host David Kobierowski has generously scheduled an hour this Wednesday, February 10 from noon-1 pm on 91.7 FM KOOP Radio’s “A Neighborly Conversation” for an interview with me about Vanishing Austin. I’ll be in-studio to discuss my on-going photography series that captures what’s vanishing (or endangered) in Austin–the places, buildings, landmarks and gems that we love so much and hate to lose; some 60+ to date are featured on my website, VanishingAustin.com.

from the on-going Vanishing Austin photography series: Frisco Gold

Tune in to Wednesday’s noontime show for a chance to win a free pair of Texas Observer 2010 Schmoozefest tickets ($100.00 value): David will be giving away free tickets on the air. He’ll invite call-ins sometime during our live interview, and the first caller will win a pair of tickets to the biggest party in Austin, Sunday February 14th at 4PM.

Also live streaming online at www.koop.org

KOOP 91.7 FM is community radio, giving voice to the underserved in Austin, Texas with unique programming from volunteers.

On the heels of the closing of the Cactus Cafe

We’re still reeling from the news that the Cactus Cafe is closing, and now this: Preservation Texas announces that Austin’s entire downtown is endangered.

Fans of Vanishing Austin have long suspected this. I’ve been documenting change in Austin since arriving here in 2004 with my on-going photography series, Vanishing Austin. The announcement that an entire downtown is endangered spotlights what many long-time Austinites have long feared–that development will trump the character and soul of our city.

KVUE News reports that “Preservation Texas‘ . . . list is usually limited to specific buildings, such as the Austin Woman’s Club near downtown Austin. This year, the organization also included all of downtown Austin. They believe any historic buildings between Lady Bird Lake and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and from Lamar Boulevard to Interstate 35 are endangered by development.“

Who can dispute the Heritage Society of Austin‘s Mark Holleran when he offers, “Austin can lose its soul; Austin can lose the things that make it special.” ?

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left, the Endangered Species of Austin poster from the Vanishing Austin series

The Day the Music Died?

There is no photograph for this blogpost.

How do you photograph dreams, visions, opportunities, talent and the very fabric of life that makes Austin dear to us? That’s what’s at stake with the announced closure of UT’s famed Cactus Cafe: the loss of all of that, and more, to those who honor what makes Austin unique.

Is it any surprise that within days a Save the Cactus Club Facebook fan page erupted into the protests of over 17,000 fans?

From the Save the Cactus Club fan page, sponsored by SavetheCactusCafe.org, here’s

WHAT TO DO:

1) JOIN so we can reach you: http://savethecactuscafe.org
2) JOIN the fan page: http://gjg.gd/stccf
3) EMAIL the Board of Regents: http://gjg.gd/LVzEE
4) COMMENT to Pres. Powers: http://gjg.gd/oic2v

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