Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Raul Ramos. Photo: Raj Mankad.
A lively residential stretch of White Oak. Courtesy: Near Northside Management District.
Courtesy: Avis Frank Gallery.
Photo: Jessica Rios-Almanza.
Maria Ridley, John Ridley, and Jessica Rios-Almanza. Photo: Raj Mankad.
Photo: Jessica Rios-Almanza.
Unattributed photo from https://www.facebook.com/sundaystreetshtx.
Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Unattributed photo from https://www.facebook.com/sundaystreetshtx.
Unattributed photo from https://www.facebook.com/sundaystreetshtx.
Photo by Theresa Keefe..
Unattributed photo from https://www.facebook.com/sundaystreetshtx.
Market at Onion Creek. Photo: Laura Spanjian.
A selfie featuring Mary Edwards and Carolyn White.
Hula hooping at Heights of Health. Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Free ice cream at Gelazzi. Photo by Miah Arnold.
Gelato line. Photo: Theresa Keefe.
Bikes parked outside small businesses. Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Nomadic Beats under the bridge. Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Kelly McCann of Nomadic Beats. Photo by Theresa Keefe.
Photo: Harbeer Sandhu.
Photo: Dustin Chad Gann.
This post builds on OffCite's ongoing coverage of Sunday Streets HTX. The next event is May 4 along Westheimer between Hazard and Yoakum.
At 11 a.m., a cold and steady rain doused the inaugural Sunday Street. My family sheltered under a bridge. White Oak Drive was empty save for the city's golf carts and police cars. Would a year of intense collaboration with city leaders, business owners, and residents culminate in a soggy flop? It turns out Houstonians aren't afraid of the rain. As Carra Moroni, a Senior Health Planner with the city and a lead organizer of the event, later wrote, "Rain may dampen our clothes but not our spirit."
Jayme Fraser captured the "water-splashed" joy of the event in an April 7 writeup in the Houston Chronicle and reported an estimate of more than 3,000 participants.
I heard again and again that the pleasure of the event was unexpectedly enhanced by the rain. Raul Ramos, a resident of Woodland Heights who first conceptualized the White Oak/Quitman route, tells the story of the Kid's Bike Parade: "The best moment was right at noon; we had met at Avis Frank Gallery where they were doing murals. At that point the sky opened up, pouring buckets of rain. As we are getting on our bikes, we hear thumping music on White Oak. We look over: It’s this guy with a stereo system on his bike blasting music. We get in a line like a parade behind him just as the rain comes down and he puts on Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 'Baby’s Got Back.' It was glorious." Some 20 riders, parents and children, climbed the hill and crossed the bridge over I-45 to the Near Northside and the Leonel J. Castillo Community Center. By about 12:30 p.m., the rain let up and participants shared a hard-earned street.
The Avis Frank Gallery was a hub of activity with two food trucks and live street art. Carrie Hardaker, an owner of the gallery, explains: "[W]e decided to invite Houston’s best street artists to come and paint the outside of the building during Sunday Streets. We had 11 in total, and they were amazing! Started at 8 a.m., and didn’t stop until 5 . . . with a couple of rain breaks in-between. They aren’t quite finished yet, and we’re looking forward to an official unveiling soon." The artists included Nicky Davis, Ack!, Beau Pope, Jessica Pope, Wiley, Katsola, Michael C Rodriguez, Jessica Rice, Katie Mulholland, and Ana Maria.
East of Avis Frank along a stretch of White Oak that is normally very quiet, a nearly ideal mix of pedestrians and cyclists enjoyed the street. Lucky's was a node of activity. Police facilitated the crossing of Houston Avenue, which was kept open to cars. Near the bridge over I-45, a group of young artists and civic-minded Houstonians put up a "My dream for Houston is . . . " sign made from a recycled truck lid salvaged from the City of Houston Building Materials Reuse Warehouse. The board filled up with visions of streets that serve everyone and a future with "no homework."
Last week, I wrote: "I hope the bridge over I-45 will be one of those exhilarating experiences that Max Page observed, where you are in a space out of scale with the individual, and that together we fill it. A flash of possibility that sustains the imagination or brings about change." The presence of the Dream Board was, in that sense, a great intervention.
Later I corresponded with Mohsin Rizvi about the I-45 bridge. He wrote, "The event had a profound sense of freedom. As though Houstonians reclaimed the road as their own, they were liberated through how they redefined their relationship with it. It wasn't just a bridge between where you are and where you're going; this thing we take so often for granted suddenly became the soil under our feet."
The Castillo Community Center had quite a bit of activity, including fire juggler Eric DeBruin and music spun by the Nomadic Beats crew.
The Bible Days Revival Church sang their hearts out on the steps of their church along Quitman Street.
Residents of the Near Northside came out in force.
Back along the western end of the route, between Heights Boulevard and Studewood on White Oak, the crowd was thick.
Though the Sunday Street ended at 3 p.m., Nomadic Beats drew people down to the bayou.
Harbeer Sandhu describes that end-of-the-day scene under the bridge: "It was magical. You had to pass under a waterfall to enter. There was a waterfall on the other side, too, beyond which a fragrant, forgotten meadow sprouted ferns and wildflowers in a valley surrounded by freeway on two sides and bayou on the third."
