Rattlesnake sacking, particularly in its competition form, is easy to understand but difficult to accept. You and your buddy dump a sack of 10 presumably unhappy rattlesnakes on the floor of a small arena, then one contestant holds the empty sack open while their teammate uses a metal hook creatively known as a “snake pinner”…
design
Discover a Different Rainey Street in This Unearthed 1981 Documentary
The Rainey Street neighborhood, currently downtown Austin’s fastest-growing corner, was once a predominantly Mexican-American district of single-family homes. Effectively annexed into the downtown area and cut off from adjacent neighborhoods by the construction of I-35 in the early 1960s, Rainey Street’s proximity to downtown and Lady Bird Lake made the district extremely attractive for dense development — which many…
Turning Buford Tower Into a Tiny Hotel Is the Wild Idea Downtown Austin Needs
Though it’s not the only mysterious tiny tower in Austin, the historic downtown structure known as Buford Tower is certainly our most visible, standing six floors at the intersection of West Cesar Chavez and Colorado Streets on the shores of Lady Bird Lake. Originally built in 1930 and used as a drill facility for the city’s fire department until its…
Demolition Approved at West Sixth Sushi Bar, Making Way for 60 Floors
The 60-story downtown Austin apartment and office tower planned at 321 West Sixth Street by banking outfit BBVA USA and national developer Ryan Companies is one step closer to breaking ground at its 0.47-acre site on the southeast corner of West Sixth and Guadalupe Streets, despite a few setbacks on the national stage making the timing of that groundbreaking unclear for…
Inside the ‘Very Sensitive’ Renovation of East Austin’s Uptown Sports Club
Perhaps one of the single most recognizable abandoned buildings in East Austin, the Uptown Sports Club is one step closer to a fresh start. An extensive restoration plan for the shuttered bar — which currently sits empty in a state of increasing disrepair at the northeast corner of East Sixth and Waller Streets since its closure decades…
Designing a Public Space Worth Missing at Downtown’s Cypress & Shoal Creek
Maybe some of you people are in much better shape than me, but jogging with a mask on really sucks. Exercise and other outdoor recreation is technically permitted during the time of coronavirus according to the city’s current guidelines — and plenty of stir-crazy people, perhaps too many at once, are enjoying this — but the combination…