Forts and clubhouses, timeless portals to the secret world of kids, stand apart from adult society and its grim concerns of property and propriety -- and this usually works out just about fine, at least until those kids get old enough to hide beer inside them. But no age, innocent or otherwise, can save you from suburban residential zoning. Enforced by adults hidden inside ...
neighborhoods
In Far East Austin, Govalle’s Going Up
The Midtown RV Park, located at 720 Airport Boulevard on the far east end of Austin's equally far-east Govalle neighborhood, is no more. In its place will rise Nexus East, a 352-unit apartment project by local development firm Ardent Residential, split between two four-story buildings atop the former RV park's sizable 8.375-acre tract. The Nexus development -- though ...
At Holly Point, Long-Awaited Upgrades Head for an East Austin Park
The long-discussed plan for the improvement of East Austin's enormous tracts of parkland on the north shores of Lady Bird Lake near the former Holly Power Plant is finally taking its first small steps, nearly a decade after City Council approved the development of a vision for upgrading the area in 2009. Generally referred to as Holly Shores but technically containing ...
After 15 Years of Mueller, Its Iconic Control Tower Has Never Looked Better
It was 2007 when I tried breaking into the defunct control tower at Austin's former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport -- you can call that "urban exploration" or "criminal trespassing" at your discretion, though at the age of 15 there's admittedly not much distance between the two. My failed attempt arrived long after the site ceased its final civil aviation operations almost ...
In 1963, Austin’s Rowdiest Teens Built a ‘Sex Party Tree House’ in North Loop
Let's make one thing clear from the get-go: "Sex Party Tree House" is an extremely funny combination of words, regardless of the context. Since coming across this phrase last year in a 1963 edition of the Austin Statesman, I'll catch myself incessantly repeating it in my head, brain clapping like a trained seal, until all semantic meaning fades away -- Sex Party Tree House, Sex ...
