This week, we need you to be thinking about trolls. You need to be talking about trolls. When you see a stranger, your first impulse should be to ask them about their stance on “the troll issue.” You should start describing yourself as “trollpilled.” The source of this recent obsession is the Pease Park Conservancy,…
parks
Brush Square’s Back in Downtown Austin
The current heat wave hasn’t made it easy to notice, but fences are finally down at Brush Square in downtown Austin. After a year of construction and roughly five years of planning efforts, the first phase of improvements to this longtime downtown public space at 409 East Fifth Street are substantially complete. Although you can go check it out…
What’s Next for Zilker Park?
The unceremonious shelving of the Zilker Vision Plan announced earlier this week after years of work doesn’t really inspire much confidence in Austin’s civic process. In fact, it’s evidence that the city’s current leadership is capable of being swayed towards inaction by threats, conspiracies, and the same entrenched local interests that obstructed progress on zoning reform a few years back — and we’ve seen over…
Here’s a New View of the Plaza Headed for Mueller’s Historic Control Tower Site
Did you know that Austin’s celebrated Mueller neighborhood used to be an airport? Yeah, sure, laugh it up — you might think that’s common knowledge if you’ve lived around here for a while, but what if you got here yesterday? The only two remaining elements of the 700-acre neighborhood that really hit you over the head with…
Excuse Me, I Would Like To Get Inside John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park
For years, I’ve yearned to get inside John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park. The request seems simple enough, as far as hopes and dreams go — it’s a roughly 330-acre tract of former ranch land located on FM 969 in Far East Austin on the northern bank of the Colorado River, purchased by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department in 2003 and named for…
Here’s Our First Look at Downtown Austin’s Fifth and Trinity Hotel Plan
The plan by prolific local hospitality developer White Lodging to build a 13-floor hotel at the southwest corner of East Fifth and Trinity Streets in downtown Austin heads for review at the city’s Design Commission meeting on Monday next week, meaning we’re now getting our first public look at renderings of the building — which will reportedly contain a…