That’s my neighborhood! I grew up in Dove Springs. Down Bluff Springs Road about a mile behind the H.E.B. off Wm Cannon and 35. Our parents still live there. When I’m in town I’m usually spotted at the Taco Cabana, or Schlotzsky’s on Wm Cannon & Congress. Or at H.E.B. picking up a twelve pack of Shiner…
Yeah, we go Congress or South 1st north to get downtown, or Wm Cannon all the way to Mopac to go north a long ways.
Hey, welcome back! I always thought it was odd that your user name was “Hippy Hollow” but you were located up in Yankee-land.
Do you have kids? Most of my comments about the neighborhoods are kids related.
Pioneer Crossing:
East of 35. You’d be commuting down Dessau to Braker to IH35. Dessau gets really congested as does Braker and 35. Still a lot closer tha Wells Branch tho’.
That area is somwhat economically depressed. You’d be in Manor ISD which is a pretty small rural ISD. Kids would probably be bused. I don’t know a ton about MISD but the Austin ISD schools close by (Graham ES and Walnut Creek ES) tend to have very high percentages of kids on the school breakfast program.
Milwood:
West of Mopac. Much better commute. You could hop on Mopac, come over an Enfield and you’re there. Mopac does get pretty congested but it’s much better than IH35 since it doesn’t have much truck traffic. At its worst, it’ll take me about 30 min to get from 183 to the river.
Better surrouding area. You’ll be in AISD which gives you a lot more options (magnet school, better programs, etc.). And the schools to the west of Austin tend to be better (just through higher rates of parent involvement) than the schools to the east.
Wells Branch:
Just west of IH 35 but north. Longest commute overall. If you have sitting in traffic, you might be unhappy with this one.
Not a bad area tho’. You’d be in Pflugerville ISD which is much smaller than AISD but bigger than MISD. (example of relative size: AISD has 122 and is the third largest ISD in Texas, PISD has 17 schools and is around 55th, and MISD has 7 schools and is 195th)
Hmmm, if you’re willing to rent for a little while, there are lots of neat and affordable opportunities at the Mueller Airport redevelopment project. They’re gonna have lots of housing at a range of price points and it’s all new construction. Might be worth checking out.
Exxxxxxcellent. I know what I’m going to surprise the fam’ with on Memorial Day or the 4th of July. (Took them to The Salt Lick when I graduated from UT. They still talk about it. That and Chuy’s!)
I’m woozy thinking about Baby A’s ritas. That’s why I like Trudy’s. They taste like Happy Lemonade!
(BTW, I still have dreams that I’m driving north on MOPAC and get to that big overpass that heads West on… 360? Can’t remember. But in my dreams I’m always totally confused about where I’m supposed to get off. Is it 38th? 360? MLK? And it’s totally white blazing hot and the sun is glaring and the traffic is whizzing by me and there’s all these ramps and tons of cars… Okay, more info than you needed to know… )
I’ll tell you what’s scary. The overpass coming off 290 from the east on to 35 south. It’s so freakin’ high in the air… one wrong move, and the guard rails are about 2 feet tall. :eek:
290! That’s the one. Makes you feel like you need to press your hiney into the seat to keep the car on the pavement. Never liked that damn thing. And got to drive it in an ice storm once.
I-35 & 290, yep that’s a doozy alright. Recently they hired 3 guys to help motorists from sliding off.
Okay, that was hilarious!
tremorviolet, great post. I think you’re spot on. I always liked that Far West area so I really like Milwood. Mueller, I’m not so sure about. I’m not convinced that 50 years of underground gas tanks, etc. makes a great place to live. It will be a nice development, though. I also don’t much care for the surrounding areas… It will take some time for those Cameron Road apartments and the Airport Blvd neighborhood on the east side to get better.
I guess I’ll ask about the PODS stuff in GQ!
Won’t the new toll road, 130, allow much of 35 to be bypassed?
78758 checking in. Welcome home Hippie. We need all the natives we can get. In a few more years it might be just you and me. We are absolutely overrun with transplanted yankees here. They have taken over the city council and ruined everything. But take heart. Barton Springs hasn’t been closed because of fecal coloform yet this year and Lake Travis is nearly full again after some pretty low levels for the last few months.
South Congress has been revitalized with trendy shops and restruants and now everyone calls it SoCo. Yeah, stupid, I know. However, you can still pickup a hooker there so it’s cool.
As everyone has pointed out. Traffic sucks here 24/7 now. Getting up or down either Mopac or I35 to MLK is going to be a slog no matter what. You might as well weigh you decisions more on the cost of housing and quality of schools. My kids go to Pflugerville schools and we have always been happy with that. RRISD still has a high reputation but they are getting to be a massive district and it’s only a matter of time.
I was always against the toll roads for Austin but now that they are here to stay I broke down and bought a sticker. I must say I am impressed. The roads are massive and wide and a great way to get around. If you are cool with the idea of toll roads you might consider going even further out 183A to Cedar Park or Leander. Once you hop on 183A the commute is going to be about the same until you hit Mopac. I hear Leander has pretty good schools as well.
Again, welcome back and let us know how things progress.
I guess we’ll have to see how popular the toll road winds up being when it’s finished. It’s not going to be an effective bypass for trucks until 2010 so I don’t think we’ll see a lot of difference until at least then. And it won’t help HH because it’d just deposit him too far east.
It’s gonna be interesting to see how the airport redevelopment plays out. They have way more applicants for the lotteries to get homes than they do spaces but I’m convinced a number of applicants are speculating. 78722 (the airport’s zip) has gotten pretty expensive already for SFH and 78702 (east of IH35, just north of the river), historically low income Hispanic and African American neighborhoods has gotten very bubbly (disclaimer, I just bought in 78702 myself). Lots of those expensive, modern condos with retail on the bottom being built right next door to projects (and there are houses near 12th and Chicon (the sleaziest corner in all of Austin) that are going for over $150k. :eek: ) I’m not totally convinced of the long-term viability of a completely manufactured community.
My parents still live in 78723 (just north of Mueller) and the house just across the street from them just sold for $220K. These are old neighborhood houses we are talking about here. The area around the old airport is going upscale in a hurry.
Hey thanks, Uncle. They’ve turned the railyards and the warehouses on West 4th into some yuppie paradise, but what are you gonna do?
I remember walking down 7th Street from the barrio to downtown (hey, I was young and had a lot of energy) back in the 80s, all the way to the MBank building and wondering how it was possible to have skyscrapers that were empty. Things sho’ have changed on the Third Coast!
I went to “SoCo” recently. Got a good slice of a pie at Homeslice. I was kind of sad to see the original Schlotzsky’s has been transformed into some hipster boutique. I used to go there at lunch when I went to Travis High up on Oltorf. Hey, I think the porno theatre across from Fulmore Middle is still there, but it appears to be something else now!
tremorviolet, I used to rail against people dissing the East Side as an impressionable youth, but I’m a little weirded out with the yuppification of some of the neighborhoods - out on East 11th and Navasota there are lofts! That used to be the hood, man! I just wish the revitalization kept the residents there. Not that I would personally blame someone for wanting to live so close to downtown. I actually have some friends who have a place out there. However, I’m also aware that the neighborhoods are slowly developing, and I think with the new job I’ll have to live in a place where I won’t feel guilty for not being terribly involved in the community. If I had more time I would totally move to the East Side. (BTW, I think it’s a typo, but I like Hippty! 
)
The researcher in me wants to spend some time watching what happens at Mueller. They’ve done this before in Denver, and Chicago… I wonder how it affects families, and racial dynamics? School achievement as well. I might spend some time working out there.
Good stuff, peeps. adam yax, you’re a USC grad, right? Tough living in Austin, ain’t it?
The porno theatre got bought by a trendy start-up software company who kept the theatre look. At least it wasn’t razed and reploaced with condos. And next time you’re in town, check out the brand-spanking new intersection realignment I just did and the front of Travis HS and Schreiber. I am extremely proud of that one accomplished and the school had been asking for it for 30 years.
Yeah, the east side is interesting right now. As the AISD demographer pointed out, Austin has finally gotten over it’s fear of the east side. I remember running a half marathon down Cesar Chavez in maybe 1998 and seeing a sign in front of a house offering a reward for information on who had “raped and beat [his] sister” a few months previously. That scared the crap out of me. But I don’t feel uncomfortable in this neighborhood anymore and the crime rates are a lot lower than in the student neighborhoods. I bought an ancient little house a block form the river, all my neighbors have lived here for 30 years, and the house next door still keeps chickens! It’s a wonderful, funky, old school nighborhood and I think it’ll stay interesting for a long time.
But you’re right about the yuppification of some neighborhoods. Cap Metro is building a series of rail stops (one of which is at Satillo Plaza) and developers are betting that they’ll turn in to urban hot spots. I’m skeptical that these planned dvelopments will really thrive the way they’re meant to and I think the condo market is waaaay over built in Austin right now (plus, these aren’t affordable condos, most start at $250k for a one bedroom). I see that market crashing and Austin left with some half finished decaying buildings, some condo projects becoming rental properties. Oh, I almost forgot the worst sign of gentrificaton, the Pecan Grove trailer park on Barton Springs just got sold and they’re going to put up condos there. I actually hope real estate crashes before they start clearing any trees…
OK, I’ll stop rambling now, I just love talking about Austin. 
Hey, my wife went to Travis. She would have graduated in '84. Her older sisters went there too. I went Reagan. You’re welcome for the football ass-whippings!
…but little did you know that I actually went to damn near every high school in Austin!
Del Valle - 9th
Travis - 9th-10th
Reagan - 9th-11th (half day, I was in ROTC)
Johnston - 11th-12th
I claim Johnston. We got beat by everybody.
I did, however, attend Reagan in '86, when we lost to La Marque in the semifinals… I think their coach was killed in a car wreck right after the game.
tremorviolet, that’s pretty cool. I did notice a new building in front of Travis last time I was in town. The 35-Oltorf intersection has changed quite a bit since I was in school in the mid 80s. The Denny’s is gone!
You missed me by a few years. I graduated in '82. Were Maj Verdon and Sgt. Kline still there when you were in ROTC?
Nah, they were gone. Maj. Florow and Sgt… I forget his name, skinny Black dude, real cool - Henderson, maybe? Florow was kind of a hardass. We tried to do a gung-ho rifle drill team after school and he shut us down. Probably just as well, the commander (he was a major, I was a captain) wanted to punch ribbons in guys’ chests. Ow.
Best JROTC story: we were part of a rifle guard at the state capitol on Veterans’ Day. We had a great guard, every guy was sharp. We had brand new berets, ascots, boots, and highly polished M1s. I think we could have passed for active duty. The littlest guy, though, locked his knees and collapsed after Bill Clements passed by. We were frozen for a second - do we put our rifles down and help him, or do we remain at present arms? (Somebody picked him up.) Funny stuff. Just glad the TV cameras missed it.
Did many a pass and review over at Nelson Field, though.
Too Bad, Sgt Kline was the coolest. Always had great WWII stories to tell. Maj Verdon had flown for the AAC in Europe but we never could get him to talk about it much.
Did they still call the drill team ‘Diamond Five’? We went to a bunch of drill competitions and always had a blast. Never won anything but had fun anyhow.
Wait. What? M1s? You guys got M1s? Tha’ hell? All we ever had were those crappy wooden fake drill rifles. We asked about getting real ones for the drill team but the excuse was always that they couldn’t afford a real gun locker. Damn, I got gypped!
Whoa! Your guys were old school. Maj. Florow flew in Korea, I think. We had a new guy, Chief Reasor, come in as I graduated - he was from my dad’s generation, even knew him from Bergstrom.
I don’t think we had a name for our drill team. We made it out to a couple of JROTC competitions, usually in San Antonio, and one year we did pretty well. I remember how we all freaked out when Westwood got ROTC. I hear that Bowie has ROTC now as well. Of course, I graduated a year after Bowie opened. But it was cool being part of a presidential unit (TX-011)! Our commander came from Edinburg and those guys were seriously gung-ho. Most of the bigshot guys in our unit were doing Civil Air Patrol. They were a little clique that came in together as frosh. I came from England, from an ROTC unit on a base, and they hated that. Plus my dad was an NCO, you know how officers’ kids get. So me and the drill team commander got pretty close.
The M1s were castrated, but were real. You had to do the 15-count manual of arms repeatedly and toss the crap white plastic ones without dropping it to get a crack at the real M1. If a guy dropped an M1… well, he’d be using the plastic son of a gun for a while. I never understood how you could drop the M1, we never did tosses, anyway…
Those were the days! I went through the early stages of applying for the Academy, but it was too much damn work. I turned into a radical critical race theorist, anyway, so UT was a better choice.
