The launch of this website is 3 years overdue for reasons discussed as follows. I have kept some of the original articles developed at that time which I have updated to some extent. Why reference this prior period of time and why is that relevant? Why not start clean with no reference to the past? The content I had planned at that time has evolved significantly changed from what I envision today. The downtown story has changed significantly since then and those changes as changed what I am thinking about downtown living from then. In one sense, that’s the story. How does a website based on downtown Houston living change from March 2020 to now? It was rocky but it works itself out.
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Flashback to November 29th, 2019.
In late 2019, in anticipation of a “sabbatical” from work to start in the following April 2020, I built out a website for the purpose of hosting a blog to provide information helpful to living or visiting downtown. I also wanted to chronicle my journey of my move to downtown from the suburbs. I say sabbatical because I knew that I would be leaving my current job at the end of March 2020 and taking some time off before joining the workforce again.
The idea of the website was to provide useful, practical and fun information about navigating downtown, either for a visit or to live there. Downtown Houston is a great place but you have to know how to navigate it.
To provide some context, I had moved to downtown from the suburbs at the end of 2016 which I cover in detail in other articles. My motivation for writing was to help others navigate downtown as either a resident or weekend visitor.
I had drafted 6-8 articles and had my finger on the website launch button in February 2020 about the time I was gearing up to leave my job and take some time off.
To put it mildly, my plans got derailed.
Suddenly, downtown Houston as a place to live or a destination for a weekend was off the table.
One particular experience sums it all up for me. I live about half a block from Main Street just off the bayou. One April (2020) Saturday night around midnight, I reached my pinnacle of stir craziness and decided to walk Main Street. Despite every streetlight, lighted bar sign, marque and the Christmas tree type lights strung along the light poles of downtown Houston lit up, not a soul, other than myself, was out. It was lit up like New Years Eve. Yet NO ONE was present. No cars, no people, nothing. Dead silence. Standing on Main Street in the middle of downtown on a Saturday night completely by myself. Imagine a large hurricane on its way and everyone has left accept me and they forgot to turn the lights off. A truly surreal moment which will probable never be exceeded for me, at least I hope not.
The sabbatical never happened and the 2 month visit to Mexico never happened. Nothing left of that trip but a credit on the airline to be used at a later date. Travel of any sort was not going to happen. So I was facing a scenario of no job, having all the time in the world without the ability to travel any where of even leave the loft for a while.
Things quickly changed, for the better and I had the good fortune of landing a new job just as the previous job ended and the “P” word started.
We all know how the next year to a year or so progressed. No need to rehash it.
Fast forward almost two years and here I am back at the keyboard trying to start over. CTR-ALT-DEL.
A lot has changed since then. Hard to believe it’s been 3 years although at times it feels like 10. How many times have I renewed my hosting service without launching the website to maintain the htownnative domain.
I am still bullish on downtown Houston although that has been tested severely. Maybe I am more bullish now than i was then seeing what it has survived. For the most part, it’s back. The commuter traffic in the morning on Milan and Travis in the evening is pretty much back where it was. The tunnels at lunch time are full. I recently visited my favorite place to eat, the Cloister, and it was packed with a line of people out the door to eat the best red beans and rice.
Downtown Houston has been resilient. The continued success of the Astros, strong convention activity at the GRB and all the great events at Discovery Green and Market Square Park have helped to bring it back.
It was time to hit launch for real.
I went back to the articles I had previously drafted as they needed an update. The content of those is generally the same as originally drafted but my perspective has changed.
Like most of us who have lived through the “P” I seriously questioned by decision to live downtown. All things considered, we are staying. In some ways it has come back stronger than it was while in other areas we are not quite there yet.
BUILD COMMUNITY – DISCOVER HOUSTON – CONNECT
