Our Town
Lauren Anderson, Robert Mosbacher, Sr., and other local celebrities share what they love about Houston.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HOUSTON is the people and the energy. Everyone is really nice, and the energy is positive. I know that some people hate the humidity, but I love the humidity. It keeps your skin young-looking. And we've got a new football team! I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time at the stadium. My family, my husband, my kids are here, and the Houston Ballet is here—so of course I love Houston. I've never danced anywhere else. It's a great place to dance. My mother and I went to see the Nutcracker at Jones Hall when I was six, and I loved the performance. I started at the Houston Ballet Academy that next September, when I was seven. I studied exclusively with the Houston Ballet Academy, and then I got into the company and went up through the ranks. And now I'm the ballerina.
Lauren Anderson is a principal dancer at the Houston Ballet. She was born in Houston.
I THINK HOUSTON IS A progressive city. I'm eighty-one-years-old and I remember Houston when the population was 150,000. It's just grown, grown, grown. One of the things that I like about Houston is that there is not a big taxation for all these big companies that have come down here. That's why Houston grew like it did, because the big corporations wanted to come to Houston. Unfortunately, lots of things are happening now with the big corporations, but it's going to pull out and I don't think it's going to be a problem. Houston is a small town with a lot of people—that's what I consider Houston. It has always been a small town to me.
Marvin Zindler is Houston's most renowned consumer investigator. He has lived in Houston for 81 years.
MY FAVORITE PART OF HOUSTON is all of Houston. I've lived in Memorial, which is farther west and is tree-lined. I've lived in River Oaks, which is manicured and beautiful. I have friends who live in many other parts of Houston. It's not really where you live in Houston so much as the feeling you get living in Houston, which is because of the people, the attitudes, and the friendliness. What is it about Houston that's so unique to me? What is it that there is a feeling here that the people want to help, want you to enjoy being here, feel apart of it? This happened to me more than fifty years ago, when I moved here, and it has stayed with me because it has stayed with the city during that time.
I came here as a twenty-one-year-old kid from White Plains, New York. I didn't really know anybody, maybe one or two people. My wife and I moved here and were immediately wrapped into the community. Within a year, we felt like we had lived here all our lives. The funny thing is—now remember this was fifty years ago—the funny thing is, people tell me the same thing today. I've lived in Washington and lived in New York. When I was a kid, we moved to New York City during World War II. They are great cities, but this is home and this is where I want to have my home. I've seen my children grow up here. They were born here. They're going to kill me if I say they are middle-aged, but they're in their forties and fifties. And now I watch my grandchildren growing up in the same way. It's a warm, good feeling.
One thing that makes Houston great is that it has a huge number of restaurants. Besides the usual barbecue or Tex-Mex food, you can get good food from India, China, Japan, South America, and Cuba. It's really a very international city. More than most cities, it is a blend of African Americans, Hispanics, and Anglos. In the city itself, the Hispanic and the African American populations are larger than the white. You also get another aspect that is important: You have blue collar along with white collar. I think of Dallas as not having much blue collar, maybe that's not proper or fair, but I think the mesh of the people who work with their hands and their minds and the people who work with almost solely their minds is good for a city. It gives it breadth and understanding and perhaps an attitude that is more open, more tolerant.
I think Houston has one of the finest skylines in the country. I think the fact that Houston is close to Galveston, where we all go sailing, gives us an extra element of enjoyment. I've been a sailor all my life, a serious racing sailor. It's nice to have a body of water like Galveston Bay, which usually has good breezes. It's not as pretty as some parts of the world, but close. We've got a plethora of alternatives. And I must say that Houston now has flights connecting all over the world. We have some business in India, and you can now fly one-stop to India. Of course, you can fly nonstop to many cities in Europe, all over Latin America and Canada. We also have operations in Canada. Back in the sixties, it was a struggle to get there, but now there are nonstop flights to Calgary all the time.
Culturally, of course, Houston just gets better and better. We've just completed the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, and the Wortham Center is wonderful. The Alley Theatre is recognized as one of the foremost regional theaters in the country. The ballet is excellent, and the opera is very, very good. I can also remember how excited we were when we got a big-league baseball team and a big-league football team. Now we've got football coming back. The Rockets have been big. I think, even though I haven't kept up with it recently, Houston will be a big soccer center because of the high international population here.
But when you get through all of that, the arts and the sports and the business center and of course, the medical center, which is the biggest medical center in the world, what really makes Houston is the people. It's the feeling that you get when you wander around town. Whether you're rich or poor, no matter your race or background, I find Houston friendly.
Robert Mosbacher, Sr., is the founder and chairman of Mosbacher Energy. He has lived in Houston for more than fifty years.
I LOVE HOUSTON BECAUSE IT is a diverse and open city. The people work hard and do good things. I think there is a real spirit among the people of Houston. They set goals and accomplish their dreams. Houston has a wonderful arts community, some of the best museums in the world, a renowned medical center with brilliant doctors, and an incredible port, which is the second largest in the U.S. And except for the summer, we have a great climate. We are the only city in the U.S. that just built three new stadiums. Houston is an event-oriented town. It is the people that make Houston the city that it is. They can bounce back from hard times. The city has changed drastically. I'll only go as far back as the eighties, when the oil boom went bust and the city lost around 250,000 jobs. People didn't move away; the city continued to diversify and people started new businesses. It was amazing to watch the rebuilding take place. It changed the city a lot. Houston is a livable city and more affordable than most.
Elyse Lanier is the wife of former mayor Bob Lanier. She was born and raised in Houston.
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