Our Town
Lauren Anderson, Robert Mosbacher, Sr., and other local celebrities share what they love about Houston.
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I THINK THE BEST OVERALL thing about Houston is the altruism of the people here. A lot of folks tend to think of Houston as being run by a few leaders and a few representative groups. But if you go out into the community, you find everybody working to make his neighborhood and city better. It was a real eye-opener to me to be on the campaign trail and meet all these groups. It's kind of like watching a duck on the water—it seems pretty placid, but there is a lot going on underneath. You find people that are willing to help on almost any issue. Houstonians are the kind of people that if you ask them to help build a fence, they will bring the wire. They are willing to kick in and do things for others.
Chuck Rosenthal is the Harris County district attorney and has lived in Houston since 1960.
I'VE LIVED IN THREE CITIES, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Austin, and I love them all, but Houston is by far the most fascinating. It is a tremendous cultural center. It's a dynamic city—it always has been. It's an exciting, wonderful place to live.
Former lieutenant governor Bill Hobby was born in Houston.
I LOOK FORWARD TO THE Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo because I'm a cowgirl at heart. I love country and western singing, from George Strait to Willie Nelson. I'm a native Houstonian, and when I was growing up, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo used to be held downtown at the coliseum. There are so many wonderful cultural opportunities here. We have the big four—the Houston Ballet, the Grand Opera, the Alley Theatre, and the Houston Symphony. We have the Battleship Texas, which is fun if you are a bit of a history buff. You can have a picnic in Monument Hill park or dinner at Monument Inn or one of the lesser-known restaurants around there. I love to go to movies and take my beloved twelve-year-old shih tzu for a little stroll.
I love Mexican food, and I like to go to Irma's, which is only open on weekdays. I like to go to Carrabba's, Pesce, and the Palm. I like to try new restaurants because Houston has so many. There are lots of opportunities here. There are some lovely parks. I love to go to the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I love to do all of those things. You're never at a want of something to do in Houston, even if it's to contemplate at Philip Johnson's glorious water wall at the Williams Tower.
Carolyn Farb is one of Houston's most famous philanthropists.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS to do in Houston is canoe down Buffalo Bayou. You can start outside Loop 610 and go all the way down through the downtown area, ending up at Allen's Landing, which is a historic landmark in the city. It's a four-hour trek, well a four- or five-hour trek depending on how fast you want to paddle. It's a fascinating view of the city and a great experience. The part of the bayou that is outside the loop is sort of like a Houston home tour because you're looking into the back yards of some of the most extraordinary homes. Then as you move inside the loop, you go through the River Oaks Country Club, through Buffalo Bayou Park, and then go under the highway infrastructure as you head into downtown. I call it the Great Urban Nature Tour.
Chris Bell, a city council member from 1997 to 2001, ran for mayor in 2001.
I LOVE THE RESTAURANTS; they are ethnically diverse. There isn't one in particular that I love to go to, but we do enjoy Istanbul Grill, which is Turkish. The restaurants change a lot, so you have to be quick. I think Houston must be the most culturally diverse city in Texas. I work at Rice University, and I live in a nice neighborhood near the campus, so I walk to work. I really enjoy my neighborhood and the walk to campus. I like the warm winters, and I like the humidity. It seems that when I go to dry climates, I'm always cold and I get chapped lips. The summers here don't bother me, it must be the miracle of air-conditioning. I've lived in Houston since the summer of 1958, and it's changed a lot. The size has caused some growing pains, but I don't have to struggle with the commute.
Robert F. Curl, Jr., is a professor of natural sciences at Rice University. In 1996 he won the Nobel prize in chemistry.
THE THING THAT I THINK is special about Houston is something that others might not like about Houston. I love the incredible juxtaposition of new and old or high tech and low tech. I can remember in the eighties, when I first saw Houston, and it's still true today—you can walk along and look at a spectacular skyscraper and on the next block there is no sidewalk. It's that kind of incongruity. My favorite thing to do in Houston really plays on that. I love to run—running the bayou, where in the distance you can see the cityscape while your immediate surroundings are really wild. It's not like Central Park, where everything is pruned and gardened and so forth. The banks on both sides of the bayou are pretty wild. It is that juxtaposition, the untamed aspect and then the high-tech, man-made aspect on the other end, that gives Houston, for me anyway, it's snap, it's life.
Peter Marzio is the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
I LIKE THE DIVERSITY. WE do have a diverse population in Houston in terms of Hispanic Americans and Chinese Americans. It's just a good melting pot in my opinion. I've always thought that a diverse city enriches all of us.
I was born here, and I was raised on rodeo. There are a lot of small rodeos that you can go to without ever leaving the city limits. Of course, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the world's best, and as a child, I used to go to that. I remember, distinctly, seeing Roy Rogers, and I thought that was just amazing.
I like the weather, believe it or not. The weather gets very, very hot here, but I can't stand the cold. I'm a Houstonian by heart when it comes to the weather. I like what is happening downtown. Houston is growing. There are more restaurants downtown. There was a time when you had to leave downtown in the evening because there wasn't much activity, but now with the development of the baseball stadium, the restaurants, the movie theater, the railway coming downtown, all of that is going to bring back a lot of interest, culture, and nightlife. I think Houston is becoming a progressive city.
I was born and raised in the Fifth Ward; I attended school here, and I graduated from Texas Southern University. I'm a true Houstonian, and I've seen the city grow. It's changed. People complain that there are more people here, but that is what attracts people to a city. I think that diversity helps to hold Houston's personality. When you look at a city, you look at it's ethnic mix and how people blend and share in each other's culture. That becomes the personality of the city, in my opinion. That becomes the richness of the city, because all of those people contribute to Houston and make Houston what it is.
Playwright Thomas Meloncon was born and raised in Houston's Fifth Ward.
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