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Eight Reasons to Love Houston
Frederick News-Post, March 23, 2008
Although Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States--falling in line behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago--, it’s often overlooked.
The city offers much of the fare standard to major metropolitan areas--world-class museums, performing arts companies in residence year-round, and a sports team for every professional league--but people are often at a loss as to what makes Houston, well, Houston.
Even having spent my undergraduate years there, I sometimes find myself stumbling to articulate an answer when asked about Houston highlights. So five years after graduating, I returned with my husband Jeff to the Bayou City with the task of rediscovering it. Here I offer you eight things that insiders love about Houston.
1. My Kind of Winter
Houston summers are miserable. Temperatures frequently race toward the three digit mark, and the humidity is more appropriate to a rainforest than a city. In the winter, however, Houston shines. Literally. The mercury regularly settles in the 60 to 70 degree range and sunshine is abundant. I find it a welcome reprieve from the cold and grey of a Maryland February.
2. Museums of All Shapes and Sizes
Like other cities of its size, Houston boasts of museums with dazzling and important collections. In the Museum District, visitors can easily move between the institutions, with the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Natural Science, and the Children's Museum among the most popular options. My personal favorite of the more well-established museums is the Menil Collection, which displays the personal art and antiquities of John and Dominique de Menil. The intimate space is ideal for admiring works by Picasso, Rauschenberg, Warhol, and Man Ray, among others.
Yet what really sets Houston's museums apart, in my opinion, isn't the noteworthiness of the work being done by those at the top of the ladder, but the breadth of topics covered by some of the lesser known museums. You can find an art museum and a science museum in almost any metropolitan area, but where else can you find a museum dedicated solely to the topic of weather, Bibles, health, Czech culture, or funeral history?
Since I can't think of another place where I can learn about the practice of caring for the dead, I head to the National Museum of Funeral History. For over an hour, I gawk at materials from funerals of the famous, gain insight into the history of embalming, and check out the evolution of hearses from early horse-and-buggy set-ups to the top-of-the-line Mercedes that took Princess Grace to her final resting place.
I'm most interested, however, in the exhibition "A Life Well Lived: Fantasy Coffins of Kane Quaye," which displays the lavish creations of this Ghanaian sculptor. Designed with the status and interests of the deceased in mind, the coffins are shaped like fishing canoes, coca pods, eagles, Bibles, shotguns, and even jumbo jets. The entire museum provides a fascinating look at the culture of death, but when I leave, I'm still in agreement with the museum's slogan: "Every day above ground is a good one."
3. Breakfast Texas-Style
Though they originated in Eastern Europe, kolaches have become as Houston as the Astrodome. The traditional filling of these stuffed pastries is fruit, but at the Kolache Factory, a Bayou City institution, the kolaches are stuffed with everything from meat to spicy jalapenos. I have a sausage, egg, and cheese kolache as my main dish and follow up with a chocolate cream cheese one for dessert. Why should breakfast miss out on the joy of sweet endings?
Try to beat the church crowd to Buffalo Grille to avoid a long line, but stay even if the line's out the door. It moves quickly at this hip breakfast counter, where you place your order, then find a table and wait for your name to be called. I think about ordering pancakes, but then I catch sight of an order being eaten at a nearby table. Each pancake is as big as a dinner plate and at least half an inch thick. I settle for French toast, while Jeff has an egg quesadilla, a true Texas breakfast.
4. Funky Folk Art
Long before Austin claimed the title of most interesting city in Texas with their "Keep Austin Weird" campaign, a couple of Houston visionaries were doing their part to give their city some character, creating monuments to the things they loved--oranges and beer.
Set on a block of working class houses, the carnival of color and construction that is the Orange Show sticks out. Built over two decades by late postal worker Jefferson Davis McKissack, the Orange Show invites visitors to explore a funhouse of found objects--railroad spikes, tractor wheels and seats, and steel welded into whirligigs and birds--and take in McKissack’s message. Though docents help visitors get a grasp on the site--it’s a bit of a maze and the reasoning behind some of the displays isn’t quite obvious--the main message comes through loud and clear. In fact, it's tiled on the wall: "Love Oranges & Live."
Across town, sandwiched between two modern townhouse developments, you'll find another unique piece of folk art--the Beer Can House. Using over 50,000 beer cans, John Milkovisch spent 20 years siding his house with aluminum panels cut from the cans, creating a fence and mailbox with whole beer cans, and constructing curtains that hang from the eaves using the tops of the cans. He didn't let even a scrap go to waste. A year of restoration work has revived this Houston icon, and now for the first time, the house is open to the public.
5. Now That's What I Call Salsa
If there's one thing I've craved every day since I left Houston, it's the huge burrito platters, spicy salsas, and perfect tortillas. Ask a dozen Houstonites what their favorite Mexican restaurant is and you'll get a dozen different answers. Chuy's gets raves for its creamy jalapeno dip, and some claim the enchiladas at Lupe Tortilla can't be beat.
As for me, I'll take Chapultepec any day of the week. I don't go for the atmosphere; it's a 24-hour, seat-yourself hole-in-the-wall. I go for the steak burrito al carbon and the strong margaritas. The friendly service is a bonus. After a five-year absence, the only difference I notice on our visit is the spiffed-up booths in the middle section. We bypass them and head straight to the plastic folding tables out front. When we leave I regret that I can't take a tub of salsa with me; there isn't a place here in Maryland that hits the heat level just right.
6. Secret Green Spaces
Houston is a sprawling concrete jungle. There's just no other way to put it. With equally developed uptown, midtown, and downtown areas, skyscrapers are de rigueur. But small oases exist even in the heart of the city.
With more trees than students, Rice University offers a tranquil space for a walk. Stroll up the main drive under the canopy of live oaks draped with Spanish moss and you'll feel transported far from the maddening crowds.
Hermann Park is another popular escape, but even there you'll be confronted with construction. I always head straight for the Japanese Gardens to wander alongside water features and past delicate flowers. Even as ambulances with blaring sirens fly past on the way to nearby hospitals, the space invites quiet meditation.
7. Ride 'Em Cowboy
If there's one event that defines Houston to me, it's the annual Livestock Show and Rodeo. On our first Valentine's Day, Jeff gave me the option of a fancy dinner out or tickets to the rodeo. It was no contest. How could I pass up strapping cowboys, a concert, and a carnival of rides, games of chance, and fried everything?
With attendance nearing the two million mark over the approximately three weeks the rodeo runs, I'm not the only one unable to resist this spectacle. Hot names in country music headline most concerts, although a few pop acts are mixed in. But this is the rodeo, after all, so give in to your love of tight jeans, big belt buckles, and cowboy hats, and buy a ticket to see a country crooner. While you're having a good time getting back to your down home roots, go ahead and give that fried Twinkie a try.
8. Chapels of Wonder
No matter how you take your religion, Houston has a space for you. If you prefer the company of tens of thousands of others while you pray, head to the arena where the Rockets once played basketball. It's now home to Lakewood Church, America's largest megachurch. Don't you know? Everything's bigger in Texas.
If a beautiful space is more important to you than a big space, you need not worry. Despite it's obsession with big, Houston is actually home to three very small chapels. For all three, the big part is the impact of the artwork on display.
Live Oak Friends Meeting House, a Quaker house of worship, is small and spartanly decorated, until you look up. Artist James Turrell has graced the ceiling with one of his famous Skyspaces, and every Friday evening at sunset the public is invited to enjoy it. Just as it sounds, a Skyspace is a space through which you can observe the sky; the one at the Friends Meeting House is a 12-foot square cut into the 20-foot-high ceiling.
Though there's no actual religious service taking place, everyone is reverential, quietly sitting with their heads tilted back, staring through the opening into the sky above. I watch clouds move across the viewing area, and I particularly love the space when a flock of birds darts in and out of the picture. As the sun departs, the experience becomes all the more intense. The Skyspace turns electric blue, almost as if it’s a neon-lit artwork directly on the ceiling. The colors then move through shades of deep ocean and ink blue before turning black. Only a lone star twinkling at the very edge of the space reminds me that I'm looking into the night sky.
The Rothko Chapel and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel complete the trio of worship houses displaying awesome artwork. From the outside, the Rothko Chapel is completely nondescript, but if you venture inside, you'll come across thirteen paintings by abstract artist Mark Rothko. At the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, you'll find the only intact Byzantine frescoes in the western hemisphere, masterpieces of the 13th century. Though nary a hymn, a psalm, or a prayer is offered communally at any of these three spaces, I leave each knowing that I've had a spiritual experience.
If You Go:
Flights: Southwest offers direct flights between BWI and Houston Hobby. In the winter, you should be able to get a roundtrip flight for under $200.
Getting Around: Despite a METRORail system that began service in 2004 between Reliant Stadium and downtown, with intermediate stops near the Medical Center and Museum District, a car is necessary to get around Houston.
Kolache Factory
5810 Kirby
www.kolachefactory.com
Kolaches are under $2.00 each.
Buffalo Grille
3116 Bissonnet
www.thebuffalogrille.com
One plate-sized pancake is $3.25.
Chapultepec
813 Richmond Ave.
Entrees average $12.00.
Rice University
6100 Main St.
www.rice.edu
Hermann Park
www.hermannpark.org
Admission to the Japanese Garden is free.
Houston Museum District
www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org
Many of the museums are free. Others charge admission of up to $9, but usually offer one free day per week.
National Museum of Funeral History
415 Barren Springs Drive
www.nmfh.org
Admission is $6.00.
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Reliant Stadium
www.hlsr.com
Ticket prices start at $16.00.The rodeo is held annually in February or March.
The Orange Show
2401 Munger
The Beer Can House
222 Malone
Both folk art sites are managed by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. www.orangeshow.org
Live Oak Friends Meeting House
1318 West 26th Street
www.friendshouston.org
The Skyspace is open for viewing every Friday night from 20 minutes prior to 40 minutes after sunset. Visit the website for exact times.
Rothko Chapel
1409 Sul Ross St.
www.rothkochapel.org
Byzantine Fresco Chapel
4011 Yupon
www.menil.org/byzantine.html
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