HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The historic Garden Oaks Theatre could be demolished this summer if local donors don’t raise the millions needed to buy it.<\/p>\n
The nearly 80-year-old building was sold last year, and since then, art and cinema lovers have been in a desperate race to save the building and celebrate its long history.<\/p>\n
It’s not the first time our city has come together for a preservation campaign.<\/p>\n
But the campaign raises many questions and stereotypes about our city.<\/p>\n
Many of us love history, but we also live in a city with no zoning and few restrictions on building or demolition.<\/p>\n
There’s only one person we could think of who might be able to explain it all.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lynchpin to history. It deserves to survive,” Deborah Wrigley said.<\/p>\n
When Wrigley talks about Houston history, you listen. She worked at ABC13 for 42 years before retiring in 2020.<\/p>\n
“It’s my mother who would take me on the weekends and just drive around, and she would point out houses that she had known somebody who lived there,” she said.<\/p>\n
ABC13 met Wrigley at the Julia Ideson Building.<\/p>\n
She said her mother first brought her there.<\/p>\n
“She would, like, run up and down the stairs and do little dances on them,” she said.<\/p>\n
The library opened 100 years ago and was Houston’s first and only library for 50 years.<\/p>\n
And it’s not the only piece of history you’ll find in our city.<\/p>\n
Post Houston was built in 1934 as a mail depot for Houston’s Grand Central Train Station.<\/p>\n
St. Elizabeth’s place is now an affordable housing development, but it opened as a hospital for African Americans in 1947.<\/p>\n
The buildings may look different now, but they’ve survived.<\/p>\n
“We just need to look a little closer to find these buildings,” Jennifer Kapral, the Executive Director of Preservation Houston, said. “We need to know and understand our roots, where we come from, our identity, in order to move forward, so being able to take spaces like this, weave them into our identity and who we are. It makes us unique; it makes us bond together as Houstonians.”<\/p>\n
As of January, the city of Houston has 23 historic districts, 308 landmarks, and 203 protected landmarks.<\/p>\n
Buildings with the designation can’t be demolished or substantially altered without approval from a city board.<\/p>\n
“There’s always a challenge of actually having a process and actually enforcing it,” Caroline Cheong, the Kinder Institute Associate Director of Housing and Neighborhoods, said.<\/p>\n
The Garden Oaks Theatre, for example, opened in 1947, but city records show it is not one of Houston’s designated historic landmarks.<\/p>\n
“We definitely do have the reputation for not really taking care of our historic buildings,” Cheong send. “We have a reputation of tearing things down, of looking toward the future, of newness and modernity.”<\/p>\n
So, do Houstonians care about history or not?<\/p>\n
It’s not an easy question to answer.<\/p>\n
But maybe we’re asking the wrong question.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s really just about who, not what, makes you feel at home.<\/p>\n
“You grow up with history, and you kind of attach yourself to it and the things that surround you, like the houses and everything else. For those who’ve lived here long enough, they’re treasured memories,” Wrigley said.<\/p>\n
You can find more info on Houston landmarks at https:\/\/www.houstontx.gov\/planning\/HistoricPres\/historic_landmarks.html.
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