—————————————————— Best Long Good-bye 2003 | Ben Stevenson | Best of Houston® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Houston | Houston Press
Navigation
Support Us

Houston's independent source of
local news and culture

I support

Houston Press
Houston Press
Local
Community
Journalism
Support the independent voice of Houston and help keep the future of the Houston Press free.
Support Us

Best Long Good-bye

Ben Stevenson

If it's September, it must be Stanton Welch -- as artistic director of Houston Ballet, that is. But it was a long good-bye for now-emeritus artistic director Ben Stevenson. He first resigned back in February 2002, but a change of heart kept him here through June 2003. Well, in spirit at least. Stevenson wasn't around much after he resigned a second time and the board selected Welch as his replacement in January of this year. Other assignments, most notably with the Dallas-Fort Worth ballet, kept him on the road. It will be interesting to see what sort of continued presence Stevenson has at HB and how that will affect Welch's direction of the company. It's a tough job to take over from a living legend.

Best Quote

Dave Hickey

We like our quotes short, to the point and all-encompassing, and Dave Hickey's definition of Tex-Mex fills the bill on all three counts. In the Houston Press issue of December 26, 2002, in an attempt to clarify an earlier pithy quote ("Rock and roll is like Mexican food. As it improves in quality it stops being what it is"), the Texas-born critic said he meant to say Tex-Mex, not Mexican food. What's more, he likes Tex-Mex more than the stuff from across the Rio Grande. "My commitment is to Tex-Mex," he told the Press. "Which I define as the absence of fucking vegetables."

Best Role Model

Terry Hershey

An admirer calls her the Mother Teresa of the Houston environmental movement, and her credentials make that an understatement. Born Terese Tarlton in Fort Worth 80 years ago, the former model and art dealer eventually met and married barge company millionaire Jake Hershey and settled into their four-acre Longbow Lane estate on Buffalo Bayou. Terry fell in love with the waterway's undeveloped beauty and turned the property into a private nature preserve. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced a project to channelize and concrete the bayou banks in 1967, Hershey marshaled the opposition, won the support of then-congressman George H.W. Bush, and testified alongside him before a U.S. House appropriations committee. They succeeded in sparing Buffalo Bayou the fate that has turned so many of Houston's other urban waterways into lifeless eyesores. Hershey applied the same love of nature to other areas of the city, helping launch organizations including the Park People, the Bayou Preservation Association, the Citizens' Environmental Coalition and the Armand Bayou Nature Center. The octogenarian may not last forever, but future generations of Houstonians will be enriched by the things she saved.

Best Whistle-Blower

Oscar Wyatt

Call it big-time seller's remorse. Former Coastal Corporation CEO Oscar Wyatt Jr. voted as a board member to sell the company for $22 million to El Paso Corporation in 2001, then decided he'd made a big mistake. He became the lead plaintiff in a shareholders' suit alleging the management of El Paso violated federal securities laws. Wyatt took out full-page newspaper ads skewering El Paso management and then led an attempt to oust the executives at an El Paso shareholders meeting in Houston. Wyatt and shareholder Selim Zilkha spent $6 million on the effort but ultimately lost the fight when the shareholders stuck with the old order.

Best Citizen

Ed Wulfe

This Houston developer shelved his mayoral ambitions earlier this year and dived into the less glamorous assignment of spearheading Metro's campaign to pass its upcoming transit referendum. Wulfe, an informal member of Mayor Lee Brown's kitchen cabinet for the last six years, is the commercial force behind the revitalization of the venerable old Gulfgate Shopping Center and surrounding area in southeast Houston. He also chairs the Main Street Coalition, which is planning the development of the corridor along the rail line from downtown to Reliant Stadium. As if that weren't enough, Wulfe also helped tune out a city sour note this spring by directing negotiations between Houston Symphony officials and performers that resulted in the settlement of a 24-day strike. With a track record like that, maybe he should give a second thought to running for mayor.

Best Reason to Stay in Houston During the Summer

Jones Plaza concerts

Party on the Plaza has been the most popular way for Houston's music lovers to let off a little steam in the summertime for years. Working-class stiffs and yuppie execs have packed this little grandstand in the middle of downtown every summer since the 1980s. And it's no wonder: Houston proper doesn't have a lot of natural resources to help us keep cool. So where does one turn? To beer, of course. A happy hour tradition, the original Party on the Plaza still goes strong, though it's now controlled by Clear Channel and most of the acts fall into the Texas C&W realm. A few other groups have made good use of the plaza as well in recent years. So on almost any given Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening from Memorial Day to Labor Day, you can hear live music, drink cheap beer and dance your wahoos off under the stars, just steps from your office door.

Best Weekend Getaway

Hangar Hotel

Maybe you're a pilot looking for an interesting jaunt. Perhaps you're a WWII buff nostalgic for a blast from the past. Or maybe you're just a Houstonian hankering for an unusual weekend getaway. If so, Fredericksburg's new Hangar Hotel fills the bill. Bypass Fredericksburg's German beer halls and quaint B&Bs, and fly straight to the Hangar Hotel at the Gillespie County Airport. This WWII-themed property sports meeting rooms decorated as "flight briefing" Quonset huts, an officers' club bar and a 1940s-style diner and soda fountain. The alabaster light fixtures and green army-style blankets on the mahogany and rattan beds add even more retro-ambience. The hotel also has palm trees, a searchlight and a water tower -- guaranteed to transport you to Pearl Harbor itself. And if you just can't get enough of a WWII fix at the hotel, check out the Admiral Nimitz Museum and National Museum of the Pacific War nearby.

Best Place to Launch Fireworks

Crystal Beach

The Fourth of July is supposed to be about freedom, and where better to celebrate liberty than the anarchistic Bolivar Peninsula? Want to drink openly on the beach? That's not a problem here. Neither is the possession and liberal use of extremely powerful fireworks. For two solid hours after the hot sun settles in Galveston Bay, the good folk of Bolivar launch steady streams of Roman candles and artillery shells into the air. The skies whine with whistling jakes, the dunes crackle with the reports of black cats, and sparklers sizzle on every beach house deck. Every hundred or so yards, there's another display, each of which must have cost hundreds of dollars and none of which is publicly funded. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

Best Parade

Pride Parade

Each June since 1978, Houston's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community has officially celebrated being proud of who they are with the snazzy, spectacular Pride Parade. Because of Houston's sweltering summer heat, in 1997 planners started holding the event after sundown, giving the parade the exuberant charge of a nightclub in full swing -- and starting a trend of nighttime pride parades throughout the country. Since the dancers, activists and flag-bearers make their way through the Montrose area as opposed to downtown, there's a groovy local flavor to the event (although there's talk that the parade is outgrowing its space). What started as a small affair is now a must-attend event even for local government officials and businesses like JP Morgan Chase. Gay police officers and firefighters also participate, and this year's silver anniversary of the parade drew in the biggest crowd ever (nearly 150,000), with revelers crowding under a 1,000-pound chandelier that hung above the intersection of Westheimer and Montrose.

Best Comeback

Downtown Convention Center Hotel

This project has been written off for dead so many times it earned the reputation as the Freddy Krueger of downtown Houston development. In the midst of a fierce City Council contest for the hotel contract in 1995, the FBI used it as the bait in a bribery sting. That led to the famous "Hotel Six" series of trials, resulting in the convictions of former councilman Ben Reyes and port commissioner Betti Maldonado. Then a deal with Crescent Development to build the hotel fell apart, leaving the city to pick up the pieces with its own financing plan. When the Hilton Americas opens this December, it will likely go down in history as the hotel too tough to kill. Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Jordy Tollett says the moral of the tale is "if you just keep trying, trying and trying, you just may succeed."

Best Of Houston®

Best Of

California Privacy Policy California Collection Notice
Do Not Sell My Info
Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy The Houston Press may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Houston Press, LP. All rights reserved.
Powered By Foundation