City Life >>

• Best Politician
  Gabriel Vasquez, Houston city councilmember, District H
  This professor-on-the-move replaced sleepy Felix Fraga just a year and a half ago and is already developing into the power player of Houston Hispanic politics. Raised in Corpus Christi and Austin, Vasquez came to town as a communications prof at the University of Houston, and quickly began... More >>
• Best Graffiti Artist
  Next
  Just look up. On bridges, buildings, trains, the backs of freeway signs, the tag is everywhere. It's an inspirational call to the "next" generation, a macho throw-up that conveys the adrenaline, irreverence and illegality of its creation. Most of all, it's cool. But the Houston Police... More >>
• Best Justice of the Peace
  The Honorable George E. Risner, Precinct 2, Place 2
  Most courts wouldn't take much time with an 11-year-old troublemaker. But J.P. George Risner did what the Houston school district had refused to do: have the imbalanced youngster checked out by mental health professionals. Now the youth is on medication -- and back on track in school. Risner, in... More >>
• Best Restoration Project
  Houston region in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Allison
  Of course, the travesties continue: tearing down the old Gulf Publishing building on Allen Parkway, bulldozing bits and pieces of the precious past, flushing out Houston's final habitat hideaways for the sake of nothing more than the sameness of another new... More >>
• Best Smell
  Maxwell House Factory
  The best smell? Coffee, of course. And there's no bigger coffee smell in town than the odor steaming out of Kraft's Maxwell House factory, a few blocks (and miles of attitude) east of Enron Field. Most days the prevailing winds blow that smell, ooh that smell, in a northwesterly direction,... More >>
• Best 15 Minutes of Fame
  Dani Ferro, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay's daughter
  Sure, they love him out in Sugar Land, but to many people across this country, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay is a bombastic, moralistic, self-righteous -- you get the idea. So when his adult daughter, who works for him, hit the newspapers in a story about Las Vegas hot tubs, lobbyists, and... More >>
• Best Court Ruling
  U.S. District Judge Sam Kent
  Bradshaw v. Utility Marine Corporation, et al. is no one's idea of a landmark case, but the Galveston lawsuit has achieved the kind of instant immortality that's possible only now in the Internet age. Federal judge Sam Kent has long been known for his hair-trigger temper and utter lack of... More >>
• Best Lost Monument
  Portland Cement Association Safety Trophy
  "Trophy" may be too strong a word for this apparently abandoned behemoth: a concrete block, presumably of Portland cement, standing near seven feet high and about five feet wide, featuring a high relief of some sort of Greco-Roman figures, and the inscription: "Awarded Trinity Portland Cement... More >>
• Best Tree
  Live oak at Elizabeth Baldwin Park
  Four mammoth branches dangle to the ground like elephant trunks. They snake along the grass like knee-bound penitents scraping to a pilgrimage's end, only to rise again to the height of small trees to drink in the sun. The live oak at Elizabeth Baldwin Park is one twisted granddaddy of a tree.... More >>
• Best Community Newspaper
  USAfrica
  Chido Nwangwu decries mainstream news coverage of Africa that depicts "a continent of natives who are sentenced and cursed to face bestial cycles of ethnic wars, genocidal slaughters and more wars." The eloquent Nigeria native specializes in debunking stereotypes. From an office off the... More >>
• Best Faxes
  The Mad Faxer
  We don't know who he (or she) is, but he's earned the moniker "Mad Faxer" around the Houston Press offices. Over the last two years, he has sent the editorial staff hand-drawn cartoons (a fish eating hippopotamus turds), possible tips ("Ask Ron J. Where is the cave?"), poems riddled with... More >>
• Best Place to Smoke a Hookah
  R&R Lounge & Grill
  For the uninitiated, hookah is not another rap artist term for ho. It is the "fragrant nargile" of Orientalist reveries, the hubble-bubble of General Allenby's Tommies. It is a device for smoking that passes the scented smoke -- a mixture of tobacco and dried fruit such as apples or apricots --... More >>
• Best Museum for Sinologists
  Forbidden Gardens
  Like its namesake, the Forbidden Gardens is a well-kept secret. However, the spectacular 40-acre spread just off I-10 in Katy rewards those who chance the trip. The outdoor museum carefully reconstructs some of the great design feats of Imperial China, and on a breathtaking scale. The entire... More >>
• Best Whistle-Blower
  Lisa Rogers
  A year ago, historic Oyster Creek was on the verge of extinction. Today, it's got a chance, thanks to Lisa Rogers. On behalf of Brazoria County ranchers, including her husband, Rogers forced an investigation into the illegal diversion of the Oyster, which had watered her family's cattle for 175... More >>
• Best Local Boy Gone Bad
  Judge Bob Burdette 176th District Court
  Judge Burdette was popped for DWI on Montrose after he tried to leave the scene. Burdette is a good ol' boy Democrat who managed to hang on as a visiting district judge in Harris County after getting dumped by voters twice. But his days of holding court at local bars may have been permanently... More >>
• Best Criminal Court Judge
  Mike Anderson
  Courthouse regulars were worried a few years ago when longtime judge Doug Shaver announced his retirement from the 262nd bench. He was one of the few Democrats left in any court in the county, and certainly one of the more independent-minded jurists of any affiliation. Concerns about keeping the... More >>
• Best Local Girl Gone Bad
  Darcy Sparks Mackey
  This former gatekeeper for Mayor Lee Brown lost her desk at City Hall after ducking a drug test. A former employee of Brown crony Danny Lawson, Mackey served the former drug czar as secretary and appointments coordinator since he returned to Houston in 1995 to establish credentials for his... More >>
• Best Loyal Houston Press Reader
  Unknown ambulance driver
  Here's to not letting work interfere with your priorities. On January 11 at the intersection of Milam and Congress, a man who had apparently been hit by an oncoming car and looked to be a minute from his death was being wheeled into the back of an ambulance by three paramedics. Before the driver... More >>
• Best Local Boy Made Good
  Rod Paige U.S. Secretary of Education
  This former education dean at Texas Southern University rode the Republican express from an HISD trustee post to district superintendent to George Bush's secretary of education. Paige, whose college doctoral thesis was on the response times of collegiate football linemen, embraced the TAAS... More >>
• Best Easter Bunny
  Rick Hurt, a.k.a. Rainbo de Klown
  From beginning to end, Rick Hurt spent a total of 15 days impersonating the Easter Bunny under a giant Fabergé-like egg at the Galleria this last spring. For a little over a fortnight, Rick gave up his other gigs -- impersonating Bette Midler, dressing up as a fairy, or a host of other... More >>
• Best Local Girl Made Good
  Beyoncé Knowles
  The Diana Ross of Destiny's Child is the crossover queen of pop at the moment, with platinum albums and a starring role in MTV's sultry Hip Hopera, Carmen. It's a Knowles family affair, with father Mathew as Svengali manager, and mother Tina as group costume designer and beautician. Not only is... More >>
• Best Civil Court Judge
  Joseph "Tad" Halbach
  Sure, this jurist was plenty enthusiastic about assuming the bench. Tad Halbach came equipped with a solid sense of humor and a levelheaded nature that meant that the most voracious of attorneys weren't going to push him around. But other newcomers also have landed a judicial post with that kind... More >>
• Best Balcony
  Ernie's on Banks
  Do you remember the '80s dance song by Yello, the one that had the vocal line that stretched out in a deep bass? That's the feeling you get on a Friday evening in September when the flaming fist of Queen Bitch Summer has begun to loosen and you stroll out onto the second-floor balcony of Ernie's... More >>
• Best Sign War
  Khyber North Indian Grill, 2510 Richmond Ave., 713-942-9424 vs. Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, 2410 Richmond Ave., 713-527-9137
  A little friendly ribbing between competitors never hurt anybody. For more than seven years now, Khyber Grill's Mickey Kapoor has been using his marquee to taunt the neighboring Pappadeaux's. When the seafood restaurant wrote, "Hiring today 3 to 5," Kapoor replied, "My, You Do Start Them Young!"... More >>
• Best Nonprofit
  Montrose Clinic
  Montrose Clinic started as a agency to treat sexually transmitted diseases including syphilis and gonorrhea in Houston's gay community 20 years ago, but the onset of the AIDS epidemic redefined its mission. Throughout the plague years, Montrose Clinic has served Houston's HIV-infected patients... More >>
• Best Name for a Beer Joint
  Stroker Club
  The beer joint or honky-tonk that really had the best name in Houston, Bugeyed Mary's, sadly went out of business this past year. The runner-up is the Stroker Club. A stroker in car salesman parlance is a customer who does not have the means or the intention to buy an automobile but who takes up... More >>
• Best Response to a Houston Press Story
  The Reverend Aubrey Vaughan
  Minister Aubrey Vaughan's literary diatribe against "sodomites," a response to his being quoted in The Insider advocating shipping gays to an island and leaving them there, appeared in the March 8 issue of the Houston Press. Vaughan took exception to the suggestion that he had been watching too... More >>
• Best Local Television Commercial
  Fiesta Mart
  What with so many different local businesses from which to choose, we avoided the temptation to go with any guy holding up a wad of cash; a man wearing a bean bag chair; two dapper fellows who knock knuckles over clothing prices; a self-described "crazy" man with a double-billed baseball cap... More >>
• Best Support Group
  Genesis Ballet, Bere'sheet Ballet
  Sure, the Clutterless Recovery Group has its merits, and a good many more of us should be visiting Anger Management, but when it comes to mutual support, the Genesis Ballet is tops in our book. Interestingly enough, the dance company didn't start out that way. According to the troupe's founder,... More >>
• Best Place to Glimpse Royalty
  Sweet Potato Queen Jill Connor Browne's book signing
  When the good women from Blue Willow Books on Memorial Drive discovered that Jill Connor Browne, author of The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love, didn't include Houston in her book tour of her most recent release, God Save the Sweet Potato Queens, they took matters into their own hands. Well,... More >>
• Best Place to See Houston's Cannibal Ducks
  Hermann Park
  It was a sunny spring day. We were killing time before an IMAX movie; we'd already bought a shiny rock from the Museum of Natural Science gift store and grabbed some McDonald's hot fudge sundaes and wandered outside. We walked along looking at the green, green grass, thinking about what a pretty... More >>
• Best Place to Meet Liberal-Minded Singles (3 Comments)
  City of West U RecycleXpress drop-off center
  All day long, cars pull into the driveway of the RecycleXpress center; car doors fling open, and conscience-minded citizens separate their colored and clear glass, bimetal cans, paper, cardboard and plastics (nos. 1 and 2 only, please) through square slots into great mounds. Even though some of... More >>
• Best Radio Commercial
  Trailer, Wheel & Frame Co.
  We're not sure that radio guy John Granato is being completely honest with us when he says that, in addition to a great product line, there are cocktails and girls in bikinis on hand at Trailer, Wheel & Frame, but we like the idea. Where else can you get your hands on things like ritzy-rails,... More >>
• Best Fusion Building
  Heights Dental Clinic and Deli
  Oral satisfaction all in one location. Inside the industrial-looking building you can chow down on a sandwich or chili dog, and then step across the hallway and get your teeth cleaned or cavities filled. But for the dentist's sake, go easy on the onions. More >>
• Best Use of Taxpayer Dollars
  Buffalo Bayou revitalization
  Buffalo Bayou, the stream that spawned Houston in 1836, is well on its way back from city cesspool to civic asset thanks to a combined public-private $25 million effort. Landscaped hike-and-bike trails now run on both the north and south banks of the bayou from Shepherd on the west under the... More >>
• Best Fusion Street
  Washington Avenue
  You can tell a lot about Houston, past and present, by driving along the in-transition thoroughfare. As in many parts of the city, new upscale condos and town homes are springing forth, even across the street from historic Glenwood Cemetery, where Howard Hughes Jr. and several Texas governors... More >>
• Best Sign
  Texas state jails
  What exactly is meant by "No hostages beyond this point" is hard to discern. That message, posted on the inside of several doors in such fine establishments as Keagans State Jail in downtown Houston, greets anyone about to exit the jail and enter the lobby where visitors must turn in their IDs... More >>
• Best Gadfly
  Dr. Alkebu Motapa
  Performance artist Dr. Alkebu Motapa, legal name Carl Austin, is a dreadlocked dervish who paints, chants and talks up a storm at City Council and anywhere else people will listen. His rhetoric, a mixture of Rastafarian theology and civil rights-era jargon, is not always welcome. When Motapa... More >>
• Best Public Information Officer
  Fred King, Harris County district clerk's office
  Tropical Storm Allison annihilated the county's justice system, crippling the criminal courts building for months and mauling the Family Courts Center as well. In the ensuing mayhem, even judges sometimes didn't know where their temporary courts, salvaged files or trial settings would turn up.... More >>
• Best Bureaucrat
  Jordy Tollett, Mayor's chief of staff
  Mayor Lee Brown chief of staff Jordy Tollett got his start under mayor Jim McConn and has been accumulating titles and turf ever since. He's head of the city convention center and entertainment facility complex, the president of the convention and visitors bureau, and currently the little... More >>
• Best Democrat
  Eric Andell, Visiting judge
  This former First Court appellate justice and TV court-show host narrowly lost his post last November, but the defeat did nothing to dim Andell's luster as one of the most promising figures in the local party. He carried Harris County, did well in traditionally Republican precincts, and is... More >>
• Best Lobbyists
  Dave and Sue Walden
  This preeminent Houston political power couple is in the middle of a slow-motion divorce proceeding, possibly because their business affairs are impossible to untangle. Between them they represent just about anything that could be considered establishment in Houston. Sue raised money for mayor... More >>
• Best Republican
  Paul Bettencourt, Harris County tax assessor-collector
  This hyper-congenial county tax assessor-collector has burnished his image with consumer-oriented reforms, while at the same time utilizing the office as an attack arm of the local GOP. Bettencourt has churned out studies criticizing Mayor Lee Brown's tax policies, not so coincidentally the... More >>
• Best View
  The rearview mirror
  'Twas the endlessly quotable Townes Van Zandt who sang the line "No prettier sight than looking back on a town you left behind," and even if that judgment did arrive in a song called, paradoxically, "I'll Be Here in the Morning," the sentiment stands. Your life was waterlogged in the great... More >>
• Best Activist
  Benito Juárez
  When tempers flared last summer over an ad hoc day-labor site near Kingwood, one man stepped in to help broker talks between the immigrant workers, aggrieved business owners upset about the massing of men on their property, and Montgomery County sheriff's officials. That man was Benito... More >>
• Best Sighting of a Retired Public Figure (1 Comment)
  Johnny Holmes, Former Harris County district attorney
  Recently one morning while on our way to work, we were driving along Feagan Street in the West End when we saw what we first thought was a man with a metal detector in the ditch in front of what used to be Zocolo Theater, the alternative outdoor film and art center. As we got closer we saw that... More >>
• Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners
  Fred Hartmann Bridge
  The view from the Fred Hartmann Bridge is hauntingly beautiful, particularly at sunset. From this graceful perch unfolds a landscape straight out of science fiction, an expanse of petrochemical plants fanning out along the snaking Ship Channel as far as the eye can see. As darkness descends,... More >>
• Best Citizen (1 Comment)
  Officer Phillip Rhule, Crime scene investigator, Pasadena Police Department
  Eight days before Christmas, Officer Rhule was driving down the Beltway when he saw two women on the side of the road trying to change their tire. Their jack didn't work, so he took his and changed it for them, but their spare was almost flat. He took them to a nearby Stop N Go and put air in... More >>
• Best Quote
  Anna Nicole Smith
  During the marathon trial to settle the estate of late Houston millionaire J. Howard Marshall II, Marshall's widow, former topless dancer Anna Nicole Smith, testified, "it's expensive to be me." While that may well be true, the judge in the case eventually ruled against Smith, but we're... More >>
• Best Weathercaster
  Wayne Dolcefino
  Yes, we know. Wayne's not really a weathercaster. This investigative reporter would rather be chasing down unethical pothole fillers than tracking weather patterns. But when Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston hard, Wayne Dolcefino was there. Before it became virtually impossible not to be up to... More >>
• Best Hole in the Roof
  Skyspace by James Turrell
  It looks like a painting, a 12-foot square field of blue, oddly placed on the ceiling of the simple Quaker meeting room. But this painting is alive, deepening in color and drawing you in as the sun sets outside. It's the sky, you realize. Light artist James Turrell has cut an opening in the... More >>
• Best Bathroom
  Boulevard Bistrot
  Judging by the interiors of most restaurants, restaurateurs usually don't care deeply about art. Monica Pope is the exception. Her Boulevard Bistrot has art on the plates, on the walls and even in the bathrooms. In fact, the atmosphere of the lavatory was so important to the owner that she... More >>
• Best Pocket Park
  JP Morgan Chase Park
  Settle into the wrought-iron chairs. They are spread on the grounds at the base of the seven-story, girder-crossed mural painted by Suzanne Sellers on the adjacent Houston Club Building. And savor this new oasis of what used to be nothing more than an unsightly few asphalt parking spaces wedged... More >>
• Best New Downtown Bar
  Grasshopper/Red Lights
  When it comes to drinking, we prefer to imbibe free of industrial dance beats and blinding strobes. Of course, we don't mind the beautiful people who tend to gather at those high-tech nightclubs. That's the great thing about Grasshopper/Red Lights: Downstairs, you can sit at the Grasshopper's... More >>
• Best New Construction
  Jones Plaza renovation, Bricker & Cannady Architects, project designer Mark Wamble
  Critic Ann Holmes once called Jones Plaza the single most hostile block in Houston. It was stark and forbidding, built so high off the street that passersby couldn't see its top. It sat essentially unused except for events like Party on the Plaza. That's all changing now. Architect Mark Wamble,... More >>