Burbridge Apartments It was a wonderful thing, like a huge cave formation that accreted over millions of years, the product of mineral-heavy water dripping and reshaping an ordinary rock into something marvelous. And then one day it was gone -- all that was left was shredded wood, broken glass and pages of gay porn strewn through the rubble. We're speaking of the Burbridge Apartments, that red, funky, three-and-a-half-story mutant garage apartment on 'roids that stood until this spring next to the Diamond Shamrock on Richmond. It kept getting bigger and bigger with very little addition to the absurdity of its appearance: That assuredness of appearance was its charm. Former Rice architecture professor Peter Papademetriou once called it a perfect allegory of Houston's growth. And now it's been demolished. A perfect allegory indeed.