Dismuke

 I would imagine that the facade blowing off of the bottom two floors on 3 sides released a lot of energy that might have otherwise resulted in more serious casulties. 

That makes a lot of sense to me - though I have ZERO expertise on such matters.  In addition to much of those three sides on the first floor consisting of wood and glass, the second floor was an open mezzanine which would have provided a large path for the released energy. I noticed that on news photographs the windows on the third floor do not appear to have been broken.  It probably would have been much worse had there been a typical mid-century remodel where the mezzanine was closed in and most of the ground floor covered by a more solid sort of material with few windows.

By the way, this was not the first hotel explosion in our area.  On June 21, 1946 there was a major explosion in the basement of the old Baker Hotel in downtown Dallas which killed 10 and injured 38 people.  I recalled that it involved ammonia gas which, at the time, was the very explosive refrigerant used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems.  But, since it had been years since I last read the specifics, I looked at the Dallas Morning News archives from 1946 to refresh my memory.

Ammonia was definitely involved in the tragedy.  After the explosion a cloud of ammonia gas quickly spread through the hotel overwhelming guests.  And, at the time of the explosion, workers were installing new refrigeration equipment.  The June 25, 1946 edition of the DMN quotes local officials as saying the explosion was caused by a gas pocket above the refrigeration rooms in the basement that was 2 feet high, 52 feet long and 37 feet wide. But officials also stated that the type of gas involved had not yet been determined.

The July 6 edition stated that an inquiry into the cause had been completed.  Oddly enough, the only specifics that the paper reported was: "The type of gas that exploded has been determined, but what set it off is still a mystery, the investigating group has indicated."  The article made no mention as to what type of gas that was and I didn't see any further articles from 1946 discussing the matter.

I did, however, find a website with information about a subsequent lawsuit that states:

"The Hotel will be able to produce evidence that the explosion which occurred in the basement of the Hotel on June 21, 1946 was caused by the igniting of natural gas which had accumulated in the area above the refrigerator rooms and butcher shop and below the first floor level in the new section of the basement..."

While the death toll and injuries was much higher, it sounds like the damage to the building was not as severe.  It did blast a hole in the east side of the hotel's basement which caused  concrete covering a lot east of the hotel to fly two stories into the air.  In that respect, it was similar to the damage caused to the sidewalk next to the W.T Waggoner building.  But I didn't see any coverage suggesting that the concrete there flew up two stories high.  Perhaps the concrete flying two stories next to the Baker was where a substantial portion of the energy was released thus minimizing the damage to the hotel.  The hotel reopened just four days later though, because of damage to the kitchen, no food service was available and the hotel's popular Mural Room nightclub on the first floor remained closed due to damage.

June 1946, by the way, was a horrific month for hotel tragedies.  Earlier in the month there was a fire at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago which killed 60 and injured 200.  The damage in that fire was further fueled by the heavy varnish on the woodwork in the hotel's ornate lobby.  And 19 people were killed in a fire at the Canfield Hotel in Dubuque, Iowa.  And later that year, on the fifth anniversary of Peral Harbor Day, what remains as the worst hotel fire in US history occurred in Atlanta at the Winecoff Hotel where 119 people were killed. 

While doing a google search to get the date of the Baker Hotel explosion I stumbled across stores of another hotel explosion at the Pathfinder Hotel in Fremont, Nebraska on January 10, 1976 which killed 20 and injured over 40 people. The explosion,  caused by natural gas in the basement, was similar to the one at the W.T. Waggoner Building but resulted in a large fire that caused further damage.  You can read a sad article about the explosion and its long term impact on those involved here and see a number of photos here.   

Of all the hotels mentioned, only the Pathfinder did not reopen.  The Baker and LaSalle were demolished decades later. The Canfield was able to reopen in its newer annex that was not as badly impacted by the fire and is still in operation. The Winecoff reopened a few years later as the Peachtree On Peachtree Hotel.   After decades of sitting empty, the building was restored and reopened as the boutique Ellis Hotel.

Given the above, as others have mentioned, we are  fortunate that the number and scope of injuries was not far worse.  And hopefully we will be fortunate as well in terms of the building being put back together. 

From this morning's update, via Harrison Mantas on Twitter:

 

"Davis says building has "significant structural damage."

Says the first floor concrete is "pancaked" into the sub-basement"

 

https://x.com/Harris...6225048753?s=20

 

That does not sound good.

Let's hope it is not as bad as it sounds and it is fixable.

Back in 2003 the abandoned historic Texas State Hotel in Houston was being restored for what is now known as the Club Quarters Hotel.  A 20' x 30' section of concrete on the 9th floor suddenly collapsed and caused the concrete on all floors beneath it to similarly collapse into the basement.   Fortunately, even though workers were present, nobody was injured.

I have never learned what caused the collapse - at the time it happened there was mention that some workers were using jackhammers elsewhere and speculation that vibrations from that might have caused it.

When I heard of it happening, my assumption was that was going to be the end of an impressive and beautiful building.  In the months afterward, I was not able to find any further coverage regarding cause or what would happen next.   But eventually I read about the hotel reopening and it is still in operation today. 

My guess is they inspected the building, determined that there was no risk of it happening with other sections of concrete floor and did whatever would have needed to be done to pour new into the impacted sections.  I suppose they could have just left the hole on each of those floors and built walls around them.  That sounds a bit unlikely to me - but I have zero knowledge about such things.  I was very pleasantly surprised that the hotel was able to reopen.

https://www.chron.co...pse-2112083.php

There was mention about bringing Whataburger back downtown.

I think the fast-food burger chain that would offer an especially good fit for downtown, if they could be enticed, would be Bruams due to their unique assortment of offerings.

For one, they are part conventional fast-food burger place along the lines of Whataburger. My guess is that would probably be busy at lunch time and be popular with tourists who simply want to get a quick, affordable bite to eat.

They are part ice cream parlor.  There used to be an ice cream store in Sundance Square where there was usually a constant line of customers in the evenings. I don't know if that ice cream store is still there.  I have always thought that Braums has decent ice cream (which, interestingly, they source from dairy farms they own and operate) and they sell it for a price that is unbeatable.

Finally, they operate within their stores a "market" that, in addition to cartons of their ice cream, sells a limited assortment of high demand dairy and grocery items, fruits and vegetables and heat-and-serve type food - a much better assortment of actual grocery type items than one can find at a typical convenience store and at a more reasonable price. 

Given the number of people who now live downtown, I suspect that the "market" would prove to be convenient and popular - especially if they were open to expanding their offerings a bit to match the wants of a customer base that will likely quite different than that of their typically suburban locations. 

 

Perhaps an organization could take over both of these websites:

 

https://fortworthgazette.blogspot.com/

 

https://hometownbyhandlebar.com/

 

I have a copy of the website and am willing to make it available if that is what is necessary to keep the site public.

I had heard somewhere that the University of North Texas/Portal To Texas History had expressed willingness to make the site available.

Do you know if that was the case and, if so, what has happened with that?

Do you know what the issue for the family is?  Are they simply not wanting the site to be kept up?  Or are they just at a loss as to how to go about it given that they probably have other things on their plate with regard to his estate and their own probably busy lives?

The best way in the short-term would be to identify a person/organization the family is willing to turn the web hosting account and domain name over to.  My guess is we could, among ourselves, take up a collection to keep the hosting bills paid - and if the hosting service  he used was exorbitantly expensive, it can always be moved to one that is less expensive. 

The benefit of that is the domain name stays active plus one can make a backup of all files directly from the server as well as the Word Press database that powers the site.  That is the BEST way to get a backup from the site.   If the family would be willing to make or allow someone to make such a backup, then that would help.

The backup I made SHOULD work if uploaded to a web server.  It seems to work when I navigate it via the files on my local drive.  But if that were to be uploaded to a web server, the site would be a collection of linked static .html files - not another Word Press installation.  That alone is not necessarily a problem because, presumably, there will be no need to further update the site.

If it becomes necessary, I can easily provide web space for the site - and I can get a different but similar domain name (hometownbyhandlebar-archive, for example).  If all goes well, I would simply upload the files and, in theory, it should work. Realistically, my hunch is that there might be instances where the backup software automation might have become confused about linking - so it is possible that, once it is up, people might discover some glitches with site navigation which will need to be manually corrected.

But I think the BEST outcome would be for some sort of ongoing institution or organization to take over the site.  I am willing to do so - and I am sure there are others who would be as well. But suppose I were to take it over - and then something untimely happened to me.  Everyone would be back at square one again.  That is why I liked the idea of UNT/Portal of Texas History taking it over - they are not likely to disappear any time soon or just suddenly decide they no longer wish to pay for/mess with keeping the site going. 

 

a bother.  Once the above folks know the below folks are annoyed, what's reasonable to expect for foot traffic / shoe choice etc?  Are clogs and high heels out of the question?  Should those downstairs take a chill pill?  Is the noise interrupting meetings, phone calls and such?  I know I would probably be annoyed in a hotel or apartment situation if I heard kids running around constantly, that's why I have gravitated towards newer construction with concrete poured floors on my last several hotel stays.

 

 

I can understand why that would be disruptive and annoying.

But isn't this more of a factor in terms of how substantially a wood frame building is constructed than it is of its construction material?  I have been in wood frame buildings where one could hear people moving on the floor above.  But I have also been in others where I did not.

Most of the 5 or so story apartments and hotels that have been going up in recent years are wood frame above the first floor.  I haven't spent enough time in any to know if noise from people moving around on the floor above is a problem or not.

At any rate, pretty much any building over 5 or 6 stories is going to be steel and concrete.  The only sizeable vintage hotel in the area still standing in recent years that was wood frame (load bearing brick walls with wood beams and columns) was the old Ambassador Hotel in Dallas' Old City Park, originally the Majestic and then the Park hotel, which opened in 1905 and was sadly destroyed by fire a few years ago.  It was six stories.

I am trying to think of any vintage wood frame buildings in downtown Fort Worth that are as tall as the modern wood framed apartment blocks that are going up - and am not able to think of any still standing.  Even the 1894 courthouse is steel and concrete.  

 

This is a weird thought, but I think the actual vintage 1970s/1980s mall buildings themselves will survive the longest at places like Ridgmar which could hypothetically leave them for adaptive reuse someday 50 years from now. Like Montgomery Plaza or T&P station.

 

 

With a span of 50 years, perhaps enclosed shopping malls might even make a comeback.  Some of the very early enclosed malls (Seminary South here in Fort Worth was an example) actually started out as outdoor centers and were converted when indoor malls became the thing.  Who at the time would have ever thought that, someday, people would be converting indoor malls into outdoor centers?  Who, at the time, would have ever thought that downtowns and inner city neighborhoods would make a comeback and become trendy places for the affluent?

And nobody can predict what retail will be like 50 years from now.  If virtual reality/augmented reality ever becomes feasible and widespread, that would, undoubtedly, change how people shop. If, let's say, nuclear fusion ever becomes viable and lives up to claims that it will provide unlimited, super cheap electricity, perhaps the cost of heating or air conditioning large stores and indoor centers will become negligible.  Perhaps manufacturers or retailers will set up huge spectacular show rooms with minimal staff and no inventory where people can look at, touch and feel various products and, if they wish to order, they just scan the item into whatever ends up replacing smartphones and it is immediately shipped to them.

I have a hard time imagining that demand for brick and mortar purchases will go away entirely.  There are some things people need NOW, not in a day or even a few hours, in order to get something done without delay.  And some things just don't scale well for online retail - for example, second hand items, one of a kind handcrafted items, perishables such as produce where visual inspection is important. 

The problem is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find certain things one needs at brick and mortar stores.  Online has drained away the volume that they once depended on - so to reduce costs they are minimizing both their on-hand inventory and eliminating slow-moving items from their shelves. 

For years I have had staff at Home Depot and Lowes refer me to tiny mom-and-pop hardware stores for certain types of items needed for repairs in a home built in the 1920s.  But I doubt that such hardware stores could survive in a brick and mortar fashion by only selling such slow moving, specialized items.  But, at the same time, their lack of scale make it hard for them to be price competitive on high demand items.  So such items become increasingly available on an online-only basis. 

It has occurred to me that, down the road, indoor malls might become viable by using a model similar to that of so-called antique malls.  The way antique malls work is the various antique merchants rent one or more booths for displaying their merchandise.  The merchandise has paper tags indicating which merchant's booth it came from.  The entire building has a centralized checkout where shoppers can pay for multiple items from multiple merchants in a single transaction.   And, in addition to being able to generate traffic by the draw of greater variety, the merchant does not need to staff the booth.  They can operate booths in multiple antique malls and can use their time for other things, including earning money in a "day job."

To apply the antique mall concept to a conventional mall, different highly specialized merchants would rent shop space in the mall.  The individual shops would not necessarily need to be staffed unless having somebody knowledgeable on hand to answer shopper questions would increase sales enough to make it profitable.  The individual shops would not have their own checkouts.  Instead, shoppers would go from store to store and select whatever they might need.  And, unlike an antique mall, there would be no physical checkout lines.  All items in the various shops would be tagged with some form of RFID tag or similar technology that would track what each customer selected and from which merchant it came.  This tag would communicate with the mall's computers as the items are selected and charge the customer's electronic payment method once they leave the building.  The system would automatically allocate the funds for each merchant's share of the transaction as well as the fee the mall charges to provide the service.  Staffing requirements on the mall's part would primarily be security and janitorial - and in the future, a lot of that is likely to be automated. 

Such merchants would be able to carry a much wider and specialized assortment of items than would be feasible for mass merchandisers such as Target or Walmart.  It would not only enable people to be able to pick up NOW specialized items one might typically have to buy online, it might even be more economical than online shopping.  Some items are not economical to ship on an individual basis - either they are an odd size, too heavy, or the cost of the item is so low that the cost of shipping exceeds the value of the item.  Ordering a can of green beans on Amazon will never be less expensive than buying it in a local store, unless, perhaps one orders an entire case, which one might have no need for.  So such a mall might make it possible to bring the "long tail" benefits of online shopping to the brick and mortar world - something that mass merchandisers are not set up for in terms of specialized expertise.

And, if such a concept of unstaffed, highly specialized stores were to come about, a mall format would be perfect.  One could spread the fixed costs of the security and checkout systems across a larger number of merchants.  And, for consumers, if an enticing enough collection of merchants were put together under a single roof, it would offer similar "one stop shopping" benefits as mass merchandisers such as Walmart.

This isn't any sort of prediction on my part - just my imagination extending current trends into the future.  But, let's just say that if indoor shopping malls ever make a big time comeback - well, stranger things have happened. 

Here is my thought as to what would be wise for the owner of Ridgmar Mall to do:
 

Demolish the former Neiman Marcus store building.

Carve out about a 150,000 or so sq ft plot immediately to the east and south of the movie theater.  This would take up about the southern third of the former Neiman's site.

Approach H-E-B and tell them that they can have a long-term $0 lease on that plot of land so long as they expeditiously erect and continue to operate one of their H-E-B  Plus stores on the site.

Agree that, however the rest of the mall site is eventually redeveloped, there will remain a sufficient number of parking spaces for both the HEB and whatever new uses may come along.

That will draw traffic to the site and in a big way.  Yes, HEB is starting to locate in suburban portions of the county where there is land to build.  But finding a location of suitable size within the central part of the city is much more difficult and expensive.  Who knows when such a store might otherwise be built - and here is a plot of land, certainly large enough, that is a reasonably close drive to most areas west of downtown. And it would enable them to offer home delivery service to the central portion of Fort Worth that much faster. 

The store would be immediately successful - as HEB stores always are.  But it would be especially successful in Fort Worth - a much needed and welcome alternative to the mediocre (at best) stores and mind-bogglingly high prices of Albertsons/Tom Thumb on one hand and all of the various things that can sometimes make shopping at Walmart a less-than-pleasant hassle.  And people in Fort Worth would no longer have to listen to transplants from Austin/San Antonio/Houston invariably ask: "why are the grocery stores in D/FW so crappy?"

HEB is careful about where they put their stores - so perhaps there is something demographically about the location that they would consider a negative that I am not aware of.  But since Albertsons, Aldi and Walmart are nearby and that particular Albertsons has managed to somehow survive the chain's massive downsizing in the area, I am guessing it would be a suitable location - and I would think a free ground lease would sweeten the deal.

As for the owners of Ridgmar - the traffic the store would generate would open the door to all sorts of possibilities.  HEB is the one retailer whose stores are usually very busy - and one that people will drive an extra distance to shop at.  I doubt it will be able to save the mall itself.  But it might enable Penny's and businesses that rent space in the mall to remain viable until other, better uses for the site are found.
 

It strikes me that, until a redevelopment is feasible, the building could, relatively inexpensively, be brought back into use and generate revenue by using it for its original, historic purpose: storage.

Consider how many self-storage places are being constructed in the area.  Consider how many new apartments have been and are being built in or near downtown.  Consider how many small businesses are located within the 820 loop.

Dividing all or a portion of one or more floors of the building into self-storage units would be easy.

For climate controlled storage, the building would be perfect - and a portion of it was, in fact, specifically designed for refrigerated storage at a time when generating refrigerated air was much more expensive than it is today.  That building is, undoubtedly, super well insulated which would enable the operators of such a facility to enjoy lower utility bills for their climate controlled offerings. 

I suspect that the building would give it an advantage for non-climate controlled storage as well.  I am guessing it retains its inside temperature much better than most modern storage facilities. If so, in summer they could run large exhaust fans to pump in cool night air which would last for a number of hours and enable it to not heat up as much as a less well-built building would. In winter, it is not uncommon for there to be random periods where the daytime temperature gets into the 60s or 70s - and one could use the fans to raise the internal temperature.  My guess is that it is rare for temperatures inside the building to drop below freezing and would probably be even rarer if it was full of items, especially if the temperature was periodically boosted by using fans on relatively warmer days.  But they could, perhaps, install gas heaters that would kick on in the event the inside temperature dropped below 35 degrees and keep it no lower than 35 degrees and thus be able to offer freeze protection on even their non-climate controlled storage.  If I am correct in terms of how rare that would happen inside that building, it would be an advantage they would be able to offer at limited cost to them. 

Moreover, the building's enormous size, plus the fact that it offers loading docks, would enable it to offer far more than just extra storage space for homeowners and apartment renters.  If a business needed temporary storage space larger than typical storage facilities offer, climate-controlled or not, it wouldn't be difficult to configure a custom-sized space. 

An offering could be provided to small retail businesses, either online or storefront, that need a place to store inventory but aren't large enough justify their own small warehouse. The building has loading docks - so, for a fee, it could offer receiving services and either move the items to the tenant's unit or, if the tenant did not wish to allow access, to a temporary holding space where the tenant could retrieve them.

If occupancy laws permit, commercial units  could, at an added cost, include Internet connections and workspace for tasks such as taking inventory or packing items for shipment.  Perhaps the facility could even offer some sort of custom fulfillment services to those for whom other services are not a good fit (assuming such a niche exists).

The building already has large freight elevators.  I have no idea if they still work or could be made to work.  Worse case scenario would be to put in all-new elevators.  But the shafts and basic infrastructure for that are already in place.

They would probably want to install some sort of fire suppression system - which I assume would be fairly easy in a building such as that.   And, of course, there would need to be climate control for the portions of the building for which it would be offered,  And they would have to repair/build out restroom facilities.   Since it does have loading docks, they would need to come up with a way so that those who bring in items with cars and pickups can get them on the same level as the ground floor.  Probably the easiest way to do that would be to construct a ramp and have standard passenger vehicles drive up into the first floor to load and unload.  I am not sure if the roof leaks - but my guess is it, at the very least, needs some maintenance.

What's more, other than getting the freight elevators working/replaced, it wouldn't even be necessary to pay for converting the entire structure.  They could, for example, initially use a certain number of floors on just the western portion of the building and expand to other floors/portions if and when there is sufficient demand.

It also occurs to me that such a substantial building would also be great for a datacenter both from an energy efficiency and a security standpoint - both of which are critical for datacenters.  The building is so large, a secure datacenter could be segregated from and impossible to access from the portions of the building used for storage. And perhaps, during the winter, the excess heat that the datacenter generates could be diverted and recycled in order to offset heating cost for the climate controlled storage. 
 

All that being said - I know nothing about the storage industry other than having been a customer.  But it strikes me that such a use - or something along similar lines - would be a way to get the building back into use and for it to generate revenue.   The only downside I can see would be if a redevelopment might be in the works in the foreseeable future.  I suspect that closing down a storage facility takes time.  I had a friend who used a storage facility when he joined the military so that his items would be there for him once he got out a few years later.  Receiving a notification halfway across the country that he would need to move his stuff out would have been an extreme hardship.  On the other hand, if a storage facility occupied a portion on the building's western side, one could still redevelop the eastern portion into a good many apartments with firewalls and enough empty space between the two uses to presumably address potential fire-safety related concerns about having residential and storage in close proximity.  Redeveloping the building in segments would reduce also the initial investment/risk.  And, here, too, if the development fills up and is successful, then it could be expanded into another segment and, if necessary, give plenty of advance time to wind down the storage business. 

Anyhow, that is what I always think about whenever I look at that huge and beautiful building just sitting there empty. 

 

 

I think the important risk and liability questions are:

 

1) Which party bears the liability for the risks of at-grade crossings in Fort Worth? 

 

 

Your reply brought to mind an example where the city clearly allows easy access to a potential hazard that I think is far more dangerous than a pedestrian rail crossing.   

In Trinity Park there are a couple of small rock dams. I was by one of them on a recent walk and decided to take a closer look at it.  There is a path that leads directly to the dam.  The dam has a flat surface and is very easy and inviting to walk across.  Indeed, just a short distance upstream, are a series of rock stepping stones set up so that one can cross the river.  But, with the dam, one cannot walk all the way across as, in the middle of it, is a section cut into it that functions as a kayak/canoe chute and and through which the dammed up water flows.  On the side of the dam opposite the flowing water is a sign warning about the danger of the flowing water.  And it certainly is dangerous. The day I was there the water was flowing at a pretty fast rate. People sometimes underestimate the power of flowing water.  And small dams are dangerous not just because the flow will easily knock a person over but also they create powerful currents immediately after the dam that can drag a person to the bottom and which are difficult to escape from.  I then remembered reading about how at least a couple of people have drowned in that area in recent years.

I suspect the biggest danger is with kids who might visit the park who are old enough that their parents feel comfortable enough not to be at their side every single moment but not necessarily mature enough to have much in the way of good judgement or common sense.  Blocking access to the dam with a fence would undoubtedly make it less likely kids and others would walk out to the dam to where the current goes through.

Clearly city officials are aware of the potential hazard as they placed the sign warning about it.  Undoubtedly they are aware of the drowning accidents as they were reported by local news media.

In the end, it comes down to where to draw the line on such things.  Blocking people from walking out onto the dam might prevent future drownings.  But putting up a huge fence and blocking any access at all to the river would make potential drownings even less likely.  So would closing off access to all lakes and outlawing all swimming pools.  In the end, individuals have to be responsible for taking reasonable precautions for their own safety.

So setting aside my question as to whether their being 5 tracks at that particular crossing presents any special sort of potential danger, I am in complete agreement with your overall argument for keeping crossings open to pedestrians.

But that still brings one back to the point that Nitixope made.  Sure, opening the crossing would certainly make it easier for a pedestrian on 1st Street to cross the tracks.  But how many people would ever want to?  The only thing there is the Purina complex and some other sort of business in a metal building.  And, once one gets past the Purina complex, the ability to continue walking in that direction comes to a complete end with a vast expanse of I-35 lanes.  To get to the other side of the freeway, a person would still end up having to walk to 4th Street just as they would if there was no crossing at 1st.

When I hear of an area being "walkable" I tend to think not so much as being able to physically walk in a safe manner but also as having destinations that one would wish to walk to. If one just goes by being able to safely walk, then any area suburb with its many dozens of miles of fully sidewalked housing developments would classify as being walkable.

Perhaps something will develop on the other side of the tracks in the future.  But due to the fact that the lots on both sides of Live Oak St are not very deep as a result of having railroad tracks behind them and the area being isolated and difficult to access by road makes me skeptical that there would be much demand to walk to anything new that might come along. 

The thing is that any resources and effort to reopen and maintain that crossing in the name of walkability would be resources that would not be available for some other project. 

If one goes further north on Live Oak to the other side of E. Belknap there is another rail crossing that has been closed at the intersection of Live Oak and Peach - to the point that there has been a fence installed to prevent any pedestrian from evening using as a non-official crossing.  Here is the Google Maps Street View

https://goo.gl/maps/YjwQtJjt1f6wHGvy8

On that side of Belknap there is a neighborhood of approximately two dozen houses.  With the closure of the Peach St rail crossing, the only way residents can get in or out of the neighborhood, whether as pedestrians or by driving, would also be to go all the way down Live Oak, past the closed 1st St crossing down to 4th St.  That's probably not such a big deal by car.  But, if anybody in that neighborhood either preferred to or had to walk to destinations on the other side of the tracks, either to get to their place of employment or access public transportation, getting to 4th Street is about a half mile out of their way plus any additional distance if their destination on the other side happens to be north of 4th Street.

I would assume/hope that the residents in that neighborhood had an opportunity to air their views on the matter before the closure.  But, in terms of walkability and such a crossing getting regular, actual use, I would think that reopening the Peach St crossing would make more sense than the 1st St crossing. 

And, you get what you pay for....For example, we were doing some holiday shopping there and I'm not one to spend $6-9 on a carton / gallon of milk (which they do have) so without looking at the labels in detail, I grabbed the that was priced $4 and left.  Back home, I poured a glass and was completely shocked....whatever I bought, it actually tasted like real milk, the way I remembered milk tasting in Wisconsin years ago when we'd visit family, the way it tasted from a local dairy.  I looked at the label and it was their CM house brand organic milk.  I thought for sure I had inadvertently grabbed a specialty milk or maybe bought a higher fat % variety whole milk, but nope, just 2% organic milk from Central Market.  I couldn't believe I'd forgotten what real (unadulterated) food tastes like.  

 

You are correct in that there is a taste difference with certain higher quality milks.

I have never tried Central Market's organic milk.   But there is a brand that Central Market would sometimes stock but is also available at Whole Foods and Natural Grocers:  Mill-King https://mill-king.com/  It comes from a dairy near Waco.

There are a couple of things that make this milk different.  First, the milk comes from grass fed cows.  Second, it is low temperature pasteurized which is something that, these days, is one only by a limited number of small, specialty dairies. Most milk sold these days is pasteurized at a much higher temperature because it only has to be maintained at the higher temperature level for a shorter time duration and, thus, is more efficient and cost effective.  Low temperature pasteurization requires that the milk be slowly heated to 145 degrees Fahrenheit and maintained at that temperature for 30 minutes.

Central Market does sell a national brand of milk from grass fed cows and it, too is good - but not as good.  I suspect the difference is the low temperature pasteurization. The national brand milk is "ultra pasteurized" which means it is heated to an even higher temperature than conventional pasteurization.  The benefit of ultra pasteurization is it enables the product to have a longer shelf life.  It would make sense that companies that manufacture a higher priced, slower moving product would want it to have as long a shelf life as possible.  But, as is usually the case with all things, there is a trade-off.

The other thing about Mill-King is that it is not homogenized and thus the cream rises to the top - something one doesn't find very often these days. But what it means is that one will want to shake the container a few times prior to pouring. 

I am told that raw, unpasteurized milk is the best in terms of taste.  In Texas it is legal to purchase raw milk, but only directly from the producer. As curious as I am to try it, I have never attempted to because raw milk is highly susceptible to certain bacterial contaminations that can make a person extremely ill or even kill them.  There is a reason why milk is pasteurized.  Of course, if raw milk is non-contaminated, it is perfectly safe.  My father grew up drinking it as did most rural people of his generation. But people back then tended to drink milk they got from their own animals.  I would say that, before trying it, one would want to be very knowledgeable about and have a high degree of confidence in the producer one is getting it from.  (One can buy cheeses made from raw milk at places such as Trader Joes - but such cheese has gone through an aging period beyond a certain minimum to reduce the risk of pathogens. 

I have a buddy that doesn't blink an eye at doing all of their shopping at Central Market.  I know I couldn't do it every week as I'm usually looking for a good deal and I like a variety of different products from stores, but he said they hate "shopping around" for a deal and like what they sell at CM, they like the atmosphere and the staff, especially fresh foods, produce and prepared food like soups. 

There is a perception that Central Market is expensive since so much of the sell falls into the category of specialty foods - and those, of course, do usually cost more and sometimes a lot more than mainstream, mass market items.  But my experience is that, to the limited degree that other stores in the area stock specialty items that Central Market carries, Central Market will almost always be less expensive.

Not just that, in certain product categories Central Market will stock a limited selection of HEB's store brand items - and I have noticed that it is not unusual for Central Market to sell those items at a price that is lower than the comparable store brand product at Walmart.

The other way one can save a lot of money at Central Market is through their bulk spice section.  First, if there is a particular spice that one uses often, it is usually much less expensive on a per ounce basis than the tiny jars of the same spice sold in conventional supermarket spice sections.  And, second, if there is a particular spice that one rarely uses but does need for a particular recipe, at Central Market one can buy only what one needs and not have to pay for any leftover amount that will not likely be used up.  There was such a spice I needed recently for a meal I was preparing.  I placed approximately what I needed in a bag plus a little more so that I would have a bit extra to spare just in case and placed it on the scale to enter in its product code and print out the price label.   It wouldn't let me - because the weight for the amount I needed was too light for the scale to register.  I had to keep adding an additional amount into my bag just so it would pick up on the weighing scale -  the price on it ended up being under 10 cents.  At a conventional supermarket I probably would have had to pay $2 or $3 and stuck with a jar of spice that I might have no need to use again for a couple of years or more.