Tomeka Weatherspoon, Houston Public Media, December 11, 2017:
East End community groups and artists gathered to unveil a new large-scale mural. It’s a wall of underwater sea creatures not far from the city docks.
“It was a year of planning,” said Veronica Gorczynski of the Greater East End Management District. Her group supports efforts to beautify the area. “We had over 300 people over 2 weekends — that includes a Saturday and a Sunday just cleaning up the site.”
This Friday and Saturday the GEEMD has partnered with Cynthia Vela to produce the first annual free comic-con, East End Comic Fan Festival. It’s free to the public, family and pet-friendly and free. Yes, I said free.
Volunteers are set up for the first Comic Fan Festival that included live art shows, local food trucks and, of course, a big cosplay contest.
Roy Rodriguez, manager of the East End Farmers Market, is hopeful the Fan Festival will be an annual event.
“I would describe it as an area that had been forgotten for a time and one that has so much history that should never be forgotten,” Rodriguez said.
Ann Pinchak spends her days gardening in her yard and handing out extra produce to passersby walking along her street’s promenade, or checking in with the vendors at the Sunday East End Street Market, where she’s a regular. Now that she’s found her way back to the neighborhood, she plans to stay put. “It’s diverse, it’s eclectic, it’s open-minded,” she says. “It’s just the most accepting neighborhood I’ve ever been in, and I’ve always felt alive here.”
“I started realizing the city and the management district was really committed to creating a new East End,” Andrew Kaldis said. “They’ve done everything they planned on doing, improving sidewalks, improving navigation, creating a synergy around the esplanades there in front of Ninfa’s and El Tiempo.”
Diane Schenke with the Greater East End Management District says it’s a big deal in her neighborhood and they’ve been trying to do something about it.
“A lot of the light rail stations, the streets coming to those stations did not have sidewalks,” says Schenke. “So the focus of our 35 miles of sidewalk is connecting neighborhoods both to those bus stops and light rail stations.”
“This is generational real estate,” Jonathan Brinsden, CEO of Midway, the company behind CityCentre and other high-profile projects, told the Chronicle in an exclusive preview of the project. “It will shift the center of gravity of Houston’s urban core toward the east.”
“The East End is a hidden gem,” said Gary Altergott, a local architect and panel chairman. “When you lift up the covers, it’s an exciting place. It’s highly diverse. There is a very active group that wants to make it a great place to live.”
The graffiti abatement and cleanup program has grown from covering just one East End neighborhood with a single van more than a decade ago to a four-van crew that cleans tagging throughout the region. The city of Houston has a contract with the management district to respond to 3-1-1 calls for graffiti as well. It also has partnerships with 15 management districts around the city.
The East End crew cleaned 25,000 sites last year and has cleaned more than 145,000 since 2001. The crews use sand blasters, paint and special cleaning materials.
They say they are trying to do something good for the community by restoring the East End properties as land values are rising and new townhomes are going up all around them.