When did old Austin die?

[Not that Bob 735]

The first day of Ron Mullin's first term on City Council. 

[tx 3 putt 76870]

SCSW day 1

[Steel Shank 9421]

I'm in that pic somewhere, either on the sidewalk, or possibly just out of field to the left.
I don't think there was a keg involved, but a lot of bottles and cans and just clap your hands.

I was in the library studying.

[next2naus 438]

On 5/17/2023 at 11:46 AM, tbone_ said:

I’m an apartment developer. I personally don’t, but my company does student housing.

I hate this kind of stuff about our industry.

Oh and old Austin died when it stopped being just Abel’s.

this...

[nbmishoid 949]

6/15/76.   I and my 65 Buick hit the road for Bakersfield 

[Wally Pryor 5261]

March 12, 1987.  May be off a day or two. That was the beginning of it. 

[tbone_ 14110]

March 12, 1987.  May be off a day or two. That was the beginning of it. 

What was the significance of that day? Other than the fact that I was a freshman.

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

Only skimmed page 1 but I’d like to add 2011 even though it’s way too late, because that’s when Austin city limits moved to the moody theater. 

[Deej 76755]

The day they took down the city limits sign on 2222 just before you hit Balcones.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Deej

[Wally Pryor 5261]

4 hours ago, tbone_ said:

What was the significance of that day? Other than the fact that I was a freshman.

First day of something called SXSW. People and mainstream media from populous places on both coasts got wind of a little festival in Austin, located it on a map, found a hotel, or motel and, four days later left, collectively saying "Wow. Music. Hills. Lakes. Liberal and weird people (yeah, it was still weird then). Nice weather. Food. And more music. In Texas, no less. " 

Word got out. People ultimately got wind of things, started coming in droves, for the festival, to visit otherwise, and more. Many, many came back to stay, and then to build homes and businesses and bring existing businesses with them from a long ways away. There was no looking back.

I'm not revealing anything new. 3-1/2 decades ago, SXSW was the turning point from when Austin went from a (still relatively) sleepy town to, as of today, the 10th largest city in the country along with being of the most talent-laden and biggest business hubs in the US. Along with that "old Austin", or whatever you want to call it, died.

[tbone_ 14110]

Makes sense

[Armybrat 40822]

On 5/16/2023 at 6:22 PM, DalTxHornFan said:

Yep.  I don't recall that they ever replaced the "Skating Palace" sign on the the AWHQ concert hall!  They certainly never replaced that nasty carpet in there!

I went rollerskating there with friends in 1959-60.

[Macanudo 12975]

I have not been to in Austin since 2014.   Seeing pictures of West Campus, while not surprising, is both amazing and sickening.

[tbone_ 14110]

Just a matter of time before all the Greek land sells I guess

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I have not been to in Austin since 2014.   Seeing pictures of West Campus, while not surprising, is both amazing and sickening.

Holy shit. That is crazy to me. You live 2.5 hours away. You should drive over one Friday (fuck work, they are letting you go). Get some Leroy and Lewis then go stare at chicks at Barton Springs.

[LTtxfan 49144]

 

[animaltobacco11 107]

The real answer is that Old Austin died when a man couldn't get a double or triple whiskey coke for .75 cents at Treasure Island on Dirty 6th, which was around the same time that Oriental Cowboy parlour was busted. We went from a wilder west, frontier libertarian city for cosmic cowboys, rakes and industry leaders in training, to a city catering to the needs and wants of the mediocre and trendy.

[MAUFRAIS 6619]

Midnight Cowboy

Get it right or pay the price

[BabaYaga 15288]

When I left....

[animaltobacco11 107]

4 hours ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Midnight Cowboy

Get it right or pay the price

Budnik.

[Brisketexan 105066]

Loudest and most fun home game I've ever been to at Texas.  That was my freshman year, though I was born and raised in Austin, by two UT grads, so I'd been going to games since I was 2 or 3 years old.  
 

That game was my first date with my now-wife.
Pretty good first date.
And a good friend of mine was the idiot that Wally said tog at off the goalposts.

Back on topic, I think the poster that pointed to the economic development and jobs nailed it.
For most of my seven years on campus, there weren't enough jobs to go around for graduates, so remaining in Austin either required a stroke of luck or underemployment, even for engineers and lawyers (two fields well represented in Austin even in the old days).
At some point in the 90s, being gainfully employed in Austin after graduation became less of a moonshot.  I think that's when things started to change.

A whole lot of this. I was in law school in the early 90s. When I started, Austin law jobs were seen as a pipe dream. By the time I graduated, a fair number of us got jobs here (including me).
The rise of Dell and the tech industry really started to get traction then, beginning Austin’s turn from being a backwater to a real city. E.g., I remember pulling up and parking at old Mueller airport 15 mins before my 6:00 am flight to Dallas for work back then. Today, if you have a flight during that morning crush, you best get to ABIA an hour before your flight. Yeah, security is different now, but the volume of travelers at that hour is 10X what it was back then.

[Armybrat 40822]

Three spans of the 1884 Congress Avenue Bridge still exist as a part of the Moore’s Crossing Bridge over Onion Creek in Richard Moya Park south of the airport…..

 

[thrillhammer 683]

On 2/9/2020 at 8:33 PM, XYZ said:

Yeah, all you need to do is visit Houston or Dallas to realize how white Austin is.

truth.  raised in houston,  moved to austin in 82.  my kids were shocked every single weekend we'd go back to houston to visit family, and how many black people there are.  youre sheltered from that in austin.  you have no clue until you go to houston.

[DalTxHornFan 3097]

14 minutes ago, thrillhammer said:

truth.  raised in houston,  moved to austin in 82.  my kids were shocked every single weekend we'd go back to houston to visit family, and how many black people there are.  youre sheltered from that in austin.  you have no clue until you go to houston.

[CTC2 2791]

I’ll weigh in to say it died when Les Amis Café and Madog’s closed. Seems like I was downhill after that. 

[Deej 76755]

1 hour ago, CTC2 said:

I’ll weigh in to say it died when Les Amis Café and Madog’s closed. Seems like I was downhill after that. 

And Inner Sanctum.

[Wally Pryor 5261]

11 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Three spans of the 1884 Congress Avenue Bridge still exist as a part of the Moore’s Crossing Bridge over Onion Creek in Richard Moya Park south of the airport…..

 

Interesting. Thanks for posting. Driven over that Onion Creek bridge many times. Had no idea.

[Snake Diggity 4619]

Dell killed Austin.  That may have been inevitable given the factors that made Dell successful.  But Dell is what expanded Austin out of Govt/University/music being the whole of the city and its culture.  Once it became a hub for business, it was over.  I loved the version of Austin I moved to in 1998, but it was already dying by then.

[DalTxHornFan 3097]

2 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

Dell killed Austin.  That may have been inevitable given the factors that made Dell successful.  But Dell is what expanded Austin out of Govt/University/music being the whole of the city and its culture.  Once it became a hub for business, it was over.  I loved the version of Austin I moved to in 1998, but it was already dying by then.

Hey there, newcomer.  You were late to the party. Dell was pretty well established as PC's Limited in 1984/85.

Sematech announcing Austin as their destination in 1987 was a pretty big deal, as was IBM establishing a major location in north Austin in 1966.

It ain't just one thing.

[Snake Diggity 4619]

2 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Hey there, newcomer.  You were late to the party. Dell was pretty well established as PC's Limited in 1984/85.

Sematech announcing Austin as their destination in 1987 was a pretty big deal, as was IBM establishing a major location in north Austin in 1966.

It ain't just one thing.

Meh.  Of course it ain’t just one thing and I referenced that in my comment (something like the Dell phenomenon was probably inevitable given the things you mentioned that were already in place).  To stretch an analogy, the seeds were in place by the 50s (or even earlier), and sprouted and grew over the next 30 years, but the shade those trees produced didn’t start killing the other vegetation until the late 80s early 90s when Dell got big enough to shift city priorities and attract the wrong kinds of people.

[LCHorn 2615]

Echoing @Snake Diggity, it was Dell that minted millionaires and started diversifying Austin's business sector.  Nobody that was working for IBM or NI or whatever previously was becoming independently wealthy before they hit their 40's. 

The money begat lots of small-time VC investment (compared to CA), property speculation (you don't have the eastside gentrification most likely without investor flippers), upgraded dining choices, airport expansion, etc., etc.. 

That said, I'm in the camp that "old Austin" will never die as long as The University is spitting out 8K new grads annually to complain that their Austin has declined since they were freshman. 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

Everyone thinks the greatest Austin was the day they got there and it’s been going steadily downhill ever since.  
 

I left in 2003 and felt I’d stayed too long and it had lost its character.  People who got there in 2003 have since left and said the same thing. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Everyone thinks the greatest Austin was the day they got there and it’s been going steadily downhill ever since.  
 
I left in 2003 and felt I’d stayed too long and it had lost its character.  People who got there in 2003 have since left and said the same thing. 

Yep. It’s no more complicated than that. I lived in Austin from 1995-1999, 2002-2005, 2012-2013. Guess which version is the best?

[Ollie Slatt 289]

13 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Yep. It’s no more complicated than that. I lived in Austin from 1995-1999, 2002-2005, 2012-2013. Guess which version is the best?

The one where you were youngest and had the least responsibility? 

 

Austin has definitely changed a lot.  But I cant help thinking that we are all conflating Austin changing and loss of our youth.  The young people here still seem to be having a pretty good time.  

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

The one where you were youngest and had the least responsibility? 
 
Austin has definitely changed a lot.  But I cant help thinking that we are all conflating Austin changing and loss of our youth.  The young people here still seem to be having a pretty good time.  

Exactly. So for folks, especially young ones, just moving to Austin, I am sure it is awesome for them (most of them anyways).

[MAUFRAIS 6619]

It is no longer necessary to make that profound observation.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

It is no longer necessary to make that profound observation.

Shut down the thread.

[Armybrat 40822]

I was having a pretty good time until getting solidly constipated a week ago Sunday.

[High Plains Drifter 11029]

 

Any of you old timers ever participate in the Lake Austin Raft Race? I believe it was part of Aquafest.

 

Friend of mine and I built a small two man raft out of two lawn chairs and a couple of old inner tubes. We paddled around from one giant floating raft party to another. At some point, our raft just fell apart and we ended up just floating on inner tubes.

People had kegs, water cannons, water balloon slingshots (more than one person watching from Congress or 1st street bridge took one in the face). Lots of topless babes, drunkenness, and general debauchery. Fun times. 

 

 

Probably the thing I miss most about "old Austin" was going out to Hamilton Pool on a weekday and being the only people there. Or at most only 1 or 2 other small groups. Once you got on Hamilton Pool road past the intersection with 12, you might not have seen another car on the road. And if you did, it would be some old beat up pick up.

In high school we'd ditch class at lunch on Fridays in the spring and either go there or to Pace Bend Park (then called Pale Face Park) on Lake Travis and get high and drunk and cliff dive. Come home sun burnt and I'd tell my parents it was because of being in the sun during track practice. They either believed me or didn't care. 

 

Anyway, I say old Austin died was whenever cops started actually giving you tickets (or worse) when they caught you with booze and you were underage instead of just making you pour it out.

 

[closetohumping 17435]

The Domain dances on Austin’s grave 

[Ollie Slatt 289]

5 hours ago, closetohumping said:

The Domain dances on Austin’s grave 

Actually, no.  The Domain is great because (1) I dont ever have to go there; and (2) it keeps all of the northern suburbanites from coming into Austin proper. 

If you want to talk dancing on Austin's grave . . . there is a Hermes boutique on South Congress.  

[Deej 76755]

Used to dove hunt out where the Domain stands. 

 

[Paper_jam 831]

It was when the sellouts put a got dang Wendy's franchise in the Texas Union.

 

[Anastasis 23461]

2 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

It was when the sellouts put a got dang Wendy's franchise in the Texas Union.

 

RIP Junior. 

 

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

Austin resident since 1967 here.

Austin has always been about finding those hidden gems that are unique to this city., but the same could be said of any city.

In old Austin, they were not that hard to find and despite their popularity, we're not that well attended. In true Austin form, by the time something got popular, the trend setters had already moved on, leaving the rest of to enjoy there work before business failure or what we would have considered overpopulation and saturation.

These types of places and events began to drastically drop off 2 or three years before the pandemic, which is when I would consider the time old Austin died.

Not coincidentally, that is when Austin real estate started to become truly unaffordable.

All the signs were there even in the early 90's when I noticed that the core of the city no longer catered to the student and governmental emoyee populations from a leisure standpoint, as prices had become more in line with Houston or Dallas.

These days, if you want and old Austin feel, I would recommend San Antonio, but their time is limited as well.

Austin still has pockets and activities with that old Austin feel, but they are soon discovered and turned into phantasmagoric events soon ruined by lack of intimacy and bad parking options. It's almost not even worth looking anymore.

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

On 8/30/2023 at 1:27 PM, Deej said:

Used to dove hunt out where the Domain stands. 

 

My mom shot an 11 point buck right where the loop 1 tool plaza sits. Circa 1975. Good times except when my folks brought the deer back to our house and field dressed it over my kiddie pool. Not swimming in that again.

[DalTxHornFan 3097]

Both are great posts, Ziggy!  I'm guessing that your Mom had access to the Robinson Ranch?

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

3 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Both are great posts, Ziggy!  I'm guessing that your Mom had access to the Robinson Ranch?

We had access but not permission.

[DalTxHornFan 3097]

Just now, Jiggy-Z said:

We had access but not permission.

Funny!  I don't think poaching became a felony in Texas until sometime in the 1980s.

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

3 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Funny!  I don't think poaching became a felony in Texas until sometime in the 1980s.

Who said anything about poaching. One barbed wire fence looks just like the next. We were just rural country folk.