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Goody Woo shutting down

TonyTexas

By TonyTexas
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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

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Place was hurting back when I first made it on campus in ''79 (Vito is old). Got a few Woo Cuts at the old school barber shop on the first floor, with the weird little vibrating hand massagers part of the deal.

I'm not sure I ever actually went upstairs, but my oldest brother lived there for a short while in the mid 70's. He said some drunk frat kid, clad only in tightly whities kicked in his door one morning, realized he was in the wrong place, then left. 

(South Austin: "Was he looking for your mother?")

I'm not sure if it was my brother, or someone else who told me that each room door used to have a vent at the base, and almost every vent was kicked in. 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31485

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8 minutes ago, deadshank said:

The Woo Barbarians. 

Oh indeed.  Yeah it doesn't surprise me that once upon a time it was sort of the SRD for men:  off campus and therefore kinda luxe and followed later by Contessa, Castilian, Dobie (ha) etc.  I don't think it was hurting in the 80s, other than from unreimbursed repair bills from the aforementioned Barbarians.

My parents, who did not go to UT or have any real connections there, rapidly (and accurately) ascertained that the Woo was not conducive to my continuing "eligibility" and I didn't fight them on it because, as an only child, I had an early innate sense that my parents were usually, if not always, right.

 

I would assume that that is some mighty valuable real estate.

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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11819

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59 minutes ago, Deej said:

I think I recall reading Whitman told someone on a balcony of that building that someone with a rifle on the top of the Tower could do some real damage, shortly before he went and did some real damage.

Around 1984 when I started at UT some fella over there had a pellet gun was shooting people in the ass over at Dobie when they’d bend over to get a newspaper out of the machine.  Good times.  

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31485

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1 hour ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Around 1984 when I started at UT some fella over there had a pellet gun was shooting people in the ass over at Dobie when they’d bend over to get a newspaper out of the machine.  Good times.  

The other great sport was to tie a quarter to fishing line and fish for dragworms.

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hobbs

hobbs 243

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1984. Also Room 610. Lat, was it the second to the last room on the left/drag side (my memory is fading, but I'm pretty sure that was the number)?  If so, I'm sorry about everything that happened in there in '84.

Also, I witnessed the keg launch.  Pretty sure it came off the 3rd floor, but not positive.

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7774

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I lived there my freshman year in '89. My roommate and I had a room right off the basketball court and were constantly either entertained or awakened by frat bball drunkenness on any given night. 

We didn't exactly fit in with all the fratboys-in-training that wrecked the place most weekends, but I enjoyed that year and will always remember the Woo. Those toilets were badass. 

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Lat22

Lat22 4014

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7 hours ago, hobbs said:

1984. Also Room 610. Lat, was it the second to the last room on the left/drag side (my memory is fading, but I'm pretty sure that was the number)?  If so, I'm sorry about everything that happened in there in '84.

Also, I witnessed the keg launch.  Pretty sure it came off the 3rd floor, but not positive.

I was on the opposite side of the drag, about that far down the hall. The only reason I remember my room number is that I still have my little address book from back then. My first night at the Woo was spent on the floor. I woke up the next morning with my face stuck to the floor in green vomit. I had gone to a KD crush party at Hyde’s and drank a shitload of those green drinks. 

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Deej

Deej 76797

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8 hours ago, skipperj said:

Late 90’s. Dragworms in the early 90’s.

Yep. It was dragworms when it was older bums selling PCP-laced joints of dirt weed to you for 2 bucks a pop. As it transitioned into younger, heroin-addict kids, the term became drag rats.

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smokebomb

smokebomb 357

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From the Daily Texan:

http://dailytexanonline.com/2018/04/25/residents-of-goodall-wooten-dormitory-told-they-must-leave-by-may-16

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Residents of Goodall Wooten dormitory told they must leave by May 16

Published on April 25, 2018 at 11:42 pm

BY CHASE KARACOSTAS, MEARA ISENBERG

The Goodall Wooten is a plain, high-rise dormitory building located on The Drag. It’s known by residents as “The Woo,” and many who pass by it barely even notice it’s there. 

Some of its residents seek out The Wooten for its low-rent rooms, others for its eccentric community. Last week, they learned the building would be closing its doors, giving them a month’s warning before they must leave.

“One month’s notice at the end of the semester doesn’t seem fair to the majority of us,” said Sebastian Caicedo, the second floor resident assistant. “No written notice. It’s all verbal. A lot of things here feel unofficial.”

The 62-year-old building can house a few hundred residents, but Caicedo, an Austin Community College student, said only about 60 people live there now. The standard lease term given to residents ends May 16, the day they were told they must leave by.

On April 16, residents said they heard of The Wooten’s closing from building manager Kevin Wright, who has worked there for decades. 

“We thought the status quo would continue for at least a couple of years,” said Yusuf Mufti, a resident of The Wooten and biology freshman at UT. “We’re not entirely sure why this is happening. We are all taken aback.”

The Wooten is valued at $5.2 million, and multiple RAs have said they were told by Wright that the building will either be sold, renovated or demolished, but that has been the only information they have been given.

Wright has declined repeated requests for comment, and Allen Green, the real estate manager who controls the building for its owner David McCullough, could not be reached for comment. But residents said Wright has offered short-term extensions to anyone who needs more time to find a new place.

The Daily Texan spoke to nine residents, and none had renewed their lease past May 16. It’s possible some residents may have renewed early, but most typically wait until closer to summer, Caicedo said.  

Nelson Mock, a landlord-tenant attorney for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said because the leases end May 16, there is little the tenants can do. Without a lease that extends past May 16, the owners have no legal obligation to provide tenants continued residency after that date.

“There’s (also) no notice requirement for the tenants to leave,” Mock said. “If everyone in the dorms has a lease term for May 16, then their lease just requires that they have to leave by May 16.”

This marks the end of stay for Wooten’s resident handyman, Nate Bell, who also works freelance jobs such as designing websites and making props. His most noticeable project, however, is the aquaponics system that fills his two-room balcony with fish, ferns and fruit, and can be seen from The Drag.

Bell said he plans to move the aquaponics structure to a friend’s tea house garden. He was planning to leave The Wooten soon anyway and has found a place to stay after his lease is up. Still, he said the Wooten closing was a “wake up call.”

“There was a lot of shock and distress early on because people thought this place was a given,” Bell said. “A lot of those people have already come around on it. They’ve got something in the works. (But) there definitely are other people who aren’t in that position.”

Sarnab Battacharya, an electrical engineering graduate student who came to UT from India, had planned to renew his lease in the coming weeks. Instead, Battacharya said he now has to scramble to find a new place. 

“If they had said at the beginning of this semester that, ‘We are going to shut down after this semester,’ that would have been fine,” Battacharya said. “When I came here I only had two suitcases, which was OK, I could move them easy, but now I have a computer, a desktop, all the other stuff that I kept buying here. It’s hard to move with all of it.”

Juliana Gonzalez, executive director for the Austin Tenants Council, a group that advocates for tenants’ rights in the area, said what The Wooten is doing is “clever” because it eliminates most legal obligations the landlord might have to the tenants by letting the leases expire without renewals.

“It doesn’t sound (like) there’s been anything illegal done,” Gonzalez said. “The very smartest way to get people out is to make sure all their lease terms end on the same day or give notice on month-to-month leases for that day. Someone’s kind of brilliant in a really unfortunate way.”

Caicedo said The Wooten has its flaws, but he, like other residents, has become attached to the community there.

“I don’t mind that I have to leave, but it’s the timing, the fact that there’s been no communication,” Caicedo said. “I wish I could’ve left this place on my own terms.”

 

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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I had friends up there and went a few times in the mid-80's.  Usually loud as fuck, lots fratty types, the usual.  Some parts of it had a "post party" smell.  You don't forget that smell [#lampoonsvacationshoutout].

All I know is my kid is rooming next year at some spiffy little modern getup on W. 26th for 10X what I could stay in at the Woo or even the Contessa.  Times have changed.

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