We ate at Queens BBQ. According to Anne, “It was the worst barbeque I’ve ever eaten.”
I don’t eat the stuff, but I’ll take her word for it. I was on a restrictive diet, so I had a large baked potato — for $14! The place was real cute. I guess the locals have always eaten here and never bothered to seek out BBQ from elsewhere — ergo, never realizing how bad it truly is!
When Hurricane Ike hit Galveston in 2008, it left many broken trees. Several artists were commissioned to use these destroyed trees to provide art in the neighborhoods. We had a map and directions to each one. (Thank you Anne for your thorough research!)
Anne and I kept jumping out the car to get good photos. Finally, Larry just drove the route and shouted out to us the addresses containing the art, as we walked to them. It was amazing!!
And then I couldn’t help myself, and took many photos of the homes!! The colors were fabulous!
Several homes had plaques near the front door claiming they survived the 1900 hurricane. Most of the properties that survived the hurricane were brick or marble. Most of the homes and buildings made of wood were destroyed.
You know you’re near an ocean/gulf when these birds are hanging around, acting like they own the place.
Anne set up a Red Light District Tour though Viator, which became a big MESS. Patty questioned the idea the tour company may not be reliable. Both Anne and I ASSURED her that they would be there. They are very timely in charging the fees the day before, sending us reminders, showing up and hiring great tour guides.
Well! Possibly we showed a little TOO much faith because we got a text “Where are you? You are late to the Ghost Tour.” Signals got crossed and it was clear we weren’t going to sit around until they found someone to come give us a Red Light District Tour. We demanded our money back (after making derogatory remarks about him when we thought he had hung up the phone).
We were promised a refund and that was that, we thought; until we got a phone call from the tour company offering a free tour the next day. We signed up for 6 PM, knowing full well that with an 80% chance of rain and likely hail tomorrow, we’d never get the tour. Lo and behold!! It was such a beautiful night, I didn’t even have to wear a sweater. Six drops of mist fell during the entire 90 tour and it was lovely — and FREE!!
Our young tour guide heartily suggested we hit the Daquiri Bar, since we could carry alcohol on the street. I’m sure he also figured we’d laugh at his jokes more with a snootful.
It was a cute place, but we remained sober.
Our baby tour guide, Christopher, asked if we knew what the Red Light Tour was about. I said, “Of course, prostitution.” He agreed and then I was flabbergasted when I realized all ninety minutes of the tour would be about the business.
We went into this store the next day. Maceo was a family name for many decades, involved in mob crime. Today, a Maceo was running for mayor. Sometimes things never change.
We went into the Tremont Hotel, which was around in the Red Light heydey, where the upper crust hookers hung out.
It was a very beautiful place. The wood around the mirror behind the bar was handcarved with the image of the carver’s wife’s face.
The mural of the tall ship Elissa is a three-masted barque. She is based in Galveston, Texas, and is one of the oldest ships sailing today. Launched in 1877, she is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
The heyday of prostitution lasted for 70 years. It was always illegal; but by paying off politicians, greasing the palms of business owners and staying under the radar, it was a booming business for all those years. One of the factors that contributed to the longevity was the existence of The Mob who controlled the booze and gambling. Vice came in three; drinking, gambling and prostitution.
This is a very old entrance to a part of the city. Note the tram lines on which city trolleys still run.
The 23-story One Moody Plaza building in the back was built by a son or grandson of the original, influential gangster-type businessman Moody. The heir would provide loans to anyone willing to borrow money, including any unsavory businessman who asked. Today it houses the American National Insurance Company and is the second tallest building in Galveston. Obviously, crime sometimes DOES pay.
If the word vagina bothers you, don’t read this description. Our tour guide asked us of what the top of the column reminded us. I spent enough time in Egypt to immediately think of papyrus or lotus flowers. Larry was at a loss; but Anne knew immediately but didn’t say a word.
She whispered to me what else could it be knowing the title of this tour. DUH, it went right past me!
They were vaginas! Apropos for the district we were touring. And more specifically I was told that as you walked around the column it starts with very young vaginas and they age as you follow it around. Yes, vaginas DO wear out. I’m not sure if it’s due to USE, BABIES, or simply TIME.
He explained some city employee has hundreds of photos of this column because it’s registered as a historic building and if it should ever be destroyed, it would have to be reconstructed exactly.
A big shot mob guy of Galveston shot someone dead in the spot in front of the Alibi Bar and had a newspaper reporter standing by in order that he put it in the newspaper the next day. He WANTED people to know of what he was capable!
The Coca-Cola sign on this drug store is reported to be the oldest coke sign in Texas. hmmm.
The red brick building is where a man could see a woman’s silhouette in a top window, show up downstairs and buy some time with the ‘lady’.
Sadly with the thousands of sailors coming in and out of port daily, it required thousands of prostitutes. And because no real effective birth control was available, many women got pregnant. They visited the pictured pharmacy and were given a shot glass of mercury to drink. Oh, it got rid the the fetus, all right, while slowly poisoning the girl. If she came in too often for the shot of mercury, eventually she became very ill. Of course, she went to that same local pharmacy for help. They would determined she had tuberculosis and laid her in the back, gave her heavy doses of morphine to make her passing pain free and quick.
Her body was then moved from the second story of the pharmacy through the elevated cross walk between two buildings (see the photo) into the morgue next door where they would keep her for a few days while trying to discover any relatives she may have.
If relatives weren’t found in a timely manner, to the left of that photo was a huge air tight heavy sealed door with venting up the building and above the roof line. It was an incinerator. She was placed inside and cremated in a most unceremonious way.
Life was tough in those days.
This building now houses artists paying a subsidized rent of $600 to $1200/month. Even if you draw stick figures, you qualify.
But in the Red Light times, shops were located on the first floor of this building. The second floor housed white-skinned woman, the third floor, darker-skinned workers. The fourth level was for fetishes of all sorts, which at the time included gay clientele. The top floor was for the darkest-skinned people, but not necessarily African-Americans because Jamaicans, etc., were included in the group.
In some buildings, the woman who had aged out of the actual prostitution job may have become a madam, who kept the books, made the appointments. When a girl needed protection from a mean or belligerent client, she used her steel stilettos to stomp the floor and the madam would come upstairs with a shotgun, burst into the room and shoot the client dead. No madam ever went to jail. Apparently the judges were paid well to look the other way.
This was a building that housed the working girls and they felt safe living together. Supposedly the red lightbulb has been burning in this house for decades. It was an original light bulb, one of the first ever made, and if it was sealed properly and the glass was never broken, it would burn for years. These stories have to be taken with some suspended logic, I think.
The dilapidated building was an original building where for two bits (a quarter) men could be serviced by a woman for five minutes. This is where the phrase two-bit whore came from.
I felt that five minutes was not long enough for a man; but Christopher assured me 5 minutes would be enough. With that statement, an uncomfortable pause occurred.
It was a great free tour, so we tipped Christopher very well.
The next day we took a walk on that famous seawall built in 1901. It was VERY windy. So windy, in fact, that I felt a large gust could push me into traffic. ….and yet, my fake eyelashes remained!!
The water was violent all the while we were there. (The eclipse?) Sometimes the waves would hit the bottom on the dock!
And you can see what they call riprap. It’s just a bunch of leftover blocks, cement and stuff put against the seawall to break the force of the tide hitting the wall.
We stopped at this pier to eat an early lunch. As Larry was climbing the stairs to the restaurant, the barista says “Stay here. They don’t open until 11 AM.” While Anne is getting a cup of coffee, Larry heads out the door to the fishing pier. The barista says “Stay here. You have to pay $5 a person to go out there.”
I think he felt bad so he told us that because there were SO MANY PEOPLE going out on the pier, (kidding – no one was) he’d let us go for free, which was very nice.
He said the water rots the wood so be careful not to fall through the decking. If one person falls in, another person should jump in to save him. Then if the third one comes back to tell him, he’ll call the authorities, but they won’t get there before we drown.
I said “On that happy note, we’ll head out to the pier.” He was kidding about all of it.
The condo was beautiful!! I think there were only 8 people in the entire building. It made it nice except we had to run the water for 20 minutes to get a hot shower, since they only had one water heater and it had to run the course throughout the building. Talk about wasting precious natural resources!!
We even had our own theatre. We watched Scoop, the story of how Prince Andrew and Geoffrey Epstein were in cahoots with female trafficking. I’m usually all over anything information on Epstein, but there wasn’t anything in this movie that I didn’t already know.
Click and watch the waves!
Had coffee in the drug store the next morning, did some shopping and headed for home.
Because I had a non-stop flight (a rarity in my overseas travels) I figured “What could go wrong?” DUH!!
Before I left for the airport I received notice via text that my 2:10 PM flight was delayed to 3:45 PM. I even asked Anne if she had ever heard of a flight getting changed BACK to the original time. She never had.
I didn’t think I had until (too late) I remembered my friend’s brother was told their flight was leaving at 10 AM instead of 6 AM. When they arrived at the airport at 7 AM the next morning, they were told, over night they had changed the time back to 6 AM. The plane left without them.
I arrived at the airport at 1:20 when I got a text that the 2:10 flight time was back on. I panicked, but miraculously I got through both ticketing, bag drop and TSA in record time and I was at the gate within 13 minutes. Relief!!
I was A 35 and they had called up to A30 when all loading stopped and we just stood at the gate. I asked where the plane was and someone said that it had been there minutes before. It did not bode well. We were told the flight would now leave at 4:15. (I had no idea where those people who already got on the plane had gone — not my circus; not my monkeys.)
I went to get something to eat but no longer trusted ANYONE at the airport, so I came back and sat at the gate.
The departure time then changed to 4:00 PM. And then it changed to 3:45 PM when we really did leave.
It’s another “HINT” that I will add to my travel blog.
Bolivia is next on my bucket list and I’m really sweating the 11,000 feet of altitude — which is a lot for a little girl currently living at 9 feet above sea level.
Happy Trails!
Linda Jeanne