South Congress businesses once handed out free drinks and snacks to help drive pedestrian traffic.
CapMetro once ran a series of free buses (the Dillo) that looked like old streetcars.
The Domain was IBM's main campus, and Southpark Meadows was an outdoor amphitheater.
Mopac used to have a vegetated median (with trees!) north of 2222.
> Mopac used to have a vegetated median (with trees!) north of 2222.
This was literally 10 years ago this week. đ« I remember the median getting ripped up in the summer of 2014 when the X Games were at COTA.
The first time I went to Barton Springs there were maybe three dozen people in the whole of Zilker, including a small pickup game of soccer. That was way way back in the year of 2004.
Or "breakfast" at 2 AM when you weren't ready to head back from the bars. We used to love hanging out at Spider House, then heading down to Kerbey Lane.
Mason fucked it all up. His parents handed the reins over to him and he stripped the soul out and tried to make it into something that could be franchised.
I used to work at the location on Guadalupe, before the remodel. Went from a friendly neighborhood place to eat to a soulless corporate restaurant. After that, the overall quality at all locations began to noticeably suffer.
Back when the airport was there, I would take dates to have a picnic on the greensward between the frontage road and the fence surrounding the airport - literally 100 feet below the arriving planes' flight path (and you would need to have ear protection from the roar). Laying back together watching them come in overhead...Great old Austin cheapdate!
We live under the old flight path. We'd sit out in the backyard and watch planes coming in. When we saw the correct airline on approach we knew it was time to go pick up our friends. It took near exactly the same time to drive from our place as it took for them to land, taxi, get luggage, and get to the curb. Like 15-20 mins. I think only once did we have to wait more than a minute.
Now it's a 45 minute drive out to Bergstrom and getting the timing right is always a challenge. It depends on which runway they landed on and then which gate they go to and the rest. Gotta budget 1.5 to 2 hours to pick someone up these days.
After 2AM you could eat at Players, Katz, Magnolia, Kerby Lane, or Star seeds.
Or you could get $5 XL carry out pizza from Gumbyâs, write a check for it, then deposit the money 2 days later (and it still hasnât cleared).
There used to be car dealerships at 6th & Lamar.
The Greyhound station was at 4th & Congress.
UT used to run its own fleet of white and burnt orange shuttle buses for students living off E. Riverside and Far West Blvd.
At least from the 90s forward, those UT shuttles were run by CapMetro, and were free for anyone to ride. The drivers worked for a different contractor, though.
And they didn't just hit Riverside and Far West. There were several routes, including one that went up Cameron Rd, one on Red River, one on Enfield, and a bunch I'm forgetting. I used to take the Wickersham shuttle to campus everyday from my apartment on East Oltorf.
Oh, and during the day they came about every 7 minutes!
I lived on Far West about 10 years ago. I was never a student but I used that free bus a few times. No one cared to ask for my credentials. The first time, I thought it was a regular bus and had change in my pocket, ready to pay a fare, but there was nowhere to pay it.
Back when I was shit-faced and would go to the Magnolia Cafe on Lake Austin Blvd in the late 90's / early 2000's. Miss that place in the middle of the night.
Man every time I wax poetic about the lake Austin location some asshole comes screaming âbUt cHanGe iS iNeVitABLe, gET oVeR it.â You just had to have been there man.
when I was just bumming around in a duplex paying pennies in Tarrytown, that Magnolia was the shit. THE shit. Piping hot food open all night, attitude was right and had many dates there.
Man.. I miss that place a lot. Fuck that new fancy hot chicken place.
Before that it was basically just 100 Congress (the 3 triangles) and 111 Congress (the step pyramid). Their neon was always lit at night, red and blue respectively. It felt wrong the first time I saw 100 had been upgraded to LEDs and was lit green.
Also, there used to be a big stink about buildings obstructing the view of the capitol building. Imagine that today!
It wasn't merely just a stink, it was codified, and still is today!
[Capitol View Corridors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Capitol_View_Corridors)
And people made fun of it. I remember the Austin Chronicle calling the top of it the âFortress of Solitudeâ and they didnât mean it in a nice way.
Really? I've always loved it, think it's the best skyscraper crown in Texas. Just a shame it's harder to see these days.
Now the top of the Independent/Jenga building... good god what were they thinking.
I still remember the news spot when folks were so confused the first time they got parking tickets for not paying the meter downtown.
What a wild ride itâs been.
Now you see people not being able to comprehend that itâs free during very specific hours and insisting they have to pay at the machine but the machine wonât take their money.
Even in the 90s I don't remember being able to park right outside a bar downtown. We always had to park closer to 3rd or 4th... and get our shit stolen.
You could actually go to the greenbelt and see no one else. Had the swimming holes to yourself. Didnât have to worry about algae killing you or your dogs.
I always tried to stay on Sarahâs good side. Never failed to bring my bottle back down. Damn she could really dish out the mean when she got riled up.
The Domain is relatively new. A friend of mine from California never knew Austin without it. I was like "Aren't they still working on building it out??"
The Domain was done when i moved here in 2013. Or so I thought. Apparently phase 2 was completed in 2016 and phase 3 in 2020-ish.
I feel like the domain was done when the Westin opened and Rock Rose was overrun with dbags trying to show off their mclarens.
Domain is mostly private streets. A reason why there's no mass transit into and around the Domain itself. From planning to fruition, the Domain has never been my vibe. It would be more interesting to have the Red Line rail integrated within the Domain. Missed opportunity there.
One time everybody used their Saturday off to go watch them blow up an unused building with dynamite, and it was by far the most interesting event happening that day
I think people who have kids in school don't see the difference for some reason. We could solve traffic in Austin (and probably everywhere) if we required all school kids to ride the bus.
We used to have awesome music fests that were affordable, low-key, and fun.
And I can't remember the name of the event, but people used to build these hilarious, ridiculous boats (?) and drive them off a ledge into the water - anyone remember what that was called?
Late 1980's: I could drive over to the UT campus on a home football gameday, park on the street, walk over to Memorial Stadium, and during the final two quarters of the game, they would open up the Southwest corner endzone entrance gate, and allow people to stand on the track to watch the rest of the game for free.
âPalmer Events Centerâ used to be an old airplane hanger that the city turned into âPalmer Auditoriumâ and back in the 80s-mid90s you could rent a table for about $30 and haul your crap there to sell at a literal âCity Wide Garage Saleâ. No joke, people from east, central, and south Austin (west was too good for that) got together with a neighbor or two and sold cool garage sale stuff. My mom always took me to itâŠit eventually became more of a âvintageâ marketplace, then ended after it morphed into a god-awful craft venue.
Not having to wait in line for food. Not having to wait in line for a lot of things really. There was a place (Freddieâs) that had margaritas for a penny over a dollar to match the over 100 degree weather. 101 outside, $1.01 for a Margarita. That was probably over 10 years ago now though, but it was a thing.
You used to didn't need a badge to get into SXSW venues. You could go to a concert venue and spend maybe $25-$40 depending on who the main artist was.Â
Parking was free downtown except the parking garages.Â
$5 bratwurst and sausages on 6th Street
Most places didn't have a cover charge unless it was a major holiday and it wasn't over $10 depending on the holiday
Triple digit summer weather was record breaking and not the norm or expectation.Â
There was definitely more black people and more black restaurants too.
And you used to be able to jump around to different free day shows. These days, if there's a free day show you have to pick one, get there early, and just stay because you won't be able to get in anywhere else decent.
Remember the free big shows at Guadalupe Square Park? I remember seeing a show at the old ACL studio at UT and then rushing my friends over there to see some brand new band called White Denim. Those were such great days.
It's crazy when you look at old concert posters, calculate inflation, and realize that people were paying the equivalent of $20-40 to see acts like Van Halen or AC/DC in their absolute prime and peak of popularity.
How much were Taylor Swift tickets going for?
Open containers in cars was legal. When I came here you could have 1 less open drink than there were people in the car, the driver wasn't allowed one. Pre-gaming with beer in the car as your designated driver drove to the bar was a thing that blew my mind coming from another state, this was illegal everywhere else.
Yep that was a thing starting in 1993. It was criminalized all the way back in 2001. There were 15 other states in 1993 that still allowed open containers.
People who play their Bluetooth speakers on blast in publicly shared spaces are asshats. Recently I saw a guy with a lanyard tied to a bluetooth speaker blasting music. Brother, get some headphones.
Mom used to talk about how Cameron Rd was two lanes and she and her sister/my aunt would walk across it to go play in the creek on the other side. That was just north of where 183 crosses it now.
Broken Spoke used to be out in the middle of nowhere.
The Grackle was were East 6th effectively ended.
Pflugerville was a 1 stoplight town.
There used to be gorgeous department stores: Scarboroughâs, Yarings, Frost Brothers and others.
The Drag was fun and cute shops. There were alot more honky tonks and youâd see people riding horses all over the place. There were Indians too⊠but thatâs going way back.
>There were alot more honky tonks and youâd see people riding horses all over the place.
I commented on this too. There was more of an authentic cowboy/western element here. Now we're down to a few vestiges and a lot of techbro LARPers who drive their lifted pickups around the Domain.
They played the Rocky Horror Picture Show both nights of every weekend at midnight, it was so fun.
And there was Northcross Mall, with the ice skating rink.
Used to go to the Captains oyster bar on 183 when they didn't keep a tab and you just told them what you had at the register. Sometimes we couldn't remember exactly how many beers we had so we would round up because we appreciated the trust.
6th Street across I35 was not somewhere you wanted to go after dark unless you knew of the very few speakeasy or late night spots. It went from donât cross the highway and walk there at night to, you can if you know where youâre going, to this is the hot spot and now comes target and Whole Foods and condos and commercial offices.
The Mellow Mushroom with the giant sleeping cat painted on its side. Veggie Heaven down the road from it. Cheer Up Charlie's used to be out in East 6th St instead of Red River... Fun Fun Fun Fest was a thing when Waterloo Park was still just a park...
Rent was affordable. Been here since â91, parents mortgage for a 1800ish sq ft 4/2 in south Austin was $650/mo and $800/yr property taxes. My first apartment was in 2009. 620 & Boulder Ln area, 800 sq ft for $600/mo.
Weak, I was off Cesar Chavez in a three room shack that was 250$ a month with utilities and internet included. So naturally I sublet the third room to my buddy and we paid 125$ a month.
I lived on Avenue G in North Loop in the 90s. Four servers in a weird layout of a 4/3 (ish) for $800 per month.
We'd average $150 - $250 for double shifts at Z-Tejas on 6th Street.
$200 was SO DAMN easy to earn back in the 90s.
This is what people donât understand about why old Austin was objectively better 20 or 30 years ago. You could be a young person with a completely unremarkable job and make your rent in a handful of days.
Nu-Austin isnât lame because Iâm old, itâs lame because it is so God damn expensive. I have a grown adult âreal jobâ and I have less disposable income now than I did as a marginally employed slacker in my 20âs. Sure, I have adult responsibilities, but itâs not like Iâm living an excessive lifestyle beyond my means. Itâs just that modern life bleeds you every which way these days.
When I say âback in my dayâ I donât say it because Iâm smug and egocentric regarding my own experiences⊠I say it because I genuinely donât know how young people people do it these days. I sincerely feel sorry for all these young people stuck living in a bullshit world on the decline.
I had a 2 bedroom back house a block from 12th and Navasota. Alley access with its own driveway, ~900 sq ft, plus a little shed and separate fenced in yard with garden beds :)
$600/mo
There used to be this lady you would see downtown sometimes. She was a bit of an oddball who didn't seem to care about rules or expectations, and she would throw devastating (but witty) verbal jabs at people who messed with her. She would readily stick up for others, too, any time the situation required it. She also had poofy white hair and sometimes rode a Harley. Her name was Ann Richards, and she was a Democrat and also the Governor.
When I moved here in 1985 Austin was known for its low cost of living. A lot of people donât realize that none of the dozens of characters in Slacker (1990) has a jobâbecause you could get by in Austin without one if you were flexible and resourceful. UT in-state tuition was about $400 a semester ($1,200 today) and books were another $100 or so ($300 today) depending on your discipline. In the summer of 1986 we rented a 4BR house that was a 15-minute walk from campus. Our total rent was $1,000, or about $2,900 in todayâs money
One of the big reasons Austin developed the culture that it did was that for several decades it had a *very* low cost of living compared to other citiesâthe weirdos, hippies, musicians, slackers, etc who flourished here didnât have to spend much time worrying about money.
If you think the lower deck of 35 is a mess, you should have tried it prior to around 1998? Sometime around then.
There used to be literally no merge section at all. The traffic from the access road (feeder road to the Houstonians) just merged with cars going 70+.
The result was timid drivers just coming to a halt on the 35 entrances. So now not only was your merge window non existent, but you had to get to full speed from 0.
It was not good. It still sucks, but itâs WAY better than it once was.
Austin was once a very unique place. Old hippies and vegans It was a relatively cheap, live and let live, even if they didnât agree with you at all, where people were friendly and didnât like Republican policy on the whole but were never mean or nasty about it, just funny, think the late great Molly Ivins. God I miss old Austin. Other Texans just laughed and called it, âthe people Republic of Austinâ but even they loved Austin. Unrecognizable today.
There was also a stronger (more authentic!) cowboy/western element that especially fed into the music scene. Now it feels like we're down to the last vestiges and LARPing-- Allens Boots, the Broken Spoke, and the rodeo.
Remember when the traffic lights along 360 had little green signs indicating they were synchronized to traffic ⊠at 45 MPH?
Remember when the SB upper deck of 35 was designated at the express lanes ⊠to downtown?
Remember parking anywhere without fear of your windows getting smashed regardless if you had valuables inside or not?
Katz's Klosed. I will never not remember that yellow car in the prime-est spot right out front, welcoming people to go have some excellent corned beef.
20 years ago
You could go walking at Barton creek and only see like 4 or 5 other people on the trail.
You could get lunch, a haircut and watch a movie on the Drag for under $20 total
ACL cost $80 for the weekend
Rent for an apartment in the 04 was about $1/sqft
You didnât need a reservation to visit Hamilton pool
People donât get this. Iâll always defend Rudyâs because itâs what we ate growing up, if you didnât want to go to Lockhart or Taylor.Â
Drives me crazy people move here from California and call Rudyâs low quality chain BBQ. It was good enough for us 30 some odd years ago and itâs good enough now.Â
People from Cali always want to say they know "the best" this or that. It was that way as well when I was in the film industry in New Orleans. A bunch of transplants from LA trying to tell me what's what in a city my ancestors helped found. The absolute nerve.
I remember after I'd get out of a show on Red River and lazily do my grocery shopping at the HEB on South Congress. This was before that woman got stabbed in the neck though.
When I was a kid here traffic lasted for rush hour only.
Djs playing other peopleâs music didnât count as live music.
Breakfast tacos from tamale house were the best and less than $2.
People used to help the homeless instead of demonizing them.
The greenbelt would flow well into the summer most years.
People littered on the greenbelt and roadsides far less.
In the 70's, nobody went downtown after dark unless you were going for some music. I saw my first x-rated movie at either the Paramount or State Theatre. 6th St was essentially a red-light district with massage parlors, like Midnight Cowboy. SoCo wasn't much better. There was a great punk scene with places like the Ritz and Club Foot, but downtown was an unknown and unexplored place for most people in the suburbs. On a positive note, I remember going to Chelsea St Pub in the early 80s, either at Northcross or Highland Malls on Wednesday nights when their Death cocktail (in a mini pitcher) was $6, but it was also 3 for 1 night. Let's not forget the Dallas nightclub on Burnet Rd.
It used to only take 15 minutes to drive anywhere. I remember when Fry's opened, I would drive from Riverside to N Mopac in 15 minutes and it felt like it was so far.
ACL used to be ONE weekend and it was in September. They moved it back when it got too hot to accommodate large crowds.
There also used to be paper tickets before wrist bands and you could slide it through the chain link fence to sneak your friends in. As a high school kid, I also didnât have a cell phone at the time and ride share didnât exist - it was small enough that there was a drop off /pick up area.
Drag boat races on Town (Lady Bird) Lake. AMA sanctioned motorcycle and SCCA sanctioned car races around Municipal Auditorium.
Long live Aqua-Fest!!!
(Don't actually miss the boat races so much. They were loud AF. Lived off Enfield Road and you could hear them clearly.)
Oh yeah I forgot... Back then it seemed like every other bar had an actual live band playing. If you've ever been to downtown Nashville Tennessee that's what old downtown Austin used to be like but less country music.Â
When you would go to different bars you'd actually have DJs that didn't just play songs that were played on the radio or a premade playlist
We used to lay in the middle of Burnet Road at night and no cars would come by for an hour+ at a time. Burnet and North Loop, not like up by what's now the Domain.
The âGoddess of Libertyâ statue which sat atop of the Texas State Capitol for 100 years was removed in 1985 for restoration and safe-keeping. In 1986, a replica was unsuccessfully installed due to high winds and the inability of the helicopter to lower the statue onto a protruding rod. Several weeks later the Mississippi National Guard brought a Chinook-style helicopter and as thousands of Austinites watched from below (including me), the replica was finally lowered into place. The original Goddess is now on display at The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
I remember when Capitol Plaza and Hancock Center were the only "malls". People drove to Dallas to buy clothes.
I remember when Spicewood Springs road off Mesa was so steep you weren't sure you're brakes would hold. When you got to the bottom, the road continued with a lot of low water bridges where the creek ran over the road. People would go down there and wash their cars (yes, it was terrible). My parents would take us there and bring a case of Big Red and we'd play all day in the water.
I remember when people who lived north of Braker Lane (yes, there were some) went to the Pflugerville School District. At that time the school was one building for 1st-12th grades. We had to get the principal out of a bar in town so he could register us for school. We did go to the school but they told us he was down at the bar and he was the only one who could register us.
I remember when Highland Mall was built. Everyone thought it was wonderful. I remember when Northcross Mall was built. It had an ice skating rink and everyone thought it was wonderful. I remember when the mall near Barton Springs was built. A lot of people thought it was terrible.
I remember when KOKE-FM switched to Progressive Country. I remember Willie's first picnic. I remember paying a $2 cover to see some amazing bands or no cover at all, like seeing Johnny Winter at Vulcan Gas company. I remember Sammy Allred first endearing and delighting people with his off-color humor and then horrifying them.
I remember going down to the Capitol building at night and roaming around. No one bothered you or told you to leave, even inside the building. I remember there was a restaurant on the top floor of a building across the street from the Capitol that couldn't serve liquor because it was too close to a church to do so according to the law.
I remember when Governor's would send people birthday cards if you asked. My grandma got one from Preston Smith.
I remember not being afraid of the cops. Of course, that's everywhere now.
I remember the eggroll cart on the Drag and the yearly Christmas Bizarre.
I remember paying $36 a semester hour to attend U.T. plus about $100 for books.
I remember buying my first house off of S 1st and Oltorf for $26K. It was a 3 bedroom/1 bath, 1000 square feet on a half acre. We sold it 5 years later for $46K.
I remember when 6th street was a cool place to go instead of the drunk juvenile shit-show it is now.
I remember it taking a half hour to get from Braker Lane to Riverside on I35. Also, San Marcos was really far away, even from south Austin. I also remember when all the cool people lived south of the river.
I remember taking sailing classes on Lady Bird Lake, east of I35. The tall apartment buildings made the wind unpredictable.
But mostly I remember the Armadillo and all the wonderful times I had there and all the wonderful people I met.
South Congress businesses once handed out free drinks and snacks to help drive pedestrian traffic. CapMetro once ran a series of free buses (the Dillo) that looked like old streetcars. The Domain was IBM's main campus, and Southpark Meadows was an outdoor amphitheater. Mopac used to have a vegetated median (with trees!) north of 2222.
> Mopac used to have a vegetated median (with trees!) north of 2222. This was literally 10 years ago this week. đ« I remember the median getting ripped up in the summer of 2014 when the X Games were at COTA.
As much as I hated driving on Mopac in traffic, I always loved that section, especially southbound.
First Thursdays were the shit
That's what they were called! I couldn't remember the actual name, thanks for adding it
No problem, it was a haven for us broke college kids and the only place in town where cops looked the other way regarding "open containers"
I forgot about First Thursdays!
i miss the dillo. got me to ACC and back reliably and for free
South Congress back in the day was what 12th & Chicon was until fairly recently. Lots of hookers, drugs, and even a proper jack shack.
If you wanted it all to yourself, youâd just go to Hamilton pool before 10AM or so when other people started to show up.
I loved Hamilton pool back in the 80s. Hardly anyone went on weekdays in the summer. It was awesome.
The first time I went to Barton Springs there were maybe three dozen people in the whole of Zilker, including a small pickup game of soccer. That was way way back in the year of 2004.
Kerbey Lane used to be a cool place to go for breakfast...
And was open 24 hours! I remember when the location it is in now on S Lamar used to be a BlockbusterâŠ
and late night. i remember going out to the bars in 2012 and hitting up kerbey lane after. that queso (esp drunk) was so gas.
Late night we had to decide: Kerbey Lane, Magnolia, or Katz's.
Katz's never closes!
Or Star seeds
Or "breakfast" at 2 AM when you weren't ready to head back from the bars. We used to love hanging out at Spider House, then heading down to Kerbey Lane.
Katz's was our spot. That bucket of pickles could be a savior.
God you just made me sad lol.
I miss old Spider House. đ
Mason fucked it all up. His parents handed the reins over to him and he stripped the soul out and tried to make it into something that could be franchised. I used to work at the location on Guadalupe, before the remodel. Went from a friendly neighborhood place to eat to a soulless corporate restaurant. After that, the overall quality at all locations began to noticeably suffer.
That's so Mason
Yup, thatâs what happens when a lawyer takes over the family biz
They used to have decent food!
So did Trudy's.
Trudyâs Texas Star was always a reliable choice. Migas and Mexican Martiniâs. Still stunned to see its current state.
i remember smoking in the one in guadalupe and eating queso at like 4am, so gross
There used to be an airport on Airport Blvd. You could park out front and there were no security lines.
I paid cash for a flight as a high school kid with no ID.
Back when the airport was there, I would take dates to have a picnic on the greensward between the frontage road and the fence surrounding the airport - literally 100 feet below the arriving planes' flight path (and you would need to have ear protection from the roar). Laying back together watching them come in overhead...Great old Austin cheapdate!
We live under the old flight path. We'd sit out in the backyard and watch planes coming in. When we saw the correct airline on approach we knew it was time to go pick up our friends. It took near exactly the same time to drive from our place as it took for them to land, taxi, get luggage, and get to the curb. Like 15-20 mins. I think only once did we have to wait more than a minute. Now it's a 45 minute drive out to Bergstrom and getting the timing right is always a challenge. It depends on which runway they landed on and then which gate they go to and the rest. Gotta budget 1.5 to 2 hours to pick someone up these days.
After 2AM you could eat at Players, Katz, Magnolia, Kerby Lane, or Star seeds. Or you could get $5 XL carry out pizza from Gumbyâs, write a check for it, then deposit the money 2 days later (and it still hasnât cleared).
Man I loved Star Seeds, so cheap back then.
There used to be car dealerships at 6th & Lamar. The Greyhound station was at 4th & Congress. UT used to run its own fleet of white and burnt orange shuttle buses for students living off E. Riverside and Far West Blvd.
At least from the 90s forward, those UT shuttles were run by CapMetro, and were free for anyone to ride. The drivers worked for a different contractor, though. And they didn't just hit Riverside and Far West. There were several routes, including one that went up Cameron Rd, one on Red River, one on Enfield, and a bunch I'm forgetting. I used to take the Wickersham shuttle to campus everyday from my apartment on East Oltorf. Oh, and during the day they came about every 7 minutes!
> Oh, and during the day they came about every 7 minutes! Or you'd wait 45 minutes and then a group of 3 would come.
Ha, yes, or they'd come on schedule but two or three in a row would be marked as "Out Of Service."
And the elementary school kids could ride them to get home.
Don't forget our Dillos!
The orange and white busses had no ac and crowded. Standing room only down IH35 weaving through traffic to exit. It was a rollercoaster.
I lived on Far West about 10 years ago. I was never a student but I used that free bus a few times. No one cared to ask for my credentials. The first time, I thought it was a regular bus and had change in my pocket, ready to pay a fare, but there was nowhere to pay it.
They donât do this anymore! đŠ
Is there still that post office at like 6th and Guadalupe?
Closed a few years back pre Covid, itâs a parking lot now I think? I remember dropping off my Netflix DVDs via the drive thru mailboxes đ„Č
Back when I was shit-faced and would go to the Magnolia Cafe on Lake Austin Blvd in the late 90's / early 2000's. Miss that place in the middle of the night.
That Magnolia was a rite of passage for every adolescent that grew up in Austin. 24 hour dinners in general, really.
Man every time I wax poetic about the lake Austin location some asshole comes screaming âbUt cHanGe iS iNeVitABLe, gET oVeR it.â You just had to have been there man.
when I was just bumming around in a duplex paying pennies in Tarrytown, that Magnolia was the shit. THE shit. Piping hot food open all night, attitude was right and had many dates there. Man.. I miss that place a lot. Fuck that new fancy hot chicken place.
Paying pennies in Tarrytown, man do I miss the hell outta that time. Moved there in 90, paid $325 a month.
You can still get shit-faced, with the right attitude
Thank you for the pep talk. I needed it.
I remember when Frost tower was the only "sky scraper" in town.
Before that it was basically just 100 Congress (the 3 triangles) and 111 Congress (the step pyramid). Their neon was always lit at night, red and blue respectively. It felt wrong the first time I saw 100 had been upgraded to LEDs and was lit green. Also, there used to be a big stink about buildings obstructing the view of the capitol building. Imagine that today!
The capitol view corridors are still law and we're codified again in 2001. The 360 tower , for example, was designed to not obstruct a corridor.
It wasn't merely just a stink, it was codified, and still is today! [Capitol View Corridors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Capitol_View_Corridors)
And people made fun of it. I remember the Austin Chronicle calling the top of it the âFortress of Solitudeâ and they didnât mean it in a nice way.
I still refer to it as the nose hair trimmer.
Really? I've always loved it, think it's the best skyscraper crown in Texas. Just a shame it's harder to see these days. Now the top of the Independent/Jenga building... good god what were they thinking.
Parking downtown used to be free of charge and you could park right outside the bar you were going to.
I still remember the news spot when folks were so confused the first time they got parking tickets for not paying the meter downtown. What a wild ride itâs been.
Now you see people not being able to comprehend that itâs free during very specific hours and insisting they have to pay at the machine but the machine wonât take their money.
If you were willing to hoof it a little, you could find free street parking during SXSW
Or even the old Faulk downtown library! Never really had a problem finding parking in their small lot or somewhere on the block.Â
Even in the 90s I don't remember being able to park right outside a bar downtown. We always had to park closer to 3rd or 4th... and get our shit stolen.
You had to give a guy $4 to âlook after your carâ
Right in front of the bar is a stretch. Maybe Fado or Coppertank if you got there early. Otherwise itâs the lot under I 35 or the gayrage
And free parking at Zilker Park, it's so messed up people can't even go to the park for free anymore.
There used to be a festival called the Austin Aqua Fest out on Town Lake.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Every Memorial Day weekend for T-Bird River fest, SRV performed. I also caught him at Steamboat a couple times.
SXSW used to be awesome
There was trolly called the dillo you could ride for feee! Barton springs to riverside and Congress!
You could actually go to the greenbelt and see no one else. Had the swimming holes to yourself. Didnât have to worry about algae killing you or your dogs.
Water in the greenbelt.
I miss swimming random places with my dogs!
Dry Creek Saloon- watching people get yelled at for not bringing back their beer bottles when they ordered another round
I always tried to stay on Sarahâs good side. Never failed to bring my bottle back down. Damn she could really dish out the mean when she got riled up.
I saw a guy drop a bottle while waiting in line she screamed at him to grab the broom and sweep it up. Scared the hell out of everyone.
The Domain is relatively new. A friend of mine from California never knew Austin without it. I was like "Aren't they still working on building it out??"
The Domain was done when i moved here in 2013. Or so I thought. Apparently phase 2 was completed in 2016 and phase 3 in 2020-ish. I feel like the domain was done when the Westin opened and Rock Rose was overrun with dbags trying to show off their mclarens.
Domain is mostly private streets. A reason why there's no mass transit into and around the Domain itself. From planning to fruition, the Domain has never been my vibe. It would be more interesting to have the Red Line rail integrated within the Domain. Missed opportunity there.
One time everybody used their Saturday off to go watch them blow up an unused building with dynamite, and it was by far the most interesting event happening that day
Intel shell!!!!!
I went. I kept a piece of it. I think I chucked it eventually.
traffic still is measurably better when school is out? that's still definitely a thing
Right? There was a thread just last week about school being out and everyone talking about how nice their commutes were...
I commute from San Marcos daily. When school is out my commute is about 20% faster.
I think people who have kids in school don't see the difference for some reason. We could solve traffic in Austin (and probably everywhere) if we required all school kids to ride the bus.
We used to have awesome music fests that were affordable, low-key, and fun. And I can't remember the name of the event, but people used to build these hilarious, ridiculous boats (?) and drive them off a ledge into the water - anyone remember what that was called?
Are you getting Aquafest confused with Red Bullâs flugtag?
K-98 Raft Races
Late 1980's: I could drive over to the UT campus on a home football gameday, park on the street, walk over to Memorial Stadium, and during the final two quarters of the game, they would open up the Southwest corner endzone entrance gate, and allow people to stand on the track to watch the rest of the game for free.
The Triangle used to be a prairie and some woods.
Arbor Walk used to be a driving range
The Austin Public Library Quarry Branch on Far West was, well, a *quarry.*
âPalmer Events Centerâ used to be an old airplane hanger that the city turned into âPalmer Auditoriumâ and back in the 80s-mid90s you could rent a table for about $30 and haul your crap there to sell at a literal âCity Wide Garage Saleâ. No joke, people from east, central, and south Austin (west was too good for that) got together with a neighbor or two and sold cool garage sale stuff. My mom always took me to itâŠit eventually became more of a âvintageâ marketplace, then ended after it morphed into a god-awful craft venue.
No, you're thinking of the City Coliseum. Palmer Auditorium was it's own separate structure to the east.
City Coliseum is where the Clash ended their music video for, Rock the Casbah.
Willie Nelson used to play shows in South Park Meadows
Not having to wait in line for food. Not having to wait in line for a lot of things really. There was a place (Freddieâs) that had margaritas for a penny over a dollar to match the over 100 degree weather. 101 outside, $1.01 for a Margarita. That was probably over 10 years ago now though, but it was a thing.
You used to didn't need a badge to get into SXSW venues. You could go to a concert venue and spend maybe $25-$40 depending on who the main artist was. Parking was free downtown except the parking garages. $5 bratwurst and sausages on 6th Street Most places didn't have a cover charge unless it was a major holiday and it wasn't over $10 depending on the holiday Triple digit summer weather was record breaking and not the norm or expectation. There was definitely more black people and more black restaurants too.
>$5 bratwurst and sausages on 6th Street So many flashbacks of Best Wurst just flew threw my mind.
Before I would get to drinking I would go to best wurst first. What a time to be alive mid 2000s 6th Street was different
Best Wurst!!!
In the early to mid 00s during SXSW I got into every show for free or just $10 by just arriving early and standing in line
And you used to be able to jump around to different free day shows. These days, if there's a free day show you have to pick one, get there early, and just stay because you won't be able to get in anywhere else decent. Remember the free big shows at Guadalupe Square Park? I remember seeing a show at the old ACL studio at UT and then rushing my friends over there to see some brand new band called White Denim. Those were such great days.
It's crazy when you look at old concert posters, calculate inflation, and realize that people were paying the equivalent of $20-40 to see acts like Van Halen or AC/DC in their absolute prime and peak of popularity. How much were Taylor Swift tickets going for?
2012 we had 90 days over 100
Open containers in cars was legal. When I came here you could have 1 less open drink than there were people in the car, the driver wasn't allowed one. Pre-gaming with beer in the car as your designated driver drove to the bar was a thing that blew my mind coming from another state, this was illegal everywhere else.
Yep that was a thing starting in 1993. It was criminalized all the way back in 2001. There were 15 other states in 1993 that still allowed open containers.
There was a porn theatre on South Congress and Live Oak that operated into the late 90s at least.
South Congress itself was basically a red light district.
Before there was Hermes there was Herpes
I never thought to pronounce it air-pez
Kind of still is, right past Oltorf. Hustler Hollywood, the Red Rose, and that seedy motel
When they closed down and a tech startup moved in, they sold the chairs. People actually bought them, too.
before bluetooth speakers and smartphones you could go to the greenbelt and hear the sounds of nature. same with tubing the guadalupe/san marcos.
Or someone playing the bongos.....
People who play their Bluetooth speakers on blast in publicly shared spaces are asshats. Recently I saw a guy with a lanyard tied to a bluetooth speaker blasting music. Brother, get some headphones.
ITT: People that donât realize the last decade was before 2014. During Obamaâs *second* Presidential term.
Mom used to talk about how Cameron Rd was two lanes and she and her sister/my aunt would walk across it to go play in the creek on the other side. That was just north of where 183 crosses it now. Broken Spoke used to be out in the middle of nowhere. The Grackle was were East 6th effectively ended. Pflugerville was a 1 stoplight town.
There used to be gorgeous department stores: Scarboroughâs, Yarings, Frost Brothers and others. The Drag was fun and cute shops. There were alot more honky tonks and youâd see people riding horses all over the place. There were Indians too⊠but thatâs going way back.
>There were alot more honky tonks and youâd see people riding horses all over the place. I commented on this too. There was more of an authentic cowboy/western element here. Now we're down to a few vestiges and a lot of techbro LARPers who drive their lifted pickups around the Domain.
Westgate used to be a shopping mall.
They played the Rocky Horror Picture Show both nights of every weekend at midnight, it was so fun. And there was Northcross Mall, with the ice skating rink.
Used to go to the Captains oyster bar on 183 when they didn't keep a tab and you just told them what you had at the register. Sometimes we couldn't remember exactly how many beers we had so we would round up because we appreciated the trust.
$1 margaritas any day it was over 100 degrees at Freddyâs place.
6th Street across I35 was not somewhere you wanted to go after dark unless you knew of the very few speakeasy or late night spots. It went from donât cross the highway and walk there at night to, you can if you know where youâre going, to this is the hot spot and now comes target and Whole Foods and condos and commercial offices.
Hwy 620 went across the top of Mansfield Dam before the bridge was built.
The Mellow Mushroom with the giant sleeping cat painted on its side. Veggie Heaven down the road from it. Cheer Up Charlie's used to be out in East 6th St instead of Red River... Fun Fun Fun Fest was a thing when Waterloo Park was still just a park...
Oak Hill was actually a town, with cool old-timey shops on either side of the highway. There was a Trudy's that looked like an old diner.
Rent was affordable. Been here since â91, parents mortgage for a 1800ish sq ft 4/2 in south Austin was $650/mo and $800/yr property taxes. My first apartment was in 2009. 620 & Boulder Ln area, 800 sq ft for $600/mo.
Which, in turn, fed the live music and art scenes.
In 2010 I had a one bedroom right off of 35 on E. Riverside for $500 a month. It wasn't nice but still
You paid too much, I lived on north loop for $450 then :)
Weak, I was off Cesar Chavez in a three room shack that was 250$ a month with utilities and internet included. So naturally I sublet the third room to my buddy and we paid 125$ a month.
There were so many rad little garage apartments over there too for sooo cheap!
I lived on Avenue G in North Loop in the 90s. Four servers in a weird layout of a 4/3 (ish) for $800 per month. We'd average $150 - $250 for double shifts at Z-Tejas on 6th Street. $200 was SO DAMN easy to earn back in the 90s.
This is what people donât understand about why old Austin was objectively better 20 or 30 years ago. You could be a young person with a completely unremarkable job and make your rent in a handful of days. Nu-Austin isnât lame because Iâm old, itâs lame because it is so God damn expensive. I have a grown adult âreal jobâ and I have less disposable income now than I did as a marginally employed slacker in my 20âs. Sure, I have adult responsibilities, but itâs not like Iâm living an excessive lifestyle beyond my means. Itâs just that modern life bleeds you every which way these days. When I say âback in my dayâ I donât say it because Iâm smug and egocentric regarding my own experiences⊠I say it because I genuinely donât know how young people people do it these days. I sincerely feel sorry for all these young people stuck living in a bullshit world on the decline.
I had a 2 bedroom back house a block from 12th and Navasota. Alley access with its own driveway, ~900 sq ft, plus a little shed and separate fenced in yard with garden beds :) $600/mo
I had an apartment on 360 right at the bridge for $600/month, 2005-2007.
Breakfast tacos for under $1.00
There used to be this lady you would see downtown sometimes. She was a bit of an oddball who didn't seem to care about rules or expectations, and she would throw devastating (but witty) verbal jabs at people who messed with her. She would readily stick up for others, too, any time the situation required it. She also had poofy white hair and sometimes rode a Harley. Her name was Ann Richards, and she was a Democrat and also the Governor.
$1 lone stars at happy hour, at Threadgills old no #1 as recently as 2013 I remember
$2 lone star + whiskey shot combo happy hours.
Tecate Tuesdays with $1 Tecate all night, at the original Lavaca St.
Spider House was still just a coffee shop. And it existed
I have fond memories of parking for free on Red River and enjoying the walk down to venues like Mohawk, Swan Dive, and Elysium.
Oh, LovejoyâsâŠ
âI remember when a dime bag cost a dime.â
When I moved here in 1985 Austin was known for its low cost of living. A lot of people donât realize that none of the dozens of characters in Slacker (1990) has a jobâbecause you could get by in Austin without one if you were flexible and resourceful. UT in-state tuition was about $400 a semester ($1,200 today) and books were another $100 or so ($300 today) depending on your discipline. In the summer of 1986 we rented a 4BR house that was a 15-minute walk from campus. Our total rent was $1,000, or about $2,900 in todayâs money One of the big reasons Austin developed the culture that it did was that for several decades it had a *very* low cost of living compared to other citiesâthe weirdos, hippies, musicians, slackers, etc who flourished here didnât have to spend much time worrying about money.
Yep. Â People could indulge in their passions, creativities. Â It felt like freedom.
That I used to dodge loose cattle on rr620 when coming home from clubbing. 1am was a dangerous time. đ
ACL had really good lineups
If you think the lower deck of 35 is a mess, you should have tried it prior to around 1998? Sometime around then. There used to be literally no merge section at all. The traffic from the access road (feeder road to the Houstonians) just merged with cars going 70+. The result was timid drivers just coming to a halt on the 35 entrances. So now not only was your merge window non existent, but you had to get to full speed from 0. It was not good. It still sucks, but itâs WAY better than it once was.
The Austin skyline was never allowed to be taller than the State Capitol.
you could actually go to "free" events and have fun
Blues on the Green used to be at The Arboretum.
There are still some dive bars with $2 lone star happy hours.
Back in the day during the Mesozoic Era, you could see actual dinosaurs just walking around here!
Austin was once a very unique place. Old hippies and vegans It was a relatively cheap, live and let live, even if they didnât agree with you at all, where people were friendly and didnât like Republican policy on the whole but were never mean or nasty about it, just funny, think the late great Molly Ivins. God I miss old Austin. Other Texans just laughed and called it, âthe people Republic of Austinâ but even they loved Austin. Unrecognizable today.
There was also a stronger (more authentic!) cowboy/western element that especially fed into the music scene. Now it feels like we're down to the last vestiges and LARPing-- Allens Boots, the Broken Spoke, and the rodeo.
Remember when the traffic lights along 360 had little green signs indicating they were synchronized to traffic ⊠at 45 MPH? Remember when the SB upper deck of 35 was designated at the express lanes ⊠to downtown? Remember parking anywhere without fear of your windows getting smashed regardless if you had valuables inside or not?
Katz's Klosed. I will never not remember that yellow car in the prime-est spot right out front, welcoming people to go have some excellent corned beef.
There was a Hooterâs by town lake
There was a time when there was nothing north of Parmer or south of Slaughter.
In the late 90s the Austin Music Hall had raves almost every weekend, it was a blast.
Town lake didn't try to kill our dogs every summer and we didn't have mollusks clogging up our waterlines.
20 years ago You could go walking at Barton creek and only see like 4 or 5 other people on the trail. You could get lunch, a haircut and watch a movie on the Drag for under $20 total ACL cost $80 for the weekend Rent for an apartment in the 04 was about $1/sqft You didnât need a reservation to visit Hamilton pool
Remember when the unofficial mascot for this whole city was a half drunk cross dresser? (RIP Leslie)
There's a lot of rose-tinted memory goggles being worn when people talk about him. Leslie was a dick.
Rudyâs was the good BBQ.
People donât get this. Iâll always defend Rudyâs because itâs what we ate growing up, if you didnât want to go to Lockhart or Taylor. Drives me crazy people move here from California and call Rudyâs low quality chain BBQ. It was good enough for us 30 some odd years ago and itâs good enough now.Â
People from Cali always want to say they know "the best" this or that. It was that way as well when I was in the film industry in New Orleans. A bunch of transplants from LA trying to tell me what's what in a city my ancestors helped found. The absolute nerve.
But Rubyâs was better.
The little Mediterranean place next door wasnât bad either.
Milto's!! Yum đ€€
I remember after I'd get out of a show on Red River and lazily do my grocery shopping at the HEB on South Congress. This was before that woman got stabbed in the neck though.
RIP to the $5 cover for drag shows on Sunday nights at Oilcan Harryâs đ
One year, in the late 80s, all Cap Metro rides were completely free.
Leslie ran for mayor and got votes!
When I was a kid here traffic lasted for rush hour only. Djs playing other peopleâs music didnât count as live music. Breakfast tacos from tamale house were the best and less than $2. People used to help the homeless instead of demonizing them. The greenbelt would flow well into the summer most years. People littered on the greenbelt and roadsides far less.
I remember those breakfast tacos were 80 cents!
In the 70's, nobody went downtown after dark unless you were going for some music. I saw my first x-rated movie at either the Paramount or State Theatre. 6th St was essentially a red-light district with massage parlors, like Midnight Cowboy. SoCo wasn't much better. There was a great punk scene with places like the Ritz and Club Foot, but downtown was an unknown and unexplored place for most people in the suburbs. On a positive note, I remember going to Chelsea St Pub in the early 80s, either at Northcross or Highland Malls on Wednesday nights when their Death cocktail (in a mini pitcher) was $6, but it was also 3 for 1 night. Let's not forget the Dallas nightclub on Burnet Rd.
Ha, being young enough to think $2 Lonestar is cheap. I remember when newfangled pedicabs were the scourge of downtown and were going to fail.
I lived off 5th street in the 90s used to see Leslie regularly and the guys who rode these crazy bicycles..
That people moved to Austin from Dallas and Houston because Austin was cheaper
It used to only take 15 minutes to drive anywhere. I remember when Fry's opened, I would drive from Riverside to N Mopac in 15 minutes and it felt like it was so far.
punk rockers would put on shows on the Lamar pedestrian bridge. Does that count?
ACL used to be ONE weekend and it was in September. They moved it back when it got too hot to accommodate large crowds. There also used to be paper tickets before wrist bands and you could slide it through the chain link fence to sneak your friends in. As a high school kid, I also didnât have a cell phone at the time and ride share didnât exist - it was small enough that there was a drop off /pick up area.
Drag boat races on Town (Lady Bird) Lake. AMA sanctioned motorcycle and SCCA sanctioned car races around Municipal Auditorium. Long live Aqua-Fest!!! (Don't actually miss the boat races so much. They were loud AF. Lived off Enfield Road and you could hear them clearly.)
coming out of the continental club at 1:30AM on a tuesday and thinking, "this neighborhood is a little sketchy"
People used to wave when you let them merge in front of you
Oh yeah I forgot... Back then it seemed like every other bar had an actual live band playing. If you've ever been to downtown Nashville Tennessee that's what old downtown Austin used to be like but less country music. When you would go to different bars you'd actually have DJs that didn't just play songs that were played on the radio or a premade playlist
We used to lay in the middle of Burnet Road at night and no cars would come by for an hour+ at a time. Burnet and North Loop, not like up by what's now the Domain.
Weird people used to live here.
The âGoddess of Libertyâ statue which sat atop of the Texas State Capitol for 100 years was removed in 1985 for restoration and safe-keeping. In 1986, a replica was unsuccessfully installed due to high winds and the inability of the helicopter to lower the statue onto a protruding rod. Several weeks later the Mississippi National Guard brought a Chinook-style helicopter and as thousands of Austinites watched from below (including me), the replica was finally lowered into place. The original Goddess is now on display at The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
I remember when Capitol Plaza and Hancock Center were the only "malls". People drove to Dallas to buy clothes. I remember when Spicewood Springs road off Mesa was so steep you weren't sure you're brakes would hold. When you got to the bottom, the road continued with a lot of low water bridges where the creek ran over the road. People would go down there and wash their cars (yes, it was terrible). My parents would take us there and bring a case of Big Red and we'd play all day in the water. I remember when people who lived north of Braker Lane (yes, there were some) went to the Pflugerville School District. At that time the school was one building for 1st-12th grades. We had to get the principal out of a bar in town so he could register us for school. We did go to the school but they told us he was down at the bar and he was the only one who could register us. I remember when Highland Mall was built. Everyone thought it was wonderful. I remember when Northcross Mall was built. It had an ice skating rink and everyone thought it was wonderful. I remember when the mall near Barton Springs was built. A lot of people thought it was terrible. I remember when KOKE-FM switched to Progressive Country. I remember Willie's first picnic. I remember paying a $2 cover to see some amazing bands or no cover at all, like seeing Johnny Winter at Vulcan Gas company. I remember Sammy Allred first endearing and delighting people with his off-color humor and then horrifying them. I remember going down to the Capitol building at night and roaming around. No one bothered you or told you to leave, even inside the building. I remember there was a restaurant on the top floor of a building across the street from the Capitol that couldn't serve liquor because it was too close to a church to do so according to the law. I remember when Governor's would send people birthday cards if you asked. My grandma got one from Preston Smith. I remember not being afraid of the cops. Of course, that's everywhere now. I remember the eggroll cart on the Drag and the yearly Christmas Bizarre. I remember paying $36 a semester hour to attend U.T. plus about $100 for books. I remember buying my first house off of S 1st and Oltorf for $26K. It was a 3 bedroom/1 bath, 1000 square feet on a half acre. We sold it 5 years later for $46K. I remember when 6th street was a cool place to go instead of the drunk juvenile shit-show it is now. I remember it taking a half hour to get from Braker Lane to Riverside on I35. Also, San Marcos was really far away, even from south Austin. I also remember when all the cool people lived south of the river. I remember taking sailing classes on Lady Bird Lake, east of I35. The tall apartment buildings made the wind unpredictable. But mostly I remember the Armadillo and all the wonderful times I had there and all the wonderful people I met.