Easy with the *hat* jokes, boys and girls. J.B. is just covering his perfect head so the rest of us don't feel bad. But I must admit, I am bald as a bowling ball. My tribute is that there is a great big scar going ear to ear!!! <><

Wear a dick tracy fedora for you next picture.

Like Warren Beatty

Maybe you should open up a haberdashery and sell some of those razzle dazzle hats!

I am a graduate of Jefferson Moore High School and at the time, our building was considered very modern, having the library "sunken" in the middle with classrooms all around above, many of the classrooms defined by partitions instead of typical walls. The open-classroom concept was cool!! I don't believe we thought anything of the school being across the street from the river, but again, we were students.

The whole problem with downtown river views are the location of the streets. For the most part, there is very little land between the street and the river so development there is very limited. The land space does get better the further from downtown you get, like between Franklin and I-35 and Washington and Herring Avenue on the East Side. I can understand why the classrooms at A. J. Moore do not have any windows. We had narrow windows at University High so daydreaming was very easy.

If you go back about 120 years Waco had a park similar to Indian Spring Park back then along and round the suspension bridge. I do not understand why they chose to ignore it and let it disappear. It would have been cheaper to maintain what was put there in the first place than having to start from scratch again. That seems to be a city mottow: We are going to try it AGAIN. We are now going to pay attention to it AGAIN and AGAIN...

The city "literally" turned its back on the river? Literally? How does a CITY literally turn its back? A city has a back to turn? Gah. I thought you newspaper guys knew better than to write like that. Maybe it's that "quirky street level" thing.

I also think the idea that the City has not paid attention to the river is way off base. It deals with it all the time. There's never been a consistent vision or program, which would be a valid critique, but they have done stuff related to the river for as long as there's been a river. Just kind of ad hoc.

People like the former head of "Austin Ave. Flats" come pied piping into town, caise a big stir, run off with a bunch of money, dont pay bills, then that makes it look bad on the rest of town. Wait until Lake Whitney bursts. We will not have to worry about any of this mess anymore. "Cant fool Mother Nature".

They bought up that stretch of land and evicted Buzzard Billy's so they could tear it all down and build a big sparkley hotel. But, as usual, it probably hit the skids like the last 3 developments that were supposed to happen in that area of downtown.

It's fine if someone has the money to do it, but from what I see in many cases, they are blowing hot air. If people are serious about investing and building downtown or anywhere for that matter, they better have the money or a backer who has the money to finish the job and be prepared to take a loss for the first few years.

I am surprised the the City and the Greater Whiter Chamber of Commerce has not proposed bulldozing down the rest of East Waco and issuing all of the residents a hoe (steel and wood kind), a pair of gloves, and a cotton sack.

Dang, Ron from Texas. From what you wrote, it seems to me you need more going on in your life.

If your reason for wanting to live is so you can tell somebody they screwed up, then you probably need to call a help line.

For us to be in a deep Recession, I still have to be very very pessamistic at 'any' intentions the City of Waco/Mayor/Manager/Council has/wants to do. They are still trying to revive a dinosaur(by spending/wasting millions upon millions of dollars, throwing good money after/on top of bad!!! I just hope I live long enough to see the City broke and have 'nothing' to show for it, so I can get the satisfaction of saying "I-told-you-so"!!! The City better start trying to figure out how to save money, not spend/waste it!!!

When we dined at Buzzard Billy's, we had a view of the river. We also had a view of the styrofoam cups, plastic bags,soda bottles, and other trash either floating or washed up on the shore.
Until people stop polluting the river visually there is really no reason to try to take advantage of the view. Many times the view isn't all that appetizing.

It sounds lovely to have a school that, to flip your term, regards the river. But how exactly does that improve education?

I'm not saying you have to connect it to test scores, I'm simply asking what would be gained? A prettier 'view' if there were windows (most schools these days don't have them). A more serene campus that students would be more proud of and want to attend - few have a choice on that. Biology experiments at the river's edge. A swim team. Pro-fishing career track since it's a career-oriented school.

On my few visits to baylor law, the river seemed only to play into external setting - making it attractive for those tuition paying students who choose where they go to law school. I didn't see much internally that integrated the building with the surroundings.

I get preposterous but have to ask. The gain from making it more 'river' friendly is not obvious to me. For an institution such as a restaurant, it makes perfect sense to be river friendly as patrons will want to eat with a view. I don't see the lift for a public high school.

Didn't Shelton and some others spend 5 million on the stretch of buildings where Buzzard's used to be located?

Those buildings not only don't use the river, but they block it from the rest of downtown.

Is Shelton planning on actually doing something with that stretch? If not, he should do us all a favor and flip it. If they were just going to make Buzzard's that much harder to get to, they should get off their tails and get something done.

I have seen the consulting plan done in the 1960s that led to the low-water dam, the convention center, and other developments from that time period. At that time, the land where Moore is was being cleared through urban renewal. The consultants were ADAMANT that placing a school on that site was not a good use of the land and that the school should be located elsewhere. They wanted the land for development. That is still a contentious issue today because WISD owns that land covering Baron's Branch and there are proposals to develop that land. History keeps repeating itself.