Adiós to the Valley - part four

Late afternoon and I'm on my deck with a glass of Texas claret. The sun has that seductive quality found in tourist brochures. 

Passersby say, 'How ya doin'?' and make the usual comment about temperatures back in Winnipeg or Fargo, North Dakota. We agree that warm is better than frostbite. Neighbours also remark on the size, quality and abundance of my lemons. Feeling generous, I grandly offer a lemon or two.

In my case, drinking leads to musing pleasantly tinged with melancholy.  Much of what I like about the Valley is an enjoyable sense of loss. I continue to make discoveries, well, discoveries to me.

Poking around downtown Brownsville, I come across the Hotel El Jardin, overlooking the Mexican city of Matamoros. In 1927, The Brownsville Herald said it embodied 'The Finest Of Architectural And Construction Art' with 'luxury rivaling the most beautiful places of Mohammedan and Byzantine princes.' Wow! Imagine sipping a Margarita here!

And what Valley postcard back then could resist the (now infamous) 'sleeping Mexican'? A recurrent theme, sometimes reinforced by a picturesque burro.

As for the Hotel El Jardin, 'holding out promise of gorgeousness and joy,' it's now an abandoned wreck.

Across the street is the Capitol Theater. In 1928, the Spanish Colonial Revival showplace touted its splendid organ, installed for $2,642.50.

Boarded up with faint hopes of restoration.

In the 1950s, Pharr had the Texan Hotel, 'one of the finest smaller hotels in the United States. Located on U. S. 281 from Canada to Mexico. Completely airconditioned, excellent food and luxurious living, the Texan Hotel is the hospitality and social center of the bustling, progressive and modern city of Pharr.'

At the top of the little tower, a cowboy waved invitingly to passersby.

What a dump now. Vacant windows, a closed Chinese restaurant and no jolly cowboy.

However, in the nearby old fire station, I poke my camera through a window (no glass) for a picture of this wonderful Ford. Battered and dusty, but could be restored.

Raymondville has the 1940s Texas Theater on a street lined with pawn and loan shops, and cheap clothes stores. Among its showings in 1959 were 'Pork Chop Hill' and 'Teenager from Outer Space.'

Efforts have been made to preserve something of its period charm and it's occasionally rented for private events. The original exterior touches are delightful.

No restoration is likely (or warranted) for the Delta State Bank in the forgettable town of Edcouch. Architecturally dismal, it's gutted inside. What makes the bank modestly interesting is that it opened in 1927 during the boom years of the late Twenties and closed four years later at the height of the Depression. 'Delta' refers to the Rio Grande delta as the river reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

(April 3, 2013 - Apparently the building is being renovated for medical offices. So much for my prediction. I'd have thought it would be easier to rip it down and start over, but what do I know?)

San Benito is Freddy Fender's ('Wasted Days and Wasted Nights') hometown and where he's buried.

This extraordinary retro drive-in stands unloved on the town's main street.

A few blocks away is what's left of the Hotel Stonewall Jackson. A 1991 review spoke of being 'whisked back in time to 1928 by the original ceiling fans whirring mightily over the old hotel dining hall ... and ornate Mexican floor tiles.'

Last autumn, after the town cited safety concerns, the few remaining tenants ($250 a month) were evicted and the building sits empty. Those ceiling fans have been stolen.

In McAllen, I wonder about this mid-century structure in what used to be the largely Anglo, three or four downtown blocks. The facade looks similar to one in Toronto. 

A closer look reveals the former owner and a little Internet research that this was one of hundreds of American Woolworth's closed in 1997 (Woolworth's in Canada shut down in 1994). The mention of air conditioning on the door handle reminds that artificially cooled air - even in places as brutally hot as Texas - was not always taken for granted.

As shopping shifted to car friendly malls on town and city outskirts, main street stores were vacated. Anglos, who once dominated business and politics in the Valley, abandoned older, often quite lovely, homes and gardens near their businesses. Poor Mexicans, who had faced considerable discrimination, understandably moved in to take advantage of cheap store rents and accommodation. 

Hispanics (the Valley is 90% Hispanic) saved some of the Valley's traditional main streets. But downtowns now lined with tacky discount stores, muscle shops and loudspeakers blasting Tejano music, once had hardware, drug and stationery stores, banks, cinemas, 'blue plate special' restaurants and perhaps a supermarket or two. Business, as well as much of a town's social, life was centered downtown. No more.

So often, there seems to be little Hispanic interest in (or, to be fair, money for) preservation of buildings connected with the vanished Anglos. President Dwight Eisenhower passed through McAllen in 1953 and appeared to crowds on this balcony. 

It's not that McAllen (pop. 133,000) has had scores of presidential visits. In a Republican state as rabidly patriotic as Texas you'd have thought a Republican president would at least warrant a plaque. The building degenerated into a rooming house, which eventually closed. Not a hint of its one moment of glory.