A storm raged as we cruised out of the suburbs along Interstate 10 toward Houston’s Montrose neighborhood. It was 1991, and my friend Ehren and I had driven that route so many times in the two years since we’d turned 16, our tire tracks had probably worn their own grooves into the asphalt. The neighborhood was a sanctuary to us, a place ruled by misfits and artists, where we could check out vintage stores like Timeless Taffeta before catching a matinee of the Madonna: Truth or Dare documentary. As we drove, the rain-slicked road caused the car to violently spin out. After mercifully coming to a stop, Ehren forged on. We were young and anything was possible. A near-death experience wasn’t going to keep us from our weekly pilgrimage.
In the 1990s, we viewed Montrose as an urban paradise, in a sprawling city of over 1.5 million, that offered creative kids an escape from our insular high school world. We didn’t have access to words like “othered,” and Ehren wasn’t proudly marching into the Montrose Center, a community organization for LGBTQ+ folks since 1978. We leaned on each other for support, and we gravitated to Montrose because we felt a sense of belonging inside places like Numbers nightclub and café Brasil, holdouts that have managed to evade the bulldozers and developers. My friends and I loved Montrose because people were open-minded, accepting, unconventional. The vintage shops, where I found 1950s cocktail dresses and retro bowling shirts, were pretty cool, too.
When I tell my much younger sister Kathryn that I’m coming to town from Hutto for a day of nostalgia, her response is, “What’s in Montrose besides a bunch of restaurants?” Kathryn is a proud Houstonian, but her generation knows my beloved, scrappy high school haven for its brand-new mixed-use developments, shiny high-rise condos looming over historical homes, and trendy restaurants like Hugo’s and Traveler’s Table. She doesn’t share memories of walking up the steps at the corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy into the building that housed Dream Merchant, a new-wave clothing store that sold everything from cyberpunk boots to James Dean T-shirts.
I’m traveling to Montrose to reconnect with a version of myself before parenthood and midlife swooped in and to the people and places that defined my formative years, when we were all still figuring ourselves out, our visions for our futures well within reach. Dream Merchant shut its doors long ago, foreshadowing closings of Half Price Books and the “disco Kroger” grocery store in 2021, along with the tiny gay bar Mary’s… Naturally!, which closed in 2009 and is now a gourmet coffee shop. Even the brick house from the 1994 slacker movie Reality Bites, the one where (spoiler alert!) Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke kiss on the front steps, was demolished last spring.
Enjoying this article?It’s raining on the morning I arrive, just like it was that afternoon so many years ago with Ehren. My friends and I used to drive right past the Link-Lee Mansion, located on a busy corner between Sul Ross and West Alabama, on our way to shop. This time, though, I stop to check it out. A businessman named John W. Link built the white brick neoclassical home in 1912, and it is now part of the University of St. Thomas. Link aimed to draw wealthy people to the area. Later, when the 1968 Fair Housing Act made it illegal to discriminate against anyone who wanted to buy or rent a home, the well-to-do homeowners who’d moved elsewhere rented out properties to artists and bohemians, and the cheap rates lured an entirely new demographic to Montrose.
I walk up to a side door of the mansion, but it’s locked. When I ring the bell, someone somewhere buzzes me inside. I wander across the creaky wood floors, staring up at stained glass windows, statues of saints, and crystal chandeliers. I hear voices talking in distant rooms, but no one emerges to ask why I’m there. The disembodied chatter makes the place feel haunted. Outside, I find a historical marker that calls out the home’s “pronounced portico, elaborate brickwork and ornate terra cotta ornamentation.”
Ehren and I loved to stroll through museums and get deep about the meaning of a piece, so as soon as I approach the Menil Collection on Sul Ross I’m struck by memories of our time together. The free museum was opened by John and Dominique de Menil in 1987 to showcase an art collection that has grown to more than 20,000 works. I walk beneath the promenade that wraps around the austere gray-and-white building, thankful the architecture remains untouched. Unlike our high school, a windowless brick building that—rumor had it—was built by someone who designed prisons, this place always felt open and modern. Just 20 minutes from the West Houston suburbs, we found actual art history.
Nearby, the Rothko Chapel introduced us to the meditative genius of Mark Rothko. Since the chapel building is closed due to damage from Hurricane Beryl on my visit—it has since reopened—I explore the welcome house. The red brick sanctuary that holds 14 murals painted by Rothko was restored in 2021. “There’s been a lot of emotion,” says Kelly Johnson, program director for the Rothko, regarding the storm’s impact on the sanctuary. Outside, Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk sculpture rises out of the reflecting pool, indefatigable through hurricanes, floods, and 100 mph wind gusts whipped up by a derecho.
The neighborhood is quiet, save for the faint sounds of leaf blowers and construction happening around the corner. The gentrification of historical neighborhoods like Montrose causes a specific 21st-century grief. Sure, change is inevitable and time marches on, but does it have to march right over places beloved by so many?
Next, I check out the site of Mary’s… Naturally!, which opened in 1970 at the corner of Westheimer and Waugh and served as a neighborhood staple for nearly 40 years. Now it’s a coffee shop called Blacksmith. When my younger sister Jackie moved to Montrose in her 20s, she would talk about places like Mary’s, or Rudyard’s Pub on Waugh, which is still open for a pint. After I order my $6.50 latte, I step outside to look for the utility box. Brian Riedel, a professor at Rice University, told me that instead of historical markers, I might find small murals painted on utility boxes that commemorate stories of the past. Sure enough, right there on the utility box in front of me is a painting depicting a scene from Mary’s. Later, I visit another utility box near Texas Art Supply and La Mexicana Restaurant. This mini-mural pays tribute to
transgender-rights activist Monica Roberts. The light blue, pink, and white painting is quintessential Montrose, or at least the Montrose I know and love.
The gothic red and black brick building at 1658 Westheimer Road is my last stop. It started as a church in the 1920s and has housed several stores and restaurants since. To me, though, it will always be Dream Merchant, the shop that sold black platform boots and concert T-shirts and gave me and my friends a reprieve from the pastel-clad mannequins at our local Gap. There’s fencing around the property now, and the boarded-up windows, graffiti, and trash don’t mesh with the newer, shinier additions to Montrose.
Jackie once lived around the corner from here. She died in 2021, many years after she left Houston for New York. Ehren died just a few years before that, in 2017. Standing there, I lament the change to the neighborhood, the people long gone.
Next door to Dream Merchant sits Shaw’s Tattoo Studio, opened in 1979. I got my first tattoo at Shaw’s, a small butterfly on the inside of my right ankle. The once bright colors have faded to a blurry blue. I hid that butterfly behind thick socks for half of an infernally hot summer until my parents saw it and freaked out.
Shaw’s closed in October 2024, after my visit, and the old gothic church was bought by a hospitality group that is turning it into yet another upscale restaurant. No matter what changes come to Montrose, though, in my mind it will forever remain what it was: a place I went to with people I loved, a neighborhood that allowed us to glimpse the world at its best.
