The Culture of South 1st Street in Austin Some roads lead to where it is you want to go. Some lead to surprises both good and bad. Some streets are destinations in themselves, the portions of track where the journey itself is all that matters.
South First Street between Riverside and St. Elmo's is one of these streets, one of the last to Austin, where block after block, the magic of the ancient city that once attracted musicians, artists and other creators to move and settle here, is still palpable, still crackling in the air.
To the south of Riverside, you pass shops and boutiques on the right, and converted from private retirement homes in 1930, into clothing stores and import artsy. They sit in front of the vast green campus of Texas State School for the Deaf. Further south, the Bouldin Creek Coffee House serves his eclectic food to the health of the hip and drink his neo-bohemian clientele. In addition, Jovita, one of the most venerable of the city, but lesser known places of music, invites the eye with Joyce Dibona is colorful, artwork Aztec theme that adorn the exterior walls.
As you drive further south you go the more colorful buildings and businesses that crowd in the street to four lanes. Some are well established and prosperous, some seem almost abandoned, decrepit same. All are obviously small operations, such as Resistencia Bookstore. At the corner of Oltorf and South First, one of the most addictive business houses which may be the ideal company to Austin at the time, Green Baby, a fast food joint health.
By continuing, you pass one of the least attractive buildings, however, what happens to the house of the GHS Lounge, a neighborhood drinking establishment with old street cred to burn. repair mode, used bookstores, bike shops, art galleries and a nursery online private house converted into the street as you head toward the intersection with Ben White. Before arriving there, you may notice the coffee house Summermoon on the east side of the street, one of the coziest and most intimate neighborhood cafe in the city. The neighboring districts of Barton Hills and Travis Heights are populated by people who have an unfailing devotion to their local business shops.
Adjacent is the SHAC, caring and Advocacy Center, which is managed by the Austin Area Consumers of Mental Health, an organization of people with mental illness. This community center offers services and information for people with mental illness and the wider community. Mostly volunteer staff here has helped many people find housing, jobs and new hope for reintegration into society itself.
Of course, along the way, there was a liturgy colorful Mexican restaurants: Aranda, Polvo, Little Mexico, Mexicana Panderia, Botanitas Evita. Even San Antonio would be difficult to present a street with many colorful and delightfully promising institutions in a section of so few miles.
And all along this road that has somehow escaped the clear style of development that brings condos and super-centers and grid-locked traffic, there is still the green hills of Austin. On a long stretch of the street, if you're heading north, you can see the towers of downtown floating in the misty distance. It is indeed architecture Austin without the cookie cutter from anywhere in the USA. It is a local character, content and color, a true reflection of creativity and productivity of people who live here.
It can only be a matter of time before this fine old street yields to the pressure of development and large sums of money, such as the rest of the city a. But for now, it's still the way it was Austin, or almost ready for a road trip without destinata clear.
Posted on March 25, 2010.
