NewsBank InfoWeb San Antonio Express-News Message: DTRE San Antonio Express-News March 23, 2001 Reincarnation of dragons part of renewal for Houston Street Author: Mike Greenberg Edition: Metro Section: Metro / South Texas Page: 1B Index Terms: Column Estimated printed pages: 2 Article Text: A doorway caught the eye of a gentleman as he walked down Houston Street the other day. Surprised, he stopped and touched the cracking paint on a column, studied the design carved into its capital, stepped back to view the whole composition. Had he never seen those architectural details before? No, Jesse Navarro answered, and he'd worked behind that very doorway, polishing shoes at Max's Shoeshine Parlor until it closed last summer. Max's and its predecessor, Tony's Mirror Shine, made the location a downtown institution. For some 80 years the shop was shoehorned into this passage no wider than a stairway. That's what the space was when the building, the University Block, was completed in the 1880s. Operated most recently by Johnny Gomez, the parlor was forced out by a full-scale renovation of the building for street-level retail and two floors of offices. An advertising agency now occupies the second floor, which had been vacant for decades. The narrow storefront had to be returned to its original function as the entrance to the upper floors. The University Block is part of a cluster of long-neglected historic buildings that the Revel Group is renovating. Immediately to its west, at Houston and Soledad Streets, is the Soledad Block, designed by architect Alfred Giles and completed in 1884. The University Block probably was completed at about the same time. Its architect is unknown, but Revel Group partner Tony Bradfield thinks Giles might have designed it as well. Parts of both buildings had been covered by modern facades, which the Revel Group removed. At street level, the developer built new storefronts reflecting the scale and rhythm of the originals. The developers had planned a simple surround for the stairway entrance, but when they removed two layers of modern incrustations, an unexpected butterfly emerged from the chrysalis. Well, actually, not a butterfly, but a winged dragon, like the one that pulled the chariot of Demeter, patroness of agriculture. At the center of each capital flanking the door is a golden dragon, its red mouth open slightly in what might be a smile. On either side of this highly unusual motif, a green acanthus leaf curls up to form a nest for a handful of purple grapes or olives. Silver acanthus leaves occupy the corners of the capitals and the ends of the doorway lintel, which is decorated with a row of spheres, called a pellet molding. A few fragments are missing, but Bradfield says the whole ensemble will be restored, despite the unanticipated expense. Several of the renovated storefronts have been leased. One space is the new home of a deli that was dislodged from another Alfred Giles building a block away. Federal Realty Investment Trust plans to restore that structure for incorporation into the Hotel Valencia, where several other small historic buildings also stood until a few months ago. It's all part of the cycle of life, loss and renewal that every city, every neighborhood experiences. Navarro went back to the glass door to peer inside. Gone were the mounted boar's head surveying the row of chairs on their high platform and the picture of Marilyn Monroe under the tilted mirror on the far wall. "I shined shoes there for 20 years. And you know what? I did like it," he said. There is no way to compensate fully for the loss of a human institution such as Max's, though it survives in the memory of three generations of customers and workers, and those who just passed by. But new people will come and make new traditions. And one of their memories will be the day the dragons roared again on Houston Street. mgreenberg@express-news.net Copyright 2001 San Antonio Express-News Record Number: 539982