Naked City

The end of the road has come for what may have been the last pocket of truly affordable houses west of I-35, with the sale of 11 tracts in the Alta Vista neighborhood -- a cluster of 107 modest homes tucked behind the bustling Chili's/ Starbucks complex at 45th and Lamar -- to developers Carter and Brooke Bruce, whose large new home on Marathon Ave., with its 12-foot ceilings and two-story garage, has long been a point of contention among Alta Vista residents.

Known to some neighbors as "the castle yonder" and "the green monster," the Bruce residence -- all 3,600 square feet of it, plus a side yard where a small house one neighbor says was "one of the cutest houses in our whole neighborhood" used to sit -- towers over a row of crumbling single-story houses that rent for around $600-$800 a month. Walking around the houses, which range from around 500 to 1,100 square feet, it's easy to understand why. The floor of one house tilts several degrees off vertical; "You could kick the wall and it'd come down," says Brooke Bruce. Another has water stains across the ceiling and much of one bedroom wall.

Still, "we've had a fantastic break in the rent on these houses, and that's what people are going to miss the most," says Alta Vista Neighborhood Association President Louise Shelby, who lives with her father in a two-bedroom bungalow on Marathon Ave. "You kind of get an idea of why people are pissed -- we have led an enchanted life for a long time."

Reality will crash-land on Marathon come November, when the deed on the 11 tracts passes from Live Oak Development -- which also owns the complex at 4400 Lamar -- to the Bruces, who want to tear down the houses to make way for new development. And while neighbors say they're trying to reserve their judgment until they see the couple's plans, the pending sale has many residents talking -- and some aren't convinced the Bruces share their vision for what Alta Vista should be. "What people are mostly worried about is the fact that we live in this kind of modest neighborhood and the Bruces moved in and built this gigantic house [that] at best would be appropriate in West Lake Hills," Shelby says. "We don't want the neighborhood to go in that direction."

Neighborhood homeowner Jackie Thomas, who lives a couple of blocks from the Bruces, adds that the neighborhood's unique demographic mix is part of Alta Vista's charm. "We've always had this really nice mix in our neighborhood of high-, moderate-, and low-income renters and owners -- that's something we've always really loved about it," Thomas says. But, Shelby adds, "If we can see some examples of what's going to be there, if we can see that it's not going to be a big green house [like the Bruces' current residence], if we can see that there's going to be a lawn there … then I think that we're going to have a lot of people that are a lot less nervous about it."

It's easy to see why people are afraid; the Bruces' home sticks out like a neon sign among the smaller bungalows that line Alta Vista's streets. On the other hand, it's obvious that Bruce, a 15-year Austinite who says she was "pretty much floored" by her neighbors' objections to the development, doesn't believe she and her husband are doing anything to harm the neighborhood. Some neighbors disagree: One even papered the Bruces' property with posters bearing epithets like "I [heart] money" and "Ask me about my gas-guzzling vehicle" after their plans to buy the property became known. "If they want anything from me, the vandalism must stop," Bruce says.

Bruce says her and her husband's plans, which include a row of three- to five-bedroom houses between 2,500 and 3,000 square feet, with suburban-style front-facing garages, will be a big improvement over what's currently on Marathon. "Right now, we're having drag races and drug deals over there. We'd like to have moms pushing strollers and dads mowing the lawns," Bruce says. (Bruce reiterated that comment during a recent neighborhood meeting, prompting Thomas to snap: "You implied that these people [on Marathon] are somehow slum people." Later, Thomas elaborated: "[They] think [they're] doing us this great favor of ridding us of this undesirable element. What is undesirable is the prospect of having tasteless yet moneyed people racing their SUVs through the neighborhood.")

Bruce says the existing homes will be disassembled and their salvageable parts donated to Habitat for Humanity, and the new houses will be "within the height and impervious cover [restrictions], and the trees that are there are going to stay there." Given the size of the lots, their lack of alley access, and the numerous old trees that dot the land, it's unlikely that the new houses would be anywhere near the size of the Bruces' four-bedroom home. But as long as the green house at 4402 Marathon looms above its humble neighbors, many in Alta Vista will likely remain wary of the Bruces' plans. "It's scary to have the man who owns the ugliest house … and the biggest house in the neighborhood … buying up the most affordable houses in the neighborhood and tearing them down," says NA president Shelby…

The political comic strip Doonesbury, whose creator Garry Trudeau has been called "spoiled, derisive, ugly and nasty" and "the slime of the earth" by former president George Bush and his son (and current Florida governor) Jeb Bush, respectively, made another enemy, at least temporarily, two weeks ago, when the Daily Texan student newspaper decided to pull the strip for a week during the Jenna Bush media frenzy. The controversy centered on a recent Doonesbury story line focusing on the wayward Bush daughter, which had Jen and Dub bickering inside the White House over the consequences of underage drinking. In Wednesday's strip, the president orders his daughter to stop embarrassing the family, to which Jenna replies, "Oh, please, Daddy! When you were my age, you drank like a fish! And you had a famous political father, too!" "That's different! I was trying to embarrass him!" Bush says -- to which Jenna replies, "Hello? I'm 19!"

Texan ed Marshall Maher, who took over the daily's reins earlier this year, says the paper's policy is to cover all students equally, famous, infamous, or otherwise. "We decided … if we didn't think a minor alcohol infraction was a story for any other student, then we didn't think it was a story just because it was Jenna Bush," Maher says. That logic differs from that of most national news organizations, which reasoned that because the president's daughter is a public figure, her two alcohol-related misdemeanors were worth covering. What would push the Texan to change its editorial philosophy? Maher says that if Jenna Bush had committed a third alcohol-related infraction -- making her potentially eligible for jail time under a law her father signed as governor of Texas -- that might be a different story. "The president's daughter going to jail under a law her father signed is obviously more newsworthy than a minor alcohol infraction." As for the decision to pull the popular, and often controversial, syndicated comic, Maher says he decided to do so "for the same reason we didn't run an AP story about Jenna Bush on the front page" -- because Jenna is just like any other student. Maher says he doesn't know whether the Texan's policy, which covers Jenna and UT Law student George P. Bush, would extend to Bush twin Barbara, a student at Yale. "Obviously, we didn't report about Barbara this time because it was completely tied into Jenna," Maher says, but "if Barbara went out and did something completely on her own, we would have to address whether we want to cover that."…

Clean Campaigns of Austin, never ones to shy away from the harsh glare of publicity, have filed a "state constitution freedom of speech and assembly" lawsuit against HEB Grocery Stores, claiming violation of their right to free assembly on private property with public access. The group, which is seeking public financing for local campaigns, has sought to gather petitions in front of the Hancock Center HEB; HEB policy prohibits solicitation anywhere on the property, according to HEB spokeswoman Kate Brown. Clean Campaigns member Linda Curtis says this is a change in policy for the grocer -- and that in fact, in the past, "the Girl Scouts were angry that we were being allowed to collect signatures but they couldn't sell cookies." But Brown says the no solicitation policy has "always" been in place, adding that it's "not in any way aimed at this particular group."

Fred Lewis, an attorney for the group, says the issue goes beyond the group's right to assemble at the Hancock Center. "I think it's a very important issue," he says. "How do you reach people in a society like we have where people congregate in malls and shopping centers, where you don't have community halls and community events where people congregate?" The lawsuit, filed in Travis County court on Tuesday, seeks an injunction against HEB forcing them to allow Clean Campaigns to petition in front of its stores. Currently, you can find Clean Campaigners in front of Whole Foods, BookPeople, and -- last weekend, at least -- Central Market, which is owned by HEB but has its own policy about petitions, elections, and campaigns…

Starting next Monday, July 2, the Faulk Central Library and the Austin History Center will open an hour later, at 10am, in order to reduce the amount of traffic emissions in the downtown area as part of the city's Ozone Action initiative. The new hours will be in effect until October 31, when Austin's "ozone season" officially ends.