Save 1609 Saulnier

The clock is ticking to save a piece of Houston history in Freedmen's Town

The goal is to raise $300,000 by May 30.

Photo courtesy of Houston's Freedmen's Town Conservancy

There's a grassroots campaign currently happening to save a historic Houston structure from demolition.

1609 Saulnier is an original structure in Freedmen's Town, a historically Black community settled by formerly enslaved people after the Juneteenth announcement of Emancipation in 1865.

Viewers of Top Chef may recognize it from a recent episode of the hit show, where an elimination challenge was held in the district's Bethel Baptist Church.

Freedmen's Town originally contained over 530 historic structures within the 40 block area. Now there are less than 50 contributing structures standing.

Despite its cultural and architectural significance as an important cultural touchstone in both African American and Texas history, the community has faced ongoing disintegration of historic character and assets.

1609 Saulnier is listed in the inventory of the United States Department of Interior - National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places in the Freedmen’s Town Historic District, but it does not currently have landmark status.

It's currently for sale, and Boulevard Realty broker/owner Bill Baldwin has been working with the Freedmen’s Town Conservancy to save it.

"Our collective history is erased with each demolition, so we need your help to preserve the legacy of this historic building, ensure it is preserved by the City of Houston in perpetuity, and prevent the gradual destruction of Houston’s Freedmen’s Town Historic District," says the description of the project's GoFundMe page, which can be found at www.alliesoffreedmenstown.com.

The goal is to raise $300,000 by May 31, 2022, to purchase the property and make it affordable housing through the community land trust, and designate it as a City of Houston protected landmark.

Additionally, the HFTC is rallying volunteers for a spring cleanup event at 1609 Saulnier on Saturday, May 14, from 10 am-noon. Volunteers from the HFTC will be clearing out the historic structure and raising awareness of the importance of caring for homes like this one.

For additional information, you can contact fundraising coordinator Bill Baldwin at 281-850-6862.

The Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which protects and preserves Freedmen’s Town for the benefit of future generations. The Conservancy supports community engagement, re-education, and heritage tourism, and is the conservator of Freedmen’s Town as the City of Houston’s first Heritage District.

preservation fundraisers promoted

jaw-dropping jaws

Gigantic 50-foot shark dives into Houston museum for jaw-dropping new showcase of Earth's greatest predator

Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths HMNS

Photo courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Yes, this is actually scale.

By the numbers, the great white shark is one of the most fearsome predators to ever exist on planet Earth. Consider:

Photo courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Yes, this is actually scale.

The largest great white ever recorded spanned 20 feet – half the size of a school bus — and weighed at least 5,000 pounds.
At any given moment, great whites possess 300 teeth — measuring up to 6.6 inches — and can regenerate and replace up to 20,000 in a lifetime.
Swimming up to 35 miles per hour, a great white can launch itself out of the water like a missile.

But those stats are child's play to the great white's prehistoric predecessor, the megalodon (which literally means "big tooth"), which grew to 65 feet long. Known by scientists and fans as the "Meg," the massive monster will star in Houston Museum of Natural Science's new exhibit Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths.

The immersive shark fest opens Friday, May 26 to members and Saturday, May 27 to the general public. Tickets are available online.

Dive into the shark tank

Meant to educate and inspire awe and curiosity rather than hysteria, the new exhibition features six galleries that include live shark tank, 14 life-sized models, interactive and touchable items, dazzling digital displays, fun photo ops, and meg-sized chunks of information about the ocean's apex predators.

Visitors can meet these fin-tastic friends via a 360-square-foot virtual “shark tank,” where sharks of all shapes and sizes (there are eight different orders and more than 500 species) swim by, showing off their sleek shapes, bioluminescence, and grace.

Meet the monster Meg

A giant, life-sized, 50-foot model of a female megalodon — in full swim pose and jaws that easily down an entire refrigerator or a few humans — wide open in a toothy grin. The megalodon's sheer mass compared to humans, its color (gray to reflect the sea wall with a "great white" belly) will be on display for photos and wow moments.

Another gallery takes viewers back more than 400 million years to the earliest sharks and fossilized shark teeth. Each visitor can select a fossilized tooth dating back to the Miocene era to keep as part of the journey.

Some gentle bamboo and epaulette sharks will join stingrays (cousins of sharks), sea urchins, and a host of other sea dwellers in an easily viewable tank, which will offer an up-close-and-personal perspective as to why these creatures are so essential to the ecosystem.

No excursion would be complete without swag, and this one offers up toys, puzzles, t-shirts, magnets, and more at the Island Store, which also houses megalodon teeth, fossilized coral, and a 100,000-year-old giant fossil clamshell.

Fans of these finned friends

While they have survived every mass extinction event in the past 450 million years and have ruled their water kingdom for some 300,000 years, sharks are now in peril by the worst predator of all: humans. Spurred by bloodlust after the release of the 1975 epic film and novel Jaws and other sensational pop culture vehicles, an average of 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year.

Whether for sport, shark fin soup (where fins are cut off while the shark is cast back still alive and left to drown), scientists worry that this decimation could mean the end for many of these astounding creatures. '

“Sharks are remarkably diverse and efficient predators but are more threatened than threatening. In fact, over one-third of shark species are now facing the threat of extinction,” said Nicole Temple, the exhibit curator. “With this exhibition, we hope that our guests are able to explore the misconceptions, mysteries, and mystique of sharks to help pave the way for conservation efforts, as well as explore their unique adaptations and behaviors that continue to inspire scientific innovation around the world.”

“Sharks are critical to maintaining the health of our oceans, which are a huge carbon sink for the planet,” Temple adds. “Really, sharks help keep us alive.”

Consider this a chance to visit to a monstrous meg, snap a selfie, and say thanks.

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Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths opens Friday, May 26 (members) and Saturday, May 27 (general public) at Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Dr. For tickets and more information, visit HMNS online.