An alternate weekend

Bridging the pedestrian divide: Memorial Drive closing for feet-friendly build

If Memorial Drive is your main squeeze when it comes to thoroughfares in this town, you'd better find yourself a backup route this weekend.

Starting at midnight on Friday (which means 12 a.m. Saturday) and cruising through midnight on Sunday (12 a.m. Monday), Memorial Drive between Waugh and Bagby will be off-limits to you and any other traffic with feet, wheels, horses or buggies.

While we sympathize with the collective groan we just heard from you, dear reader, the reason for the closure should put a little spring in your step.

Real, live construction of the fabled Rosemont Bridge — an on-foot-friendly path uniting both banks of the Buffalo Bayou over Memorial Drive — is what will keep you off one of Houston's main arteries this Saturday and Sunday.

It's one small step for man, but one giant leap for pedestrian-kind. But we know — you'll miss swimming across the bayou to get from shore to shore.

So, if you can't drive on it, what will be zooming around on Memorial Drive this weekend?

By the time you wake up Saturday morning, big trucks will have dropped off three 30,000-40,000-pound beams (which, in case you were wondering, is equivalent to the weight of about three adult male elephants).

And by the time your Jura-Capresso churns out your morning cup of Joe, those three monster beams will be dangling from a 300-ton crane. In the process of hanging the beams to become a bridge, of course.

Yeah, you probably wouldn't want to be driving underneath those things anyway.

Luckily, this city is plenty big, and we've got drive arounds. Give Allen Parkway and Washington Avenue a little bit of your rubber-to-the-road love while you're waiting for Memorial to be driveable once again.

And, come Monday morning, be ready to marvel at the pedestrian progress our city is making in literal leaps and bounds.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”