Wood frame bungalow bars stand at sidewalk edge under towers thirty and seventy stories tall.
What Rainey Street looks like
The block runs one short stretch between Cesar Chavez Street and the river, wood frame cottages standing at sidewalk edge under towers thirty and seventy stories tall. occupies a red sided bungalow at 79 Rainey Street, its gabled roof strung with string lights above a low wood picket fence.
, a brewpub, sits in a yellow shuttered house at 73 Rainey Street behind a small yard. Several of the surviving cottages date from between 1885 and 1937, with narrow gabled fronts sided in painted wood rather than brick or stone.
rises at the Davis Street corner, a mid rise anchor beside the cottages. At the block's western edge, the tower stands on Red River Street, the tallest building in Texas at over a thousand feet. The contrast sits in a single frame, one storey rooflines against glass towers on every side.
The street is narrow and short, closed at its ends by the surrounding towers. Small yard fences and porch columns strung with string lights line the sidewalk, mature trees overhead between the cottages.
Shot in Rainey Street
In 1981, Austin Community Television broadcast Rainey Street, a twenty minute documentary by Andrea Merrim and Paula Manley that followed residents' efforts to keep the block as development pressure grew. Two houses named in the film bookend the street today. The house at Street is gone, replaced by a condominium tower with the same name, while the yellow shuttered house at 73 Rainey Street still stands.
Rainey Street, 1981
The yellow shuttered house
The house at 73 Rainey Street appears on camera as a family home in the documentary. It is the same yellow shuttered building that now holds The Stay Put, a brewpub, behind a small front yard.
What Rainey Street can double for
Lower Highlands in Denver, Colorado
Victorian cottages and craftsman bungalows along Tejon and Platte Streets have been converted into bars and restaurants the same way Rainey Street's houses were, with the downtown Denver skyline rising close behind the block. The scale of house against tower matches what a camera sees on Rainey Street. Denver's brick and stone Victorian facades read differently from Rainey's painted wood siding, so a wide shot needs dressing to hide the brick. Rooflines are steeper and the porches deeper, which shows in a straight on elevation. Try searching craftsman bungalow bars now.
Dilworth in Charlotte, North Carolina
Craftsman bungalows with wide porches and gabled roofs line East Boulevard, the streetcar suburb closest to Uptown Charlotte, with the skyline visible past Freedom Park. That is the same pairing of one storey house and distant tower skyline that Rainey Street shows at much closer range. Charlotte's towers sit several blocks off rather than across the street, so a longer lens is needed to hold both house and skyline in one frame. Mature oak canopies over the sidewalks also need trimming out of a shot aiming for Rainey's more exposed block. Try searching craftsman bungalows wide porches now.
