Postmodern glass office towers rise over a shopping mall and a live oak lined boulevard, with the Galleria's ice rink a location for a 1981 CBS movie.
What Uptown Houston looks like
runs through the middle of Uptown Houston as a six-lane road with a landscaped median. More than a thousand live oak trees line the boulevard. Its sidewalks, widened to about twelve feet, carry dedicated bus lanes for the MetroRapid Silver Line. A silver, ring-shaped street sign hangs over the intersection of Richmond Avenue and Sage Road.
rises 902 feet at 2800 Post Oak Boulevard, built as two stacked towers joined at a shared floor partway up its 64 storeys, its mirrored glass curtain wall tapering into a rounded postmodern crown completed in 1983. A rotating beacon on top is visible for miles at night. Office towers around it run from about ten to forty storeys, most faced in glass over structured parking garages, including the newer Amegy Bank headquarters a few blocks south.
At the base of Williams Tower, the holds a 64-foot semicircular fountain that circulates about 11,000 gallons of water a minute through a plaza with brick archways. , a few blocks north on Westheimer Road, is an enclosed mall built around a year-round ice rink under a glazed barrel vault ceiling. Four expansions since 1970 brought it to about 2.4 million square feet.
Low-rise buildings still sit among the towers. Berachah Church's red brick sanctuary and spire stand on Sage Road within sight of Williams Tower. , two 40-storey residential towers on San Felipe Street, are a rare high-rise built as condominiums rather than offices. Construction cranes are a recurring fixture here, as new towers keep replacing surface parking lots and older low buildings.
Shot in Uptown Houston
Two productions have used Uptown Houston's real interiors and plazas for individual scenes, rather than anything built for the camera. A 1981 CBS television movie shot at the Galleria's ice rink, and a 1992 feature used the Waterwall for a brief appearance.
Hellinger's Law, 1981
For the CBS television movie Hellinger's Law, a scene was shot at the ice rink under the Galleria's glazed vault. Telly Savalas's character watched the rink's child skaters while Houston extras, playing shoppers, crossed the bridge above. The production used the real rink rather than building one, and the film is set in Houston itself. Street View
Sidekicks, 1992
The Waterwall
Played an unnamed city, present day (1992)
The Waterwall makes a brief appearance in Sidekicks, filmed around Houston between November 1991 and January 1992. The production never names Houston on screen, so the fountain stands in for an unspecified city rather than appearing as a Houston landmark. Street View
What Uptown Houston can double for
Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Virginia
Tysons Corner grew the same way, office towers built up around two shopping malls with a wide arterial road and structured parking rather than a traditional street grid. Its towers are glass curtain wall highrises from the same postmodern decades as Williams Tower. Tysons has no equivalent to Williams Tower's rounded, tapering twin form, so a wide establishing shot reads more boxy. Its malls also sit closer to the road than the Galleria does. Try searching glass office towers mall now.
Buckhead's Peachtree Road runs past a similar corporate skyline built up from the 1980s, with Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza anchoring the district the way the Galleria anchors this one. Both are edge city style districts with office towers set back behind parking rather than fronting a sidewalk directly. Buckhead's towers are mostly boxier postmodern granite and glass rather than Williams Tower's rounded shape, so keep a wide shot generic rather than reaching for a recognizable silhouette. Try searching office towers behind parking now.
Century City's Avenue of the Stars is lined with glass office towers around the Westfield Century City mall, the same anchor arrangement the Galleria has around Williams Tower here. Both are self contained corporate clusters with no older street grid around them. Century City's towers are boxier slab shapes rather than Williams Tower's rounded twin form, and its plaza reads more manicured. This match works best in wide shots that keep individual towers out of focus. Try searching self contained corporate towers now.
