Signs of Change

Looking for hints of what is emerging in the face of an eternal winter.

One tree on my street is adorned with blooms.

I think it’s a Mexican persimmon, but I won’t know until summer, when the tree bears this promised fruit that isn’t really a promise but a possibility.

Spring isn’t quite here yet, but spring is also already in full swing.

Watching for these changes is part of the ritual of spring, but also living in a city that’s always changing so fast.

Genuine Joe Coffeehouse on West Anderson Lane was, for 20 years, the epitome of a funky Austin gathering place. It closed at the end of January to make way for a condo development, but the brand lives on at the nearby Russell’s Bakery in the Northcross Mall.

Over two decades of living in Austin, I’ve seen the climate change in more ways than one.

As I enter my 20th year as an Austinite, I can tell you that the drought is worsening, and so is the cultural shift, accelerated by COVID and now threatened, like so many other cities, with the very change it wanted.

We are parched and drowning at the same time.

Every time I drive over the Barton Springs greenbelt, I wonder if Gus Fruh will ever fill it again.

Every time I drive next to a Tesla, I wonder how that erratic billionaire decided Austin was the place to launch a world domination campaign.

Culver’s at the intersection of Braker and Kramer closed recently after serving cheese curds and custard for 26 years.

Austin’s changes — and complaints about them — are so well noted that I’m only adding to them here because there are some changes I’m noticing that have felt worth flagging.

It was only a year ago that I was writing about the Frank Erwin Center demolition, and now, Austin is strangely mourning the shuttering of an exit off the “the upper deck,” a portion of I-35 that elevates drivers above the city and is slated for demolition as part of a major overhaul of this highway that many of us drive every day.

RELATED: In defense of a much-maligned highway

How many memories can fit in the Frank Erwin Center?

The convention center will close after this year’s SXSW for a $1.6 billion overhaul 👀and won’t reopen until late 2028 at the earliest, a blow to a downtown economy that never recovered from the pandemic.

Closer to my neighborhood, the closure of Genuine Joe’s hit me harder than I thought it would, and so did the closure of Fairweather Cider and our favorite little Culver’s, which turned off the lights after 26 years in December.

Big Medium, which puts on the massively popular Austin Studio Tour, shut down operations last month.

And don’t even ask me about the new SoCo H-E-B. I’m just not ready to talk about it.

But I can see other changes, too.

St. Mark Methodist Church in North Austin is a proudly inclusive church facing its own uncertain future.

My local Meals on Wheels pick-up site is a church that opens its doors as a warming shelter during cold stretches. This sign shows that they are also the kind of church that opens its heart.

But then I found out this week that the church is having some troubles and we might be moving out of this space by the summer.

Another change I wasn’t quite ready for but knew was probably coming.