brownsville??

M

Murphy'sBoy

1,000+ Posts
My college daughter has an opportunity to have an internship this summer in Brownsville. Can anyone give me good or bad points about the area? Thanks
 
I grew up in Brownsville but really haven't spent much time there the last 15 yrs. Brownsville in the summer is always fun because she's 20 minutes away from South Padre Island. I'd recommend she resist the urge to cross the border into Matmoros. Hopefully you get some more updated information. Good luck to her!
 
Sadly, Brownsville has become another messy city that has grown quickly without a lot of planning. This has led to most of the area north of town looking like any other place, with strip malls, chain restaurants, and bad traffic. At its heart, it is a charming place. As we used to say, it's not quite America and not quite Mexico. At nicer stores and restaurants, you are likely to be greated in Spanish. The tropical breezes, palm trees, and laid back way of life made it a nice place to grow up and if you can hang with the right crowd, lazy afternoons by a resaca are still great. The quick growth has not been spured by high income jobs. It's still a poor area. So, even though Brownsville has well over 100,000 people and there are probably a million people in the Valley now, it doesn't act much like a big city. The college is nice and adds good cultural elements, but neither the arts scene nor the restaurant scene is anything like what you would find in a similarly sized city elsewhere.

The good: low cost of living, laid back atmosphere, weather is generally good (heat is moderated by a gulf breeze), proximity to South Padre Island, good relationship with college (UTB and TSC), nice zoo, pretty old neighborhoods, above average school district that was just won the Broad award as the best urban school district in the country (although it is still not as good as some of the smaller, country school districts like Los Fresnos, Hidalgo, and Sharyland)

The bad: Mexican border towns are more dangerous and less fun than they used to be, lots of very low income people, no truly good restaurants, sprawling unorganized growth.

Some of this is offset by being close to the island, where you get some better restaurant and entertainment choices, along with the greatness of just being near a clean beach, getting on a waverunner, fishing the laguna, getting on a boat for some deep sea fishing, having your catch prepared for you by a chef at a local restaurant, etc.

I don't get back as much as I would like, but damn would I like some shrimp from the Oyster Bar right now!
 
What kind of internship and what are her hours going to be?

I was down there on a regular basis a couple of years ago. She may choose to live on the Island and commute. Cameron County is so laid back that people there think the Island is a weekend trip when it's actually 30-40 minutes away.

The Island is not crowded by resort standards, even on Fourth of July. Monthly rent can be very reasonable. Food is much better on the Island.

There is an imaginery "force field" at Olmito. People in Brownsville only go past it to go shopping in McAllen or Corpus or San Antonio or the Harlingen airport, which has Southwest Airlines. People in Harlingen don't go past it for any reason.

There are only a couple of good places to eat and virtually nothing to do.
 
Her internship is in the field of health and disease prevention. etc. I don't know her hours, but I assume it is a MF 8-5 type thing
 
Will she be at Valley Regional, Brownsville Medical Center, or that State operated clinic by the border?

Not that is matters. I imagine most of the apartments she'll want to consider are near Valley Regional out near the mall.

NY Deli on Central looks like a dump but is srprisingly good.

On the northeast corner of Boca Chica and 77 are two restaurants. I forget teh names, but one is a seafood restaurant that is really pretty good. The otehr is the best restaurant in town. It's on north side of Boca Chica one block east of 77. It's attached to a dress shop. Only open for lunch and only Monday thru Friday.

Longhorn BBQ on 77 in San Benito has really good BBQ and steaks and great banana pudding.

Other than that, it's off to the island.
 
I was down there this summer for a night on a business trip. I went to an Irish Pub that was called, wait for it...."Irish Pub."

They had no Guinness and the decor was paintings of Mexican clowns. In its favor, there were plenty of caliente Tejanas there, but I doubt that is what you or your daughter are looking for. And it was cheap as hell.

Still, I like Brownsville. Downtown, as noted above, is unique, and you are close to Padre. The Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Preserve in Los Fresnos is mindblowingly cool too.

There is also good 'cue in Los Fresnos. I forget the name of the joint -- something like Wild Blue BBQ.
 
Anyone else go back to the Valley on Christmas/Summer break during college at UT and get the "So you think you're all bad now or what?" ?
 
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