In October 1987 two major events snagged the national spotlight -- none of it in Houston though.

The first was when 18-month-old Jessica McClure fell 22 feet down an abandoned backyard well in Midland. For nearly 60 hours the country watch with rapt attention as rescuers worked feverishly to extricate her. Her rescue came on a Friday night on Oct. 16.

As you can see from the picture in the photo gallery, Houstonians stopped what they were doing to watch the moment when she was pulled from the well and whisked away to treatment. I recall listening to her rescue on the radio as my parents and I returned home from getting groceries.

The other major event happened on Oct. 19 -- Black Monday -- when global stock markets crashed. In the U.S., stocks fell 508 points, or 23 percent, to 1,738.74.

Let's see what happened in Houston 30 years ago:

* David Bowie was back -- and in a big way. His "Glass Spider" tour was one of the most elaborately designed shows to hit the road at the time. That month, it rolled into the Summit and reporter Michael Spies was there for it.

A David Bowie tour is always an Event, and the "Glass Spider" tour is no exception. It is probably the most elaborately staged show the Thin White Duke/glam rocker/Man Who Fell to Earth rock chameleon has devised.

At the Summit Wednesday, this show proved to be a visually diverting, thematically disconcerting blend of Las Vegas and Robert Wilson, of Solid Gold dancing and avant-garde ideas pilfered from all over the map. Those ideas include ritualistic movement from choreographer Pina Bausch to every move Bowie ever learned in dance or mime class, including making love to himself and walking into the wind.

It was a restless whirlwind with meanings everywhere and nowhere.

The most wrenching of Bowie's "Cracked Actor-All the Young Dudes" confessionals could be followed by something as lightweight as "Blue Jean" without a beat missed. Bowie is the man who made rock into role-playing, who made the sellout and the character change into his reason for being.

If Bowie couldn't be taken seriously as an artist, then so be it.

He would become a rock superstar - and his most fascinating moments are the ones when he recognizes the impossibility of bridging the two worlds. Because in those moments, when he allows the audience to see the pain behind the posturing, he does actually becomes a popular artist.

His current show, the first since 1983, combines the regular-guy sincerity of his "Let's Dance" album with his former put-on sensibility. The giant spider stage set was both rock as spectacle and slightly campy. The dancers went through everything from a mock wedding to their deaths just before intermission (actually an extended drum solo that gave Bowie a breather). The most seductively female dancer turns out to be...male.

The introductory and recurring refrain came from Bowie's "Scary Monsters" album, as sung by these dancers: "It's got nothing to do with you/If you can grasp it."

The show swung between sensory overload and frenetic hollowness, or a commentary on the frenetic hollowness of our time ('87 and Cry, as his most topical song is called). It's not all that simple. But who really wants to see a "simple" Bowie show?

The most moving number of the evening was "Heroes", accompanied by an obsessively repeated film clip of a Chinese man waving and crying. All Bowie ever asks is in that song: to be a hero just for one day. But just about everything he does tells us that he hasn't got there yet.

[...]

If you got Bowie figured out after this show, you're a lot further into him than I'll ever be. If you were bored, you only had to wait a few seconds.

Throwback Thursday: Explore Houston's past in our weekly dive in the Chronicle archive

* Jose Cruz's time as an Astro came to an end this month as the team declined to offer him a contract for the 1988 season. He would soon sign with the Yankees and finished his career with them during that '88 season.

Astros beat writer Neil Hohlfeld caught up with Cruz before his last game with the team.

He came to the Astros in a deal that hardly amounted to a line of agate type in sports pages throughout the country.

"Houston - Purchased outfielder Jose Cruz from St. Louis."

On Oct. 24, 1974, the day the Astros acquired Cruz, he was a 27-year-old player of questionable ability. He was an erratic player, given to more than occasional mistakes of youthful enthusiasm.

The Cardinals had given Cruz a chance or two to break into their lineup. Cruz's best batting average in St. Louis was .261. In 1974, Cruz's value was such that the Cardinals could not acquire another player in return for his contract.

Thirteen years, 1,868 games, 1,937 hits and a million memories later, Jose Cruz will play his final game with the Astros this afternoon. He will leave the Astrodome as the most popular player among fans in the history of the franchise, a man who gave everything he had in every game he played.

Over the years, the city gave something back. The baseball fans gave their undying support, their vociferous cries of "CRUUUUUUUUUUZ" when he came to bat and their unfaltering belief that no matter the situation Cruz would come through for them. In short, the city of Houston gave its love to Jose Cruz.

This afternoon, that all will end. Cruz, who turned 40 in August, will be a former Astro. Citing an abundance of good, young outfielders, the Astros announced Sept. 21 they would not offer Cruz a contract for the 1988 season.

Cruz is in the final year of his current contract and will become a free agent, able to deal with the other 25 Major League clubs for his service next season. No matter which team decides to hire Cruz for 1988, he will look out of place in another uniform.

As he grew older with the sort of grace seen in exceptional athletes, the thought never passed Cruz's mind that he would finish his career anywhere but Houston, the city with which he shared a love affair for 13 years. Leaving won't be easy for Cruz.

"I think Sunday will be one of my toughest days in baseball," Cruz said. "I'll have to leave my teammates and my fans for the last time. I can't pack them up and take them with me. I know I'll be sad."

* The proverbial elevator door was closing on one of the most high-profile jobs in county government: the elevator operator.

Automation was phasing these jobs out. No more having to tell the operator what floor you needed; you were going to have to push your own buttons from now on.

(For the record, I was once an elevator operator at Jones Hall. I learned that if a patron grumbled about how slow the main elevator moved, we should note the elevator provided a sweeping view of the lobby and the artwork installed there. Last time I was there a year or two ago, elevator operators were still being used.)

From Pete Slover's Oct. 30 article:

Listen carefully at the Harris County court complex and you'll hear the call of an endangered species: "Coming out on three, watch your step."

The county is going automatic, converting its last manned elevators - three in the Civil Court Building and five in the Criminal Courthouse - to push-your-own-button status.

Some courthouse regulars grumbled nostalgically about the phase-out, which began at both buildings this week and will be completed in about 18 months.

"It's nice to see an operator for days, months, years, to get to know them and chat every day," said County Civil Court at-Law Judge Ed Landry, who began working for the county in 1961 as an assistant county attorney.

"It's a nice touch, especially when you're carrying all this stuff," said file-laden attorney Mike Heim.

"I'm not convinced they're not fast enough," said attorney Charles Sullivan. "Those ladies move pretty fast."

But building officials said the quaint old elevators need a host of renovations to handle courthouse traffic and meet building codes.

The changeover will be completed at a cost of $875,000, one elevator at a time in each building, said County Building Superintendent J.E. McCain.

The conversion to automatic operation and replacement of the mechanical guts should result in a 30 percent increase in elevator speed, said Jim Schlecht, overseeing the work.

"It's getting hard to find parts for some of that equipment," he said. For instance, the civil courthouse has the original 1910 wood-lined elevator compartments - which will be retained - with mechanical works last replaced in 1953, Schlecht said.

"The average life of an elevator is 25 years," he said. "We're pushing it."

The operators, who push buttons and open the doors as the cars automatically stop at designated floors, will get different county jobs, Schlecht said. All but one are female.

One operator, who asked not to be named, complained, "How would you like to get experience doing one thing, then the next thing you know be cleaning offices?"

Elevator company officials and city elevator inspectors could not pinpoint the dwindling area locations that still employ elevator operators, other than the San Jacinto Monument.

"Basically, the conversion to automatic elevators started in the early '50s," said Westinghouse Elevator Co. spokesman Randy Wilkinson.