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Neartown Houston

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Vintage shops along Westheimer Road—the main and busiest arterial that traverses through Neartown

Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas and is one of the city's major cultural areas. The location comes with distinctive character of eccentricity and diversity. The location and boundaries of Neartown is colloquially and incorrectly referred to as Montrose.

Neartown is bounded by U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Bagby Street on the east, and Shepherd Drive to the west. Once a magnet for the hippie movement, Houstonians would consider it as a hybrid of San Francisco's the Haight-Ashbury and The Castro.

Overview

Neartown is considered one of the eccentric and diverse areas of Houston with renovated mansions, bungalows with wide porches, and cozy cottages lining shady boulevards. It is an area made for pedestrians where people can walk and cycle easily. This area has a strong identity built up over its long history.

The area of what is Neartown today was originally envisioned as a planned community and streetcar suburb dating back to the early 20th century before the development of River Oaks. In recent decades, the area hosts a significant diverse community of young adults, gay men and lesbians, punk rockers, artists, as well as a vibrant thrift, vintage, and second-hand shopping area. Gay bars, shopping, and restaurants are all found here.

On Montrose Boulevard itself and Westheimer Road, there are a few original homes remaining—a majority have been converted to businesses and/or restaurants since 1936. Some former homes fall victim to the wrecking ball. The real treasures are to be found in the tree lined residential streets off Montrose and Westheimer where many century old bungalows and mansions can be found.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Neartown was known for its Bohemian flavor—this would spawn both the Westheimer Colony Art Festival in 1971, and the subsequent street fair in 1973, which would become known as the Westheimer Street Festival. Neartown, like Haight-Ashbury, is still a central location for teen runaways in the southeast Texas region. In recent decades, many young gay and lesbian runaways have made their way to Montrose.

During the 1990s through to recent times, this area has become increasingly gentrified with a trend towards remodelled and new homes, high rents, upmarket boutiques and restaurants. Neartown has become an eclectic niche market for office buildings in Houston, with both new development and redeveloped older buildings dotting Montrose Boulevard.

History

Houston's urban real estate boom starting in the 1990s transformed Neartown and significantly increased housing costs. The area around the intersection of Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Road went from being a place with lots of abandoned buildings, sexually-oriented businesses, and low rent, to a neighborhood full of yuppies and new condominium construction. Inner Loop neighborhoods, despite the fall of Enron, have continued to be a prime market for redevelopment—older multifamily complexes, primarily run-down apartments, neglected businesses, and/or undeveloped/abandoned greenspace were considered as commodities for companies such as Perry Homes. This has increased interest in the area and pushed the median home price to $230,200 in 2005.

A residential property in eastern Neartown

A majority of townhouses were built in the Midtown area east of Neartown; right before the Westheimer Street Festival's demise in the early 2000s, some Neartown residents have voiced their concerns about the festival affecting their quality of life issues, ranging from street parking to traffic gridlock.

From the United States Census 2000 demographics, about one quarter of the residents are homeowners, whereas three quarters consists of renters: including many students from the University of Houston, Rice University, and the University of Saint Thomas, as well as for those employed in the Texas Medical Center, Downtown Houston, and Greenway Plaza.

The City of Houston's Planning Department refers to the Neartown area as a mixed-use, diverse community which serves as a model for other neighborhoods to follow. Since the 1990s gentrification, the demographics of those renting have changed; because of higher rent due to redevelopment, musicians and artists have been replaced with yuppies and professionals (attorneys, educators, medical professionals). Other Houston neighborhoods, such as Meyerland, Westbury, and Second Ward (east of Downtown Houston) have become popular places for the artistic and gay and lesbian communities to move when Montrose becomes too expensive.

Places of interest

Museums

Consulates

Radio

Community

  • Houston GLBT Community Center
  • Pride Committee of Houston.

Festivals

  • The Greek Festival, is usually held in October on the grounds of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral located on Yoakum Boulevard.

Parades

  • The annual Houston Gay Pride Parade is usually held on the final Saturday in June (in some rare cases, around the weekend before or after June 23 to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots). Since 1997, the parade is held in the evening as a night parade.

Cathedrals and Churches

Education

The Eleanor K. Freed Montrose Library of the Houston Public Library system.
The University of Saint Thomas.
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Lanier Middle School.

The area is the location of the Houston Independent School District schools Wilson Elementary School, Lanier Middle School and High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), as well as Annunciation Orthodox School (a K-8 private school), St. Anne's Catholic School (a K-8 Catholic private school), and the University of Saint Thomas.

Pupils living in Montrose proper are zoned to either Poe Elementary (in the Boulevard Oaks neighborhood) or Wilson for elementary school. Pupils in Montrose proper are zoned to Lanier for middle school, and all Montrose area pupils are zoned to Lamar High School (in the Upper Kirby neighborhood of Houston).

The area is served by the Eleanor K. Freed-Montrose Branch of Houston Public Library.

See also

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