Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10, Interstate 45, and Interstate 69. The 1.84-square-mile (4.8 km2) district, enclosed by the aforementioned highways, contains the original townsite of Houston at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou, a point known as Allen's Landing. Downtown has been the city's preeminent commercial district since its founding in 1836.
Today home to nine Fortune 500 corporations, Downtown contains 50 million square feet (4,600,000 m2) of office space and is the workplace of 150,000 employees.[1] Downtown is also a major destination for entertainment and recreation. Nine major performing arts organizations are located within the 13,000-seat Theater District at prominent venues including Alley Theatre, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Jones Hall, and the Wortham Theater Center. Two major professional sports venues, Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center, are home to the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets, respectively. Discovery Green, an urban park located on the east side of the district adjacent to the George R. Brown Convention Center, anchors the city's convention district.
Downtown is Houston's civic center, containing Houston City Hall, the jails, criminal, and civil courthouses of Harris County, and a federal prison and courthouse. Downtown is also a major public transportation hub, lying at the center of the light rail system, park and ride system, and the metropolitan freeway network; the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) is headquartered in the district. Over 100,000 people commute through Downtown daily.[1] An extensive network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connects a large number of buildings in the district; this system also serves as a subterranean mall.
Geographically, Downtown is bordered by East Downtown to the east, Third Ward to the south, Midtown to the southwest, Fourth Ward to the west, Sixth Ward to the northwest, and Near Northside to the north. The district's streets form a strict grid plan of approximately 400 square blocks,[2] oriented at a southwest to northeast angle. The northern end of the district is crossed by Buffalo Bayou, the banks of which function as a linear park with a grade-separated system of hike-and-bike trails.
Downtown Houston is a 1,178-acre (1.841 sq mi) area bounded by Interstate 45, Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59, and Interstate 10/U.S. Highway 90.[3] Several sub-districts exist within Downtown, including:[4]
Downtown Houston encompasses the original townsite of Houston. After the Texas Revolution, two New York real estate investors, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, purchased 6,642 acres (2,688 ha) of land from Thomas F.L. Parrot and his wife, Elizabeth (John Austin's widow), for US$9,428 (equivalent to $261,584 in 2023).[6] The Allen brothers settled at the confluence of White Oak and Buffalo bayous, a spot now known as Allen's Landing.
A team of three surveyors, including Gail Borden, Jr. (best known for inventing condensed milk) and Moses Lapham, platted a 62-square-block townsite in the fall of 1836, each block approximately 250 by 250 feet, or 62,500 square feet (5,810 m2) in size.[7] The grid plan was designed to conform to the winding route of Buffalo Bayou; east–west streets were aligned at an angle of north 55º west, while north–south streets were at an angle of south 35º west.[8] Each block was subdivided into 12 lots – five 50-by-100-foot lots on each side of the block, and two 50-by-125-foot lots between the rows of five.[8] The Allen brothers, motivated by their vision for urban civic life, specified wide streets to easily accommodate commercial traffic and reserved blocks for schools, churches, and civic institutions.[9] The townsite was then cleared and drained by a team of Mexican prisoners and black slaves.[9] By April 1837, Houston featured a dock, commercial district, the capitol building of the Republic of Texas, and an estimated population of 1,500.[9] The first city hall was sited at present-day Market Square Park in 1841; this block also served as the city's preeminent retail market.[10]
The relocation of the Texan republic's capital to Houston required a significant political campaign by the Allen brothers. The Allens gifted a number of city blocks to prominent Texas politicians and agreed to construct the new capitol building and a large hotel at no cost to the government.[8] The Allens also donated blocks to celebrities, relatives, prominent lawyers, and other influential people in order to attract additional investment and speculation to the town.[8] During the late 1830s and early 1840s, Houston was in the midst of a land boom, and lots were selling at "enormous prices," according to a visitor to the town in 1837.[8]
Despite the efforts of the Allen brothers and high economic interest in the town, first few years of Houston's existence were plagued by yellow fever epidemics, flooding, searing heat, inadequate infrastructure, and crime.[9] Houston suffered from woefully inadequate city services; the Allens failed to accommodate transit, water service, sewerage, road paving, trash service, or gas service in their plans.[8] As a result, in 1839 the Texas Capitol was moved to Austin.[9]
In 1840, Houston adopted a ward system of municipal governance, which, at the time, was considered more democratic than a strong-mayor system and had already been adopted by the United States' largest cities.[11] The boundaries of the original four wards of Houston radiated out from the intersection of Main and Congress streets; the First Ward was located to the northwest, Second to the northeast, Third to the southeast, and Fourth to the southwest.[11] Fifth Ward was created in 1866, encompassing the area north of Buffalo Bayou and east of White Oak Bayou; Sixth Ward, the final addition to the system, replaced the section of Fourth Ward north of Buffalo Bayou in 1877.[11] The ward system, which featured elected aldermen who served as representatives of each neighborhood, remained Houston's form of municipal government until 1905, when the city switched to a commission government and the wards, as political entities, were dissolved.[11]
Houston grew steadily throughout the late 19th century, and the neighborhoods within the boundaries of modern Downtown diversified. To the northeast, around present-day Minute Maid Park, Quality Hill emerged as an elite neighborhood, occupied by entrepreneurs like William Marsh Rice (namesake of Rice University), William J. Hutchins, and William L. Foley (namesake of Foley's department stores).[12] The neighborhood was well known for its opulent residential architecture, often in the Greek Revival style.[12] To the north, along a bend in Buffalo Bayou, the working-class neighborhood of Frost Town welcomed immigrants from Europe and Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[13]
Prior to the arrival of the first streetcars in Houston in the 1870s, most development in the city had been centered in and around the present-day Downtown area. One of the first systems, the Houston City Street Railway, opened in 1874 with four lines along the principal commercial thoroughfares in the heart of the business district.[14] While generally focused on the most prosperous areas of town, the Houston City Street Railway extended one line a full mile south of the center of the city, making it the first streetcar network designed to spur residential development.[14] By the 1890s, new, larger local streetcar companies finally accumulated the capital necessary to begin constructing streetcar suburbs beyond the conventional boundaries of the city.[14] This led to the development and rapid growth of areas like the Houston Heights and Montrose.[14] Residential development subsequently moved out of the central business district; Quality Hill was virtually abandoned by the turn of the 20th century.[12]
Downtown's growth can be attributed to two major factors: The first arose after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, when investors began seeking a location close to the ports of Southwest Texas, but apparently free of the dangerous hurricanes that frequently struck Galveston and other port cities. Houston became a wise choice, as only the most powerful storms were able to reach the city. The second came a year later with the 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop, just south of Beaumont, Texas. Shipping and oil industries began flocking to east Texas, many settling in Houston. From that point forward the area grew substantially, as many skyscrapers were constructed, including the city's tallest buildings. In the 1980s, however, economic recession canceled some projects and caused others to be scaled back, such as the Bank of the Southwest Tower.[15]
