A Rainy Night In Downtown Houston

Sights and scenes from a rainy February 2019 night in Downtown Houston.

1. Centered on Main Street, Downtown Houston encompasses the original 62-square-block townsite of Houston. Designed to conform to the winding route of Buffalo Bayou, the grid plan of Houston was platted in 1836 under the direction of New York real estate investors, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen.

2. Located on the ground floor of the historic J.P. Morgan Chase Building, Finn Hall is a recently opened food hall consisting of 10 independently operated eating establishments and two full bars, including an elevated craft cocktail lounge in the mezzanine.

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7. Getting around Downtown Houston was made easier in 2016 when the Houston Downtown Management District completed its Vehicular and Pedestrian Wayfinding Signage project. A major goal of $2 million wayfinding signage project was to use local artists to create an aesthetically unified system and coordinated messaging schedules, with a public art component that turned mundane directional signs into unique works of art.

8. Despite being known as a modern city, Downtown Houston is home to the Main Street Market Square historic district.

Main Street Market Square is the only commercial historic district in Houston. It is located between Milam and San Jacinto Streets along the south bank of Buffalo Bayou. The district contains 52 buildings, the Main Street Viaduct, Allen’s Landing Park, and Market Square Park. About half of the buildings within the district were constructed between 1858 and 1900. The rest were built between 1901 and 1935. The historic district contains Houston’s largest, most nearly intact group of buildings that represent our civic and commercial past. Source: https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/HistoricPres/HistoricPreservationManual/historicdistricts/mainstreetmarket.html

9. There are 19 local historic districts within Houston’s city limits. Main Street Market Square represents the city’s only commercial historic district.

10. Beginning operations on January 1, 2004, METRORail is a 22.7-mile light rail system with an average weekday ridership of 56,600 in 2015. It ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the 12th most-traveled light rail system in the country. Scheduled frequencies vary from six minutes to twenty minutes off-peak.

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