Houston: Streets, Squares and Neighbourhoods

The raw stretch of Houston Street between Lafayette and the Avenue of America is a sort of Times Square of open space, strewn with giant advertising signs, that was left over from the subway construction in the 30’s and a brutal street widening two decades later, according to Henry Moscow’s “The street Book” (Hagstrom, 1978).Houston was originally Houstoun; the street was named after William Houstoun, a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress in the 1770’s who married into the Bayard family in New York.While Houston's downtown can be roughly defined by the ring of its river, I-45 and highway 59, the main areas of interest are the modern skyscrapers along Smith and Louisiana Streets, the Downtown Historic District at the North end of Main Street, the growing Theatre District at the north end of Smith, and the heritage building collection in Sam Houston Park.