Montrose is a neighborhood located in west-central

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Montrose is a area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/ U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, South Shepherd Drive to the west, and Taft to Fairview to Bagby to Highway 59 to Main to the east. The area is also referred to as Neartown or Neartown / Montrose. Montrose is one of the major cultural areas in Houston notable for its hipster culture, art scene, food scene, and nightlife. In the 1980s, it was the center of the gay community. Established in 1911, the neighborhood is a demographically diverse area with renovated mansions, bungalows with wide porches, and cottages located along tree-lined boulevards. Montrose has been called the "Heart of Houston" and the "strangest neighborhood east of the Pecos".

History

Montrose, named after the town of

Montrose, Angus Montrose ( , gd, Monadh Rois) is a town and former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Situated north of Dundee and south of Aberdeen, Montrose lies between the mouths of the North and South Esk rivers. It is the northernmost coastal town in Angus ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, was originally envisioned as a planned community and streetcar suburb dating back to the early 20th century before the development of

River Oaks River Oaks is a residential community located in the center of Houston, Texas, United States. Located within the 610 Loop and between Downtown and Uptown, the community spans .Archive Established in the 1920s by brothers Will Hogg and Michael H ...

. Developer J. W. Link and his Houston Land Corporation envisioned a "great residential addition" according to the neighborhood's original sales brochure. Link's planning details for the area included four wide boulevards with the best curbing and extensive landscaping. Link built his own home in Montrose, known as the Link-Lee Mansion, which is now part of the University of St. Thomas campus. A streetcar, the Montrose Line, ran through the neighborhood. Link wrote: "Houston has to grow. Montrose is going to lead the procession." It did, and the procession eventually continued far beyond the neighborhood. Montrose was first platted in 1911.About the Neartown Association
" ''Neartown Association''. September 29, 2007. In 1926, the Plaza Apartment Hotel, Houston’s first apartment hotel, opened on Montrose Boulevard. The hotel was home to many of Houston’s leaders, including Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, the first president of

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

. Modeled after the Ritz-Carlton in New York, the hotel cost over one million dollars to construct. Prior to 1936 deed restrictions meant that commercial uses were not available to sections of Montrose. When the deed restrictions lapsed commercial development increased. During the 1960s and 1970s, Montrose became a center for the burgeoning

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

movement, with street musicians, alternative community centers and hippie

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...

head shops A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and ...

and artisans’ studios proliferating. The corner of Montrose and Westheimer was the site of regular demonstrations against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. Street vendors sold Space City! and other

underground newspapers The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

throughout the area. Thorne Dreyer and Al Reinert wrote in ''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

'' in 1973 that the area "wound a tortuous course from Silk Stocking and Low Rent and back again."Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" ''

''. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Start
Page 56
Cited
Page 57
Retrieved from ''

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

'' on April 2, 2010. Gregory Curtis wrote in the same magazine in 1983 that Montrose was "the Montrose was at its peak as a community" but that it had declined since then.

KPFT KPFT (90.1 FM) is a listener-sponsored community radio station in Houston, Texas, which began broadcasting March 1, 1970 as the fourth station in the Pacifica radio family. The station airs a variety of music, news, talk, and call-in programs, ...

– the fourth station in the progressive Pacifica Radio network of listener-sponsored stations – began broadcasting in 1970, and was joined on Lovett Blvd. by

KLOL KLOL (101.1 FM "Mega 101") is a commercial radio station in Houston, Texas. It is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs a Spanish-language Latin pop radio format. KLOL serves as the Spanish-language flagship station for the Houston Texans footb ...

and

KILT A kilt ( gd, fèileadh ; Irish: ''féileadh'') is a garment resembling a wrap-around knee-length skirt, made of twill woven worsted wool with heavy pleats at the sides and back and traditionally a tartan pattern. Originating in the Scottish ...

(Radio Montrose), pioneers in the underground FM format, creating a Montrose countercultural “radio row.” KPFT’s transmitter was twice bombed by a local Ku Klux Klan group, making it the only radio station in the history of the United States to be blown off the air. The

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

flavor of the Montrose 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 The Westheimer Street Festival was a community street fair held bi-annually in Houston, Texas, United States from approximately 1971 to 2004. The festival underwent name and management changes afterwards. By 2009 the street festival was absorbed ...

. Also starting around the 1970s the area became known as the center for the gay and lesbian community of Houston. The area sported an estimated 30-40

gay bar A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clientele; the term '' gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT communities. Gay bars once serv ...

s at the time, including the Bayou Landing, thought to be the largest gay dance hall between the coasts, and several gay activist groups, including the Gay Liberation Front. During the

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

epidemic of the 1980s, the Montrose clinic was opened by Rev. Ralph Lasher and it later, at a different location in Montrose, became a community health center. Folk music clubs like Anderson Fair and Sand Mountain catered to the folk scene in the neighborhood and other venues featured psychedelic rock and blues. Later, punk and new wave clubs like The Paradise Rock Island, the Omni, and Numbers opened in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Montrose has been "a haven for

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

honkey-tonks, antique stores, wealthy socialites, motorcycle gangs, gays, harmless eccentrics and a broad array of exiles, writers, artists and musicians."Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" ''

''. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Page 56. Retrieved from ''

'' on April 2, 2010. It has been called "a uniquely Houston kind of Bohemia, a mad mix made possible by the city's no-holds-barred, ''laissez faire'' form of growth." In 1991

Paul Broussard Paul Broussard (1964–1991), a 27-year-old Houston-area banker and Texas A&M alumnus, died after a gay bashing incident outside a Houston nightclub in the early hours of July 4, 1991. Nine teenaged youths, ages 15–17, and one 22-year-old we ...

was murdered in the Montrose nightclub area.

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...

professor Maria Gonzalez stated that "With this murder ..eople said, 'Enough is enough.' ..A whole new relationship developed between the gay community and the police department." Since the 1990s, Montrose has become increasingly gentrified with a trend towards remodeled and new homes, higher rents, upmarket boutiques and restaurants. In 1997 Katherine Feser of the ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...

'' stated that "Montrose snot for starving artists anymore". On June 6, 2006,Rogers, Brian.
3 years after gang killing, teen wants to 'move on'

Archive
. ''

''. Thursday September 17, 2009. a teenage

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Ange ...

gang member named Gabriel Granillo was stabbed to death at Ervan Chew Park in the Montrose area. The 2011 novel ''

The Knife and the Butterfly ''The Knife and the Butterfly'' is a young adult novel by Ashley Hope Pérez, published in 2011 by Carolrhoda Books. The novel, which explores the lives of two teenage gang members in Houston, a Hispanic boy named Azael and a White girl named Le ...

'' is based on this stabbing.

Culture

Montrose hosts a number of communities including artists, musicians, and

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

s, and has thrift, vintage, and second-hand shopping stores,

s, and restaurants. On Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Road, there are few original homes remaining—a majority have been converted to businesses and/or restaurants since 1936. Examples of Houston's historic residential architecture including century-old bungalows and mansions can be found in Montrose. , the nightclub Numbers, which was established in 1978 and was "one of the most important venues operating in the '80s", remained a landmark of the neighborhood. In 2016, Numbers was named one of the 50 Best Small Music Venues in America.

LGBT culture

Before the 1970s, the city's

s were spread around

Downtown Houston 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 ...

and what is now Midtown Houston. Gays and lesbians needed to have a place to socialize after the closing of the gay bars. They began going to Art Wren, a 24-hour restaurant in Montrose. Around the time Montrose mainly included empty nesters and widows. Gay men became attracted to Montrose as a neighborhood after encountering it while patronizing Art Wren, and they began to gentrify the neighborhood and assist the widows with the maintenance of their houses. Within Montrose new gay bars began to appear. By 1985, the flavor and politics of the neighborhood were heavily influenced by the LGBT community.Oaklander, Mandy. "The Mayor of Montrose." ''

Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...

''. Wednesday May 18, 2011
2
Retrieved on May 18, 2011. At the time at least 19% of the residents of Montrose were gay and lesbian. In the late 1980s, AIDS affected many Montrose residents. Some area residents stopped patronizing restaurants in Montrose, believing that they would acquire AIDS from gay waiters. Some area

funeral home A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the dead and their families. These services may include a prepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral. Services ...

s did not want to accept the bodies of men who died from AIDS. AIDS tore through the neighborhood and the gay community flocked to the nightclubs for a reprieve from sickness and death." The

Murder of Paul Broussard Paul Broussard (1964–1991), a 27-year-old Houston-area banker and Texas A&M alumnus, died after a gay bashing incident outside a Houston nightclub in the early hours of July 4, 1991. Nine teenaged youths, ages 15–17, and one 22-year-old we ...

occurred in Montrose in 1991. By 2011 many LGBT people moved to the

Houston Heights Houston Heights (often referred to simply as "The Heights") is a community in northwest-central Houston, Texas, United States. "The Heights" is often referred to colloquially to describe a larger collection of neighborhoods next to and including ...

and to suburbs in

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, encompassing nine counties along the Gulf Co ...

. Decentralizing of Houston's gay population and the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the city of

and in society in general caused business at gay bars in Montrose to decline. However, Montrose is still considered the epicenter of LGBT culture in Houston.

Museums

The

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

, on Sul Ross Street between Alabama Street and Richmond Avenue, is a free museum founded by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil to house their art collection. The Menil was designed by architect

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City ( ...

. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is located in the

Houston Museum District The Houston Museum District is an association of 19 museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting art, science, history and culture. The Houston Museum District currently inc ...

, in the surrounding area.

Chapels

The

Rothko Chapel The Rothko Chapel is a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas, founded by John and Dominique de Menil. The interior serves not only as a chapel, but also as a major work of modern art: on its walls are fourteen paintings by Mark Rothko in v ...

, also created by John and Dominique de Menil, is a non-denominational chapel located one block from the Menil. Fourteen black and color-hued paintings by

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

are on the interior walls. The shape and design of the chapel were largely influenced by the artist. Barnett Newman's sculpture, ''

Broken Obelisk ''Broken Obelisk'' is a sculpture designed by Barnett Newman between 1963 and 1967. Fabricated from three tons of Cor-Ten steel, which acquires a rust-colored patina, it is the largest and best known of his six sculptures. Four multiples of ...

'', dedicated to the late

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

, stands in front of the chapel in a reflecting pool designed by architect

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

. The Chapel of St. Basil, designed by Philip Johnson, is on the campus of nearby University of St. Thomas. It is faced with white stucco and black granite, and is operated by the Congregation of St. Basil.

Cityscape

Dreyer and Reinert wrote in 1973 that " nerally speaking" the community would be of area within the Southwest Freeway (nowadays Interstate 69), West Gray, Shepherd Drive, and Smith Street; they stated there was no agreed-upon boundary of "Montrose" and that "residents are always arguing, with equal vehemence, whether they should or should not be considered part of "that place.""

Infrastructure and government

Local government

The community is within the

Houston Police Department The Houston Police Department (HPD) is the primary law enforcement agency serving the City of Houston, Texas, United States and some surrounding areas. With approximately 5,300 officers and 1,200 civilian support personnel it is the fifth-largest ...

's Central Patrol Division, headquartered at 61 Riesner. Volunteer Initiatives Program, Citizens Offering Police Support
" ''City of Houston''. Retrieved May 23, 2008. "Neartown Storefront, 802 Westheimer " The Neartown Storefront Station was formerly located at 802

Westheimer Road Westheimer Road () is an arterial east–west road in Houston, Texas, United States. It runs from Bagby Street in Downtown and terminates at the Westpark Tollway on the southern edge of George Bush Park, stretching about long. The street was ...

. In 2019, there was an announcement that the storefront building, and therefore the storefront itself, would close as a result of a land swap between the City of Houston and a developer as part of a deal to develop a new library. The City of Houston purchased the building used for the storefront with federal community development funds. Houston Fire Department Fire Station 16 serves the area. The fire station is in Fire District 6. The station opened at the intersection of

and Yupon in 1928. The station moved to the intersection of Richmond and Dunlavy in 1979. Montrose is within

Houston City Council The Houston City Council is a city council for the city of Houston in the U.S. state of Texas. Currently, there are sixteen members, 11 elected from council districts and five at-large. The members of the Council are elected every four years, w ...

District C. Because of the inclusion of Montrose, the

, and the

area, District C is nicknamed "hipstrict" referring to its progressive and urban ethic.Moran, Chris.
Only 2 city incumbents lack opponents
" ''

''. Thursday September 8, 2011. Retrieved on November 5, 2011. Previously Montrose was wholly within City Council District D. In the early 1990s, Montrose was moved from District C to district D to avoid putting too many minorities in a single city council district.Jigsaw puzzle: Creating two new Houston City Council seats poses demographic challenges
" (editorial) ''

''. Wednesday January 26, 2011. Retrieved on November 5, 2011. While Montrose was in District D, it was not able to have its own residents elected to city council. Instead the district was forced to try to influence electoral contests involving candidates from other neighborhoods.Political challenge: Revised council redistricting plan offers Hispanics a third majority district
" (editorial) ''

''. Wednesday May 18, 2011. Retrieved on November 5, 2011. As 2011 city council redistricting approached, some members of Houston's gay community and some Houston area bloggers proposed returning Montrose to District C. Around 2011 an earlier plan would have combined the Heights and Montrose under a district called District J.

County, state, and federal representation

Harris County Precinct One, headed by Commissioner Rodney Ellis, serves Neartown. The county operates the Neartown Office at 1413

. Montrose is located in Districts 134 and 147 of the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abo ...

. Ann Johnson represents the portion of the neighborhood west of Montrose Boulevard, and Garnet Coleman represents the portion of the neighborhood east of Montrose Boulevard. Montrose is located in

District 13 ''District 13'' (French title ''Banlieue 13'' or ''B13''), is a 2004 French action film directed by Pierre Morel and written and produced by Luc Besson. It depicts parkour in several stunt sequences completed without wires or computer-generated ...

of the

Texas Senate The Texas Senate ( es, Senado de Texas) is the upper house of the Texas State Legislature. There are 31 members of the Senate, representing single-member districts across the U.S. state of Texas, with populations of approximately 806,000 per co ...

represented by Senator Borris L. Miles. After the 2012 redistricting, the community is now within

Texas's 2nd congressional district Texas's 2nd congressional district of the United States House of Representatives is in the southeastern portion of the state of Texas. It encompasses parts of northern and western Harris County and southern Montgomery County, Texas. From 2002 ...

. As of 2020, the representative is

Dan Crenshaw Daniel Reed Crenshaw (born March 14, 1984) is an American politician and former United States Navy SEAL officer serving as the United States representative for Texas's 2nd congressional district since 2019. The district includes parts of northe ...

Harris Health System The Harris Health System, previously the Harris County Hospital District (HCHD), is a governmental entity with taxing authority that owns and operates three hospitals and numerous clinics throughout Harris County, Texas, United States, includin ...

designated the Northwest Health Center for ZIP code 77098 and the Casa de Amigos Health Center in Northside for ZIP codes 77006 and 77019. The nearest public hospital is

Ben Taub General Hospital Ben Taub Hospital is a public hospital located in Houston, Texas within the Texas Medical Center. Having opened in May 1963, the hospital is owned and operated by the Harris Health System and is staffed by the faculty, residents, and students f ...

in the

Texas Medical Center The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a medical district and neighborhood in south-central Houston, Texas, United States, immediately south of the Museum District and west of Texas State Highway 288. Over 60 medical institutions, largely concentrat ...

. - See ZIP codes 77006, 77019, and 77098
See this map for relevant ZIP codes

City of Houston Designated Historic Districts

As of June 2010, The Montrose was home to six of the nineteen designated

Historic Districts A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from cer ...

in the city of Houston. These are Audubon Place, Avondale East, Avondale West, Courtland Place, Westmoreland, and First Montrose Commons.

Past elections

Montrose held the core of

Mayor of Houston The following is a list of people who have served as mayor of the city of Houston in the U.S. state of Texas. Until 2015, the term of the mayor was two years. Beginning with the tenure of Bob Lanier, the city charter imposed term limits on offi ...

Kathy Whitmire Kathryn Jean Whitmire (née Niederhofer; born August 15, 1946) is an American politician, businesswoman, and accountant best known as the first woman to serve as Mayor of Houston, serving for five consecutive two-year terms from 1982 to 1991. Fro ...

's political support in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Montrose was the only area where a plurality of residents (40%) voted for her in the 1991

election. Montrose provided political support for former city councilperson and mayor

Annise Parker Annise Danette Parker (born May 17, 1956) is an American politician who served as the 61st Mayor of Houston, Texas, from 2010 until 2016. She also served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council from 1998 to 2003 and city controller fro ...

Economy

Montrose is served by major regional and national supermarket chains.Foster, Robin.
Influx of grocery stores means more choices, but concerns linger

Archive
. ''

''. Wednesday October 19, 2011. Retrieved on November 11, 2015.

Consulates

The Consulate-General of Norway is located in Montrose. The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Houston was located in Montrose before closing in 2019.

Parks and recreation

The Houston Greek Festival is held near the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The festival is usually in the first week of October and has been held for over four decades. The Montrose Crawl is a

pub crawl A pub crawl (sometimes called a bar tour, bar crawl or bar-hopping) is the act of visiting multiple pubs or bars in a single session. Background Many European cities have public pub crawls that serve as social gatherings for local expatriates a ...

that takes place along

in Montrose on the last Saturday in October. A portion of all beverage sales made during the crawl are donated to charity. The Montrose Remembrance Garden, a memorial to victims of violent crimes, was established in 2011 at the intersection of California and Grant streets. Ervan Chew Park is a neighborhood park that allows dogs off-leash in a designated area

Education

Colleges and universities

Montrose is home to the University of St. Thomas. It is close to

and

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is a public academic health science center in Houston, Texas, United States. It was created in 1972 by The University of Texas System Board of Regents. It is located in the T ...

Primary and secondary education

Public schools

Pupils in Montrose are zoned to

Houston Independent School District The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas, and the eighth-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and ...

schools.Map of Montrose
''

''. Retrieved October 20, 2008. Montrose is in Trustee District VIII, represented by Diana Dávila as of 2008.

Baker Montessori School Ella J. Baker Montessori School, formerly Woodrow Wilson Montessori School and Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, is a public K-8 Montessori school in the Cherryhurst Addition subdivision in the Neartown area of Houston, Texas. A part of the Hous ...

(formerly Wilson Montessori School), MacGregor Elementary School, Poe Elementary School, and Wharton Dual Language Academy serve separate sections of Montrose. Pupils in Montrose are divided between two separate middle school attendance boundaries. Lanier Middle School and Gregory-Lincoln Education Center serve separate sections of Neartown for middle school. All Montrose pupils are zoned to Lamar High School. The

High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Kinder HSPVA, HSPVA or PVA) is a secondary school located at 790 Austin Street in the downtown district of Houston, Texas. The school is a part of the Houston Independent School Distri ...

, a magnet high school, was in Montrose until January 2019 when it moved downtown and beginning in the fall of 2019, the Arabic Immersion Magnet School will move to HSPVA's former site. Beginning in 2018

Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan (BCMAR) is a magnet middle school in Houston Independent School District (HISD), located in the Third Ward, Houston, Texas. It is located in the former Ryan Middle School. It is in association with t ...

also serves as a boundary option for students zoned to Blackshear, Lockhart, and MacGregor elementary schools. In 1973 Dreyer and Reinert wrote that in the 1930s the area public schools "were widely acclaimed to be the finest in Houston" and that by 1973, despite the demographic changes, the upper middle class parents continued to support the public schools and that they had not experienced significant

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

to private schools; the journalists stated the schools were "among the best in town" in regards to inner city considerations.Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" ''

''. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Start
Page 56
Cited
Page 60
Retrieved from ''

'' on April 2, 2010. Montrose Elementary School opened in 1906. It was later torn down and replaced in 1982 by the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts . Southmore Elementary School opened in 1921, Wilson in 1925, Lanier in 1926, Poe in 1928, and Wharton in 1929. Southmore was renamed MacGregor Elementary School in 1930 and Lamar opened in 1937. Gregory-Lincoln opened in 1966, and Gregory-Lincoln's current facility opened in 2007.School Histories: the Stories Behind the Names
." ''

''. Accessed September 24, 2008. Both Wharton and Wilson elementaries have fireplaces and chimneys given to the schools by Ima Hogg. As of 2010 the fireplace at Wharton was still displayed in public and used as a storytelling area. In the 1970s Lincoln Junior-Senior High School, established in 1966, was the zoned secondary school for a portion of Montrose. Thorne and Reinert wrote that HISD officials at the time called it "the most successfully integrated school in the city."

Private schools

The Annunciation Orthodox School and The Harris School are located in Montrose.Radcliffe, Jennifer.
When all else fails, school offers troubled kids hope
" ''

''. Friday January 1, 2010. Retrieved on February 12, 2012. The Kinkaid School was located in the Neartown area until 1957 when the school moved to

Piney Point Village Piney Point Village is a city in Harris County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,125 at the 2010 census. Piney Point Village is the wealthiest place in Texas, as ranked by per capita income. It is part of a collection of upscale resident ...

Public libraries

The Eleanor K. Freed-Montrose Neighborhood Library of

Houston Public Library Houston Public Library is the public library system serving Houston, Texas, United States. History Houston Lyceum and the Carnegie Library The Houston Public Library system traces its founding to the creation of the second Houston Lyceum in 1 ...

is at 4100 Montrose Boulevard. The library is housed in a former church, the Central Church of Christ. The bell tower or campanile is located by the front door of the library although the bell is gone, and there is a small colonnade connecting the main church-library building to former church meeting rooms and offices. Facing Montrose Boulevard, the original stained glass window of the church can be seen featuring a dove with an olive branch in its beak. A modern office building complex in the surrounding area is known as The Campanile, named after the bell tower in the library. In 2013 there were plans for a renovation. However, they were shelved upon consideration of the cost of upgrading the building's infrastructure. Instead, as of 2019, the city is moving forward with plans for a new library facility along

. The facility will be in the multi-purpose Montrose Collective development which will also have retail.

Notable natives and residents

Carlos Correa Carlos Javier Correa Oppenheimer Jr. (born September 22, 1994) is a Puerto Rican professional baseball shortstop who is a free agent. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, who selected him first overall in th ...

Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades ...

studied acting in the neighborhood *

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...

's former home on Yoakum Street is now part of the University of St. Thomas * Lyndon Johnson lived on Hawthorne Street while teaching high school in the 1930s * Sue Lovell, a member of the

Gustin, Marene.
Is Ervan Chew Park safe?

. '' River Oaks Examiner''. Thursday June 15, 2006. Retrieved on November 11, 2015. *

, former

, former at-large

member.Snyder, Mike.
East Montrose retains flavor after gentrification

Archive
. ''

''. Sunday May 12, 2002. Retrieved on November 12, 2015. "The design of many of the new townhomes discourages interaction with neighbors, said City Councilwoman Annise Parker, who has lived in East Montrose for more than 11 years." *

Don Sanders Don Sanders (October 1, 1943 – July 21, 2018) was an American singer-songwriter from Houston, Texas. Due to his unique blend of storytelling and songwriting he was sometimes called a "folk humorist." Throughout the years he shared the stage with ...

was known as the "mayor of Montrose" * The mansion of Ross S. Sterling, originally located in

, was moved into the neighborhood. The Waldo Mansion is also in the neighborhood. * William Sydney Porter ( O. Henry) lived in Montrose while a reporter for the

Houston Post The ''Houston Post'' was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper shut down, and its assets were purchased by the '' Houston Chronicle''. History Gail Borden Johnson founded the ''Houston ...

Daniel Quinn Daniel Clarence Quinn (October 11, 1935 – February 17, 2018) was an American author (primarily, novelist and fabulist), cultural critic, and publisher of educational texts, best known for his novel ''Ishmael'', which won the Turner Tomorrow ...

, author of Ishmael, lived in Montrose with his wife until his death in February, 2018

References

External links

Explore Montrose
{{coord, 29.740, -95.391, type:city(20000)_region:US-TX, display=title Neighborhoods in Houston Neartown, Houston Gay villages in Texas Populated places established in 1911