FOR PRESERVATION NEWSLETTER OF THE GREATER HOUSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE
HOUSTON'S HISTORIC DISTRICTS Part II. Freedmen's Town Historic District
PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
In
the shadow of downtown, the Fourth Ward and San Felipe Courts (better known as Allen Parkway Village) lie suspended路 in bureaucratic limbo. Their condition becomes more critical and their fate more precarious daily. The possibility of economic gain from sale-for-redevelopment inflates prices and undermines the motivation of landowners to maintain the existing building stock, and a curious municipal moratorium on wastewater and building permits constrains owners who might otherwise be inclined to renovate or redevelop in the present neighborhood context. Whatever the relative merits of the competing proposals for restoration of APV and infill construction in the Fourth Ward versus wholesale redevelopment involving the obliteration of the historic character of the neigh' borhood, the situation points up the crying need in Houston for coherent and predictable planning and land use regimes, including provisions for protection of historic resources. By default, the policy of City Hall and the community at large is neglect. The result is a neighborhood that is a wasting asset, hostage to expectations that are nothing more than expectations.
W
hen the Freedmen's Town Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, 580 structures were extant. Today, only five years later, as many as half of these are gone. With the proposed Founder's Park redevelopment plan under discussion, it is important to review what resources have been lost and what is being threatened in the Freedmen's Town Historic District. The original Freedmantown settlement was founded shortly after Emancipation on what is now the southwest side of downtown Houston. At its apogee the community extended approximately from Buffalo Bayou south to Sutton Street, and from Smith westward to Taft Street. The National Register district occupies 40 blocks between West Dallas, West Gray, Arthur, and Genesee. Although construction in the area predates the 1860s, most of the current buildings date from the period 1890 to
1935. Streets in the area appear on maps as early as 1866, with all of them apparently platted by 1880. Streetcar lines followed along West Dallas, Robin and Andrews Streets to the western edge of the district, which was the city limit. Several architectural styles are represented by residences in the district. Most are variations of simple wood frame houses, usually one story in height. The shotgun house is, however, the primary architectural image of the area. The shotgun house is usually a long, narrow, one-story house, one room wide with its front door in the gable end, almost always with a front porch attached. According to some cultural and architectural historians, shotgun houses are most often associated with black neighborhoods in the Southern United States, and the origins of this vernacular architectural Continued on page 2
What is there to support the supposition that the most recent proposal for wholesale rede' Ivelopment can be financed, realized, or absorbed? Indeed, who will eventually own American General? Will they have the same allegiance to the local community? As it is, we don't know who will roll the dice,
let along how they will turn up. And we've seen a lot of snake eyes in the past decade. In the meantime, the Fourth Ward continues its decline, its residents are forced by attrition to depart, and those who remain suffer the ignominy of blight and neglect. Charles D. Maynard, Ir.
The Rutherford Yates Home, 1316 Andrews Street, constructed ca. 1900. Historic photograph taken ca. 1950. (photograph courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library)