Neartown, Houston
Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Neartown is a 7.5 square miles (19 km2) area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Bagby Street on the east, and Shepherd Drive to the west. Neartown neighborhoods include Cherryhurst, Courtlandt Place, Hyde Park, Montrose, Vermont Commons, Mandell Place and Winlow Place. These neighborhoods are collectively referred to locally as the better known Montrose.
Neartown has many of Houston's oldest neighborhoods. The Neartown Association began in 1963. Houston's urban real estate boom starting in the 1990s transformed Neartown and significantly increased property values.
The City of Houston's Planning Department refers to Neartown as a mixed-use community. Since the 1990s gentrification, musicians and artists are being replaced with higher paid professionals (attorneys, educators, medical professionals) due to higher rents. Neartown has "wound a tortuous course from Silk Stocking and Low Rent and back again."
On June 6, 2006, a teenage MS-13 gang member named Gabriel Granillo was stabbed to death at Ervan Chew Park.
Adjacent to the community is the River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston's first shopping center, located in the Neartown community, east of River Oaks. Constructed in 1927 and designed by architect Hugh Prather, the center, originally known as River Oaks Community Center, was one of the nation's first automobile-oriented retail centers. Its design, with arcs of retail space on either side of West Gray Avenue, was considered a model for future development. Portions of the historic shopping center were demolished in September 2007 to redevelop the site for bookstore and a parking garage. As of 2008, Landmark Theatres operates the River Oaks Theatre, an "arthouse" theater, located in the center. The theater is the last historic movie theater in Houston that is still being used as it was originally designed.
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