Third Ward, Houston

The Third Ward is one of the six historic wards of Houston, Texas, United States. It is located in the Southeast Houston management district.

The Third Ward, located inside the 610 Loop is immediately southeast of Downtown Houston and to the east of the Texas Medical Center. The ward became the center of Houston's African American community. In rap circles the Third Ward is referred to as "The Tre'.

Robert D. Bullard, a sociologist teaching at Texas Southern University, stated that the Third Ward is "the city's most diverse black neighborhood and a microcosm of the larger black Houston community."

Soon after the 1836 establishment of Houston, the City Council established four wards as political subdivisions of the city. The original Third Ward district extended south of Congress Street and east of Main Street and ended at the north shore of the Brays Bayou; what was then the district includes what is today portions of Downtown Houston and Midtown Houston in addition to residential African American area currently identified as the Third Ward, which is located southeast of Downtown Houston. As of 2003 the usage of the land within the boundaries of the historic Third Ward is more diverse than the land usage in the current Third Ward.

In the 1800s much of what was the Third Ward, the present day east side of Downtown Houston, was what Stephen Fox, an architectural historian who lectured at Rice University, referred to as "the elite neighborhood of late 19th-century Houston." Ralph Bivins of the Houston Chronicle said that Fox said that area was "a silk-stocking neighborhood of Victorian-era homes." Bivins said that the construction of Union Station, which occurred around 1910, caused the "residential character" of the area to "deteriorate." Hotels opened in the area to service travelers. Afterwards, according to Bivins, the area "began a long downward slide toward the skid row of the 1990s" and the hotels were changed into flophouses. Passenger trains stopped going to Union Station. The City of Houston abolished the ward system in the early 1900s, but the name "Third Ward" was continued to be used to refer to the territory that it used to cover.

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