What used to be just a corner lot and one of those green tell-tale signs in Midtown is becoming a little more parklike, it seems: Parks department rep Estella Espinosa says that Elizabeth Glover Park at Elgin and Austin will be closed through August while crews upgrade lighting and drainage systems and install new features, including a crushed granite plaza, dog run, and bocce ball court. According to a post yesterday at Midtown Houston Rocks, there are 2 other parks getting a similar treatment: Midtown Park at Gray and Bagby and Baldwin Park between Crawford and Chenevert on Elgin, a few blocks southeast of here.
- Parks in Progress [Houston Midtown Rocks]
Photo: Allyn West
Cool.
Ditto. Not sure how land this valuable got turned into park use but it’s nice to see!
How long have the parks been there? I always got the impression that Midtown was left for dead early on in the history of Houston’s sprawl. It’s become very representative of Houston’s present development: lots of townhomes, lots of midrise apartments.
Great news!
Baldwin Park was established in 1910, over 100 years ago.
http://www.houstontx.gov/parks/ourparks/baldwinpark.html
Glover Park has been labeled as such for at least a couple of years, which I have always found humorous as I walk past the empty lot on my way to Baldwin.
“Midtown Park” doesn’t exist on the Houston Parks and Rec’s master list of parks. Maybe it’s new. Then again, the Houston Parks and Rec site mentions the renovation work being done on Baldwin and Glover but doesn’t mention anything about Midtown Park.
There are many other examples of a Houston “park-let” contiguous to or near an actual “park”:
Sam Houston/Cleveland/Spotts/Eleanor Tinsley Parks
Stude/White Oak/Woodland/Hogg Parks
Riverside/Mills Bennett Parks
And don’t forget Emancipation Park, which is equally as historic as Baldwin Park, only 4 blocks away from Baldwin, and larger than Baldwin and Elizabeth Glover combined. But it’s on the “other” side of the freeway…so it tends to get ignored.
Looks like the white two-story house is gone, too bad, I was hoping something would be done with it when I saw it in the aerial images.
Glover Park was a private residence, although it was pretty much only a garage apartment. The guy who owned the place apparently left it to the City. We talked to him a couple of times when we lived in the area. He had been there for a long time.
Mandell Park on Mandell and RIchmond is also beginning a major overhaul. Tree removal started this week.
The Glover Park property was donated in a will to the Houston Public Library as the site of a future library; however the lot was much too small for a that purpose. HPL transferred the property to the PARD and it became the Elizabeth Glover Park
Does a plan exist like this for Houston?
http://www.midtownatl.com/_files/docs/blueprint-ii_ex_sum.pdf
There’s certainly much room for improvement.
Midtown Park belongs to the Midtown community. It is not a city of Houston park, so would not appear on their roster of park space.
The upgrades to the parks, Glover, Baldwin and Midtown are being completed by Midtown.