THESE ARE THE SALAD DAYS FOR EMANCIPATION PARK 
Covering the reopening of Emancipation Park, on Elgin St. east of 59, Michael Hardy surveys the adjacent eats: “Even before the park reopened, a number of businesses catering to the neighborhood’s newest residents had appeared. Across the street from the park, below the old Eldorado Ballroom, are the Crumbville, TX bakery, which sells vegan cookies and brownies, and the NuWaters food co-op. A few blocks down Emancipation Avenue, Doshi House serves sustainably sourced coffee and vegetarian meals. (Emancipation Avenue used to be called Dowling Street, after a local Confederate officer; the Houston City Council voted in January to change the name.)
The latest business to open on the park periphery is the Rustic Oak Seafood Boiler Shack, which serves coastal Cajun cuisine. The owner and chef, Wendell Price, grew up on MacGregor Way, a more affluent part of Third Ward, and remembers the area around Emancipation Park as a food desert. ‘When I came down to hang in this area, you literally couldn’t get a salad,’ he said.
Mr. Price, who previously operated a restaurant in Houston’s trendy Montrose neighborhood, said he would never have considered setting up shop in Third Ward if not for the Emancipation Park renovation.” [New York Times; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Doshi House: OffCite/Raj Mankad
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Where did the $34 million for the renovation come from?
According to HC article.
2m from kinder
2m from Houston endowment
1m tx parks & wildlife grant
120k from timkin foundation
The rest from the area’s TIRZ
Almost half of the $34 million must have been spent on the HUGE street sign for what is now called “Emancipation Corridor” (sarcasm). Seriously though, is such a huge sign necessary? As it is it looks like an vain attempt of Third Ward planners to rub the new name in the face of everyone else besides the local denizens. Take it down and replace it with something half the size!
WR,
Dude you gotta get over this park.
@ Progg:
Have you SEEN the sign? It’s about the size of an extra long twin sized bed! And by the way, I don’t mind the park being spiffed up … it was past due.
@WR: Yes, I’m sure they made the sign big just to troll slave owners.
sustainably sourced coffee..?…looks like emancipation from the impoverished past has been proclaimed and the hipster troops have marched in during the reconstruction phase.
Cesema- So $28,500,000 from taxpayers. Got it.
?? – do you live in TIRZ #7? I couldn’t imagine a city without parks. Parks are built and maintained with a combination of private and public funds. That’s how it’s done throughout this country. In Houston and Texas private philanthropy actually picks up a lot more of the bill than in most other American cities and states (where park funding is predominantly publicly funded through taxation).
@Memebag:
I don’t think so, but perhaps you are right.
Vegan cookie? WTF is a vegan cookie? Is there meat in Chips Ahoy that I don’t know about?
@Toby: Habe you never heard of a cookie made with butter? Such cookies are not vegan.
@Toby — Pretty much every normal cookie recipe has eggs. I have no idea what a vegan version without them would taste like, but the label isn’t meaningless.
@WR: Pretty sure only slave owners should be offended by emancipation. Everyone else should be pretty happy about the end of slavery.
As I understand it, Toby, vegan would exclude eggs and dairy products, not just meat.
@Toby….I went to Crumbville on Saturday and tasted several of her vegan cookie options. Delicious.
Oh…. I thought vegetarians and vegans were the same thing…. Like the Taliban and ISIS…. But apparently one is more extreme than the other. Go figure….
Toby, vegans don’t go far enough. I’m opening a restaurant that only uses food that never cast a shadow.