Montrose is a neighborhood located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States. Montrose is a area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, South Shepherd Drive to the west, and Taft to Fairview to Bagby to Highway 59 to Main to the east. The area is also referred to as Neartown or Neartown / Montrose.

Montrose is one of the major cultural areas in Houston notable for its hipster culture, art scene, food scene, and nightlife. In the 1980s, it was the center of the gay community. Established in 1911, the neighborhood is a demographically diverse area with renovated mansions, bungalows with wide porches, and cottages located along tree-lined boulevards. Montrose has been called the "Heart of Houston" and the "strangest neighborhood east of the Pecos".

History Montrose, named after the town of Montrose, Angus, Scotland, was originally envisioned as a planned community and streetcar suburb dating back to the early 20th century before the development of River Oaks. Developer J. W. Link and his Houston Land Corporation envisioned a "great residential addition" according to the neighborhood's original sales brochure. Link's planning details for the area included four wide boulevards with the best curbing and extensive landscaping. Link built his own home in Montrose, known as the Link-Lee Mansion, which is now part of the University of St. Thomas campus. A streetcar, the Montrose Line, ran through the neighborhood. Link wrote: "Houston has to grow. Montrose is going to lead the procession." It did, and the procession eventually continued far beyond the neighborhood. Montrose was first platted in 1911."About the Neartown Association." Neartown Association. September 29, 2007.

In 1926, the Plaza Apartment Hotel, Houston's first apartment hotel, opened on Montrose Boulevard. The hotel was home to many of Houston's leaders, including Edgar Odell Lovett, the first president of Rice University. Modeled after the Ritz-Carlton in New York, the hotel cost over one million dollars to construct.

Prior to 1936 deed restrictions meant that commercial uses were not available to sections of Montrose. When the deed restrictions lapsed commercial development increased.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Montrose became a center for the burgeoning counterculture movement, with street musicians, alternative community centers and hippie communes, head shops and artisans' studios proliferating. The corner of Montrose and Westheimer was the site of regular demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Street vendors sold Space City! and other underground newspapers throughout the area.Counterculture issue, Cite 82 Summer 2010.

Thorne Dreyer and Al Reinert wrote in Texas Monthly in 1973 that the area "wound a tortuous course from Silk Stocking and Low Rent and back again."Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" Texas Monthly. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Start: Page 56. Cited: Page 57. Retrieved from Google Books on April 2, 2010. Gregory Curtis wrote in the same magazine in 1983 that Montrose was "the Montrose was at its peak as a community" but that it had declined since then.Curtis, Gregory. "Behind the Lines." Texas Monthly. Start: Page 5. Cited: Page 8.

KPFT – the fourth station in the progressive Pacifica Radio network of listener-sponsored stations – began broadcasting in 1970, and was joined on Lovett Blvd. by KLOL and KILT (Radio Montrose), pioneers in the underground FM format, creating a Montrose countercultural "radio row." KPFT's transmitter was twice bombed by a local Ku Klux Klan group, making it the only radio station in the history of the United States to be blown off the air.Shey, Brittany, "The Day the KKK Bombed Pacifica," Houston Press, May 12, 2010.

The bohemian flavor of the Montrose would spawn both the Westheimer Colony Art Festival in 1971 and the subsequent street fair in 1973, which would become known as the Westheimer Street Festival. Also starting around the 1970s the area became known as the center for the gay and lesbian community of Houston. The area sported an estimated 30-40 gay bars at the time, including the Bayou Landing, thought to be the largest gay dance hall between the coasts, and several gay activist groups, including the Gay Liberation Front.

During the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the Montrose clinic was opened by Rev. Ralph Lasher and it later, at a different location in Montrose, became a community health center.

Folk music clubs like Anderson Fair and Sand Mountain catered to the folk scene in the neighborhood and other venues featured psychedelic rock and blues. Later, punk and new wave clubs like The Paradise Rock Island, the Omni, and Numbers opened in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Montrose has been "a haven for Prohibition honkey-tonks, antique stores, wealthy socialites, motorcycle gangs, gays, harmless eccentrics and a broad array of exiles, writers, artists and musicians."Dreyer, Thorne and Al Reinert. "Montrose Lives!" Texas Monthly. April 1973. ISSN 0148-7736. Page 56. Retrieved from Google Books on April 2, 2010. It has been called "a uniquely Houston kind of Bohemia, a mad mix made possible by the city's no-holds-barred, laissez faire form of growth."

In 1991 Paul Broussard was murdered in the Montrose nightclub area. University of Houston professor Maria Gonzalez stated that "With this murder[...]people said, 'Enough is enough.'[...] A whole new relationship developed between the gay community and the police department."Turner, Allan. "Documentary film reconsiders Montrose gay killing." Houston Chronicle. April 19, 2015. Retrieved on November 12, 2015.

Since the 1990s, Montrose has become increasingly gentrified with a trend towards remodeled and new homes, higher rents, upmarket boutiques and restaurants. In 1997 Katherine Feser of the Houston Chronicle stated that "Montrose [is] not for starving artists anymore".

On June 6, 2006,Rogers, Brian. "3 years after gang killing, teen wants to 'move on'" (Archive). Houston Chronicle. Thursday September 17, 2009. a teenage MS-13 gang member named Gabriel Granillo was stabbed to death at Ervan Chew Park in the Montrose area. The 2011 novel The Knife and the Butterfly is based on this stabbing.Pérez, Ashley Hope. The Knife and the Butterfly. Lerner Publishing Group, August 1, 2014. , 9781467716246. p. 205.

In 2025, the State of Texas ordered the destruction of the rainbow crosswalks in Montrose.

Culture Montrose hosts a number of communities including artists, musicians, and the local LGBT community, and has thrift, vintage, and second-hand shopping stores, gay bars, and restaurants. On Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer Road, there are few original homes remaining—a majority have been converted to businesses and/or restaurants since 1936. Examples of Houston's historic residential architecture including century-old bungalows and mansions can be found in Montrose. , the nightclub Numbers, which was established in 1978 and was "one of the most important venues operating in the '80s", remained a landmark of the neighborhood. In 2016, Numbers was named one of the 50 Best Small Music Venues in America.

LGBT culture

Before the 1970s, the city's gay bars were spread around Downtown Houston and what is now Midtown Houston. Gays and lesbians needed to have a place to socialize after the closing of the gay bars. They began going to Art Wren, a 24-hour restaurant in Montrose. Around the time Montrose mainly included empty nesters and widows. Gay men became attracted to Montrose as a neighborhood after encountering it while patronizing Art Wren, and they began to gentrify the neighborhood and assist the widows with the maintenance of their houses. Within Montrose new gay bars began to appear.Oaklander, Mandy. "The Mayor of Montrose." Houston Press. Wednesday May 18, 2011. 1. Retrieved on May 18, 2011. By 1985, the flavor and politics of the neighborhood were heavily influenced by the LGBT community.Oaklander, Mandy. "The Mayor of Montrose." Houston Press. Wednesday May 18, 2011. 2. Retrieved on May 18, 2011. At the time at least 19% of the residents of Montrose were gay and lesbian. In the late 1980s, AIDS affected many Montrose residents. Some area residents stopped patronizing restaurants in Montrose, believing that they would acquire AIDS from gay waiters. Some area funeral homes did not want to accept the bodies of men who died from AIDS. AIDS tore through the neighborhood and the gay community flocked to the nightclubs for a reprieve from sickness and death." The Murder of Paul Broussard occurred in Montrose in 1991. By 2011 many LGBT people moved to the Houston Heights and to suburbs in Greater Houston. Decentralizing of Houston's gay population and the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the city of Houston and in society in general caused business at gay bars in Montrose to decline.Oaklander, Mandy. "The Mayor of Montrose." Houston Press. Wednesday May 18, 2011. 4. Retrieved on May 18, 2011. '"Gay bars used to be places where we had to go to get refuge because we were not welcome anywhere else," he says. "Well, guess what? There's nowhere we're not welcome anymore." However, Montrose is still considered the epicenter of LGBT culture in Houston.

Museums The Menil Collection, on Sul Ross Street between Alabama Street and Richmond Avenue, is a free museum founded by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil to house their art collection. The Menil was designed by architect Renzo Piano.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is located in the Houston Museum District,"Museum of Fine Arts Houston seeking donations." Houston Chronicle. December 13, 2013. Retrieved on November 1, 2014. "The Museum of Fine Arts Houston is in the heart of the city's Museum District." in the surrounding area. "The Museum of Fine Arts, in the Montrose area of Houston, is the oldest art museum in Texas. "

Chapels The Rothko Chapel, also created by John and Dominique de Menil, is a non-denominational chapel located one block from the Menil on the campus of the University of St. Thomas. Fourteen black and color-hued paintings by Mark Rothko are on the interior walls. The shape and design of the chapel were largely influenced by the artist. Barnett Newman's sculpture, Broken Obelisk, dedicated to the late Martin Luther King Jr., stands in front of the chapel in a reflecting pool designed by architect Philip Johnson.

The Chapel of St. Basil, designed by Philip Johnson, is on the campus of nearby University of St. Thomas. It is faced with white stucco and black granite, and is operated by the Congregation of St. Basil.

Cityscape Dreyer and Reinert wrote in 1973 that "[g]enerally speaking" the community would be of area within the Southwest Freeway (nowadays Interstate 69), West Gray, Shepherd Drive, and Smith Street; they stated there was no agreed-upon boundary of "Montrose" and that "residents are always arguing, with equal vehemence, whether they should or should not be considered part of "that place.""

Infrastructure and government

Local government

The community is within the Houston Police Department's Central Patrol Division,"Crime Statistics for Central Patrol Division." City of Houston. Retrieved May 23, 2008. headquartered at 61 Riesner." Volunteer Initiatives Program, Citizens Offering Police Support." City of Houston. Retrieved May 23, 2008. "Neartown Storefront, 802 Westheimer " The Neartown Storefront Station was formerly located at 802 Westheimer Road. In 2019, there was an announcement that the storefront building, and therefore the storefront itself, would close as a result of a land swap between the City of Houston and a developer as part of a deal to develop a new library. The City of Houston purchased the building used for the storefront with federal community development funds.