From CultureMap:
Travel + Leisure searched around the country for the best, the most exciting and the coolest city parks for their April issue, and Central Park didn’t make the cut — but Houston’s Discovery Green did.
Just three years old — and celebrating that milestone with a celebration Wednesday afternoon — Discovery Green got plaudits for its abundance of entertainment, with T+L noting that it has hosted over 800 events in that short time, including the recent Big Dance concerts by Kings of Leon and Kenny Chesney.
“It’s a place where people can kick back and relax,” Discovery Green founding president Guy Hagstette told the magazine, while noting that the transformation of the 12-acre stretch of the east side of Houston’s downtown from parking lot to green space has also spurred $500 million in development in the area.
Can you imagine downtown without Discovery Green now? I can’t. It’s such a success that even the usual squadron of whining pessimists have had to find other things to complain about. What more could you want?
Having grown up 1/2 block away from Lincoln Park, Chicago, I am completely underwhelmed by Discovery Green. Sorry, it’s not that great.
Cash raining from the sky?
But seriously sports fields for pick up games only would have been cool (baseball, soccer, football).
Kevin Whited suggested in a comment posted in August 2008 that we ‘check back in 2 years’. Well, Kevin, it’s been nearly 3 years now. What say you?
As for me, it is a smashing success. I was in the park during the NCAAs, and it was a sea of interesting people and things to do. Add in the spectacular weather, and even Houston’s world famous complainers would be hard pressed to find a nit to pick.
I’ve been coming to Houston every summer to catch the ‘Stros for a weekend of MLB. I’ve seen Discovery Green grow up during those periods and enjoy the oasis in the middle of downtown. It’s a model I keep trying to promote here in San Antonio and wish we could turn Hemisfair Park into something like it.
Great park and great post.
@RedScare – I’m sure “Hit & Run” Whited could find a nit to pick, but that’s his role in the ecosystem, isn’t it?
Discovery Green is very nice but – “cooler than Central Park.” Um… no. I’m not sure what “cool” even means in the context of a city park, but as nice an addition to downtown is, I can’t say it’s “cooler” than when I lived near Dupont Circle, or my sister’s place a block off Golden Gate Park, or even when I lived near Boston’s Southwest Corridor (a very neat linear park built over a subway line, on land that was supposed to be a freeway until neighborhood activists put the brake on it. No doubt annoying the crap out of the 1980s Boston Whited equivalent, which is of course a sign that you’re on the right track).