Hermann Park’s McGovern Centennial Gardens
It was recently announced that the Houston Arts Alliance has received an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This grant, given to HAA for the Bayou Trails project, will work to connect the three parks that run along the Brays Bayou: Mason Park, MacGregor Park, and Hermann Park.
This is the second time HAA has received an Our Town grant; last year, the grant was used to partially fund Transported + Renewed, an event that didn’t go over so well with some people in Houston’s art community. This year, HAA aims to create a “bayou corridor” that will “engage neighborhoods from the Latino-identified East End through the largely African-American Southeast sector to the culturally-mixed Museum District.” To do this, they are partnering with Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department, the Hermann Park Conservancy, the Friends of MacGregor Park, and others.
Mason Park
Jonathon Glus, HAA’s President and CEO, is positive about the possibilities offered by creative placemaking within Houston. He says: “I believe that this is a testament to what an extraordinary city Houston is—a relatively young city that is incredibly rich with possibility and opportunity for creative placemaking due in large part to its geography and its diverse cultural landscape.”
