Hyde Park

Hyde Park, Austin TX
Originally uploaded by grwster

Here's the story of Hyde Park (Austin, TX) as posted in our local park:

In 1891, this neighborhood was among the fist planned subdivisions in the city and the first development involving a design for street cars.

Hyde Park was the vision of Monroe M. Shipe, who with the Missouri-Kansas and Texas Lang Company, established a 36-block are patterned after the exclusive London neighborhood.

Distinctive elementes in this district are the home and studio of German sculptress Elisabet Ney, residence of Swiss woodcarver Peret Mansbendel, the Moonlight Tower at 41st Street and Speedway, and the Avenue B Grocery Store, a vivid reminder of a now rare propery within a residential neighborhood.

Hyde Park's "long distance" from downtown (20 blocks) made it "The Pride of Austin" with amenities such as a park pavillion, green space, 2 lakes, and a electric streetcar that ran to downtown.

Growth, economics, permissive zoning, and other factors combined with development pressures and eroded much of the historic fabric. Through education, awareness of the benefits of historic preservation, proximity to shopping and access to the University and downtown, the area began a resurgence in restoration and rehabilitation.

Bungalows and Victorian style homes remain in this tree-lined neighborhood along with other styles and materials of differing scales which together demonstrate the enviable desirability of historic preservation here and elesewhere.

They don't mention that part of Monroe's vision was an exclusively white community.