Exploring The Heights

The Heights is an area just three miles from downtown, and is a part of Houston that I— in my near-lifetime spent in the city— have barely touched. It is a colorful, pleasant, and historic part of Houston that has been left relatively untouched by giant apartment complexes and fast-food chains, and I quickly found myself enjoying it just by touring the main thoroughfare for a few hours. We were graced with the opportunity to talk to Melvaline Cohen and her son, Kevin; both are longtime residents of The Heights who have borne witness to many significant events and goings-on there. Melvaline was a founding member of the Houston Heights Women's Club, and has been dedicated to preserving the most valuable parts of The Heights for much of her life. She shared a great deal with us about how things have changed in her neighborhood over the years, for better and for worse. Anne Sloan, another Heights native, was there to show us around and provide a comprehensive background of the place. We also got a taste of opera from some local musicians, pictured below. 

Through a mixture of creative reinventing and strict zoning laws, The Heights has managed to capture a sliver of a bygone era, featuring many original houses and buildings from around a century ago. If you’re a sucker for quaint Victorian architecture, matte paint, and manicured lawns, then you’d fit right in to this suburbia-in-the-city. The background on the area, however, is more interesting than any old houses could manage. After starting as an escape from busy city life in the late 1890s and prospering for a while, The Heights began a downturn (economically and socially) that lasted until the 1990s. Post-WWII, it became known as a dying, low-income area, a reputation which took decades of efforts from concerned citizens to erase. It wasn’t helped by an astonishing number of serial killings in the early 1970s ( all done by one man over the course of three years) which rocked the small community. The Houston Heights Association, founded in 1973, served as a nexus of positive change, and its events and contributions would attract thriving young people into the area for decades to follow. In the present, The Heights’ community still has some concerns, but things certainly do seem to be looking up.