Baker-Meyer Building - Houston, Texas
Posted by: 
JimmyEv
N 29° 45.728 W 095° 21.716
15R E 271622 N 3294765
Many of the oldest commercial buildings in Houston, including this one erected in 1870, can be found on the blocks of Travis and Congress facing Market Square. The cast iron balconies aren’t original to the buildings, but a failed attempt at revitalization.
Waymark Code: WM467P
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/13/2008
Views: 41
Most of the remaining buildings surrounding Market Square once held businesses that flourished from close proximity to the city’s public market - bakers, grocers, butchers, fish mongers, confectioners, and liquor dealers. When the public market moved to the new civic center in 1929, many of the businesses left with it. By 1939, even the City Hall that sat in Market Square had moved to the new civic center. City Hall was converted into a bus station and the area thrived for a little while longer, but then began deteriorating.
The burning of the City Hall-turned-Greyhound Bus Station in 1960 turned Market Square into a parking lot and, oddly enough, brought prosperity back to the area. The historic buildings lining Market Square were outfitted with cast-iron New Orleans-style railings and turned into nightclubs. The prosperity didn’t last long - it ended around 1970, with the buildings once again being abandoned. Eventually the area stabilized, and the buildings were once again occupied, but the cast-iron railings of the New Orleans-theme from the 1960s remain, now woven into the historic fabric of the area.
The Baker-Meyer Building holds Treebeards Restaurant, with it’s colorful, massive mural along the side of the building facing Prairie. One good thing about the 1960s remodeling is the balcony left for diners to gaze out on Market Square.
Main Street/Market Square Historic District
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