Culture of Houston
Encyclopedia
Houston is a multicultural
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
, where Mission Control Center
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area. Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
and Vietnamese
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
in Midtown
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
, gay pride
, and the Stonewall riots
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
s, and coffeehouse
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
and Houston International Festival.
Houston's Theater District
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats. The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
), ballet (Houston Ballet
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
). The city has visual and performing arts
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
such as Art Cars. Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Space Center Houston is the official visitors’ center of NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
, which houses the Houston Zoo
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, and Memorial Park
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
attractions include the Galleria
, Texas' largest shopping mall
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
.
Houston hosted Super Bowl VIII
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
, the 1981
, 1986
, 1994
and 1995 NBA Finals
(The hometown Houston Rockets
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
in 2004, 2005 World Series
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
(MLS
), Houston Astros
(MLB
), Houston Rockets
(NBA
), Houston Comets
(WNBA
), Houston Aeros
(AHL
), and Houston Texans
(NFL
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
, Reliant Astrodome
, Robertson Stadium
, and Rice Stadium
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
's WrestleMania X-Seven
on April 1, 2001.
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
won 2 back-to-back AFL
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
. They play at Robertson Stadium
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
can be finalized.
The Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area is served by a public television station and two public radio stations. KUHT
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
member stations: KUHF
(KUHF News) and KUHA
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
, Linda Ellerbee
, and Jessica Savitch
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
Houston is a multicultural
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
, where Mission Control Center
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area.Houston Facts. City of Houston Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
and Vietnamese
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
in Midtown
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
, gay pride
, and the Stonewall riots
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
s, and coffeehouse
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
and Houston International Festival.
Houston's Theater District
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats.About Houston Theater District. Houston Theater District The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
), ballet (Houston Ballet
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
).Houston: Have a Blast. WorldWeb.com Travel Guide The city has visual and performing arts
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
such as Art Cars.Art Car Museum - Houston, TX, 77007 - Citysearch Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Space Center Houston is the official visitors’ center of NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
, which houses the Houston Zoo
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, and Memorial Park
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
attractions include the Galleria
, Texas' largest shopping mall
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
.
Houston hosted Super Bowl VIII
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
, the 1981
, 1986
, 1994
and 1995 NBA Finals
(The hometown Houston Rockets
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
in 2004, 2005 World Series
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
(MLS
), Houston Astros
(MLB
), Houston Rockets
(NBA
), Houston Comets
(WNBA
), Houston Aeros
(AHL
), and Houston Texans
(NFL
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
, Reliant Astrodome
, Robertson Stadium
, and Rice Stadium
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
's WrestleMania X-Seven
on April 1, 2001.WWE: TV Shows > WrestleMania XXIV > History > WrestleMania XVII
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
won 2 back-to-back AFL
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
. They play at Robertson Stadium
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
can be finalized.
The Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area is served by a public television station and two public radio stations. KUHT
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
member stations: KUHF
(KUHF News) and KUHA
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
, Linda Ellerbee
, and Jessica Savitch
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
Houston is a multicultural
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
, where Mission Control Center
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area.Houston Facts. City of Houston Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
and Vietnamese
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
in Midtown
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
, gay pride
, and the Stonewall riots
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
s, and coffeehouse
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
and Houston International Festival.
Houston's Theater District
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats.About Houston Theater District. Houston Theater District The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
), ballet (Houston Ballet
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
).Houston: Have a Blast. WorldWeb.com Travel Guide The city has visual and performing arts
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
such as Art Cars.Art Car Museum - Houston, TX, 77007 - Citysearch Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Space Center Houston is the official visitors’ center of NASA
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
, which houses the Houston Zoo
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, and Memorial Park
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
attractions include the Galleria
, Texas' largest shopping mall
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
.
Houston hosted Super Bowl VIII
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
, the 1981
, 1986
, 1994
and 1995 NBA Finals
(The hometown Houston Rockets
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
in 2004, 2005 World Series
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
(MLS
), Houston Astros
(MLB
), Houston Rockets
(NBA
), Houston Comets
(WNBA
), Houston Aeros
(AHL
), and Houston Texans
(NFL
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
, Reliant Astrodome
, Robertson Stadium
, and Rice Stadium
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
's WrestleMania X-Seven
on April 1, 2001.WWE: TV Shows > WrestleMania XXIV > History > WrestleMania XVII
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
won 2 back-to-back AFL
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
. They play at Robertson Stadium
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
can be finalized.
The Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area is served by a public television station and two public radio stations. KUHT
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
member stations: KUHF
(KUHF News) and KUHA
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
, Linda Ellerbee
, and Jessica Savitch
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
referred to Houston as "the dining-out capital of the nation." Houstonians ate out at restaurants more often than residents of other American cities, and Houston restaurants have the second lowest average prices of restaurants of major cities. Tory Gattis of the Houston Chronicle
said in 2005 that Houston has "a great restaurant scene." Gattis said that one factor contributing to the status is Houston's ethnic diversity, related to Houston's role as a major city of the energy industry, Houston's role as a port city, and Houston's proximity to Latin America and the Cajun areas of Louisiana. Gattis cited Houston's lack of zoning, which makes it easy for a business owner to start a restaurant as land is less expensive and there are fewer regulations and permitting rules. Gattis also cited Houston's freeway network, which, according to Gattis, puts restaurants within a 15-20 minute drive within the residences of most Houstonians during non-rush hour
times. Gattis explained that the size of Greater Houston
's population allows the city to support niche ethnic restaurants and provides a large customer base for area restaurants. Also he stated that the competition in Houston's restaurant industry forces restaurants of lower quality to go out of business, leaving high quality restaurants open. The journalist explained that Houston's relatively low cost of living reduces labor costs for restaurants and allows its residents more leftover income that could be spent at restaurants. Jobs in Houston have relatively high salaries, Gattis explains that the wages help support Houston's restaurant market.Gattis, Tory. "Why does Houston have such a great restaurant scene?" Houston Chronicle
(originally posted in the "Houston Strategies" blog). Thursday, June 02, 2005. Re-posted in the Houston Chronicle on July 9, 2010. Retrieved on July 11, 2010.
Tex-Mex cuisine
is very popular in Houston. Many Mexican cuisine
restaurants in Houston have aspects that originate from Texas culture. In his book Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, Arnoldo De León said that the recent immigrants from Mexico to Houston add foods that are popular with immigrants to menus of Mexican restaurants in Houston. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press
said "You might say that the immigrant flow is what keeps the "Mex" in Tex-Mex." In Houston, as in other places in Texas, the existing Chicano
community influences the cooking methods used by recent immigrants.Walsh, Robb. "The Authenticity Myth." Houston Press
. October 26, 2000. Retrieved on November 16, 2009.
As of 2010 many food truck
vendors are frequently forced to close by city regulations, and Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press
stated that food truck vendors have difficulties obtaining licenses. A nonprofit organization called "Save Our Food Trucks" started to assist food truck vendors in navigating the municipal bureaucracy.Schilcutt, Katharine. "
These Men Want to Save You a Taco (Truck)." Houston Press
. Friday November 19, 2010. 1. Retrieved on November 22, 2010.
. June 2, 2011. Retrieved on June 5, 2011.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
, where Mission Control Center
Mission Control Center
A mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area. Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
Little Saigon
Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, usually in the United States...
in Midtown
Midtown, Houston, Texas
Midtown is a district southwest of Downtown Houston, bordered by Neartown and U.S. Highway 59.-History:Around 1906 what is now Midtown was divided between the Third Ward and Fourth Ward. Before the 1950s what is now Midtown was a popular residential district. Increasingly, commercial development...
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, also called RodeoHouston, is the world's largest live entertainment and livestock exhibition. It also includes the richest regular-season rodeo event. It has been held at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, since 2003...
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
, and the Stonewall riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
Neartown Houston
Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Neartown is roughly bounded by U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Bagby Street on the east, and Shepherd Drive to the west...
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, and coffeehouse
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival was started in 1966 by the members of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral as a "Greek Night". The three day festival is held annually on the first weekend in October and features Greek food, live Greek music and Greek folk dances, as well as a gift shop and tours of the...
and Houston International Festival.
Arts and theatre
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats. The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
), ballet (Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet
The Houston Ballet, operated by the Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas. The foundation also maintains a ballet academy, the Ben Stevenson Academy, which trains more than half of the company's dancers...
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
Alley Theatre
The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning indoor theatre in Downtown Houston, Texas, and hosts two stages. The "Hubbard" is the main stage with seating for 824; the more intimate "Neuhaus" seats 310. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a staircase...
). The city has visual and performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
such as Art Cars. Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
Houston Museum District
The Houston Museum District commonly known as, “The Museum District,” is an association of museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the arts, sciences, and cultural amenities of the area.The Houston Museum District currently...
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
Holocaust Museum Houston
The Holocaust Museum Houston, is located in Houston, Texas and was opened in 1996. The museum is located in the Houston Museum District.The museum is the fourth largest Holocaust memorial museum in the United States. The museum's mission is to make people aware of the dangers which prejudice,...
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston refers either to a museum that houses the private art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself...
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Tourism and recreation
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston's most-visited public parks. Situated between Fannin Street and Cambridge Street, it is within walking distance from the Texas Medical Center, Rice University, and the Museum District, and within a few miles of the Third Ward, the historic Astrodome and Reliant Stadium...
, which houses the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, and Memorial Park
Memorial Park, Houston, Texas
Memorial Park, a municipal park in Houston, Texas, is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. Opened in 1924, the park covers approximately inside the 610 Loop, across from the neighborhood of Memorial. Memorial Drive runs through the park, heading east to downtown Houston and west to...
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
George R. Brown Convention Center
The George R. Brown Convention Center opened on September 26, 1987 on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.The center was named for the prominent Houstonian George R. Brown, an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist. Brown’s Texas Eastern Corporation donated six of the 11...
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
attractions include the Galleria
Houston Galleria
The Galleria, stylized theGalleria, is an upscale mixed-use urban development centrally located in the Uptown District of Houston, Texas, United States. The development consists of a retail complex, as well as the Galleria Office Towers complex, two Westin hotels, and a private health club...
, Texas' largest shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park is a park in Downtown Houston, Texas, between Walker and Rusk Streets, and west of Smith Street, with the United States federal courts building for the Southern District of Texas on one side and Houston City Hall on the other...
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
Deer Park, Texas
Deer Park is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The city is located in Harris County and is situated in Southeast Texas. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Deer Park was 32,010....
.
Sports
Super Bowl VIII
Super Bowl VIII was a professional American football game played on January 13, 1974 at Rice Stadium. in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 1973 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Miami Dolphins defeated the National Football...
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
1989 NBA All-Star Game
The 1989 NBA All-Star Game was held at Houston, Texas on February 12, 1989. The game's MVP was Karl Malone.The east was led by Mark Jackson, Kevin McHale, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, Mark Price, Terry Cummings, Larry Nance and...
, the 1981
1981 NBA Finals
The 1981 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the 1980-81 NBA season, pitting the Boston Celtics against the Houston Rockets.-Houston Rockets:...
, 1986
1986 NBA Finals
The 1986 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1985-86 NBA season. It pitted the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics against the Western Conference champion Houston Rockets. The Celtics defeated the Rockets four games to two to win their 16th NBA championship. The championship would...
, 1994
1994 NBA Finals
The 1994 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1993–94 National Basketball Association season, featuring the Western Conference's Houston Rockets defeating the Eastern Conference's New York Knicks....
and 1995 NBA Finals
1995 NBA Finals
The 1995 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1994–95 NBA season. The series pitted the Orlando Magic against the Houston Rockets. The pre-series hype and build-up of the Finals was centered around the meeting of the two centers Shaquille O'Neal of the Magic and Hakeem Olajuwon of the Rockets...
(The hometown Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 75th playing of the midseason exhibition baseball game between the all-stars of the American League and National League , the two leagues comprising Major League Baseball. The game was held on July 13, 2004 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas,...
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
in 2004, 2005 World Series
2005 World Series
The 2005 World Series, the 101st Major League Baseball championship series, saw the American League champion Chicago White Sox sweep the National League champion Houston Astros four games to none in the best-of-seven-games series, winning their third championship and first since 1917.Home-field...
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
Big 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
2006 NBA All-Star Game
The 2006 NBA All-Star Game was played on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, home of the Houston Rockets. The game was the 55th annual All-Star game...
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
Tennis Masters Cup
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is a tennis tournament played at the end of each year, involving the top eight players in the men's tennis world rankings....
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
Shell Houston Open
The Shell Houston Open is a regular golf tournament on the PGA Tour. It is currently played in April at Redstone Golf Club in the Houston suburb of Humble, Texas. Shell and the Houston Golf Association are the main sponsors of the tournament...
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
Houston Bowl
The Houston Bowl is a now-defunct NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A college football bowl game that was played annually in Houston, Texas from 2000 to 2005. The game was originally known as the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in 2000 and 2001...
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
Texas Bowl
The Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, formerly known as the Texas Bowl, is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBS college football bowl game that was held for the first time in 2006 in Houston, Texas. The bowl replaced the now-defunct Houston Bowl, which was played annually from 2000 to 2005...
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
(MLS
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
), Houston Astros
Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...
(MLB
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
), Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
(NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
), Houston Comets
Houston Comets
The Houston Comets were a Women's National Basketball Association team based in Houston, Texas, United States. Formed in 1997, the team was one of the best original eight WNBA teams and won the first four championships of the league's existence. The Comets were the first dynasty of the WNBA and...
(WNBA
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association...
), Houston Aeros
Houston Aeros
The Houston Aeros are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. The team plays in Houston, Texas, at the Toyota Center. They are the AHL affiliate of the NHL's Minnesota Wild.- History :...
(AHL
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...
), and Houston Texans
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is currently a member of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
(NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
Champ Car
Champ Car was the name for a class and specification of open wheel cars used in American Championship Car Racing for many decades, primarily for use in the Indianapolis 500 auto race...
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park is a ballpark in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States that opened in 2000 to house the Major League Baseball Houston Astros....
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
Toyota Center (Houston)
The Toyota Center is an indoor arena located in downtown Houston, Texas. It is named after the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. The arena is home to the Rockets of the National Basketball Association, the principal owners of the building, and the Aeros of the American Hockey League.Rockets...
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Houston, Texas, USA. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of with of natural grass playing surface....
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
Hofheinz Pavilion
Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion, often known as simply Hofheinz Pavilion, is an 8,500-seat multi-purpose arena on the University of Houston campus in Houston, Texas. Located at 3875 Holman Street, it is home to the University of Houston Cougars men's and women's basketball teams as well as...
, Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
, and Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
's WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven was the seventeenth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 1, 2001 at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The event was the first WrestleMania held in the state of Texas...
on April 1, 2001.
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
won 2 back-to-back AFL
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer team is located in the San Jose, California, United States suburb of Santa Clara, and participates in Major League Soccer , the top level soccer league in the United States and Canada....
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
. They play at Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multipurpose...
can be finalized.
Media
KUHT
-Technical firsts:The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first closed captioned television station, and ten years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offer Descriptive Video Service , and other services...
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
Public Broadcast Service
The Public Broadcast Service is a government-owned educational radio and television broadcast service located in Barbados. Public Broadcast Service owns a radio station, 91.1FM and its television programming will be introduced in 2009....
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
member stations: KUHF
KUHF
KUHF is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(KUHF News) and KUHA
KUHA
KUHA is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 91.7 Megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
University of Houston System
The University of Houston System is a state university system in Texas, encompassing four separate and distinct universities. It has two system centers, which operate as and distance learning course delivery sites for its universities...
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
Houston Post
The Houston Post was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper was absorbed into the Houston Chronicle.-History:The newspaper was established on February 19, 1880, by Gail Borden Johnson...
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
Marvin Zindler
Marvin Harold Zindler was a news reporter for television station KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas, United States. His investigative journalism, through which he mostly represented the city's elderly and working class, made him one of the city's most influential and well-known media personalities.-Early...
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
KHOU-TV
KHOU is the CBS affiliate television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11...
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
, Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee is an American journalist who is most known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington, DC correspondent, host of the Nickelodeon network's Nick News, and reporter and co-anchor of NBC News Overnight, which was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as...
, and Jessica Savitch
Jessica Savitch
Jessica Beth Savitch was an American television broadcaster and news reporter, host of PBS' Frontline and New York weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News during the short-lived Roger Mudd/Tom Brokaw era....
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
Corporate welfare
Corporate welfare is a pejorative term describing a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations. The term compares corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less...
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
Car culture
Automobiles of all kinds have had enormous influence on Houston culture, largely a result of the urban sprawl and sparse public transportation that has followed the dismantling of the city's former trolley system. Many of the Houston's business districts, such as UptownUptown Houston
The Uptown District of Houston is located 6.2 miles west of downtown and is centered along Post Oak Boulevard, Westheimer Road , and the Galleria...
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
Edge city
"Edge city" is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community...
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
Houston Art Car Parade
The Houston Art Car Parade is an annual event in Houston, Texas, featuring a display of all types of rolling art. The first and largest Art Car parade in the world, at any given parade spectators will see cars, bicycles, motorcycles, roller-skaters, and many other types of motorized and...
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
Music
Ben Westhoff, author of Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers who Reinvented Hip-Hop, said that Houston is geographically isolated from other cities that have rap music traditions, so Houston rap music has its own slang and sound which does not "translate" in other regions. Many DJs like to severely slow down music and repeat lines several times, a style known as "screwed and chopped." Westhoff says that the style, which slurs the speeches of the rappers, gives the music an "extraterrestrial quality."Houston is a multicultural
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
, where Mission Control Center
Mission Control Center
A mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area.Houston Facts. City of Houston Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
Little Saigon
Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, usually in the United States...
in Midtown
Midtown, Houston, Texas
Midtown is a district southwest of Downtown Houston, bordered by Neartown and U.S. Highway 59.-History:Around 1906 what is now Midtown was divided between the Third Ward and Fourth Ward. Before the 1950s what is now Midtown was a popular residential district. Increasingly, commercial development...
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, also called RodeoHouston, is the world's largest live entertainment and livestock exhibition. It also includes the richest regular-season rodeo event. It has been held at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, since 2003...
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
, and the Stonewall riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
Neartown Houston
Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Neartown is roughly bounded by U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Bagby Street on the east, and Shepherd Drive to the west...
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, and coffeehouse
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival was started in 1966 by the members of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral as a "Greek Night". The three day festival is held annually on the first weekend in October and features Greek food, live Greek music and Greek folk dances, as well as a gift shop and tours of the...
and Houston International Festival.
Arts and theatre
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats.About Houston Theater District. Houston Theater District The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
), ballet (Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet
The Houston Ballet, operated by the Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas. The foundation also maintains a ballet academy, the Ben Stevenson Academy, which trains more than half of the company's dancers...
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
Alley Theatre
The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning indoor theatre in Downtown Houston, Texas, and hosts two stages. The "Hubbard" is the main stage with seating for 824; the more intimate "Neuhaus" seats 310. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a staircase...
).Houston: Have a Blast. WorldWeb.com Travel Guide The city has visual and performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
such as Art Cars.Art Car Museum - Houston, TX, 77007 - Citysearch Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
Houston Museum District
The Houston Museum District commonly known as, “The Museum District,” is an association of museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the arts, sciences, and cultural amenities of the area.The Houston Museum District currently...
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
Holocaust Museum Houston
The Holocaust Museum Houston, is located in Houston, Texas and was opened in 1996. The museum is located in the Houston Museum District.The museum is the fourth largest Holocaust memorial museum in the United States. The museum's mission is to make people aware of the dangers which prejudice,...
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston refers either to a museum that houses the private art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself...
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Tourism and recreation
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston's most-visited public parks. Situated between Fannin Street and Cambridge Street, it is within walking distance from the Texas Medical Center, Rice University, and the Museum District, and within a few miles of the Third Ward, the historic Astrodome and Reliant Stadium...
, which houses the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, and Memorial Park
Memorial Park, Houston, Texas
Memorial Park, a municipal park in Houston, Texas, is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. Opened in 1924, the park covers approximately inside the 610 Loop, across from the neighborhood of Memorial. Memorial Drive runs through the park, heading east to downtown Houston and west to...
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
George R. Brown Convention Center
The George R. Brown Convention Center opened on September 26, 1987 on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.The center was named for the prominent Houstonian George R. Brown, an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist. Brown’s Texas Eastern Corporation donated six of the 11...
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
attractions include the Galleria
Houston Galleria
The Galleria, stylized theGalleria, is an upscale mixed-use urban development centrally located in the Uptown District of Houston, Texas, United States. The development consists of a retail complex, as well as the Galleria Office Towers complex, two Westin hotels, and a private health club...
, Texas' largest shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park is a park in Downtown Houston, Texas, between Walker and Rusk Streets, and west of Smith Street, with the United States federal courts building for the Southern District of Texas on one side and Houston City Hall on the other...
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
Deer Park, Texas
Deer Park is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The city is located in Harris County and is situated in Southeast Texas. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Deer Park was 32,010....
.
Sports
Super Bowl VIII
Super Bowl VIII was a professional American football game played on January 13, 1974 at Rice Stadium. in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 1973 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Miami Dolphins defeated the National Football...
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
1989 NBA All-Star Game
The 1989 NBA All-Star Game was held at Houston, Texas on February 12, 1989. The game's MVP was Karl Malone.The east was led by Mark Jackson, Kevin McHale, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, Mark Price, Terry Cummings, Larry Nance and...
, the 1981
1981 NBA Finals
The 1981 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the 1980-81 NBA season, pitting the Boston Celtics against the Houston Rockets.-Houston Rockets:...
, 1986
1986 NBA Finals
The 1986 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1985-86 NBA season. It pitted the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics against the Western Conference champion Houston Rockets. The Celtics defeated the Rockets four games to two to win their 16th NBA championship. The championship would...
, 1994
1994 NBA Finals
The 1994 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1993–94 National Basketball Association season, featuring the Western Conference's Houston Rockets defeating the Eastern Conference's New York Knicks....
and 1995 NBA Finals
1995 NBA Finals
The 1995 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1994–95 NBA season. The series pitted the Orlando Magic against the Houston Rockets. The pre-series hype and build-up of the Finals was centered around the meeting of the two centers Shaquille O'Neal of the Magic and Hakeem Olajuwon of the Rockets...
(The hometown Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 75th playing of the midseason exhibition baseball game between the all-stars of the American League and National League , the two leagues comprising Major League Baseball. The game was held on July 13, 2004 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas,...
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
in 2004, 2005 World Series
2005 World Series
The 2005 World Series, the 101st Major League Baseball championship series, saw the American League champion Chicago White Sox sweep the National League champion Houston Astros four games to none in the best-of-seven-games series, winning their third championship and first since 1917.Home-field...
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
Big 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
2006 NBA All-Star Game
The 2006 NBA All-Star Game was played on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, home of the Houston Rockets. The game was the 55th annual All-Star game...
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
Tennis Masters Cup
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is a tennis tournament played at the end of each year, involving the top eight players in the men's tennis world rankings....
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
Shell Houston Open
The Shell Houston Open is a regular golf tournament on the PGA Tour. It is currently played in April at Redstone Golf Club in the Houston suburb of Humble, Texas. Shell and the Houston Golf Association are the main sponsors of the tournament...
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
Houston Bowl
The Houston Bowl is a now-defunct NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A college football bowl game that was played annually in Houston, Texas from 2000 to 2005. The game was originally known as the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in 2000 and 2001...
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
Texas Bowl
The Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, formerly known as the Texas Bowl, is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBS college football bowl game that was held for the first time in 2006 in Houston, Texas. The bowl replaced the now-defunct Houston Bowl, which was played annually from 2000 to 2005...
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
(MLS
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
), Houston Astros
Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...
(MLB
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
), Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
(NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
), Houston Comets
Houston Comets
The Houston Comets were a Women's National Basketball Association team based in Houston, Texas, United States. Formed in 1997, the team was one of the best original eight WNBA teams and won the first four championships of the league's existence. The Comets were the first dynasty of the WNBA and...
(WNBA
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association...
), Houston Aeros
Houston Aeros
The Houston Aeros are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. The team plays in Houston, Texas, at the Toyota Center. They are the AHL affiliate of the NHL's Minnesota Wild.- History :...
(AHL
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...
), and Houston Texans
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is currently a member of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
(NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
Champ Car
Champ Car was the name for a class and specification of open wheel cars used in American Championship Car Racing for many decades, primarily for use in the Indianapolis 500 auto race...
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park is a ballpark in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States that opened in 2000 to house the Major League Baseball Houston Astros....
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
Toyota Center (Houston)
The Toyota Center is an indoor arena located in downtown Houston, Texas. It is named after the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. The arena is home to the Rockets of the National Basketball Association, the principal owners of the building, and the Aeros of the American Hockey League.Rockets...
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Houston, Texas, USA. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of with of natural grass playing surface....
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
Hofheinz Pavilion
Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion, often known as simply Hofheinz Pavilion, is an 8,500-seat multi-purpose arena on the University of Houston campus in Houston, Texas. Located at 3875 Holman Street, it is home to the University of Houston Cougars men's and women's basketball teams as well as...
, Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
, and Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
's WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven was the seventeenth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 1, 2001 at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The event was the first WrestleMania held in the state of Texas...
on April 1, 2001.WWE: TV Shows > WrestleMania XXIV > History > WrestleMania XVII
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
won 2 back-to-back AFL
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer team is located in the San Jose, California, United States suburb of Santa Clara, and participates in Major League Soccer , the top level soccer league in the United States and Canada....
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
. They play at Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multipurpose...
can be finalized.
Media
KUHT
-Technical firsts:The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first closed captioned television station, and ten years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offer Descriptive Video Service , and other services...
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
Public Broadcast Service
The Public Broadcast Service is a government-owned educational radio and television broadcast service located in Barbados. Public Broadcast Service owns a radio station, 91.1FM and its television programming will be introduced in 2009....
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
member stations: KUHF
KUHF
KUHF is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(KUHF News) and KUHA
KUHA
KUHA is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 91.7 Megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
University of Houston System
The University of Houston System is a state university system in Texas, encompassing four separate and distinct universities. It has two system centers, which operate as and distance learning course delivery sites for its universities...
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
Houston Post
The Houston Post was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper was absorbed into the Houston Chronicle.-History:The newspaper was established on February 19, 1880, by Gail Borden Johnson...
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
Marvin Zindler
Marvin Harold Zindler was a news reporter for television station KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas, United States. His investigative journalism, through which he mostly represented the city's elderly and working class, made him one of the city's most influential and well-known media personalities.-Early...
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
KHOU-TV
KHOU is the CBS affiliate television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11...
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
, Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee is an American journalist who is most known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington, DC correspondent, host of the Nickelodeon network's Nick News, and reporter and co-anchor of NBC News Overnight, which was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as...
, and Jessica Savitch
Jessica Savitch
Jessica Beth Savitch was an American television broadcaster and news reporter, host of PBS' Frontline and New York weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News during the short-lived Roger Mudd/Tom Brokaw era....
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
Corporate welfare
Corporate welfare is a pejorative term describing a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations. The term compares corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less...
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
Car culture
Automobiles of all kinds have had enormous influence on Houston culture, largely a result of the urban sprawl and sparse public transportation that has followed the dismantling of the city's former trolley system. Many of the Houston's business districts, such as UptownUptown Houston
The Uptown District of Houston is located 6.2 miles west of downtown and is centered along Post Oak Boulevard, Westheimer Road , and the Galleria...
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
Edge city
"Edge city" is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community...
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
Houston Art Car Parade
The Houston Art Car Parade is an annual event in Houston, Texas, featuring a display of all types of rolling art. The first and largest Art Car parade in the world, at any given parade spectators will see cars, bicycles, motorcycles, roller-skaters, and many other types of motorized and...
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
Music
Ben Westhoff, author of Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers who Reinvented Hip-Hop, said that Houston is geographically isolated from other cities that have rap music traditions, so Houston rap music has its own slang and sound which does not "translate" in other regions. Many DJs like to severely slow down music and repeat lines several times, a style known as "screwed and chopped." Westhoff says that the style, which slurs the speeches of the rappers, gives the music an "extraterrestrial quality."Houston is a multicultural
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
city with a thriving international community supported by the third largest concentration of consular offices in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, representing 77 countries. Officially, Houston is nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
d the "Space City" as it is home to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
, where Mission Control Center
Mission Control Center
A mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
is located. Because of this, "Houston" was the first word spoken on the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. Many locals, however, prefer to call it the "Bayou City." Other nicknames include "H-Town", "Clutch City", and "Magnolia City".
About 90 languages are frequently spoken in the Houston area.Houston Facts. City of Houston Some neighborhoods with high populations of Vietnamese and Chinese residents have Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
street signs in addition to English ones. Houston has two Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s—the original located in Downtown and the other along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest area of the city. The city also has a Little Saigon
Little Saigon
Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, usually in the United States...
in Midtown
Midtown, Houston, Texas
Midtown is a district southwest of Downtown Houston, bordered by Neartown and U.S. Highway 59.-History:Around 1906 what is now Midtown was divided between the Third Ward and Fourth Ward. Before the 1950s what is now Midtown was a popular residential district. Increasingly, commercial development...
and Vietnamese businesses located in the southwest Houston Chinatown.
There are many popular events held in the city celebrating cultures of Houstonians. The largest is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, also called RodeoHouston, is the world's largest live entertainment and livestock exhibition. It also includes the richest regular-season rodeo event. It has been held at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, since 2003...
that is held over 20 days from late February through early March. The event begins with trail rides that originate from several points throughout the state, all of which convene at Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
for a barbecue cook-off. The rodeo includes typical rodeo events, as well as concert performances from major artists and carnival rides. Another large celebration is the annual Gay Pride Parade held at the end of June to commemorate the struggle for gay liberation, gay rights
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
, and the Stonewall riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
of the late 1960s in New York City. The event is held along Westheimer Road within Neartown
Neartown Houston
Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Neartown is roughly bounded by U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Bagby Street on the east, and Shepherd Drive to the west...
—home to many gay establishments, such as restaurants, bars, nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, and coffeehouse
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s. Other events held annually include the Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival
Houston Greek Festival was started in 1966 by the members of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral as a "Greek Night". The three day festival is held annually on the first weekend in October and features Greek food, live Greek music and Greek folk dances, as well as a gift shop and tours of the...
and Houston International Festival.
Arts and theatre
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
is ranked second in the country (behind New York City) in the number of theatre seats in a concentrated downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 movie seats.About Houston Theater District. Houston Theater District The Theater District is located in the heart of downtown and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations and six performance halls. Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
), ballet (Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet
The Houston Ballet, operated by the Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas. The foundation also maintains a ballet academy, the Ben Stevenson Academy, which trains more than half of the company's dancers...
), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre
Alley Theatre
The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning indoor theatre in Downtown Houston, Texas, and hosts two stages. The "Hubbard" is the main stage with seating for 824; the more intimate "Neuhaus" seats 310. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a staircase...
).Houston: Have a Blast. WorldWeb.com Travel Guide The city has visual and performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
organizations, along with a dose of homegrown folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
such as Art Cars.Art Car Museum - Houston, TX, 77007 - Citysearch Houston is widely recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
. The city is a stop for touring companies from Broadway, concerts, shows, and exhibitions for a variety of interests, ranging from the nation's largest quilting show to auto, boat, home, and gun shows.
Adjacent to the Texas Medical Center is the Museum District
Houston Museum District
The Houston Museum District commonly known as, “The Museum District,” is an association of museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the arts, sciences, and cultural amenities of the area.The Houston Museum District currently...
, which is home to most of the city's major museums: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, the Holocaust Museum Houston
Holocaust Museum Houston
The Holocaust Museum Houston, is located in Houston, Texas and was opened in 1996. The museum is located in the Houston Museum District.The museum is the fourth largest Holocaust memorial museum in the United States. The museum's mission is to make people aware of the dangers which prejudice,...
, the Children's Museum of Houston, Lawndale Art Center, the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and The Menil Collection
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston refers either to a museum that houses the private art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself...
. Approximately 4 million people visit institutions in the Museum District every year.
Houston is also home to several multicultural arts organizations including: MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts), Kuumba House Dance Theatre, and Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.
Tourism and recreation
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. The center consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on 1,620 acres in Houston, Texas, USA...
. Space Center Houston includes many interactive exhibits—including moon rocks and a shuttle simulator—in addition to special presentations that tell the story of NASA's manned space flight program.
The Theater District
Houston Theater District
The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine performing arts organizations, the Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks...
, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Houston, is home to Bayou Place Entertainment Complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. Bayou Place is a large multilevel building that is home to restaurants, bars, live music, billiards, theatres, and art house films. The Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre stages a variety of live concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s and the Angelika Theatre presents the latest in art, foreign, and independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
s.
Houston is home to many parks including Hermann Park
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston's most-visited public parks. Situated between Fannin Street and Cambridge Street, it is within walking distance from the Texas Medical Center, Rice University, and the Museum District, and within a few miles of the Third Ward, the historic Astrodome and Reliant Stadium...
, which houses the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
and the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, and Memorial Park
Memorial Park, Houston, Texas
Memorial Park, a municipal park in Houston, Texas, is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. Opened in 1924, the park covers approximately inside the 610 Loop, across from the neighborhood of Memorial. Memorial Drive runs through the park, heading east to downtown Houston and west to...
. What was once the Houston Civic Center was replaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center
George R. Brown Convention Center
The George R. Brown Convention Center opened on September 26, 1987 on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.The center was named for the prominent Houstonian George R. Brown, an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist. Brown’s Texas Eastern Corporation donated six of the 11...
, one of the nation's largest; and the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall have been replaced by the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
Other tourist
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
attractions include the Galleria
Houston Galleria
The Galleria, stylized theGalleria, is an upscale mixed-use urban development centrally located in the Uptown District of Houston, Texas, United States. The development consists of a retail complex, as well as the Galleria Office Towers complex, two Westin hotels, and a private health club...
, Texas' largest shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
located in the Uptown District; Old Market Square; Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park
Tranquility Park is a park in Downtown Houston, Texas, between Walker and Rusk Streets, and west of Smith Street, with the United States federal courts building for the Southern District of Texas on one side and Houston City Hall on the other...
; and Sam Houston Historical Park, which contains restored homes (built between 1824 and 1868) and reconstructed buildings. The San Jacinto Battlefield
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen...
is in the nearby city of Deer Park
Deer Park, Texas
Deer Park is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The city is located in Harris County and is situated in Southeast Texas. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Deer Park was 32,010....
.
Sports
Super Bowl VIII
Super Bowl VIII was a professional American football game played on January 13, 1974 at Rice Stadium. in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 1973 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Miami Dolphins defeated the National Football...
in 1974 and Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
30 years later in 2004, the 1989 NBA All-Star Game
1989 NBA All-Star Game
The 1989 NBA All-Star Game was held at Houston, Texas on February 12, 1989. The game's MVP was Karl Malone.The east was led by Mark Jackson, Kevin McHale, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins, Mark Price, Terry Cummings, Larry Nance and...
, the 1981
1981 NBA Finals
The 1981 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the 1980-81 NBA season, pitting the Boston Celtics against the Houston Rockets.-Houston Rockets:...
, 1986
1986 NBA Finals
The 1986 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1985-86 NBA season. It pitted the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics against the Western Conference champion Houston Rockets. The Celtics defeated the Rockets four games to two to win their 16th NBA championship. The championship would...
, 1994
1994 NBA Finals
The 1994 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1993–94 National Basketball Association season, featuring the Western Conference's Houston Rockets defeating the Eastern Conference's New York Knicks....
and 1995 NBA Finals
1995 NBA Finals
The 1995 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1994–95 NBA season. The series pitted the Orlando Magic against the Houston Rockets. The pre-series hype and build-up of the Finals was centered around the meeting of the two centers Shaquille O'Neal of the Magic and Hakeem Olajuwon of the Rockets...
(The hometown Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
winning the latter 2), 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 75th playing of the midseason exhibition baseball game between the all-stars of the American League and National League , the two leagues comprising Major League Baseball. The game was held on July 13, 2004 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas,...
, Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII
Super Bowl XXXVIII was an American football game played on February 1, 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 2003 regular season....
in 2004, 2005 World Series
2005 World Series
The 2005 World Series, the 101st Major League Baseball championship series, saw the American League champion Chicago White Sox sweep the National League champion Houston Astros four games to none in the best-of-seven-games series, winning their third championship and first since 1917.Home-field...
, the 2005 Big 12 Conference
Big 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
championship game, the 2006 NBA All-Star Game
2006 NBA All-Star Game
The 2006 NBA All-Star Game was played on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, home of the Houston Rockets. The game was the 55th annual All-Star game...
, and the Tennis Masters Cup
Tennis Masters Cup
The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is a tennis tournament played at the end of each year, involving the top eight players in the men's tennis world rankings....
in 2003 and 2004, and the annual Shell Houston Open
Shell Houston Open
The Shell Houston Open is a regular golf tournament on the PGA Tour. It is currently played in April at Redstone Golf Club in the Houston suburb of Humble, Texas. Shell and the Houston Golf Association are the main sponsors of the tournament...
. The city hosts the NCAA College Baseball Minute Maid Classic every February. Houston formerly hosted the NCAA football's Houston Bowl
Houston Bowl
The Houston Bowl is a now-defunct NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A college football bowl game that was played annually in Houston, Texas from 2000 to 2005. The game was originally known as the galleryfurniture.com Bowl in 2000 and 2001...
in December, but now hosts the Texas Bowl
Texas Bowl
The Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, formerly known as the Texas Bowl, is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBS college football bowl game that was held for the first time in 2006 in Houston, Texas. The bowl replaced the now-defunct Houston Bowl, which was played annually from 2000 to 2005...
in January.
Houston has a franchise in nearly every major professional sports league including: Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
(MLS
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
), Houston Astros
Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...
(MLB
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
), Houston Rockets
Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being...
(NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
), Houston Comets
Houston Comets
The Houston Comets were a Women's National Basketball Association team based in Houston, Texas, United States. Formed in 1997, the team was one of the best original eight WNBA teams and won the first four championships of the league's existence. The Comets were the first dynasty of the WNBA and...
(WNBA
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association...
), Houston Aeros
Houston Aeros
The Houston Aeros are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. The team plays in Houston, Texas, at the Toyota Center. They are the AHL affiliate of the NHL's Minnesota Wild.- History :...
(AHL
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League is a 30-team professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental circuit for the National Hockey League...
), and Houston Texans
Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is currently a member of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
(NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
).
In early 2006, the Champ Car
Champ Car
Champ Car was the name for a class and specification of open wheel cars used in American Championship Car Racing for many decades, primarily for use in the Indianapolis 500 auto race...
auto racing series returned to Houston for a yearly race, held on the streets of the Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
complex. The city had previously been home to a Champ Car round from 1998 to 2001.
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park
Minute Maid Park is a ballpark in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States that opened in 2000 to house the Major League Baseball Houston Astros....
(home of the Astros) and Toyota Center
Toyota Center (Houston)
The Toyota Center is an indoor arena located in downtown Houston, Texas. It is named after the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. The arena is home to the Rockets of the National Basketball Association, the principal owners of the building, and the Aeros of the American Hockey League.Rockets...
(home of the Rockets, Comets, and Aeros) are located downtown. The city has the first domed stadium in the United States, the Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, and also holds the NFL's first retractable roof stadium—Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Houston, Texas, USA. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of with of natural grass playing surface....
. Other sports facilities in Houston are Hofheinz Pavilion
Hofheinz Pavilion
Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion, often known as simply Hofheinz Pavilion, is an 8,500-seat multi-purpose arena on the University of Houston campus in Houston, Texas. Located at 3875 Holman Street, it is home to the University of Houston Cougars men's and women's basketball teams as well as...
, Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome
Reliant Astrodome, also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, is the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, USA. The stadium is part of the Reliant Park complex...
, Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
, and Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
. The now infrequently used Reliant Astrodome hosted World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
's WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven
WrestleMania X-Seven was the seventeenth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the World Wrestling Federation . It took place on April 1, 2001 at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The event was the first WrestleMania held in the state of Texas...
on April 1, 2001.WWE: TV Shows > WrestleMania XXIV > History > WrestleMania XVII
Houston has not had very much success when it comes to its sports teams, at least not lately. Its only successful team was the Houston Rockets, who won 2 consecutive championships from 1994-95. The Houston Oilers
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
won 2 back-to-back AFL
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
championships in 1960 and 1961, but never competed in the Super Bowl since the NFL-AFL merger. The Astros have one World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
appearance in 2005.
On December 15, 2005, the San Jose Earthquakes
San Jose Earthquakes
The San Jose Earthquakes professional soccer team is located in the San Jose, California, United States suburb of Santa Clara, and participates in Major League Soccer , the top level soccer league in the United States and Canada....
relocated to Houston and became the Houston Dynamo
Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo is an American professional soccer club, based in Houston, Texas, that plays in Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. Founded in 2005 as Houston 1836, the team name was renamed to Houston Dynamo following protests from Hispanic...
. They play at Robertson Stadium
Robertson Stadium
John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It is the home of the Houston Cougars football and women's soccer teams...
until plans for a soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multipurpose...
can be finalized.
Media
KUHT
-Technical firsts:The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first closed captioned television station, and ten years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offer Descriptive Video Service , and other services...
(HoustonPBS) is a PBS
Public Broadcast Service
The Public Broadcast Service is a government-owned educational radio and television broadcast service located in Barbados. Public Broadcast Service owns a radio station, 91.1FM and its television programming will be introduced in 2009....
member station and the first public television station in the United States. Houston Public Radio is listener-supported radio with two NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
member stations: KUHF
KUHF
KUHF is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(KUHF News) and KUHA
KUHA
KUHA is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 91.7 Megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
(Classical 91.7). KUHF is news/talk radio and KUHA is a classical music station. The University of Houston System
University of Houston System
The University of Houston System is a state university system in Texas, encompassing four separate and distinct universities. It has two system centers, which operate as and distance learning course delivery sites for its universities...
owns and holds broadcasting licenses to KUHT, KUHF, and KUHA. The stations broadcast from the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, located on the campus of the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
.
Houston is served by the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
, its only major daily newspaper with wide distribution. The Hearst Corporation, which owns and operates The Houston Chronicle, bought the assets of the Houston Post
Houston Post
The Houston Post was a newspaper that had its headquarters in Houston, Texas, United States. In 1995, the newspaper was absorbed into the Houston Chronicle.-History:The newspaper was established on February 19, 1880, by Gail Borden Johnson...
—its long-time rival and main competition—when it ceased operations in 1995. The only other major publication to serve the city is the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
, a free alternative weekly with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers.
KTRK's Marvin Zindler
Marvin Zindler
Marvin Harold Zindler was a news reporter for television station KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas, United States. His investigative journalism, through which he mostly represented the city's elderly and working class, made him one of the city's most influential and well-known media personalities.-Early...
was the most recognized television journalist in Houston and Texas. His week-long expose on the Chicken Ranch brothel became the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...
, and his consumer and health reports on local restaurants have made the phrase "slime in the ice machine" immediately recognizable to any local.
KHOU-TV
KHOU-TV
KHOU is the CBS affiliate television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11...
's investigative team, "The 11 News Defenders", began an investigation into the failure of Firestone Wilderness AT tires on several vehicles (including the Ford Explorer). These reports garnered the station and the team of Anna Werner, investigative producer David Raziq, and investigative photojournalist/editor Chris Henao several national awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, George Foster Peabody, and Columbia University DuPont Award. Among the journalists who have worked for KHOU, the best known are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
, Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee
Linda Ellerbee is an American journalist who is most known for several jobs at NBC News, including Washington, DC correspondent, host of the Nickelodeon network's Nick News, and reporter and co-anchor of NBC News Overnight, which was recognized by the jurors of the duPont Columbia Awards as...
, and Jessica Savitch
Jessica Savitch
Jessica Beth Savitch was an American television broadcaster and news reporter, host of PBS' Frontline and New York weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News during the short-lived Roger Mudd/Tom Brokaw era....
.
KXLN Houston's Spanish language Univision and its "En Su Defensa" (in your defense) segments have garnered regional acclaim, and "En Su Defensa" month was proclaimed by Mayor Bill White in 2004. Led by Investigative reporter Patricio Espinoza, the segment generated strong community following and historic ratings along with several Emmy awards through 2005.
Houston Not-For-Profit News is a subsidiary of World Internet News Cooperative. It is one of Houston's few non-profit news sources which receives no money from advertising. It totes itself as being unbiased with the ability to be more objective than the commercial news media due to the fact that it is not tied to advertisers. Stories covered by the cooperative range from consumer rights, to corporate welfare
Corporate welfare
Corporate welfare is a pejorative term describing a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations. The term compares corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less...
, to working-class issues. Their work has also been nominated for a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial journalism award.
Car culture
Automobiles of all kinds have had enormous influence on Houston culture, largely a result of the urban sprawl and sparse public transportation that has followed the dismantling of the city's former trolley system. Many of the Houston's business districts, such as UptownUptown Houston
The Uptown District of Houston is located 6.2 miles west of downtown and is centered along Post Oak Boulevard, Westheimer Road , and the Galleria...
and Greenspoint began their development as edge cities
Edge city
"Edge city" is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community...
. Furthermore, many notable neighborhoods also began as streetcar suburbs, including the Heights and Sharpstown Car culture is often celebrated by residents, especially during the annual Art Car Parade
Houston Art Car Parade
The Houston Art Car Parade is an annual event in Houston, Texas, featuring a display of all types of rolling art. The first and largest Art Car parade in the world, at any given parade spectators will see cars, bicycles, motorcycles, roller-skaters, and many other types of motorized and...
where many uniquely modified cars are paraded through the Heights neighborhood.
Music
Ben Westhoff, author of Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers who Reinvented Hip-Hop, said that Houston is geographically isolated from other cities that have rap music traditions, so Houston rap music has its own slang and sound which does not "translate" in other regions. Many DJs like to severely slow down music and repeat lines several times, a style known as "screwed and chopped." Westhoff says that the style, which slurs the speeches of the rappers, gives the music an "extraterrestrial quality."Westhoff, Ben. Dirty South: Outkast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers who Reinvented Hip-Hop. Chicago Review Press, 2011. 61.Cuisine
By 2005 USA TodayUSA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
referred to Houston as "the dining-out capital of the nation." Houstonians ate out at restaurants more often than residents of other American cities, and Houston restaurants have the second lowest average prices of restaurants of major cities. Tory Gattis of the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
said in 2005 that Houston has "a great restaurant scene." Gattis said that one factor contributing to the status is Houston's ethnic diversity, related to Houston's role as a major city of the energy industry, Houston's role as a port city, and Houston's proximity to Latin America and the Cajun areas of Louisiana. Gattis cited Houston's lack of zoning, which makes it easy for a business owner to start a restaurant as land is less expensive and there are fewer regulations and permitting rules. Gattis also cited Houston's freeway network, which, according to Gattis, puts restaurants within a 15-20 minute drive within the residences of most Houstonians during non-rush hour
Rush hour
A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute...
times. Gattis explained that the size of Greater Houston
Greater Houston
Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown is a 10-county metropolitan area defined by the Office of Management and Budget. It is located along the Gulf Coast region in the U.S. state of Texas...
's population allows the city to support niche ethnic restaurants and provides a large customer base for area restaurants. Also he stated that the competition in Houston's restaurant industry forces restaurants of lower quality to go out of business, leaving high quality restaurants open. The journalist explained that Houston's relatively low cost of living reduces labor costs for restaurants and allows its residents more leftover income that could be spent at restaurants. Jobs in Houston have relatively high salaries, Gattis explains that the wages help support Houston's restaurant market.Gattis, Tory. "Why does Houston have such a great restaurant scene?" Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
(originally posted in the "Houston Strategies" blog). Thursday, June 02, 2005. Re-posted in the Houston Chronicle on July 9, 2010. Retrieved on July 11, 2010.
Tex-Mex cuisine
Tex-Mex cuisine
"Tex-Mex" is a term used to describe a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by the cuisines of Mexico. The cuisine has spread from border states such as Texas and those in the Southwestern...
is very popular in Houston. Many Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
restaurants in Houston have aspects that originate from Texas culture. In his book Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, Arnoldo De León said that the recent immigrants from Mexico to Houston add foods that are popular with immigrants to menus of Mexican restaurants in Houston. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
said "You might say that the immigrant flow is what keeps the "Mex" in Tex-Mex." In Houston, as in other places in Texas, the existing Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
community influences the cooking methods used by recent immigrants.Walsh, Robb. "The Authenticity Myth." Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
. October 26, 2000. Retrieved on November 16, 2009.
As of 2010 many food truck
Food truck
A food truck, mobile kitchen, mobile canteen, or catering truck is a mobile venue that sells food. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell mostly frozen or prepackaged food; others are more like restaurants-on-wheels...
vendors are frequently forced to close by city regulations, and Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
stated that food truck vendors have difficulties obtaining licenses. A nonprofit organization called "Save Our Food Trucks" started to assist food truck vendors in navigating the municipal bureaucracy.Schilcutt, Katharine. "
These Men Want to Save You a Taco (Truck)." Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
. Friday November 19, 2010. 1. Retrieved on November 22, 2010.
Corporate involvement in culture
Members of the oil and gas industry are representatives of most of the boards of Houston's arts bodies, charities, and museums. The energy companies spent funds in order to make Houston a more attractive community for their employees to live in.Roman Catholicism
In 1911 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston brought the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a series of priests intended to minister to the Mexican population of Houston. In 1972 the church leaders and lay Hispanics in Houston participated in the Encuentro Hispano de Pastoral ("Pastoral Congress for the Spanish-speaking"). Robert R. Treviño, author of The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston, said that the event "stands as a watershed in the religious history of Mexican American Catholics in Houston".Treviño, Robert R. The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston. UNC Press Books, February 27, 2006. 9. Retrieved from Google Books on November 22, 2011. ISBN 0807856673, 9780807856673. Treviño also said that Mexican-American Catholics "competed for cultural space not only with the Anglo majority, which included various groups of white Catholics, but also with a large black population and a Mexican protestant presence as well."Treviño, Robert R. The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston. UNC Press Books, February 27, 2006. 10. Retrieved from Google Books on November 22, 2011. ISBN 0807856673, 9780807856673.Islam
While the majority of the city's population is Christian, Houston is also home to a significant number of Muslim Americans. Of the religious madrassas in the area, as of 2011, the Madrasah Islamia was the first established and the largest.Ravat, Safiya. "Muslim-American youth carry on tradition of Islamic study." Houston ChronicleHouston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
. June 2, 2011. Retrieved on June 5, 2011.
See also
- Culture of TexasCulture of TexasThe culture of Texas has been a melting pot of the "Southern" and Southwestern culture, with pockets of colonies of ethnic groups in Texas also has an influx of people fromNorth America moving in to find oil...
- Culture of Dallas
- Culture of San AntonioCulture of San AntonioThe culture of San Antonio, Texas has a vibrant art community that reflects the rich history and culture of the area. This unique city offers some of the best cultural institutions, events, restaurants and nightlife in South Texas that both natives and visitors enjoy.-Annual culture events:*...
External links
- The Italian Cultural and Community Center in Houston
- Opera in the Heights
- Asian Focus - Houston ChronicleHouston ChronicleThe Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
- Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
- Raindrop Turkish House, Houston
- Dominic Walsh Dance Theater