Comments (3) Best Place to People-Watch - 2009
Hermann Park
Though thankfully Jim Crow ended generations ago, Houston is still often a segregated city, by social class if not by race. One of the few places you can see the 21st-century international mega-city in all its cosmopolitan glory is Hermann Park. There a typical day will find black families grilling out, Persian-American women riding pedal-boats, classrooms-full of field-tripping Hispanic kids aboard the somewhat new and improved choo-choo, and Rice students of every hue making eyes at one another over picnic baskets. The park sits at the crossroads of extreme wealth (the exclusive old-school gated enclave Shadyside and Broadacres) and more down-to-earth areas l ike close-by Third Ward. Arts in the form of the Museum District line the northern end of Hermann's sylvan setting; science in the form of the Texas Medical Center lines the south; and general knowledge in the form of Rice borders on the west. Everyone from all these walks of life meets in the middle, which is why Hermann is such a nonstop parade of varied humanity.
