page_title: Downtown Houston
section_title: Parks, recreation, and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Downtown Houston / Parks, recreation, and culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Tranquility Park
context_page_description: Downtown is the largest business district in Houston, Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10, Interstate 45, and Interstate 69. The 1.84-square-mile district, enclosed by the aforementioned highways, contains the original townsite of Houston at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou, a point known as Allen's Landing. Downtown has been the city's preeminent commercial district since its founding in 1836.
  Today home to nine Fortune 500 corporations, Downtown contains 50 million square feet of office space and is the workplace of 150,000 employees. Downtown is also a major destination for entertainment and recreation. Nine major performing arts organizations are located within the 13,000-seat Theater District at prominent venues including Alley Theatre, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Jones Hall, and the Wortham Theater Center. Two major professional sports venues, Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center, are home to the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets, respectively. Discovery Green, an urban park located on the east side of the district adjacent to the George R.
context_section_description: Downtown contains fifteen public parks, varying from linear parks along Buffalo Bayou to block parks and plazas.
  
  On the west side of Downtown along Bagby Street, Sam Houston Park is home to the Houston Heritage Society, which maintains a collection of historic houses from throughout the city's history. Nearby, Tranquility Park uses open green spaces and a series of interconnected fountains to commemorate NASA's landing on the moon's Sea of Tranquility. These parks tie into the larger civic complex anchored by City Hall and the main branch of Houston Public Library.
  In the Historic District to the north, Market Square Park occupies a block formerly covered by Houston's open air market which fronted the old City Hall. Renovations completed in 2010 added two dog runs, a Greek restaurant, and Houston's only memorial to the September 11 attacks.
  Buffalo Bayou's route through Downtown contains multiple parks which segue together to form a continuous greenway. Allen's Landing, near the intersection of Smith and Preston, commemorates the landing site of the Allen brothers, the New York entrepreneurs who founded the city. Sesquicentennial Park, across Buffalo Bayou from Allen's Landing, commemorates the 150-year anniversary of the city's founding. The park contains a statue of former President George H. W. Bush, who represented a portion of west Houston during his time in the United States House of Representatives.
  In the Convention District, Discovery Green, immediately west of the George R. Brown Convention Center, contains an amphitheater, two restaurants, a dog run, a jogging trail, multiple lawns, and an artificial lake on nearly 12 acres (49,000 m²) of land. Since its opening in 2008, Discovery Green has become one of Downtown's main attractions, hosting approximately 1.2 million visitors a year and serving as one of the city's premier public spaces. Discovery Green's environs, formerly covered by surface parking lots, have seen over US$600 million in new development since the park's opening.
  A number of other smaller parks and plazas are spread throughout Downtown. Main Street Square is a pedestrian-only promenade with a reflection pool and fountains on the METRORail line between Lamar and Dallas streets. Near the Toyota Center, Root Square occupies a single block and features a public basketball court. Harris County Precinct One operates the 2-acre (8,100 m²) Quebedeaux Park near the county court complex. The park includes a stage area, picnic tables, and benches. The park surrounds the Harris County Family Law Center.
  Downtown hosts a branch of the YMCA, featuring a center for teenagers, a wellness center for females, a child watch area, a community meeting space, a chapel, group exercise rooms, and a racquetball court. The Downtown YMCA has provided dormitory space for around 100 years.
  Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press said in 2012 that because of the Houston tunnel system taking traffic during the daytime and many office workers leaving for suburbs at night, many street level restaurants in Downtown Houston have difficulty operating. She added that the popularity of business-related lunches and dinners resulted in steakhouses in Downtown becoming successful.
  In 2018 the street artist Dual made a mural representing Produce Row, which was a group of produce businesses on Commerce Street, on the Main & Co. building; at the time the area was in the first ward.
caption: Tranquility Park
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "FE100,X710", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.2", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:19 23:49:20", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "840", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3556", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4520", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:19 23:49:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:08:19 23:49:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "317/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "31/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3432", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}