Hyde Park, Austin, Texas

Encyclopedia : H : HY : HYD : Hyde Park, Austin, Texas

Hyde Park is a historic neighborhood in Central Austin, located just north of The University of Texas. The neighborhood was originally developed in 1891 as a streetcar suburb with a large artifical lake by Monroe Martin Shipe, but it has since become one of the most densely populated areas in the city's urban core. While the lake has since been filled in, it is known for its beautiful tree-lined streets and its great diversity of residents, buildings and land uses.

Before the creation of Hyde Park, the State Fair of Texas was held in the eastern sections of Hyde Park from 1875 until it moved to Dallas in 1884. A portion of the State Fair's horesracing track exists as the curved segment of 39th Street between Avenue F and Duval Street. The Shipe House, also known as Shadowlawn, was built on this curve using the style and the actual wood from the grandstands.

In 1892 sculptor Elisabet Ney built a small studio, named Formosa, in northwest Hyde Park. The studio is now the home of the Elisabet Ney Museum.

In recent years, Hyde Park has gone through a revitalization period. As Austin has grown, Hyde Park's close location to the University of Texas at Austin and downtown has increased the pricing of houses in this area. In 2006 the median house price in Hyde Park was $309,902 and the median price per square foot was $240.

References

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.