Congress Avenue Historic District | |
Location | Congress Ave. from 1st to 11th Sts., Austin, Texas |
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Coordinates | 30°16′4″N97°44′33″W / 30.26778°N 97.74250°W |
Area | 38.3 acres (15.5 ha) |
Built | 1839 |
Architect | Multiple |
Architectural style | Late Victorian, Skyscraper |
NRHP reference No. | 78002989 [1] |
Added to NRHP | August 11, 1978 |
Congress Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Austin, Texas. The street is a six-lane, tree lined avenue that cuts through the middle of the city from far south Austin and goes over Lady Bird Lake leading to the Texas State Capitol in the heart of Downtown.
Congress Avenue south of Lady Bird Lake is known as South Congress, often abbreviated to SoCo, [2] and is an increasingly popular shopping and rental district. It passes the historic Travis Heights neighborhood, the Texas School for the Deaf, and St. Edward's University as it passes south out of town.
The original 1839 Waller Plan for the city designed Congress Avenue to be Austin's central and most prominent street, and named in honor of the Republic-era Congress. Early structures along Congress Avenue included government buildings, hotels, saloons, retail stores and restaurants. By the late 1840s after statehood, "The Avenue" formed a well-established business district. The mid-1870s introduced gaslight illumination and mule-driven streetcars as well as construction of a new Travis County courthouse at Eleventh Street. The present Texas Capitol at the north end of Congress Avenue was built in 1888. The original dirt street was bricked in 1910. Trolley cars operated on the Avenue until 1940.
Before Interstate 35 was completed in the 1960s, Congress Avenue was the primary road to reach Austin from the south. Certain landmarks such as the Austin Motel identify the road as a major thoroughfare for travellers through the mid-20th century.
Congress Avenue begins at an intersection with Slaughter Lane near Interstate 35. It heads to the north-northeast, diverging away from I-35. This portion of Congress from Slaughter Lane north to the Williamson Creek bridge is maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation and carries the Loop 275 designation. After the intersection with Stassney Lane, the road heads to the northeast, now parallel to I-35. Congress Avenue passes over the US 290/SH 71 freeway (locally called Ben White Boulevard) as it travels to the northeast. Continuing to the northeast, it passes by St. Edward's University and goes through the namesake South Congress district before crossing over Lady Bird Lake (Colorado River) by way of the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge. The street continues northeast through downtown Austin to 11th Street at the Texas State Capitol. At the Capitol, it splits into a one-way pair, with the northbound lanes going around the east side of the Capitol, and the southbound lanes going around the west side. (This portion of Congress between 11th and 15th Streets has been permanently closed to auto traffic since 2001.) The street merges back to a 2-way street northeast of the Capitol and continues heading to the northeast. It continues for several more blocks before coming to an end at the University of Texas at Austin campus at Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard. [3]
The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake houses the world's largest urban bat population. When the bridge was refurbished in the 1980s, the new design created crevices underneath the structure that happened to be ideal for bats to roost in. In the summer, the colony has up to 1.5 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats. The bats can be seen emerging by the thousands from under the bridge every evening throughout the summer, before they eventually migrate to Mexico for the winter. [4]
In recognition of its architectural and historical significance, Congress Avenue from Cesar Chavez Street (formerly First Street) to the Capitol was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The Capitol forms a terminating vista at the north end of Congress; this view became one of the Capitol View Corridors protected under state and local law from obstruction by tall buildings in 1983. [5]
Cesar Chavez Street is the former First Street. [6]
Congress Avenue is the setting for Quentin Tarantino's 2007 film, Death Proof.
Lady Bird Lake is a river-like reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, United States. The City of Austin created the reservoir in 1960 as a cooling pond for a new city power plant. The lake, which has a surface area of 416 acres (168 ha), is now used primarily for recreation and flood control. The reservoir is named in honor of former First Lady of the United States Lady Bird Johnson.
U.S. Route 290 is an east–west U.S. Highway located entirely within the state of Texas. Its western terminus is at Interstate 10 southeast of Segovia, and its eastern terminus is at Interstate 610 in northwest Houston. It is the main highway between Houston and Austin and is a cutoff for travelers wanting to bypass San Antonio on Interstate 10. Throughout its length west of Austin, US 290 cuts across mountainous hills comprising the Texas Hill Country and the Edwards Plateau; between Austin and Houston, the highway then travels through gradually hilly grasslands and pine forests comprising the Gulf Coastal Plains.
Loop 1 is a freeway which provides access to the west side of Austin in the U.S. state of Texas. It is named Mopac Expressway after the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Local residents almost always use the name "MoPac" rather than calling the road by its number, which can cause much confusion, for few signs along the road use this name.
The Lamar Boulevard Bridge is a historic arch bridge carrying Texas State Highway Loop 343 over Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas, United States. The bridge features six open-spandrel concrete arches spanning 659 feet (201 m) and carries tens of thousands of vehicles daily across the lake. Completed in 1942, the Lamar Boulevard Bridge was the second permanent bridge to cross the Colorado River, and one of the last Art Deco-style open-spandrel concrete arch bridges built in Texas. The bridge was named an Austin Landmark in 1993 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge crosses over Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Before construction of the Longhorn Dam was completed in 1960, the bridge crossed the Colorado River from which Lady Bird Lake is impounded. The bridge was known as the Congress Avenue Bridge from the construction of the first span across the Colorado River at that location in the late 19th century until November 16, 2006, when the Austin City Council renamed the current bridge in honor of Ann W. Richards, the 45th Governor of Texas and a long-term resident of Austin. The bridge is a concrete arch bridge with three southbound and three northbound vehicle lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.
Interstate 35 (I-35) is a major north–south Interstate Highway that runs from Laredo, Texas near the Mexican border to Duluth, Minnesota. In Texas, the highway begins in Laredo and runs north to the Red River north of Gainesville, where it crosses into Oklahoma. Along its route, it passes through the cities of San Antonio, Austin, and Waco before splitting into two branch routes just north of Hillsboro: I-35E heads northeast through Dallas, while I-35W turns northwest to run through Fort Worth. The two branches rejoin in Denton to again form I-35, which continues to the Oklahoma state line. The exit numbers for I-35E maintain the sequence of exit numbers from the southern segment of I-35, and the northern segment of I-35 follows on from the sequence of exit numbers from I-35E. I-35W maintains its own sequence of exit numbers.
Loop 275 is a 9.454-mile (15.215 km), two-segment, state-maintained roadway located in Austin, Texas.
Loop 343 is a 5.186-mile (8.346 km) state-maintained roadway located in Austin, Texas.
Downtown Austin is the central business district of Austin, Texas, United States. The area of the district is bound by Lamar Boulevard to the west, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north, Interstate 35 to the east, and Lady Bird Lake to the south.
Northwest Hills, sometimes referred to as Far West after its main street, is a suburban neighborhood in the northwestern part of Austin, Texas, United States.
South Congress is a neighborhood located on South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, United States. It is also a nationally known shopping and cultural district known for its many eclectic small retailers, restaurants, music and art venues and, more recently, food trucks.
Cesar Chavez Avenue is a major east–west thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, the Eastside and East Los Angeles, measuring 6.19 miles (9.96 km) in length. Named in honor of union leader César Chávez, the street was formed in 1994 from Sunset Boulevard between Figueroa and Main streets, a new portion of roadway, Macy Street between Main Street and Mission Road, and Brooklyn Avenue through Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles into Monterey Park.
South River City is a community located in Austin, Texas. Also frequently called Travis Heights, the neighborhood is located south of the city's urban core, just below Lake Lady Bird in South Austin. The area encompasses a portion of ZIP code 78704.
East César Chávez, historically and originally named Masontown or Masonville, is a neighborhood in Austin, Texas. It is located in the central-east part of Austin's urban core on the north bank of the Colorado River. The neighborhood encompasses much of ZIP code 78702.
The James D. Pfluger Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge is a shared use bridge for pedestrians and cyclists spanning Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas. Opened in 2001, the bridge connects the north and south sides of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail and features an unusual "double curve" design. The bridge runs parallel to the Lamar Boulevard Bridge, which carries road traffic across the lake roughly 200 feet (61 m) to the west.
Project Connect is a transit expansion program by the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (CapMetro) in Austin, Texas, U.S. The program was approved by voters on November 3, 2020, in a local election concurrent with the 2020 presidential election.
The 1839 Austin city plan is the original city plan for the development of Austin, Texas, which established the grid plan for what is now downtown Austin. It was commissioned in 1839 by the government of the Republic of Texas and developed by Edwin Waller, a Texian revolutionary and politician who would later become Austin's first mayor.