Sprucing up historic downtown

Market Square Park will get a makeover

Lauren Griffith Associates
Lauren Griffith Associates
Lauren Griffith Associates
Lauren Griffith Associates

Over the years, Market Square Park in downtown Houston has been redesigned several times, but the result has always seemed to miss the mark. This time, planners are hoping to get it right.

A sizable crowd was packed tight under a tent in drizzly, overcast weather Tuesday for a groundbreaking ceremony at the historic park in a scene sure to be different from the one there next summer when the new design is completed.

Houston Downtown Management District officials laid out plans for the new park, which will be designed by Lauren Griffith Associates (the same landscape architecture team behind Discovery Green). At the center, a central lawn will be established where the old City Hall once stood. And in a nod to the growing number of downtown residents with pets, a crescent-shaped dog run is planned near Milam street.

Existing art in the park will be moved and updated, with a new installation to come from Houston sculptor Ketria Scott. She will contribute a sculpture to Lauren's Garden, a memorial to Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas, a Houstonian who was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Grandcolas was a passenger on United Flight 93, the hijacked airplane that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside. Grandcola's parents, who live in Houston, were present for the groundbreaking. The garden will include a fountain and a memorial to all victims of the 2001 tragedy.

Niko Niko's Greek & American Café is also in negotiations to operate a small restaurant in the park.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”