Live Oak
Tree Allée

The Live Oak Allée that lines Houston’s Main Street represents a comprehensive vision of how a well-developed, civic landscape plan can survive despite nearly 100 years of change and development.
City officials commissioned Massachusetts landscape architect Arthur Comey to prepare a comprehensive park plan for Houston in 1913. Several features of the plan, including the development of the extensive Hermann Park, the Main Street traffic circle, and double rows of live oak plantings along Main Street between the park and Rice University were eventually executed. The initial Main Street plantings led to a flurry of organized street tree plantings around Houston and helped develop the urban canopy that encompasses much of the downtown today. While the boulevard has grown into a busy corridor, the trees remain an untouched testament to the vision of green space in urban centers that was developed nearly a century ago. Today, the majestic trees are threatened daily by the tremendous vehicular traffic that the boulevard supports, yet, they continue to thrive, proving that cars and trees can coexist.