Брэсвуд Плейс: История и развитие района в округе Харрис, Техас.

Group of subdivisions in Harris County, Texas, United States

Braeswood Place is a group of subdivisions in Harris County, Texas, United States. The vast majority of the land is in Houston while a small part is in Southside Place. Braeswood Place is a mainly single family neighborhood inside the 610 Loop, east of the city of Bellaire, south of the cities of Southside Place and West University Place, west of the Texas Medical Center and the neighborhood of Old Braeswood, and north of the neighborhoods of Linkwood and Knollwood Village. Braeswood Place consists of approximately 2,200 homes and includes seven subdivisions: Ayrshire, Braes Heights, Braes Oaks, Braes Manor, Braes Terrace, Emerald Forest, and Southern Oaks.

The Braeswood Place Homeowners Association was charted in 1951. On September 19, 1988, a group of robbers murdered 66 year old Gloria Pastor in her Braeswood Place house. Police traced the first suspect to an apartment in the Link Valley area, less than 2 mile (3 km) away. The apartments were nicknamed "Death Valley" due to drug related crime. The Pastor murder led to members of the Braeswood Place community and other nearby communities into putting pressure on the city government, asking for a cleanup of the Link Valley area. As a result, police evicted criminal elements from Link Valley in a 1989 raid. [[File:House3859TartanLane. JPG|thumb|3859 Tartan Lane, the site of the murder of Gloria Pastor in 1988, which led to the cleanup of Link Valley New deed restrictions were put into place, two streets were closed and the area was developed into a neighborhood asset. SLRA created a master plan for the area and worked with the City of Houston and other independent entities to turn the once blighted blocks into a landscaped backdrop for several community activities. The facilities now located on the $42 million Stella Link Park community service corridor site include the neighborhood library, the Weekley YMCA, and the national headquarters for The Sheltering Arms senior citizens facility. The neighborhood was deeply impacted by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 which flooded about 500 of the community's 2,200 houses, which amounts to about 20% of the houses. Before Allison, the neighborhood had been in a slow transition from mostly 1950s style ranch homes to two story Colonial, Tudor, and Stucco houses. With the razing of many houses flooded by Allison, the transition pace quickly accelerated. Many upper middle class families moved into the newly built houses. In 2008 the Houston Press named the Stella Link Road area by Pershing Middle School as the "best hidden neighborhood."

Braeswood Place consists of approximately 2,200 homes and includes seven subdivisions: Ayrshire, Braes Heights, Braes Oaks, Braes Manor, Braes Terrace, Emerald Forest, and Southern Oaks. The community is in proximity to the Texas Medical Center and Rice Village.

Braes Heights, located west of Buffalo Speedway, consists of 13 sections, numbered 1 through 13. Blocks 1 and 2 of Section 1 are in the City of Southside Place. As of 1995 Braes Heights has 896 houses. Katherine Feser of the Houston Chronicle said that Braes Heights had "a broader range of properties" than Southern Oaks. A real estate agent quoted in a 2013 Houstonia article, Linda Marshall, stated that the lots are larger in Braes Heights than in West University Place, and that the prices are 30% lower in Braes Heights than in West University. Braes Oaks has lots that are larger than average and many trees that provide shade. As of 2002 Braes Oaks has 131 houses. The original houses consisted of ranch style houses. Most o the newer houses were two story pier and beam foundation houses. The newer houses were priced around $630,000 ($630000.0 in 2002 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in current money) around 2002. The houses range in size from to After Tropical Storm Allison, which flooded several Braes Oaks houses, some homeowners decided to tear down their houses, while others decided to rebuild. Katherine Feser of the Houston Chronicle said that the central location of Braes Oaks, the trees, and the large lots made Braes Oaks "prime". In Southern Oaks, lot sizes tend to be 10 15% larger than in other subdivisions in Braeswood Place. Southern Oaks has 248 houses. The original houses were built in the 1950s. Most houses are located on dead end streets and had two car garages. Many featured built in fireplaces, large bedrooms, closets small by standards in the year 2000, hardwood floors, and 1950s style glass doorknobs. In 2000 most homeowners decided to restore their older houses instead of tearing them down. Usually restorations involved adding master bedroom and bath suites and adding kitchens with finishes and luxury appliances. In 2000 Steve Anton, a real estate broker of Hallmark Properties, said that a general trend of increasing lot prices and the addition of expensive houses in the wider area increased the prices of Southern Oaks real estate values. The prices of Southern Oaks houses in good condition ranged from $190,000 ($190000.0 in 2000 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in current money) to $300,000 ($300000.0 in 2000 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in current money). The price per square foot ranged from $100 ($100.0 in 2000 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in current money) to $140 ($140.0 in 2000 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in current money). Homeowners in Southern Oaks are required to buy flood insurance.

Harris County Precinct One, headed by Commissioner Rodney Ellis, serves Braeswood Place. Patrol services are privately contracted to the Harris County Precinct 1 Constable's Office. and represented by Ann Johnson. Braeswood Place is within District 17 of the Texas Senate. Braeswood Place is within Texas's 7th congressional district. As of 2018, the representative is Lizzie Fletcher. Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) operates bus services in Braeswood Place. Bus routes 2 Bellaire, 4 Beechnut, 8 South Main, and 68 Brays Bayou Crosstown serve the community. Harris Health System (formerly Harris County Hospital District) designated Martin Luther King Health Center in southeast Houston for ZIP code 77025. The nearest public hospital is Ben Taub General Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

Many of the businesses serving area residents are along West Holcombe Boulevard. The Braes Heights Shopping Center, a two story, mid century modern shopping center, is located in the nearby City of Southside Place. In 2012 the Houston Press ranked the center the "Best Strip Mall 2012" due to its abundance of small businesses that made the editors feel nostalgic. The editors said "In many ways, Braes Heights seems more like Rice Village than Rice Village" because many iconic small businesses had left Rice Village by 2012. Next door to McGovern Park are two HISD schools, Mark Twain Elementary School and John J. Pershing Middle School. The original Mark Twain campus, which was built in the 1950s, was demolished to make way for a new campus in 2006. The original Pershing Middle School campus was also demolished, replaced with a new campus that opened in January 2007. Parts of Braeswood Place north of the Brays Bayou (including Braes Heights, Braes Oaks, and Ayrshire) are zoned to Twain Elementary. Parts south of the bayou (including Braes Manor and Braes Terrace) are zoned to Longfellow Elementary. Longfellow is in Braes Manor Section 1. All parts of Braeswood Place are zoned to Pershing Middle. Any student zoned to Pershing may apply to Pin Oak Middle School's (of the city of Bellaire) regular program. Pupils east of Stella Link (including Braes Heights, Braes Oaks) are zoned to Lamar High School in the Upper Kirby district of Houston while students west of Stella Link or south of Brays Bayou (including Ayrshire and Braes Terrace) are zoned to Bellaire High School in the city of Bellaire. The Rice School, a magnet public school, is located just east of Braeswood Place.

The original campus of Twain was a red brick building. Originally Twain's magnet program was focused on after school programs. In the 1980s parents in the area considered Twain to be an undesirable school. In 1986 a group of parents at Bethany United Methodist Weekday School decided to organize the group Friends of Mark Twain to call for an improvement in Twain and lobbied on its behalf. The school's reputation improved and, according to former principal Joyce Dauber, by 1996 75% of the parents of students lived in the school's neighborhood. In 1995 Jim Ainsworth, a resident quoted in the Houston Chronicle, said "There's been a real resurgence in the schools. The biggest problem that we found was perception because of a lack of a peer group for both kids and parents. That has changed a lot and is continuing to change as more kids go to the school." St. Mark's Episcopal School in the city of West University Place is also nearby.

thumb|left|The John P. McGovern Stella Link Branch of the Houston Public Library
The McGovern Stella Link Branch of the Houston Public Library is located at 7405 Stella Link Road. The library, named after physician John P. McGovern, opened on January 8, 2005. The Houston Business Journal awarded the library a Landmark Award for Community Impact in 2006. In 2007 and 2010 the Houston Press ranked the branch the "Best Public Library Branch." The McGovern Library closed after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017. Its tentative reopening is in 2019.

The Houston Chronicle is the area regional newspaper. The West University Examiner is a local newspaper distributed in the community
The Village News and Southwest News is a local newspaper distributed in the community. In the mid 20th century the community newspaper Southwestern Times served the Braeswood area and surrounding communities. The paper was headquartered in Rice Village.