Bridging the Divide

In Houston, Thomas Woltz revitalizes and reunites public green space in need

- By Fred A. Bernstein

Houston's Memorial Park was meant to honor those who sacrificed their lives in World War I. But as the project approached its 2024 centennial it had become a memorial to its own landscape. Underfunded maintenance and prolonged drought had left most of its thousands of trees to die. The decimated 1,500-acre grounds weren't much to look at, as Houstonians learned from Memorial Drive, the highway that has divided it, unceremoniously, since the 1950s.