THIRD WARD, TX
The left-for-dead Third Ward neighborhood in Houston’s inner-city stirs to new life when a group of African-American artists found Project Row Houses. First, they clean up around a row of condemned shotgun houses and hold a “Drive By” exhibition of paintings on the fronts of the abandoned homes. The artists show up every day, and soon others join in. Eventually, they purchase 22 houses on two blocks with a down payment from an NEA grant. Then they do something really unusual. They ask the community what it needs—and listen to the answers.
Third Ward TX explores how this tidy little row of born-again houses, glowing in the Texas sun, has become home to cutting-edge public art and a home-grown challenge to traditional notions of community development. In fact this neighborhood becomes such a stimulating place...it begins to attract deep-pocket real estate developers. By 2006, big development threatens to destroy the very qualities that make the neighborhood so vital. The bold and creative response of Project Row Houses is a gambit that just might work.
Told in their own words, this moving story introduces you to unforgettable people from the Third Ward: artists, young mothers, children and long-time residents. They talk of their fears and their hopes, and we see what this place means to them.
Third Ward TX is funded in part by HoustonPBS, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), the National Endowment for the Arts, the Houston Endowment, Humanities TX, the Houston Endowment, The City of Austin Cultural Arts Division and other public and private sources. Third Ward TX is a competition selection for the AFI Dallas International Film Festival.