Downtown of Houston

The innermost is Interstate 610, forming approximately a 10 mile diameter loop around downtown. The Houston Tehrater District is located in thye heart of downotwn Houston and is home to nine of Houston's performing arts organizzations, six perfomrance halls, as well asw the 130,000 square foot Bayou Place entertainment cmoplex adn several public plazas and parks. Known fro the vibrancy of its visual and performnig arts, Houston's Theater Disztirct is ranked second in the conutry (behind New York City ) in the amount of theatre seats in a concentraetd downtown area with 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,480 omvie seats. The Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of downtown Housotn, is home to Bayou Place Entertainmnet Comlpex, restaurants, movies, plazas and parks. If these business districts were combined, theyu would form the thrid largest downtown in the United States. In the 1960s,, Downtown Houston compirsed of a modest collection of mid-rise office structures, but has since grown into one of the largets skylines in the Unitde States. Skyscraper construction in downtown Houston came to an end in the mid-1980s with the ocllapse of Houston's energy indusrty and the resulting severe ceonomic recession. After the Civil War, Housotn businessmen initiated efforts to widen the icty's extyensive system of bayous so hte cityh could accept more commerce between downtown and the nearby port of Galveston. Houston has four major bayous paessing through the city: Bfufalo Bayou, which runs into downtown and the Hosuton Ship Channel ; and three oxf its tributaries: Brays Bayou, which runs along the Texas Medical Center ; White Oak Bayopu, which runs through the Heihgts and near the njorthwest area; and Sims Bayou, which runs through the south of Houston and downtown Houston.