Real Magazine: Old West Austin & Clarksville Profile

This neighborhood profile came out in REAL magazine last week.

The inveterate walker soon discovers that Old West Austin is a wonderland of nooks, crannies, alleys, backstreets, side streets, dead ends and steep, hidden arroyos.

“We have very narrow streets,” says Ed Jordan, whose family first moved to West Seventh Street in 1943. “The neighborhood dates back to the turn of the 20th century when we still used horses and buggies to get around. My family’s chicken yard still has a horse stall and a buggy gate opening into the alley.”

One neighborhood alley has been transformed into a garden. Others are so well-populated with garage apartments, granny cottages and fanciful additions they could pass for full streets.

Want authentic character? Old West Austin — like its smaller, historical coeval Clarksville — delivers it emphatically between North Lamar and MoPac (Loop 1) boulevards, Enfield Road and Lady Bird Lake

“The mix of history, people and lifestyles has worked for me at every stage of my life,” says former Austin City Council Member Randi Shade. “And I am guessing it always will. I loved being here when I was single, but I also love raising my children here. I have neighbors I adore of all ages and races, and am always learning new things from them.”

Treaty Oak, once part of a sacred live oak grove where Comanche and Tonkawa met, reminds visitors that the area’s history goes back hundreds of years.

Old West Austin’s residential beginnings, however, mirror those of East Austin’s. Castle Hill, located above Shoal Creek, offered Austinites a breezy respite from the heat, damp and bugs of the River City, much as did Robertson Hill to the east of downtown.

That western hill, named after the castle-like main building of the Texas Military Institute built in 1870, overlooked rolling hills and valleys in each direction. Near its crenelated tower rose gracious late 19th-century and early 20th-century houses, from grand Victorians to elegant bungalows, some of the best samples strung along a decorated retaining wall on Baylor Street.

Early on, streetcars carried commuters to and from what is now called the West Line Historic District here. A big railroad also cut through the southern rim of Old West Austin. A half-forgotten industrial zone lined it. Among the only reminders is the empty brick Tips Iron and Steel building, now shoehorned between the Amtrak station and the Mexican Consulate.

Above a hollow to the west of Castle Hill is Clarksville, originally a freetown founded by Charles Clark in 1871. It housed former slaves from the Pease Plantation, which was headquartered at the Greek Revival mansion known as Woodlawn or the Pease Mansion, beautifully restored and located to the north in the Old Enfield neighborhood.

Although Clarksville’s closely spaced board-and-batten houses now share the land with newer, larger houses, the area retains much of its historic character. African American residents remained loyal to the community despite the City of Austin’s 1928 attempt to remove them to East Austin by denying them municipal services here.

Clarksville’s soulful Sweet Home Baptist Church still goes strong.

Some residents vehemently resist the temptation to conflate Clarksville with Old West Austin. Yet geographically they closely coexist and they share the same neighborhood association, complemented by the Clarksville Community Development Corp.

Most Austinites, however, know the area from the broad retail thoroughfares — West Sixth and West Fifth streets as well as North Lamar Boulevard. Commuters also pass briskly along West Cesar Chavez Street, whizzing past the YMCA, Austin High School and the Austin Pets Alive animal shelter.

So many hot spots line the bigger streets, it’s hard to keep track. Among the most familiar day and night stops are Wink, Z Tejas, Clark’s Oyster Bar, Amy’s Ice Cream, Corazon, Cafe Josie, 24 Diner, Counter Cafe, El Interior, Sweetish Hill, By George, El Arroyo, Cipollina, Fresh Plus Grocery, Mean-Eyed Cat, Waterloo Records, Emeralds, Wiggy’s, Third Base Sports Bar and several art galleries.

“We are grateful they are here,” resident Janice Burckhardt says. “And I do, in fact, cook some, too! But the area dining nearby is easy and wonderful, and we often run into friends and neighbors who are living the same kind of life we are. This is important to us, as working from the home can be isolating.”

Deeper inside the neighborhood, slim West Lynn Street buzzes with businesses old and new — Nau’s Enfield Drug, Caffe Medici, Galaxy Cafe, Zocalo Cafe, Sledd Nursery and the reborn Jeffrey’s restaurant, for instance.

Otherwise, the calm and center of Old West Austin is sweet little West Austin Park, which includes a fenced leash-free area, a pool and a restored Tudor Revival bathhouse.

A neighborhood as authentic as this one — and as close to downtown — has attracted plenty of would-be developers and defenders.

“We are all pretty vigilant about what tries to come into our inner neighborhood areas,” Jordan says. “Without this vigilance we could end up like the area from Lamar to downtown — all of the housing stock is now filled with offices and the like.”

Truth be told, many latter-day additions altered the neighborhood fabric in fairly sensitive ways. A brightly colored storage facility on West Sixth, however, continues to attract disapprobation. Noise, parking and traffice problems have not missed this area.

A succession of beatniks, hippies, yuppies and hipsters have already renovated most of the housing here.

“It is truly an old-fashioned neighborhood,” says Mary Reed, who has lived and worked here since 1989. “With a strong sense of community and caring, where people know one another, retailers greet their patrons by name, there are kids playing in the street and in the park, people walk, rather than drive everywhere.”

What’s the biggest challenge then?

“Dealing with change — true anywhere — but especially in Austin,” Shade says. “I have neighbors whose families have lived here for multiple generations. They have seen everything under the sun — good and bad — and are typically far more friendly and open-minded when it comes to change than many of the folks who got here in the ’80s and resent Austin’s growth so much that they spend more time imposing their will on others than they do being neighborly.”

Old West Austin and Clarksville

Founded: 1870s

2010 population: 4,434

Look: Extremely eclectic mix of Victorians, bungalows, cottages, brick houses, ranch homes and multi-family complexes. Heavy retail along thoroughfares to east and south.

Sources: City of Austin, Old West Austin Neighborhood Association

Photos by Ralph Barrera