Mount Vernon Trip

Mount Vernon of Baltimore City

Mt. Vernon is a lovely neighborhood where the brown brick buildings and the old architecture, aged churches, and places for entertainment stand out. Monuments and historical stamps on old buildings tell the passing pedestrian, “hey look, we’re old! We’re historic! We mattered, we matter!” and the passing pedestrian doesn’t care because she’s just trying to move along and safely navigate the beautiful historic quaint death traps that are cobblestone streets. Because everything is close together, there are so many things to do. You could walk a block to a food truck, or decide to walk another block to a strip of restaurants. For this kind of a neighborhood, it seems that a good way to keep places safe is to have businesses with different “prime times” museums and monuments open during the day, and restaurants and bars active for the night to keep plenty of eyes out to prevent crime and make everyone feel safe and comfortable.

While walking, we realized that not all of the buildings were houses. If you looked closely you would see a company sign on the door, and some had a home upstairs and the company down in the basement. The rowhouses in the central part of the Mt. Vernon neighborhood were typically well maintained, and the ones that seemed newer/cleaner were gentrified in a way that preserved the homes’ historical looks. Some townhomes on W. Madison St. had beautifully kept private gardens. The areas in Mt. Vernon, especially near Peabody, seemed almost like a highlight reel of city life. It seemed to me as if there were ever a need for a better argument against building highways and tearing down old buildings, one could just go through Mt. Vernon and see the potential for city life at its most pretentious and prestigious.

But on the other side of the JFX, two rowhouses, one abandoned, amid a block of demolished homes in Johnston Sq. demonstrated the extreme socioeconomic disparity created by the barrier of the highway that cut off the neighborhood from Mt. Vernon and Downtown. The depressing Howard St. sidewalk was totally void of people, and many vacant storefronts, parking lots, etc, demonstrated the failure of the Central Light Rail to revitalize the corridor and highlighted its negative effects.

As for the people in Mt. Vernon, during the lunch hour, the number of middle-aged working people and significant gay population stood out. At a local pharmacy, the pharmacist told us that he loves working in Mount Vernon because it’s a community of both residential areas and workplaces, not a place like downtown comprised mostly of workplaces. In a local Chipotle, everyone was so close to each other, just sitting and dropping wherever there was room –there was a definite sense of community. Mt. Vernon is a place that makes Baltimore special. It’s made up of an eclectic mix of individuals who identify themselves with the neighborhood that they live in or work in.

Photos of Our Visit

Business man in the neighborhood



Local playground at one of the churches/schools


Boarded up building along one of the streets in the neighborhood



A street in Mount Vernon

Looking along the JFX, demonstrating the degree to which the highway functions as a barrier and a border vacuum in the area.

Typical narrow housing of the area

The other side of the JFX

Wide streets



The courtyard and monument allow for wide streets

Another picture of the other side of the JFX

The highway that divides the area



Milk and Honey market, a small, well known cafe of the area




Drawing of Milk and Honey market

Federal Hill Trip

A Little New York

in

Baltimore:

Federal Hill

Dozens of people were out making use of the city in their own way during our visit to Federal Hill, all on their own independent business yet a part of the larger mass. The crowds in the commercial heart of the neighborhood at Cross and Light provided that sense of liveliness and excitement.

Since people are always moving in and out of Federal Hill, there is no real sense of community in Federal Hill and Federal Hill continues to change and evolve. One couple, who has lived in Federal Hill since 1989, commented on the evolution of Federal Hill’s community. The couple felt that the actual hill in Federal Hill is the main area in the community that brings together the community. Many people of the community walk their dogs in the dog park on the hill and bring their kids to the playground on the hill.

The couple also commented on the changes they have seen in the Cross Street Market. They mentioned that the Cross Street Market used to be another place where the community could gather. But, presently, Cross Street Market seems to be a place where all people gather. As a result, there is much diversity in the Market with regards to the types of businesses (the taco place, meat/fish sellers, bakery, florist, tavern, etc.), the people running the businesses (Caucasian, Asian, African-American, Middle Eastern, etc.), and the customers (policemen/women, an old man in a wheelchair, mailwoman, other students, locals, tourists, etc.).

Living in Federal Hill for over two decades, the couple mentioned that their favorite part of Federal Hill was that everything is in walking distance. They called Federal Hill a “little New York”.

Photos of Our Visit

Drawing by Ebi Causey

Photo by James De Vinne

“While exploring Baltimore, I ran into this corrupted bench. I instantly told my peers how I thought it represented the city perfectly and they all gazed at me with a perplexed countenance. The explosion of the bench represents the hardships and downfalls the city undergoes. Through these mishaps, Federal Hill stands tall in the shadows of darkness that appear in a typical, powerhouse city which is represented by the unharmed part of the bench.”

Photo and Description by Mia Mangione

Photo by James De Vinne

"Battery Ave: Federal Hill Park Neighborhood"

Drawing and Description by Maria Park

"From the top of Federal Hill, we could see the Inner Harbor’s ships, aquarium, and other attractions and buildings. We could also see the newly built townhouses. I was struck by how similar they all looked. Though they were very classy and modern, the new housing units lacked the uniqueness and diversity of the rowhouses and storefronts on Light St."

Photo by Augustina Gilmore; Description by Maria Park

"Signs of ethnic diversity outside a law firm on Light St."

Photo and Description by James De Vinne

"Front stoops provide a place to sit and interact with the street and a “soft edge” to the building."

Photo and Description by James De Vinne

Urban Diaries Assignment

Baltimore Urban Diary

The City in Life and Letters

Spring 2014

One of the key components of our City in Life and Letters class will be the Urban Diaries that we assemble during the course of the semester.  We will, on a regular basis, be heading into different parts of the city.  Each time we take a trip, you will have a reading in advance that will give you a glimpse into the neighborhood we’ll be visiting.  You will be responsible for reading the article, developing a list of questions it has raised for you and formulating a plan for how you will use your time in the neighborhood to “answer” your questions.  Will you interview residents of the neighborhood?  Will you focus your observations on particular aspects of the neighborhood?  Which of the fiction and non-fiction readings we’ve done will you connect to what you see in this neighborhood?  Will you document your study with pictures, video, sketches?

Your homework following each trip is to complete an Urban Diary entry, which includes;

• The list of questions you had generated in advance of the trip

• The results of your explorations, in the form of notes and impressions, video, photos, sketches, interviews, observations, etc. 

• Connections between issues and ideas we’ve read and talked about in class and your experience in the neighborhood.

You will upload your entry to our “CILL – Urban Diaries” folder on Google Docs.  We’ll spend time during the following class reading each others’ Urban Diary entries and we’ll then choose some of the most relevant and powerful passages, pictures, videos, etc. to publish on our Baltimore Urban Diaries Blog.    You will have the opportunity to earn extra credit by choosing to be one of the architects, curators, editors, or publicists for the blog.  We will be trying to create buzz and readership for the blog so that it can lead to genuine dialogue around urban issues and experiences in Baltimore.

We have come across several examples of websites that might inspire your thinking around how you capture the essence of a city.  Here are a few for your perusal:

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/tagged/featured

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/reading-the-city/

http://crosscut.com/urban/

Our hope is that this blog will be a way for you to process your experiences in the city and to provide an authentic audience beyond your teachers and classmates for the discussion of what you find there.  Exactly how – and how effectively – we achieve those goals will be largely in your hands.