Instant Damage: July 2006

Saturday, July 29, 2006

-You felt your dangers and the astronomer under our hands, that kills

In kicking off the Bodymore tour I have to make some disclaimers. One is that I don't guarantee the pictures will be anything but amateur snapshots, some of the places I will not be getting out of the car for. Also, I'm not quite sure how I want to go about laying the groundwork so forgive any meanderings or strays from any logical progression of history. Hopefully in the next weeks I'll get into a better rhythm do some actual fact-finding, take some better pictures, and correct myself along the way. That said, if you happen to be reading this and you happen to be living in Baltimore, or have in the past, feel free to say whatever you want. I don't propose to be right or wholely informed.

Part of understanding the city is learning that it is full of, and is divided by, it's separate communities and neighborhoods. I don't doubt that it's any different in any other city, but at least that will provide a starting point for our purposes.

A very short list of the neighborhoods of which I am aware:

Guilford
Oakenshawe
Remington
Hampden
Druid Hill
Park Heights
Sandtown
Brooklyn (Pigtown)
Charles Village
Federal Hill
Fells Point
Canton
Waverly
Downtown
Mount Vernon
Mount Washington
Bolton Hill
Tide Point
Parkville
Roland Park
Mount Washington
Patterson Park
. . . .and those are just some of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. I live in the northernmost lefthand corner of Charles Village which is North Central/Northeast in the city. The place where I'm living is one block from the dividing line between Charles Village, Oakenshawe, Guilford and Waverly, though Oakenshawe and Guilford could be considered basically the same. Oakenshawe was established in 1912 and sits directly in/next to Guilford to the right.

This is what a house in Guilford looks like:

and:

Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies notes:

There are, of course, several Baltimore neighborhoods of upper middle-class and wealthy households where housing markets are fairly healthy. These include newly gentrified neighborhoods such as Canton where older commercial structures have been transformed into trendy apartments for young professionals and well-established areas such as Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland, Ashburton, Ten Hills, Windsor Hills and Mt. Washington, that are characterized by some of the most appealing single-family homes in the region. Other than providing adequate levels of municipal services and avoiding regulatory practices that inhibit redevelopment, market forces can be relied upon to maintain housing quality in these areas. As initiatives to address the problems of the city’s more troubled neighborhoods begin to achieve some success, these neighborhoods should continue to thrive and “gentrification” to spill beyond their current boundaries. However, if the city fails to address its housing (and other) problems, the viability of even these bulwark neighborhoods could be placed at risk.

Two or three decades ago an elderly lady was robbed and murdered in her home in Guilford. Suspecting the perpetrator had come from the adjacent, mostly lower class African-American neighborhood, Waverly, Guilford turned nearly all of the streets which had previously led into the neighborhood into ONE WAY streets out, making it very difficult to find a way in to Guilford:

The murderer turned out to be the woman's white grandson but the streets connecting Guilford to the surrounding neighborhoods were left ONE WAY. . .maybe just to be better safe than sorry.

-I, who will be Godzilla, who pops, smelled

Before I start on Bmore I had to post this. This was from last weekend when my whole family came up to Baltimore and got poured on at the annual Artscape Festival. We took shelter near the parking garage of Penn Station (train) while Steve-O and his wife went back to find the diaper bag they'd left in a booth on the street of the festival. The taxis queue here at the front of the train station in the shadow of "Man/Woman", one of the worst installations the city has ever paid for. . .