Hoping for Howard Street

Yesterday, I took a long walk along Howard Street. Despite the handful of stable areas of Baltimore, this is actually the part of the city that I frequent the most. The Light Rail has much to do with that. Taking the light rail to get to destinations elsewhere in downtown Baltimore had introduced me to the old retail corridor. And of course, it makes access to Howard Street easy, so I can visit time and time again. But I've never taken as close a look as I did yesterday.

This semester, my urban design course will be looking at this corridor. While I've been there dozens of times in the last few months alone, I rarely look deeply at the obvious wounds and scars. Instead, I usually admire how beautiful the architectural detail is on each crumbling building, and my imagination takes me to a place I've only ever been told about, a thriving retail center for an entire region. It must have been wonderful, and I've seen photographs that certainly look inviting! Today, however, it's nothing like it used to be. While businesses are speckled among the first floors of some buildings, most appear to be struggling, and very few cater to everyday needs. Furthermore, above these establishments, the remaining 3 or more floors of each building are left vacant. Interjecting between the storefronts is a threatening wall of plywood, blocking off the entirely vacant structures. Some blocks are better off than others, sometimes even one side of the street is more fortunate than the opposite, but the overall feeling is one of despair.

In front of the old Mayfair Theater

The architecture has always been of great stock, but as Baltimore Slumlord Watch described after a recent trip much like the one I took yesterday, most of these structures have been neglected for so long that the damage can not be reversed. The sidewalks are a good size, often brick, and for the most part attractive, yet tree wells are left empty and the public space seems missing. Thus, the streetscaping elements are, for the most part, lacking. The most redeeming quality of the space, in my personal opinion, was the abundance of street art. Not graffiti, but street art- intended to deliver a message, not always a pleasant one. I had the opportunity to speak with a Baltimore resident who had recently come here from Africa in the last few years. He noticed me taking photographs of one piece of art and had to ask why I was so interested in the piece. I asked his opinion and he said he preferred the look of the dated movie posters just ten feet away. I explained to him how I felt the messages delivered by art in a raw form like this were beautiful, more so than the marketing and advertising of the poster. We're drowning in advertising, and the motives are always very selfish, whereas the street art pasted on these plywood walls had been put there by the artist so that the community could benefit. I'm not sure if I convinced him or not, but he did walk away from our conversation excited about art in general.

The art in question, raw street art, or movie posters?

While the art was beautiful, it was set against a saddening backdrop. The only hope that the city has tried invoke from the community has come from their attempts to transform this area into the same high end retail spot it was decades before. I don't think that can be done, nor do I think it should be done. This area has changed, the population has changed, and the purpose has changed. We can make steps in that direction, but we can't forget about who or what is there now. The area needs to transform to meet their needs.

An absolutely beautiful piece of street art fronting Franklin

Served well by transit, this area has so much opportunity to be a destination for all city residents, to draw suburbanites into the downtown area, and to serve the current residents of the area. There is much to be done.