What is Home in a Place Like Baltimore?

 SUJATA MASSEY

Mural in Station North

Sometimes I like to close my eyes and just think about the various homes I’ve lived in over the course of my lifetime. While my husband and I have mostly lived in Baltimore, our marriage started off with two very unusual years in Japan. And while this blogpost will be about Baltimore, it was a 1991 experience in Japan that brought me close to Baltimore’s hard history. Warning: this will be long.

 

We were newlyweds who thought the world would be our oyster. The search for our first marital home, though, proved that idea wrong. A few days after arriving, we left the Yokosuka Navy Base to walk into a downtown real estate office with an encouraging sign on the door promising that English was spoken.  We were desperately seeking an apartment or house--one bedroom would be fine, that wasn’t fancy. I was very excited to live in Asia—but what the agent showed us was wretched. 

 

These properties weren't traditional tile-roofed cottages with shoji screened windows like in the books and travel magazines. Nor were they futuristic sparkling white skyscraper buildings. Instead, the realtor kept showing us laminated photo-listings of tiny, rundown apartments without heat and air-conditioning. Most places appeared to need painting and have slipshod construction. And forget about central heating: we would be expected to buy kerosene heaters for that. 

 

The small agency’s walls also had posters showing layouts of some other apartments. Glancing behind the agent, I caught sight of a paper advertising a modern-looking 2 BR apartment.  “Please, can you tell me about that apartment?” I asked, gesturing toward the wall. “It's in our price range, and it looks nice and new.”

The realtor held the papers just in front of me but didn’t put them in my hand. Shaking his head, he said, “This apartment is for Japanese people only. No Americans.”

 

I was so shocked and angry that I could barely contain myself. How could property owners and real estate agents discriminate so openly? We were a polite married couple interested in staying somewhere for two years, with paperwork proving a guaranteed housing allowance would flow from the base to the property owner. Yes, we were foreigners, but we had special State Department visas for two years' residence.

My first apartment on N. Calvert St.

 

My outrage existed because nothing like this had ever happened to me before.  But it was ironic that the place I’d traveled from had the longest and most severe history of housing discrimination in the United States. I was ignorant about it because I came to Baltimore in the 1980s, the dawn of a new age when landlords only cared about your source of income and whether you had pets. The truth was that this neighborhood, the onetime Peabody Heights turned "Charles Village," was mostly restricted to White Christians until the mid 1960’s.

Calvert Court, one of the Charles Village's fanciest residences

 

My apartment during my reporter years

 

Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland, a state that contains the Mason-Dixon line, a surveyor’s marking from the late 1700s that officially divided North and South. Maryland is one of the 13 original colonies that signed the Declaration of Independence and is tucked midway up the Eastern Seaboard. Baltimore was founded in 1729, and from the beginning slave ships used its port and sales of kidnapped Africans occurred at the Inner Harbor. Pressure from abolitionists led to Baltimore banning the importation of slaves in 1783, although slavery continued to be legal in the city and state. At the same time, a sizeable number of enslaved people escaped from states further south to live in Baltimore, and free Blacks lived here as well, working in trades and as servants, as well as teaching, law, medicine, and other professions. Banks didn’t offer mortgages to Blacks. Therefore, very few owned homes, and many more rented houses and rooms in downtown Baltimore. In the 1890s, administrators and business leaders began condemning various neighborhoods as slums and demolishing them, a process that forced Black residents into worse districts. 

 

Antero Pietila, a Finland-born journalist who worked for more than thirty years at the Baltimore Sun, covered the civil rights movement and what happened afterward. Not In My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City is his 2010 book describing the long and twisted segregation of the city. His research showed that changes began in the early 20^th century, when White Baltimore residents became increasingly uneasy abouts living nearby and began exploring ways to prevent a “Negro Invasion,” as integration was described in the Baltimore Sun. 

 

Pietila writes about W. Ashbie Hawkins, an African American lawyer and NAACP activist who purchased a rundown house at 1834 McCulloh St from a Caucasian woman on a street that many of her neighbors were departing. After Hawkins’ purchase, more African American families came to live on the even side of McCulloh, although the houses on its odd side remained all-White. M.Z. Hammen, an angry White city resident, taunted a new Black homeowner named Hamer who bravely answered back that he had a right to live on the street and warned Hammen to move along. The outraged Hammen tried to have Hamer arrested, but a judge ruled that couldn’t be done, stating “according to the laws of the State and nation, he has all the rights and immunities of a White man.” Hammen then gathered others to campaign for a city council ordinance to make it a crime for Black people to move into a White block, and vice versa. The segregationists’ tool was an 1896 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which had seemingly established a principle of separate but equal accommodation for children attending school. The argument convinced Baltimore's City Council, which in 1910 passed a law allowing citywide regulation of racial separation. The law was the first of its kind in the U.S., and many Southern cities quickly passed similar laws, as well as some in the West and Midwest. People charged with violating these laws were typically sent away from their homes, although there was a fine of $100 or the possibility of a year in jail. 

                  

The Baltimore law was ultimately struck down in 1913 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against residential segregation in a segregation case in Louisville, KY. But from that point, Baltimore’s community leaders deftly shifted the weapons of segregation into the hands of developers, who made racial definition part and parcel of buying a home; and to city residents themselves who founded improvement agencies for their specific neighborhoods that specified the allowed races and religions of homebuyers.

 

As I’ve mentioned, Baltimore’s segregationist housing history was unknown to me when I started renting in Charles Village. I saw it as just another well-kept Baltimore row house neighborhood distinguished by architectural styles dating from the 1890s up to about 1920. Back in the 1980s, $300-$400 was the typical monthly rent for a single floor apartment in a two or three-story  rowhouse. These days, sales prices for such three-story homes are now in the mid-$400K range for a single-family place, and upwards of a million for very large houses that are already broken up into multiple apartments. 

 

Slightly south of the neighborhood and to its east side lie other small neighborhoods that have more rental housing and many more African American residents. The 32^nd Street farmers market area on the eastern border of Charles Village was once the site of a historic all-Black school, and the streets around had been a predominantly African American village in the decades before the city line expanded northward. I came over to shop for fresh vegetables and necessary house items at Woolworths. One weekend afternoon, I went to a historic film theater without air conditioning and saw Purple Rain. 

 

When I spent time getting to know people in Charles Village, I met some longtime residents were Appalachians who’d arrived during and after World War II. Others had come from East Baltimore from the 1950s through 1970s. The neighborhood’s youngsters were mostly students and entry-level workers living on tight budgets. I loved sitting on my porch and chatting with my neighbors on their adjacent porches. As a young newspaper reporter with a $20,000 salary, I was glad to pay just $360 a month rent for a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a modest rowhouse with no dishwasher orwashing machine or clothes dryer--and certainly no air conditioning. I had a bathroom with fluorescent-colored, peeling paint on the linoleum tub surround. 

The apartment house was an investment property owned by an elegant  woman from a prominent real estate family. She lived in a mansion in a neighborhood nearby and showed obvious irritation if I ever called about a problem. She seemed very different from the kindly landlords I'd had in my student days, and while it's hard to define what exactly makes a slumlord, she did the bare minimum of maintenance. The apartment stayed 'as is'--but so did my low rent for the five years I rented. 

Beginning in the 1990s, the streets of Charles Village began wearing coats of many colors. One homeowner in the neighborhood painted her house in the brilliant, multiple shades of a San Francisco Victorian. She started a “Painted Lady Contest” to encourage other homeowners to paint their home’s porches and exterior woodwork creatively. The beautification of homes started on St. Paul Street, and now the candy-colored woodwork beautifies rowhouses throughout the major and side-streets.  

 

Slightly south of Charles Village and to its east lie a number of other small neighborhoods. The 32^nd Street farmers market area on the eastern border of Charles Village was once the site of a historic all-Black school, and the streets around had been a predominantly African American village in the decades before the city line expanded northward. Right now, merchants are doing a good job of bringing new stores and restaurants to Greenmount Avenue, and the city rebuilt its aging library branch into a great new destination. But the houses are a mix of cared-for and declining properties dominated by absentee landlord. Many in the city believe it's a high crime area and don't want to move there. 

Another predominantly African-American neighborhood just south of Charles Village has had a different outcome. Over the last fifteen or so years, real estate agents began calling it “Station North” to advertise the walking distance of its rowhouses to Penn Station, an important stop on Amtrak's East Coast route and also the home of almost hourly commuter trains to Washington D.C.  City government and the Maryland College, Institute of Art invested in building student housing and places to enjoy film and theater. Restaurateurs arrived and made the district hot. I now traverse North Avenue--once considered highly dangerous--to engage in a Lindy Hop class in a fabulous ballroom sited in an old corner business building. 

Station North residential block

The former Cork Factory, now housing

Copy Cat Building, now Apartments for Artists

In Station North, tidy rowhouses and massive old brick factories have become havens to live and work in. Many homeowners have painted their homes in soft colors and some artists have painted extraordinary murals in public spaces. It’s a gorgeous sight, and it appears to be a racially mixed neighborhood with some properties still in the hands of original owners, like the one below. I'm guessing this because angel statuettes in the window are a very old Baltimore tradition.

 

Station North is mentioned in The Black Butterfly: the Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America, a powerful nonfiction account of the city's history of segregation. Reading the work of its author, Lawrence T. Brown, I learned that I’ve always lived inside the majority-White spine, or L, in a city with dense African American populations spread out like wings on either side. Reading the book made me think hard about the choices I've made. His historical investigation reveals horrific social injustice, and also some innovative thinking for the future of Baltimore's wellbeing. 

 

Brown describes the Butterfly's white-populated L shape as running from the southeast city neighborhood of Canton over to the Inner Harbor and nearby Federal Hill. The L’s long spine stretches with the streets parallel to the artery that is North Charles past downtown and Mt. Vernon through the train station area, and Charles Village to the edge of the city and its 1890s-1920s garden suburbs bearing the elegant names of Mt. Washington, Roland Park, Homeland, Guilford, Cedarcroft and Stoneleigh. These are areas with less crime and stable home ownership. He explains how African Americans were systematically moved as far from the L as possible where they had to make do with a lack of substandard housing, few work opportunities, serious health hazards and crime.  

 

I've been honored to meet many wonderful people who live within or near the Black Butterfly and are working hard to improve the conditions for these deprived neighborhoods. I can understand why it would be grim to grow up here and probably have no way out. When I visit, I can't escape seeing streets filled with mostly rundown homes, vacant lots, and graffiti. Area businesses tend to be pawn shops, dollar stores, carry-out restaurants and fast food. Only a few grocery stores exist in the Butterfly wings, and the public schools struggle to educate kids who often don't have enough to eat and many social and environmental challenges. On every block, though, there seems to be a house with planters by the steps or a wreath on the door. People are working valiantly to make homes and rebuild the city.

Rowhomes near Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

An old Hopkins medical research building

On the Eastern butterfly wing, about a mile from the city jail, one wealthy institution has remained. Johns Hopkins Hospital, its medical school and related buildings, have built far beyond their original 19^th and early 20^th century stone buildings. Streets of condemned black houses have been removed for the hospital and replaced by institutional buildings, as well as some modern rowhouses intended for mixed income levels as well as public housing projects that go back to the 1960s. Privately owned row homes are generally in good condition close to the hospital and are the homes of people studying or working there.

Just blocks away from the hospital lie hundred of houses and stores with a red diamond shape nailed to the front: the city’s marker for an unsafe, vacant property. The abandonment of houses is even worse on the butterfly’s western wings, where once-lively shopping districts are now abandoned.

 Whenever I travel to old East Coast cities with well-preserved historic homes—say, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia- my knee-jerk reaction is envy. Yet Brown points out that gentrification has often displaced the poor when their landlords sell out to the new people in town—and those homeowners who stay are left with rising property taxes because of the area’s sudden changed status. In fact, Brown’s suggestion for helping distressed areas of Baltimore is for the city to bring health care, job training, and other supportive programming to people right where they are living.

 

Shoveling the old slate sidewalk in Wyndhurst

 

For the last twelve years I've lived in Wyndhurst, one of the less-fancy 'L' neighborhoods that is rich in trees, quirky characters and a mishmash of old houses. When we bought an 1897 house needing significant repairs In 2012, we were probably the first--or among the few--non-white families in the neighborhood. But since then many more diverse families have come to buy and rent--and we've never been treated as outsiders. 

Part of our ongoing home restoration

 

Wyndhurst is mostly made up of medium to small cedar shingle cottages built by middle-class merchants and tradesmen. Our home's first owner was a married woman whose husband had a tavern at the Harbor and who was not listed on the deed. Some extra-cute little cottages in the neighborhood could have been built for some of the railway workers employed nearby. It's all a mystery, because the neighborhood may have housed a number of journalists, but not the kind of people whose names wind up in newspapers. 

The last empty lots were sold from the 1930s through the 1950s, providing additional housing styles like Colonial duplexes, Spanish, and Ranch. Several two-and three-story apartment buildings also grace the streets and our renters range from senior citizens on fixed incomes to students and young people with their first jobs to families wishing to send kids to the public school within walking distance. Wyndhurst was built so far north in Baltimore that it never had residential flight. Nor did it gentrify. Homes are often passed down in families for two or three generations, and sometimes the youngest generation doesn't have much money to spend on repairs. 

A handsome Victorian apartment house

 

When my husband and I and our two children arrived in 2012, we might have been the first racially diverse household on our block. Nobody told us--but we looked around. As the years have passed, quite a few homes on our block and elsewhere in the neighborhood have been bought or rented by diverse families--African American, Asian, and Latino among them. 

Even though my tenure in Wyndhurst is a little over 12 years, I've lived in North Baltimore for a total of 32 years. I've witnessed the blossoming of theater, restaurants, and innovations in the public schools and area colleges. I also appreciate the New Baltimore's laissez faire attitude toward people’s nationalities and sexual identities--as opposed to other places in the country. 

 

Whenever we have an election with city initiatives on the ballet, I vote an enthusiastic yes for bonds that will allow the city to continue restoring and sometimes removing old buildings that can't be saved.  Since the 1970s, there have been periods  when the city sells abandoned houses for as little as $1 to people who commit to restoring them using professional standards. Typically, there’s a strict deadline for renovations, so the houses don't languish as eyesores. Also, the homebuyer must commit to living in the house for a certain number of years. 

 

When I heard that such an incentive program was up and running. I explored the requirements of the  Buy Into BMore Fixed Pricing Program. The city has identified vacant houses that it bought (or could assist the buyer with obtaining) for a price of as little as $1 or as much as $3000. A house's upfront cost depends on how vast the vacancies are in its neighborhood and the buyer’s identity as either a prospective homeowner or a future landlord. One subcategory of the applicant pool is a program called “Charm City Roots” and is meant to serve people who have a family history connected to a particular property or street. This speaks eloquently to the possibility of displaced people coming back home.

A requirement for any BuyIntoBMore purchasers is having $90,000 on hand to spend on renovation, although the program warns the cost of rehabilitating properties is often higher.  Ultimately, the buyer is taking a risk on whether others will fix up properties in the same neighborhood and make it a place they’d like to remain. Not many people in this city know about this program, and I dearly wish for them—and people living in other states and countries—to explore this affordable way to own a home and be part of rebuilding a city.