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Federal Hill Montgomery | |
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![]() Federal Hill Park | |
Nickname: Fed | |
Country | United States |
State | Maryland |
City | Baltimore |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern) |
• Summer (DST) | EDT |
ZIP code | 21230 [1] |
Area code | 410, 443, and 667 |
Federal Hill Historic District | |
Location | Bounded by Baltimore Harbor, Hughes, Hanover, and Cross Sts., Baltimore, Maryland |
Coordinates | 39°16′44″N76°36′36″W / 39.27889°N 76.61000°W |
Built | 1780 |
Architect | Multiple |
Architectural style | Greek Revival, Federal |
NRHP reference No. | 70000859 [2] |
Federal Hill South Historic District | |
Location | Roughly bounded by Cross St., Olive St., Marshall St., Ostend St., Fort Ave. and Covington St., Baltimore, Maryland |
Coordinates | 39°16′33″N76°36′39″W / 39.27583°N 76.61083°W |
Area | 70 acres (28 ha) |
Built | 1830 |
Architect | Jackson Gott and others |
Architectural style | Federal, Mid 19th Century Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 03001331 [2] |
Added to NRHP | December 22, 2003 |
Added to NRHP | April 17, 1970 |
Federal Hill is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, that lies just to the south of the city's central business district. Many of the structures are included in the Federal Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. [2] [3] [4] Other structures are included in the Federal Hill South Historic District, listed in 2003. [2]
The neighborhood is named for the prominent hill that is easily viewed from the Inner Harbor area, to which the neighborhood forms the physical south boundary. The hillside is a lush green and serves as a community park. The neighborhood occupies the northwestern part of a peninsula that extends along two branches of the Patapsco River —the Northwest Branch (ending at the Inner Harbor) and the Middle Branch. This peninsula is generally referred to as the South Baltimore Peninsula, and includes the neighborhoods of Federal Hill, Locust Point, Riverside, South Baltimore, and Sharp-Leadenhall. While not physically a part of the peninsula, Otterbein is also included in the collection of neighborhoods which make up greater South Baltimore. Traditionally, Federal Hill was roughly triangular, bordered by Hanover Street to the west; Hughes Street, the harbor, and Key Highway to the north and east; and Cross Street to the south.
The Cross Street Market, a historic marketplace built in the 19th century, continues to serve residents and is the primary social and commercial hub for the neighborhood. As of late 2016, the City of Baltimore has entered into an agreement with Caves Valley Partners to renovate Cross Street Market. The multimillion-dollar rebuild is anticipated to break ground during Spring 2017. [5]
The primary business district is bounded by Montgomery, Ostend, Light, Charles and Hanover Streets, and is home to a large number of restaurants of a wide range of taste, quality, and price, and many small shops as well as a few larger, more practical stores. The neighborhood is a popular destination for tavern goers and music lovers, with street festivals several times a year. These are organized through a very active neighborhood organization and business organization, as is the annual Shakespeare on the Hill series of summer performances in the park atop the actual Federal Hill. The neighborhood is also home to the American Visionary Art Museum and Maryland Science Center.
Significant and historic houses of worship include Christ Lutheran Church, Church of the Advent-Episcopal, Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church, Light Street Presbyterian Church, Lee Street Baptist Church, Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, and St. Mary's Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church. Federal Hill is served by Federal Hill Elementary School, Thomas Johnson Elementary Middle School, Francis Scott Key Elementary and Middle School, and Digital Harbor High School. The public library is the Light Street Branch of the famous Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Federal Hill is also home to many popular retail, dining, and entertainment options all within walking distance for most neighborhood residents. With most daily needs covered by businesses within a few blocks of the community center, Federal Hill has emerged as a premier neighborhood for the increasing number of people choosing an urban lifestyle.
Federal Hill is located conveniently to Interstate 95, Interstate 395, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and Charles and Light Streets, which provide the major north-south surface route through Baltimore. The western portions of the neighborhood are within walking distance of the Hamburg Street and Camden Yards stops on the Baltimore Light Rail. The Charm City Circulator is a free bus system that services central Baltimore and consists of four separate routes. Two of the routes, the Purple Route which runs from Penn Station to Federal Hill, and the Banner Route which runs from the Inner Harbor to Fort McHenry, service Federal Hill.
Early in the colonial period the area known as Federal Hill was the site of a paint pigment mining operation. The hill has several tunnels beneath its present parklike setting. On occasion a part of a tunnel will collapse causing the need to infill the area if the depression is near the surface of the edges of the hill.
From early in the history of the city, the hill was a public gathering place and civic treasure. The hill itself was given the name in 1789 after serving as the location for the end of a parade and a following civic celebration of the ratification of the new "Federal" constitution of the United States of America. [6] For much of the early history of Baltimore, the hill was known as Signal Hill because it was home to a maritime observatory serving the merchant and shipping interests of the city by observing the sailing of ships up the Patapsco River and signalling their impending arrival to downtown businesspeople. [7]
On the night of May 12, following the Baltimore riot of 1861, the hill was occupied in the middle of the night by a thousand Union troops and a battery under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler, who had entered the city, under cover of darkness and during a thunderstorm, from Annapolis via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. [8] During the night, Butler and his men erected a small fort, with cannon pointing towards the central business district. Their goal was to guarantee the allegiance of the city and the state of Maryland to the United States government (with the implicit threat of force, should it have been necessary). This fort and the Union army presence persisted for the duration of the Civil War. A large flag, a few cannons, and a small Grand Army of the Republic monument remain to testify to this period of the hill's history.
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In the 20th century, Federal Hill was a working-class neighborhood, and by the late 1970s was yet another struggling Baltimore inner city neighborhood, with increasing crime, racial tension, depressed property values, and an aging and decaying housing stock. Many of the industrial jobs, particularly in the shipyards and factories along the south shore of the Patapsco River, which had long provided the main source of employment for neighborhood residents were in the process of disappearing. The Bethlehem Steel shipyards on the east side of the hill was one of the last to close, in the early 1980s. The nationally recognized urban homesteading program in nearby Otterbein, begun in 1975, helped spur interest among individuals and businesses in rehabilitating homes in Federal Hill, and it soon became a hotbed of investment and rehabilitation, particularly by young professional baby boomers who had grown up in the suburbs but worked downtown. [9]
The investment and growth throughout downtown and especially at the Inner Harbor through the 1980s and 1990s only increased the popularity of Federal Hill living over the decades following the initial reinvestment period. A second period of intense investment and rising property values began in the mid 1990s. This second stage of neighborhood investment has included not just single-family home rehabilitation but increasingly large development projects on former industrial sites, particularly on the edges of the neighborhood around the water's edge. Within the core of the neighborhood itself, there has been an influx of new restaurants and shops. The city's population grew 0.6% in 2006 for the first time since the 1950s with much of the growth focused in Federal Hill. Streets that used to have vacant houses on every block have now been fully renovated. Many families have moved into these houses.
As of the census [10] of 2000, there were 2,400 people living in the neighborhood. The racial makeup of Federal Hill was 87.3% White, 9.0% African American, 0.2% Native American, 2.1% Asian, 0.6% from other races, and 1.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.3% of the population. 55.6% of occupied housing units were owner-occupied. 8.8% of housing units were vacant.
82.5% of the population is employed and 4.0% is unemployed, with the remainder not in the labor force. [11] The median household income was $62,466. About 1.0% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the poverty line.
21.8% of Federal Hill residents walked to work.
Elkridge is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Howard County, Maryland, United States. The population was 15,593 at the 2010 census. Founded early in the 18th century, Elkridge is adjacent to two other counties, Anne Arundel and Baltimore.
The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark in Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The Inner Harbor is located at the mouth of Jones Falls, creating the wide and short northwest branch of the Patapsco River. The district includes any water west of a line drawn between the foot of President Street and the American Visionary Art Museum.
Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, and other stores, restaurants, coffee bars, a municipal markethouse with individual stalls, and over 120 pubs. Located 1.5 miles east of Baltimore's downtown central business district and the Jones Falls stream, Fells Point has a maritime past and the air of a seafaring town. It also has the greatest concentration of drinking establishments and restaurants in the city.
Interstate 895 (I-895) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of Maryland. Known as the Harbor Tunnel Thruway, the highway runs 11.44 miles (18.41 km) between one junction with I-95 in Elkridge and another interchange with I-95 on the east side of Baltimore. I-895 is a toll road that crosses the Patapsco River estuary via the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, connecting U.S. Route 1 (US 1), I-695, and the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in the southwestern suburbs of Baltimore with US 40 on the east side of Baltimore. In conjunction with a pair of spurs, unsigned I-895A and I-895B, I-895 provides access to the tunnel from I-97 and Maryland Route 2 (MD 2) in Glen Burnie. The highway is designed for through traffic by having partial interchanges that require vehicles from almost all starting points to pass through the tunnel and the tunnel toll plaza, where a $4.00 toll is charged to passenger vehicles, before exiting the facility.
Locust Point is a peninsular neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Located in South Baltimore, the neighborhood is entirely surrounded by the Locust Point Industrial Area; the traditional boundaries are Lawrence street to the west and the Patapsco River to the north, south, and east. It once served as a center of Baltimore's Polish-American, Irish-American and Italian-American communities; in more recent years Locust Point has seen gradual gentrification with the rehabilitation of Tide Point and Silo Point. The neighborhood is also noted as being the home of Fort McHenry and the western end of its namesake tunnel that carries eight lanes of Interstate 95 under the river.
Interstate 395 (I-395) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of Maryland. Known as Cal Ripken Way, the highway runs 1.98 miles (3.19 km) from I-95 north to Howard Street and Camden Street in Downtown Baltimore, where it provides access to the Inner Harbor and the Baltimore Convention Center. The Interstate also serves the Camden Yards Sports Complex, which contains M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, homes of the Baltimore Ravens and Baltimore Orioles, respectively. I-395 also serves as the southern terminus of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, an urban arterial that provides a western bypass of Downtown Baltimore and connects I-95 with U.S. Route 40 (US 40), US 1, and I-83. The Interstate is maintained by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) and, like all Interstates, is a part of the National Highway System.
Canton is a historic waterfront neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The neighborhood is along Baltimore's outer harbor in the southeastern section of the city, roughly 2 miles (3 km) east of Baltimore's downtown district and next to or near the neighborhoods of Patterson Park, Fell's Point, Highlandtown, and Brewers Hill.
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Maryland Route 173 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as Fort Smallwood Road, the state highway runs 13.78 miles (22.18 km) from Fort Smallwood Park near Jacobsville north to MD 2 in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Baltimore. MD 173 connects the beach communities of Riviera Beach and Orchard Beach in northeastern Anne Arundel County and Interstate 695 (I-695) with industrial areas in the Baltimore neighborhoods of Hawkins Point and Curtis Bay, including the United States Coast Guard Yard. MD 173 was mostly constructed in the 1920s and early 1930s. The state highway was put in its modern form with the completion of the bridge over Stony Creek in the late 1940s and expansion to a divided highway between Orchard Beach and Curtis Bay in the late 1970s.
Westport is a neighborhood in south Baltimore, Maryland. Westport is a majority African-American neighborhood that has struggled with crime, housing abandonment, and unemployment in the past decade. The neighborhood is bordered by the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River on the east, the city neighborhoods of Cherry Hill, Brooklyn and the southwestern Baltimore County community of Lansdowne to the southwest, Hollins Ferry Road and the Mount Winans and Lakeland neighborhoods to the west, and Interstate 95 to the north, along with the South Baltimore communities of Federal Hill and Otterbein. The Baltimore–Washington Parkway runs through the middle of Westport and intersects with Interstate 95, the main East Coast super-highway, north to south, Maine to Florida.
Otterbein is a small neighborhood of historic rowhouses in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Otterbein is immediately southwest of, and in close walking distance to, the Inner Harbor. The neighborhood is very compact, entirely located between Hanover Street and Sharp Street, and between Barre Street and Henrietta Street. It is in small parts of zip codes 21201 and 21230. It is named for Old Otterbein Church, located immediately north of the neighborhood.
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St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, more commonly called Old St. Paul's Church today, is a historic Episcopal church located at 233 North Charles Street at the southeast corner with East Saratoga Street, in Baltimore, Maryland, near "Cathedral Hill" on the northern edge of the downtown central business district to the south and the Mount Vernon-Belevedere cultural/historic neighborhood to the north. It was founded in 1692 as the parish church for the "Patapsco Parish", one of the "original 30 parishes" of the old Church of England in colonial Maryland.
Leadenhall Street Baptist Church is a historic Baptist church located at Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is a gable-front rectangular brick temple with simple Renaissance Revival detail. The original exterior wall surfaces have been covered with formstone on the main façade and stucco elsewhere. It features round-arched stained glass windows on each side bay. It was built in 1873, by Joseph Thomas & Son for the city's African American Baptists who were then centered in the old southwest area from the downtown business district of Baltimore in the "Sharp-Leadenhall" community in the old "South Baltimore" area. Nearby is its now famed revitalized "Inner Harbor" area of the old "Basin" for the harbor port.
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Federal Hill Park is a 10.3 acres park located in Baltimore, Maryland on the south shore of the Inner Harbor. The park is a signature Baltimore landmark and offers visitors some of the most noted views in the city often photographed looking north to the downtown skyline of skyscrapers across the Inner Harbor of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River / Baltimore Harbor. The Federal Hill surrounding neighborhood to the west and south is named for the prominent hill and is also known as old South Baltimore. The now graded grass lawn hill and park, was originally a jagged cliffs and bluffs of red clay which was mined in the 18th and 19th centuries after being first sighted and described by Captain John Smith of England on his voyages of exploration of the Chesapeake Bay from the first English colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1608. The noted famous site today is bounded by Francis Scott Key Highway along the waterfront to the north, Battery Avenue to the west, Warren Avenue to the south, and Covington Street to the east. Baltimore city acquired the hill as public property in 1880 after it was used and fortified as a fort with heavy artillery by the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It was established then as a city park operated and maintained by the city Department of Recreation and Parks.