Highlandtown, Baltimore

Last updated
Patterson Park-Highlandtown Historic District
Baltimore n Luzern Sts.JPG
Northeast corner of Baltimore Street and Luzerne Avenue
Baltimore osm-mapnik location map.png
Red pog.svg
LocationRoughly bounded by Patterson Park Ave., E. Fayette St., and Pulaski Hwy, Grundy St., Eastern Ave., Patterson Park, Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates 39°17′30″N76°34′23″W / 39.29167°N 76.57306°W / 39.29167; -76.57306
Area295 acres (119 ha)
Built1867
ArchitectGallagher, Edward J.; et al.
Architectural styleLate Victorian, Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals
NRHP reference No. 02001623 [1]
Added to NRHPDecember 27, 2002

Highlandtown is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Contents

Description and history

The area currently known as Highlandtown was established in 1866 when the area known as "Snake Hill" was established as a village outside the Baltimore city limits. The first settlers of the community were primarily German Americans. In 1870, residents renamed the neighborhood "Highland Town" because of the views it offered over the city. The neighborhood was made part of Baltimore City in 1919.

The neighborhood today is bounded by Haven Street to the east, Baltimore Street to the north, Linwood Avenue to the west, and Eastern Avenue to the south. The long stretch of Eastern Avenue that runs through the neighborhood is notable as the Highlandtown's main commercial thoroughfare. The area was designated as a "Main Street District" by a previous mayor Martin O'Malley, seeking to promote commercial revitalization through economic incentives from the National Main Street Program.

Highlandtown is one of Baltimore's traditional blue-collar neighborhoods, and for this reason was designated as part of the Patterson Park/Highlandtown Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places. [2] In Baltimorese the neighborhood is pronounced "Hollantown". Historically one of the city's main commercial and industrial hubs, the neighborhood suffered a period of decline beginning in the 1970s as the manufacturing sector declined and department stores were replaced by shopping malls. [3]

Highlandtown was once known as a "Little Appalachia" or a "hillbilly ghetto." Before, during, and after World War II many Appalachian migrants settled in Baltimore, including in Highlandtown. Appalachian people who migrated to Highlandtown were largely economic migrants who came looking for work. [4]

Modern Highlandtown is in transition. The German, Polish, Czech, Italian, Irish, Greek, and Ukrainian population are being augmented with a growing Latino community. The headquarters of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society can be found on the northern edge of Highlandtown.

Former United States Senator Barbara Mikulski grew up in Highlandtown.

The easternmost eight blocks are occupied by parallel-running north–south streets that start with consecutive letters of the alphabet, from B to H: Baylis, Conkling, Dean, Eaton, Fagley, Grundy and Haven. This scheme continues in Greektown to the east, and resets at Bayview.

Demographics

As of the census [5] of 2010, there were 7,820 people living in the neighborhood. The racial makeup of Highlandtown was 42.3% white, 34% Hispanic, 19.7% African American, and 5% all other (Asians, Native Americans etc.). Most of the Hispanic population consist of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Colombians, among others. [5] 59.8% of occupied housing units were owner-occupied. 15.5% of housing units were vacant.

52.0% of the population were employed, 5.0% were unemployed, and 42.7% were not in the labor force. The median household income was $28,813. About 14.8% of families and 22.6% of the population were below the poverty line. [5]

See also

Highlandtown Arts District

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dundalk, Maryland</span> Unincorporated community in Maryland, United States

Dundalk is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 67,796 at the 2020 census. In 1960 and 1970, Dundalk was the largest unincorporated community in Maryland. It was named after the town of Dundalk, Ireland. Dundalk is considered one of the first inner-ring suburbs of Baltimore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fell's Point, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Hill, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

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. Other structures are included in the Federal Hill South Historic District, listed in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampden, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Hampden is a neighborhood located in northern Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Roughly triangular in shape, it is bounded to the east by the neighborhood Wyman Park, to the north by Roland Park at 40th and 41st Street, to the west by the Jones Falls Expressway, and to the south by the neighborhood Remington. The Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University is a short distance to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Vernon, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Mount Vernon is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, located immediately north of the city's downtown. It is named for George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, as the site of the city's Washington Monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Village, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Charles Village is a neighborhood located in the north-central area of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is a diverse, eclectic, international, largely middle-class area with many single-family homes that is in proximity to many of Baltimore's cultural amenities. Nearby are the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Homewood campus of The Johns Hopkins University, Olmstead's Wyman Park, and the weekly Waverly Farmers Market, and the arts district, Station North. Homes are exemplary Baltimore brick and stone row houses, many dating from the 1890s. Running from downtown north is the historic boulevard, Charles Street, where Baltimore's Easter Promenade once took place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canton, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pigtown, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood in southwest Baltimore

"Pigtown", also known as "Washington Village" is a neighborhood in the southwest area of Baltimore, bordered by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the east, Monroe Street to the west, Russell Street to the south, and West Pratt Street to the north. The neighborhood acquired its name during the second half of the 19th century, when the area was the site of butcher shops and meat packing plants to process pigs transported from the Midwest on the B&O Railroad; they were herded across Ostend and Cross Streets to be slaughtered and processed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butchers Hill, Baltimore</span> Historic house in Maryland, United States

Butchers Hill is a neighborhood in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is north of Fells Point, east of Washington Hill, and northwest of Patterson Park. It is south of Fayette Street, west of Patterson Park Avenue, north of Pratt Street, and east of Washington Street. It is in the 21231 zip code.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McElderry Park, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

McElderry Park is a neighborhood in the northern part of the southeastern district of the City of Baltimore. Its boundaries are marked by East Fayette Street, East Monument Street, Linwood Avenue, and Patterson Park Avenue. South of McElderry Park is the neighborhood of Patterson Park; Butchers Hill is to the southwest. Ellwood Park is located to the east, and the campus of The Johns Hopkins Hospital to the west. To its north is the neighborhood of Madison-East End.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brewers Hill, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood statistical area in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Brewers Hill is a neighborhood in the Southeast District of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeland, Baltimore</span> United States historic place

Homeland is a neighborhood in the northern part of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is bounded roughly by Melrose Avenue on the north, Bellona Avenue on the east, Homeland Avenue on the south, and Charles Street on the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodberry, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Woodberry is a neighborhood located in the north-central area of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. A largely residential, middle-class area, Woodberry is a historic community bordered on the north by Cold Spring Lane, on the south by Druid Hill Park, on the west by Greenspring Avenue, and on the east by the Jones Falls Expressway and the Jones Falls. Woodberry is located within Postal Zip code 21211.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Lee, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Joseph Lee, the residential part of Bayview, is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Part of the larger Bayview or Hopkins Bayview neighborhood, it borders the Greektown neighborhood. It is sometimes called the "A to K" or "ABC neighborhood" because its north-south streets are arranged in alphabetical order: Anglesea, Bonsal, Cornwall, Drew, Elrino, Folcroft, Gusryan, Hornel, Imla, Joplin, and Kane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upper Fell's Point</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Upper Fells Point, also known as "Fells Prospect," is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Located north of Fells Point, originally the neighborhood was home to Baltimore's dock workers. By the 1880s canneries and factories provided employment to new immigrants, including Irish, Italians and Poles. In the early 1900s these new Americans were joined by Jews, Lithuanians and Greeks. Today its tidy brick rowhouses and tree-lined streets are home to both old-timers and young urban professionals. It is also the heart of Baltimore's growing Latino community and is sometimes called "Spanish Town". Although most Hispanics in the neighborhood are Mexicans, there are significant populations of Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Hondurans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and Cubans, as well as many others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Remington, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Remington is a neighborhood in northern Baltimore bordered to the north by Hampden, Wyman Park, and Johns Hopkins University and to the east by Charles Village. The southernmost boundary is North Avenue and the long southwestern boundary is formed by Falls Road in the I-83 corridor. The neighborhood is split between two Baltimore City Council Districts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patterson Park (neighborhood), Baltimore</span> United States historic place

Patterson Park is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Named for the 137-acre park that abuts its north and east sides, the neighborhood is in the southeast section of Baltimore city, roughly two miles east of Baltimore's downtown district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Monument Historic District</span> Historic district in Maryland, United States

East Monument Historic District or Little Bohemia, is a national historic district in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a large residential area with a commercial strip along East Monument Street. It comprises approximately 88 whole and partial blocks. The residential area is composed primarily of rowhouses that were developed, beginning in the 1870s, as housing for Baltimore's growing Bohemian (Czech) immigrant community. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the neighborhood was the heart of the Bohemian community in Baltimore. The Bohemian National Parish of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Wenceslaus, is located in the neighborhood. The historic district includes all of McElderry Park and Milton-Montford, most of Middle East and Madison-Eastend, and parts of Ellwood Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in Baltimore</span>

There have been a variety of ethnic groups in Baltimore, Maryland and its surrounding area for 12,000 years. Prior to European colonization, various Native American nations have lived in the Baltimore area for nearly 3 millennia, with the earliest known Native inhabitants dating to the 10th millennium BCE. Following Baltimore's foundation as a subdivision of the Province of Maryland by British colonial authorities in 1661, the city became home to numerous European settlers and immigrants and their African slaves. Since the first English settlers arrived, substantial immigration from all over Europe, the presence of a deeply rooted community of free black people that was the largest in the pre-Civil War United States, out-migration of African-Americans from the Deep South, out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia, out-migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee, and new waves of more recent immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa have added layers of complexity to the workforce and culture of Baltimore, as well as the religious and ethnic fabric of the city. Baltimore's culture has been described as "the blending of Southern culture and [African-American] migration, Northern industry, and the influx of European immigrants—first mixing at the port and its neighborhoods...Baltimore’s character, it’s uniqueness, the dialect, all of it, is a kind of amalgamation of these very different things coming together—with a little Appalachia thrown in...It’s all threaded through these neighborhoods", according to the American studies academic Mary Rizzo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Hispanics and Latinos in Baltimore</span>

The history of Hispanics and Latinos in Baltimore dates back to the mid-20th century. The Hispanic and Latino community of Baltimore is the fastest growing ethnic group in the city. There is a significant Hispanic/Latino presence in many Southeast Baltimore neighborhoods, particularly Highlandtown, Upper Fell's Point, and Greektown. Overall Baltimore has a small but growing Hispanic population, primarily in the Southeast portion of the area from Fells Point to Dundalk.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. Patterson Park/Highlandtown Historic District
  3. Rebecca J. Plant; Jennifer Goold; Julie Darsie; Betty Bird (November 2001). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Patterson Park-Highlandtown Historic District" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  4. Newby, Tim (2015). Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin' Sound and Its Legacy. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 19. ISBN   9781476619521.
  5. 1 2 3 "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved 2008-01-31.

External sources