This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2022) |
Station North Arts and Entertainment District Charles North, Koreatown | |
---|---|
Country | United States |
State | Maryland |
City | Baltimore |
Named for | Penn Station, North Avenue |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern) |
• Summer (DST) | EDT |
ZIP code | 21201, 21202 [1] |
Area code | 410, 443, and 667 |
Website | http://stationnorth.org/ |
The Station North Arts and Entertainment District (often referred to as just Station North) is an area and official arts and entertainment district in the U.S. city of Baltimore, Maryland. The neighborhood is marked by a combination of artistically-leaning commercial ventures, such as theaters and museums, as well as formerly abandoned warehouses that have since been converted into loft-style living. It is roughly triangular, bounded on the north by 20th Street, on the east by Greenmount Avenue, and on the south and west by the tracks of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, though the neighborhood's boundaries include a one-block wide extension over the tracks.
Station North is composed of portions of three Baltimore neighborhoods: Charles North, Greenmount West, and Barclay. [2]
In recent decades, the area represented a relatively impoverished area between the wealthier neighborhoods of Mount Vernon, Bolton Hill, and Charles Village. However, a number of factors also made the area amenable to redevelopment and gentrification.[ citation needed ]
Many of even the poorer sections of the neighborhood feature three-story, early 20th-century rowhouses as the main housing stock; the Maryland Institute College of Art is within walking distance; and Penn Station lies at the south edge of the neighborhood, providing walking-distance access to Amtrak, Light Rail and MARC commuter rail service (the latter being of particular interest to those commuting to Washington, D.C.). The real estate bubble of the 2000s caused Baltimore's housing prices to skyrocket, and drove home buyers seeking out cheaper areas on the upswing to the neighborhood.[ citation needed ]
The Baltimore city government's 2002 designation of the area as an arts district has furthered the neighborhood's transformation. The earliest and most visible signs of change were the official conversion of several industrial and warehouse buildings to mixed-use housing. The Copycat Building is probably the best known, but two other buildings — the Oliver Street Studios Building (which also houses Area 405 and the Station North Tool Library) and the Cork Factory — are also occupied. These buildings have been in use recently as artist's studios and benefitted by the area winning the State of Maryland's first Arts and Entertainment District status under then-mayor Martin O'Malley. Such designation paved the way for these buildings to be rezoned for residential use, due to the collaboration between multiple building owners in The District. [3]
The Korean immigrant community in the city was the most solid from the 1970s until the 1990s, after which urban flight led many Koreans to settle in surrounding counties, particularly Howard County. A cluster of Korean establishments still exist in the lower part of Charles Village and the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. [4]
The neighborhood's commercial, residential, and artistic venues began to thrive.[ citation needed ] The commercial district on Charles Street is anchored by the Charles Theatre, an art house multiplex that also serves as the anchor venue for the annual Maryland Film Festival each May, as well as Artscape (a music and arts festival) each Labor Day weekend, as well as a number of galleries, cafés and theaters. One block away is the Charm City Art Space which serves as a Music Venue, and Art Gallery. The nearby "Chicken Box" is home to the Baltimore Annex Theater. [5]
In Maryland, the State Department of Business and Economic Development designates certain neighborhoods “arts and entertainment districts”, which confers three specific tax breaks. Artists who live and work in the district are offered property-tax credits on qualifying renovations, can apply for an income-tax credit when they make money on their art, and are given a waiver of the admissions and amusement tax charged by the city. [6] Artists who live or work in Station North may qualify for certain tax breaks by submitting Form 502AE (Subtraction For Income Derived Within An Arts and Entertainment District) with their Maryland Tax Returns. Major tax benefits concerning building usage are also in place, with assessment freezes and building rehab credits to encourage growth.[ citation needed ]
Mobtown Ballroom draws a diverse crowd of hundreds of people from surrounding towns to Station North for its swing dance, Belly dance, and Lindy Hop lessons. [7]
This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information.(April 2019) |
Although the city and state have developed preliminary plans to provide affordable housing and work space for local artists and residents, [8] many argue that the area provides few actual benefits to working artists.[ by whom? ] This has fostered the sentiment that the city has been exploiting the cachet of the artists in Station North, while rarely working with them in any meaningful way.[ citation needed ]
Furthermore, as the neighborhood undergoes gentrification, Westnorth Studio owner Roy Crosse and Nancy Haragan, then executive director of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance expressed a concern in The Urbanite that, like SoHo in Manhattan before it, local artists and entertainers will be forced out of the neighborhood if a proper balance is not struck between redevelopment and the needs of artists and lower income residents. [9]
Station North's name comes from its location, to the north of the city's Penn Station, which is served by Amtrak and MARC trains. The Baltimore Light Rail line has two stations serving the district; Penn Station and North Avenue. MTA Maryland bus lines 3, 8, 11, 13, 27, 36, 61, and 64 also serve the area. [10]
A 2006 Action Plan Report, prepared by Randall Gross / Development Economics, the Baltimore Neighborhood Collaborative, and Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc., focuses on four key strategies: To strengthen positive image and identity, to establish commercial corridors, to provide housing options to attract new residents while preventing displacement of existing residents, and to encourage economic development.[ citation needed ]
In early 2008, Baltimore's development arm, the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), released a preview of their master plan for the area. In the near term, the master plan includes converting the top three floors of Penn Station into a boutique hotel, with long-term goals including construction of high-rise residential buildings. [11]
On October 30, 2008, Mayor Sheila Dixon unveiled the Charles North Vision Plan, [12] a multi-phased development initiative. This plan identified four areas to focus revitalization on: Charles Gateway/Penn Station, the corner of Charles Street and North Avenue, the creation of an "Asia Town" at 20th Street and Charles Street, and the "Creative/Design Zone". The plan's ultimate goal is to transform the arts and entertainment district north of Pennsylvania Station into a $1 billion "cultural crossroads" for Baltimore. [13] The plan calls for over $100 million in subsidies to aid in the development of the area.[ citation needed ]
An agreement with Hospitality Partners of Bethesda to construct the hotel in Penn Station was reached in 2009, with completion of the $9 million project scheduled for late 2010. [14]
In early 2010, construction began on City Arts, a $15 million housing development for artists. Consisting of 69 apartments for rent and eight town houses for sale, City Arts will be the first all-new housing project in the 100-acre (0.40 km2) arts district since a $1 billion "vision plan" was unveiled for the area in 2008. [15] The building is designed to consist of four stories of apartments, a multipurpose first-floor space provided for artistic use by the residents, and thirty-five off-street parking spaces. Key to the project's plans are financing regulations that will ensure the space remains affordable to artists even as the neighborhood changes. The project was featured on CNN as an example of how federal Recovery Act money has restarted development that stalled during the economic downturn. [16]
Baltimore Penn Station—formally, Baltimore Pennsylvania Station—is the main inter-city passenger rail hub in Baltimore, Maryland. Designed by New York City architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison (1872–1938), it was constructed in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is located at 1515 N. Charles Street, about a mile and a half north of downtown and the Inner Harbor, between the Mount Vernon neighborhood to the south, and Station North to the north. Originally called Union Station because it served the Pennsylvania Railroad and Western Maryland Railway, it was renamed to match the PRR's other main stations in 1928.
Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse is a radical infoshop located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States and run by a worker-owner collective. Named for anarchist Emma Goldman, Red Emma's opened in November 2004 and sells fair trade coffee, vegetarian and vegan foods and books. The space also provides free computer access to the Baltimore community, wireless internet and film screenings, political teach-ins, and community events.
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.
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, the weekly Waverly Farmers Market, and the arts district, Station North. Homes are 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.
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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Downtown is the central business district of Washington, D.C., located in Northwest D.C. It is the third largest central business district in the United States. The "Traditional Downtown" has been defined as an area roughly between Union Station in the east and 16th Street NW in the west, and between the National Mall on the south and Massachusetts Avenue on the north, including Penn Quarter. However, nowadays, Downtown D.C. can often refer to a larger area, as the DC Office of Planning states:
…most residents, workers, and visitors think of Downtown in a broader sense — including areas as far north as Dupont Circle, as far west as Foggy Bottom, and as far east as Capitol Hill. Only about half of the central city workforce is located within the city’s traditional Downtown.
Downtown Baltimore is the central business district of the city of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Franklin Street to the north, President Street to the east and the Inner Harbor area to the south.
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Greenmount West is a neighborhood in the state-designated Station North Arts District of Baltimore. Its borders consist of Hargrove Alley to the west, Hoffman Street and the Amtrak railroad tracks to the south, the south side of North Avenue to the north, and Greenmount Avenue to the east. Residents in the area include a mix of low, middle and high income families, artists, commuters to Washington DC and working-class Baltimoreans with the majority of residents of African American descent.
Barclay is a neighborhood in the center of Baltimore City. Its boundaries, as defined by the City Planning Office, are marked by North Avenue, Greenmount Avenue, Saint Paul and 25th Streets. The neighborhood lies north of Greenmount West, south of Charles Village, west of East Baltimore Midway, and east of Charles North and Old Goucher. The boundary between the Northern and Eastern police districts runs through the community, cutting it roughly in half.
Guilford is a historic neighborhood in the northern part of Baltimore, Maryland.
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census, it is the 30th-most populous US city. Baltimore was designated an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and is the most populous independent city in the nation. As of 2020, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was 2,838,327, the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the country. When combined the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA) had a 2020 population of 9,973,383, the third-largest in the country. Though the city is not located within or under the administrative jurisdiction of any county in the state, it is part of the Central Maryland region, together with the surrounding county that shares its name.
Harwood is a small neighborhood located in the central area of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It sits east of Charles Village, south of Abell, west of Waverly and north of Barclay. Its boundaries are Guilford and Greenmount Avenues to the east and west, and 25th and 29th streets to the north and south. These streets together encompass about 14 city blocks.
Better Waverly is a neighborhood in the North District of Baltimore, located between the neighborhoods of Charles Village (west) and Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello (east). Its boundaries are marked by East 33rd Street (north), Exeter Hall Avenue (south), Greenmount Avenue (west) and Loch Raven Road (east).
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