blight

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Blighted Row House at Fulton & Saratoga

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I needed to get a bike ride in today, but I had an early meeting and a late meeting followed by evening plans, so…I put the bike on my car, drove to work, and rode the bike home. It was bright and sunny when I headed to work, but gloomy and sputtering when I left. Never start a ride in the rain is my usual, but if I dodnt get a pedal in today, I was most certainly not going to be good company tonight, so I hopped on the bike with my bare legs and hoped for the best. The rain kept falling faster, so I spent most of my ride concentrating on. Safety-break carefully and not on shiny bits (road striping, metal grates, etc.) and assume cars can’t see you. By the time I took my left on Fulton I was ready to concider sidewalks, what with the soggy rush hour. I noticed this broken door at Fulton & Saratoga as I slowed down in search of a curb cut. I peeked inside and it looked like the whole place had just caved in on itself. I wonder when this happened. Was anyone hurt? Was someone sad in that way you get sad when home is suddenly nowhere? What’s the story here? Every one of these vacants has a story, at least 58,000 of them, and I only noticed this particular one because I was on bike, looking. Yep, even in the rain the bike was a good choice today. I continued on, made a stop for wine with friends, and then rode on home, feeling pretty lucky that I get to ride a bike in this place.

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Crumbling House on a West Baltimore Corner

It was another beautiful late winter day in Baltimore, sun shining and just a little bit warm, so I treated myself to a bike ride to campus. I had plenty of time, so after wooshing down the hill and taking a right and then a left through Bolton Hill, I followed some new streets through West Baltimore as I vaguely angled toward Arbutus. I was stopped at the light at Lafayette and Argyle, I think, and watched a little police profiling go down. Continue reading →

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Blighted Building in Carroll Park in Pigtown

Oh, it was a beautiful day for a bike ride, so after a morning reading in bed with cats, I hopped on the bike and whizzed down the hill to meet J. and J. for lunch. We wandered from their hotel to the Inner Harbor, passing all the other conventioneers, before settling in for turkey burgers and side salads and fries. It was so good to catch up with an old friend–just what I needed. It was still warm out at the end of the afternoon, so I took my bike on a ride past Camden Yards, into Pigtown and Washington Heights, and then along the Gwynns Falls Trail. Continue reading →

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Matthew 27:28;35 at Gilmor & Saratoga

Oh, Baltimore, thank you for the balmy Tuesday in late January! I had already been despairing that I might be freezing from now until May, but today’s sunshine and 50+ degrees was a welcome respite. I layered up, just in case, and took the bike down the hill and west toward UMBC. Continue reading →

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Crumbling Bricks at Cox & Falls

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Today’s ride took me up past Hampden to meet folks at a bar to enjoy some playoff football. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Ravens are in, and they’re my team, now that the Saints are out after last night’s heartbreaker. It was chilly chilly, so I rode as fast as I could and took advantage of the sun and the hills to warm myself up. I passed a lot of people in purple, already tipsy with the day. There as a drink, some. Fried food, and a whole lot of yelling, and then it was time to roll back down the hill. I snapped this picture of the remnants of the brick wall of some ghost of a building. If it were a different wall, this might be an Historical Landmark, but here it’s just another remnant of a past Baltimore–so, so many of these. In the light and with that sky, though, today it looked beautiful. I pedaled home and was reminded that the downhill is much, much colder. I best get used to it.

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Row House Held Up By Wood Contraption at Hollins & Fulton

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Today’s ride took me from Charles Village out to UMBC for another day of my winter session class. I was in a good mood after a productive morning, so I pedaled happily along, using that easy peasy gear for hills into the headwind and reminding myself that I wasn’t in a race, not at all. I decided to vary my route a bit to avoid Monroe’s speedy traffic, so I took a left on So. Carey and a right on Hollins. I stopped to catch my breath and take a picture of this row house just before Fulton that is all strutted up so it doesn’t fall in the street. Construction is a seriously creative endeavor! This street mostly looks like Brooklyn to me, and few of the houses look like vacants to me, though the surrounding streets certainly have their fair share. A woman stepped out of her house and asked me if I was just in the neighborhood to take pictures of vacant houses. We struck up a conversation–rehabbing this house has been on hold for months due to danger of collapse, her wife just quit smoking, I quit smoking years ago, isn’t it great, do I want a ride, etc. Turns out she runs a life coaching business and is putting together a mentorship program for girls at local schools, and I have a bunch of students who might make great mentors and who also might be in need of some life coaching. I sense a win. I got back on my bike and thought about how these sorts of encounters and contact are impossible in cars. Walkable and bikeable neighborhoods are just better for life itself. I got to campus, choked down lunch, taught about globalization, economic restructuring, and the production of poverty in the Third World before getting back on my bike and rolling past the detritus of Baltimore’s own structural adjustment on my way back home.

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Row House Held Up By Wood Contraption at Hollins & Fulton

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Today’s ride took me from Charles Village out to UMBC for another day of my winter session class. I was in a good mood after a productive morning, so I pedaled happily along, using that easy peasy gear for hills into the headwind and reminding myself that I wasn’t in a race, not at all. I decided to vary my route a bit to avoid Monroe’s speedy traffic, so I took a left on So. Carey and a right on Hollins. I stopped to catch my breath and take a picture of this row house just before Fulton that is all strutted up so it doesn’t fall in the street. Construction is a seriously creative endeavor! This street mostly looks like Brooklyn to me, and few of the houses look like vacants to me, though the surrounding streets certainly have their fair share. A woman stepped out of her house and asked me if I was just in the neighborhood to take pictures of vacant houses. We struck up a conversation–rehabbing this house has been on hold for months due to danger of collapse, her wife just quit smoking, I quit smoking years ago, isn’t it great, do I want a ride, etc. Turns out she runs a life coaching business and is putting together a mentorship program for girls at local schools, and I have a bunch of students who might make great mentors. INteresting! Let’s talk! I got back on my bike and thought about how these sorts of lovely happenstance meetings are impossible in cars. Walkable and bikeable neighborhoods are just better for life itself. I got to campus, choked down lunch, taught about globalization, economic restructuring, and the production of poverty in the Third World before getting back on my bike and rolling past the detritus of Baltimore’s own structual adjustment on my way back home.

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Empty Lot and Row House at Lafayette & Fremont

We had another unseasonably warm day today, at least in my estimation, so after a busy morning, I hopped on my bike and headed to campus to take advantage of what they keep telling me is one of the last few warm days before winter really gets here. I flew down the hill and then made the Park Avenue climb to Lafayette and took my left. It’s amazing how quickly the neighborhoods change along this street. Once you cross Eutaw Place, for example, it’s like you’ve entered a different universe. On the ride back I was struck by how once I left Marble Hill for Bolton Hill, the asphalt turned that smooth black of brand new road. When Crossing Pennsylvania Avenue into West Baltimore is even more pronounced. All of a sudden the trees disappear, as does the stately red brick, replaced by row after row of abandoned row house. I snapped this picture of a row house at Lafayette and Fremont (which is not the same as Fulton–I made that mistake once, and it took me a looong time to correct it). This empty side suggests another row house used to be cuddled up next to it, those patches maybe marking windows, or just the shared walls. Off in the distance more and more of these vacants line up, but some of them are redone and occupied. How hard it must be to share the neighborhood with these, and the empty lots filled with crumbled buildings and trash that dot the neighborhood. So often when I’m riding around Baltimore I wonder, where did everybody go? I know, I know, the suburbs, but where did everybody go, and what are we going to do with all these empty and decaying blighted properties? I continued my ride, and when I got to Arbutus, just a couple miles further, I was reminded again of how many different cities are all butted up against each other in this place, some of them just ghosts.

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Blighted Factory at Hollins & Warwick

A couple of cold days in a row made today’s 38 degrees and sunshine feel downright balmy. After finishing up a little of this and that at home, I layered up and hopped on the bike to head to campus. It was so warm I didn’t even need my fancy pants gloves! I flew down the hill on Maryland, went around that growing sinkhole just on the other side of North Avenue (can we at least spray paint around the thing?), and then up through Bolton Hill and Marble Hill. Continue reading →

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Salon Nine-E at Beechfield, West, & Ridge in Arbutus

Yep, I’m back at school again, this time teaching a three and a half week winter session course. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’d rather be lazily reading, writing, and bicycling instead. Due to this resistant attitude, I spent my morning getting a massage and then stopping by a music store with S., who needed to do little to get me to shell out for a ukelele. Yeah, it’s time to pick up a new hobby, and besides, a ukelele is small. I could take it camping on my bicycle. But alas, it was finally time to get myself to school, and S. kindly dropped me and my bicycle there. And guess what? Continue reading →