Baltimore Row Houses

We were able to get a good night’s sleep and did not need to leave the hotel until about 10:00 am, so we felt pretty good. Gretta and Remington who have lived in their row house several years, hosted breakfast at 10:00, so that was our first stop. The neighborhood is about 3 miles from downtown; just a few minutes drive.

After breakfast, we walked the few blocks to Katie’ s new house. The neighborhood is a real mix of houses in bad shape, refurbished places and vacant lots. There are also a sprinkling of old mansions scattered around. Over its 110 year history, the neighborhoods have had there ups and downs. A couple of high rise apartment buildings, mostly having low income housing, are added to the mix.

Katie’s place has been recently refurbished by a nonprofit group and was well within the income range of a young single school teacher. Not something that happens in California.

Downstairs there is a separate one bedroom apartment that she can rent out to help defray the mortgage.

The second and third floors have 3,000 square foot of living space, including four bedrooms, laundry room, walk in closets and very nicely done improvements.

The open house started at 4:00 and we were busy cutting fruit, making caprese, putting out cheese, and all of the party food until the guests arrived. We met a lot of the neighbors who had likewise moved into the neighborhood. It was an interesting group of mostly highly educated people who worked in the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. The family across the alley had three young children, the oldest of which is going to the Quaker high school that Katie is teaching at, starting in the fall.

Only one of the non-white neighbors came, even though Katie had invited a number more. Since a lot of the middle class black families have moved out of the neighborhood, there is a socio-economic divide between the new residents and the older, poorer part of the community. While the houses in the neighborhood certainly are not expensive, they are out of reach of the poor families, and the middle class black families have moved on and are not yet returning. I think the new residents want an integrated community, it is still hard, but the fault lines seem more economic than racial, which is at least part of the battle.