Thread by @cylussec

Last weekend, a group of us biked around Baltimore to look at places of interest from the book Not in my Neighborhood, which looks at how racism formed the Baltimore we have today.

Its amazing how government policy from before 1950 largely created Baltimore 2020.

A thread.

Preston Gardens is a beautiful urban park in downtown Baltimore, but it was one of the first major urban renewal projects, which was used to displace a Black neighborhood that was too close to city hall.

Saratoga St, between St Paul and Calvert, used to have three Black churches. It now has nothing at street level, and is mainly Mercy Hospital parking.

This was once a neighborhood, and now its a place for cars.

Mayor James Preston displaced all of those Black residents, and in 2020, we still commemorate him with a park. The park that is in the place where those residents used to live.

We also met with Bolton Hill resident and the Rector of Memorial Episcopal Church, @RevGrey. Bolton Hill is a white neighborhood in an area with many Black residents.

The neighborhood and the MEC are grappling with their historic roles in keeping Black residents out of BH.

There are still things like this that celebrate the chief of staff to Robert E Lee. It says he was a political reformer after the war, which made me think that he might have tried to make up for his role in the Civil War.

Nope. Turns out that there were a few Bolton Hill residents that were involved in the confederacy. That's why the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was installed in Bolton Hill in 1903 (38 years after the war).

It was only removed in 2017 in the wake of Charlottesville.

Frankly, there was so much more that Rev Grey talked about with how BH has used its neighborhood association, churches and other groups to keep Black residents out.

This is what it means to be a 'nice' neighborhood. 😖

Every community association should take note.

We also rode through Lafayette Park, which is a beautiful urban park with five (!!!) beautiful churches right on the square and stunning architecture. If this neighborhood hadn't seen such disinvestment, it's hard not to think that there would be million-dollar homes here.

Frankly, Lafayette Park and Union Square look almost identical. The homes in White US are worth ~$300k, and the homes around LP are mostly worth less than $100k.

Disinvestment.

The picture from the beginning of this thread was from Fulton Ave, which was the White/Black divide for a long time. The left side of this picture was the Black side and the right was the White side. Once it went all Black, the beautiful median was taken out for a truck route.

This was before the harbor tunnel was built. But there is no reason to invest in a 'bad' neighborhood now, and the truck route remains.

There are lots of 'no ball playing' signs in the median because vehicles have more ownership of this area than a child that lives there.

Its sad because we still see investment in White neighborhoods, and Black displacement today. East Baltimore Development Inc was created with Johns Hopkins to allow it to kick out the Black renters north of the hospital so they could expand.

Most Black residents were not compensated, because they were renters. But property owners were paid more than what their properties were worth. Hopkins got to expand their campus, and currently offer $36k (now $17k) to employees who move up there.

hopkinsmedicine.org/human_resource…

.@patrick_mcmahon made the good point that the city has basically set the market for redevelopment like this, as most developers will wait for the city to throw in incentives to do large redevelopment projects. And landlords made out.

It's disgusting how much racism there is baked into everything around us, and how it's so easy for a privileged white guy to ignore.

Knowing is the first step, I guess.

Thanks to @patrick_mcmahon, @MSeel1984, @RevGrey, @steve_howard, @lesliekn, and Sheppy for joining. It was really eye-opening.

Our next book club book will be I Got a Monster by @baynardwoods and @notrivia. LMK if you want to join.