Reopening The Great Northeast Part III: The Roads are Just a Red Herring

Image From Google Earth

Well I've got a confession to make; this "Reopening the Great Northeast" series wasn't supposed to be a series, just a simple post advocating for the reopening of Gay St. between Old Town Mall and Broadway and making Esnor St. and Harford Ave. into a two way street that carry the Harford Road name. That was it. But then I examined the neighborhoods of East Baltimore and their conditions and this more than just a mere roads adjustment post. This warranted in depth research on how to turn around the East Baltimore neighborhoods that surround these two roads. I developed three distinct Master Plans for three sections of East Baltimore and how to move forward. That being said, I give the final part of my Reopening the Great Northeast series.
This post covers Johnston Square, Oliver, and Broadway East. The line between Johnston Square and Oliver is rather blurred so I will discuss them as one neighborhood. As its name suggests Broadway is the western border of Broadway. As you will find out Broadway is a very definitive border. The homes in Johnston Square and Oliver are typically larger and better cared for even if vacant. There have been efforts since the 1970s to revive these two neighborhoods with new and newish housing sprinkled throughout. This is what I would like to call "Historic East Baltimore" seeing that the homes are larger and are some of the most attractive and unique when they were first built.Here's an example of some of the earliest "new" town homes in Baltimore. They haven't quite withstood the test of time but they do anchor the Community very well. Two other anchors worth mentioning here are the East Baltimore Medical Center and the Stop Shop & Save Supermarket. These are both located along the one way Harford Avenue that is wide enough to support two way traffic. New development in these two neighborhoods should be minimal but from the picture above it's obvious that exceptions will be made. It's important to note that were Public Squares in these neighborhoods. As the name suggests Johnston Square is named after its Public Square. Oliver was home to Madison Square. In both cases, the Public Squares were marginalized to act as outdoor fields for their namesake Elementary Schools. As part of my School Closure plan, Johnston Square Elementary will be shut down and turned into a swimming center with an Outdoor Public Pool between Memorial Day and labor day and an Indoor Pool for the rest of the year. Admission? Why it's free of course! The Public Square itself will be redecorated with outdoor benches and perhaps a gazebo. It will have paths leading to the central area with adequate lighting. Madison Square Elementary has shut down but its building has been reborn as Bluford Drew Jemison MST Academy. This School will be relocated elsewhere as the Madison Square Building will be torn down in favor of a brand new State of the Art Community Center.
Broadway East tells a sadder tale. This is one of its healthiest blocks. Decades of urban decay and population flight have left this Community tattered and torn. Just blocks to the south is the Hopkins Biotech redevelopment. What separates the new Middle East from Broadway East is overhead railroad tracks. The trains that utilize the tracks are doing the same thing as the meager cars that drive through the streets; get out and pretend their surroundings aren't so psychologically damaging. This is a classic example of the "wrong side of the tracks" if I ever saw it. One promising development in Broadway East is Colloington Commons, a new TOD style Apartment Building that may suggest a higher density future for Broadway East.

As blocks like this in Middle East continue to be filled in with new housing, I can't help but wonder if that "wrong side of the tracks" mentality can't be blurred. Ten years ago nobody would have dared to dream that a typical block of Middle East could look like this in 2010. Well now it's 2010 and I'm daring to dream that a typical block of Broadway East will look like this in 2020. Obviously there's no Fat Cat Developer like Hopkins in Broadway East that can produce a product like this. But I don't give up that easily, I look elsewhere. This time I'm turning to the very tracks that separate gentrification from blight. The 2002 Baltimore Regional Rail Plan discusses localizing MARC lines by adding more stops on its tracks. Well, I've got some good news; these tracks run MARC trains among others. This would be the "Purple Line" and can be implemented easily.Adding the localized Purple Line would allow Broadway East to be a TOD neighborhood. It's obvious that almost all of the neighborhood will have to be redeveloped as its homes are too far-gone to be rehabbed. So, Broadway East, meet your new face and your goal set by yours truly for 2020. Collington Square Elementary will be the new Community School. It will be rebuilt and will house the populations from several other Elementary Schools that would in turn shut down.Now we come to Gay St. What say we make it more than just the address of the former American Brewery Building? First lets start with the obvious; the disturbingly odd traffic pattern found here. Gay St. is three lanes well sometimes. Other times it's two. During rush hour northbound traffic uses two lanes and other times one of the northbound lanes is used for on street parking, like there's an occupied structure on Gay St. that warrants on street parking.
My solution? Do nothing with the lone southbound lane and make the far northbound lane functional for through traffic around the clock. That just leaves the center lane; that will be home to a new landscaped median complete with bushes, flowers, and additional street lights. When needed it will give way to make use as a left turn lane. But what about on street parking? Well since I'm proposing all housing on Gay St. be redeveloped, the new housing will driveways and garages. It's almost too easy!Well that just concludes my series on Reopening the Great Northeast/my referendum on East Baltimore. The only thing left to do is hold a ceremonial ribbon cutting for the new Harford Road and Gay St. attended by Myself, Mayor Rawlings-Blake, Governor O'Malley, Senators Cardin and Mikulski, and the City Council and State Senators who represent these neighborhoods.

Reopening The Great Northeast Part II: Building on new Strengths

Image from Google Earth

I continue on with Part II of my series that will connect Northeast Baltimore with Downtown via East Baltimore. If you haven't read Part I it involves reconnecting Harford Road and Gay St./Belair Road from North Avenue to Pratt St. as two way thoroughfares.

As we move further Northeast, the neighborhoods become more residential. There's also less vacant land waiting for new development. There is however block after block of vacant boarded up row homes waiting for REdevelopment. There are also many blocks of new housing that aren't just stable, they're thriving!

The clusters of new housing are both small and large. I'd like to examine the tranquility that's very obvious when driving through these redeveloped blocks that just isn't there when driving through other parts of East Baltimore. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most new housing in East Baltimore is owner occupied and is dubbed "Affordable" This opinion is based on two things; one, they're kept up too nicely to be rentals, only a proud owner would take such care of his or her home. If these homes were built as "Market Rate" they would have sat as vacant as the home they've replaced. East Baltimore, at the time these homes were built wasn't quite ready for Market Rate Home Ownership Housing Yet. I also believe that the majority of those who have made these houses homes were already local East Baltimore Residents. They may have lived in high vacancy blocks, wanted to move but not out of East Baltimore so when these new homes come on the Market at an affordable price tag they jumped at the opportunity.Last but not least these new homes prove that East Baltimore can be a sustainable Community and they can be used as building blocks making it possible for future new housing developments to include a broader income mix i.e. Market Rate Homes.
And that's exactly what's happening as we speak. The East Baltimore Biotech Park could have been nothing but Offices (kind of like the UMB Biotech Park) but Hopkins decided to demolish the vacant homes north of its Campus and build a mixed income Community of 1500 new homes. I can't help but wonder if the existing new homes in East Baltimore, had they not been a success story if the Hopkins Biotech Park would have come to fruition.Another feat of the Hopkins Biotech Park is that it's ushering in contemporary design concepts in what used to be a neighborhood of "cookie cutter" row homes. If these design concepts are successful they can applied elsewhere throughout my Master Plan Map for this post.
Speaking of my Master Plan Map it shows highlighted in Purple; "Preservation Zones" and in Green "Redevelopment Zones" It's a sad truth that almost everything in the preservation zones is new housing to begin with. The photo above is one of the healthiest blocks in the Plan area. The awful truth is that East Baltimore as gotten into a state that in order for it to be a viable sustainable Community close to all of its original housing stock has to be torn down and rebuilt. This is a painful lesson to learn I hope Edmondson Village residents are taking these words to heart.Another Development that will hit the wrecking ball is Clay Courts. Cay Courts is a development of Section 8 Apartments and Town Homes. The only problem is that it runs through the once and future right of way of Gay St. After all, this post is centered around connecting Northeast Baltimore with Downtown. Luckily, there will be a lot of redevelopment in the plan area of this post that the number of Section 8 units in Clay Courts can be absorbed with the 2,000 + new housing units I'm proposing as redevelopment for the decayed vacants. Harford Road will be easier to adapt. It doesn't stop and start up again. However, it does eventually become a one way northbound street known as Harford Avenue. Luckily it's a very wide one way street so a two way conversion could be acheived by simply repaving and restriping the road. Well that concludes Part of my Northeast Baltimore connection to Downtown Series Like the sign below says: Baltimore's New East Side is on Track!See I told you, the sign wouldn't lie!

Reopening the Great Northeast Part I: The Second Downtown

Image from Google Earth

This is the first in a three part series whose purpose is to close the gap between the Inner Harbor and Northeast Baltimore. Currently, there aren't many direct routes that connect the two. I will put forth two routes that will serve as direct two way roads that will connect the two sections of the City. Also by having the routes run directly through some of the most blighted sections of East Baltimore the two roads will serve as a catalyst for major reinvestment and redevelopment. I'm writing under the assumption that the JFX will be torn down in favor of either N. President St. or Jones Falls Boulevard.

For this post, I have defined the Master Plan boundaries as the following; Orleans St. to the south, Chase St. to the north, Greenmount Ave. to the west, and Broadway to the east.
The first things to go will be Oldtown Mall and Forest St. Apartments. Although Oldtown Mall is an Historic Landmark, its buildings have become too dilapidated for occupancy. This is also where Gay St. is to be reopened as a three lane two traffic thoroughfare. One lane in each direction and one that will act as a turn lane when needed.
Oldtown Mall, Forest St. Apartments, and the Penn Fallsway Parking Lots will be developed or redeveloped as high density mixed use residential, retail, hotel, and offices as an extension of Downtown.
Also poised to hit the wrecking ball in my Master Plan is LaTrobe Homes. Crime, drugs, unsanitary living conditions, and lack of maintenance have made this sprawling public housing development a liability for its residents. LaTrobe Homes has 701 units. As part of the redevelopment of the properties and LaTrobe Homes 701 new public housing units will be spread out so no existing LaTrobe Homes resident will be left out in the cold. Demolition has begun in the area in question. The blighted Somerset Homes were torn down over a year ago as the Dixon Administration's sweeping blight removal and land banking plan. The problem with land banking is that it allows for land, like that of the for Somerset Homes to remain undeveloped indefinitely. I would extend the Oldtown Mall redevelopment zone to include this piece of land thereby connecting Downtown to Hopkins.Now we come to the cornerstone of reopening the northeast. This pedestrian Mall needs to be reopened as a two traffic Gay St. which will allow for traffic to easily move from Downtown to Belair Edison, Frankford, Overlea and beyond. The ultimate goal is to reconnect Gay St. to Belair Road. The other road is west of Oldtown Mall and is currently two separate roads. The first is the southbound Hillen St., the second; northbound Ensor St. My plan is to consolidate both directions of traffic to Hillen St. which is wide enough to carry two directions of traffic. Hillen St. will be renamed Harford Road and Ensor St. will be closed for to make way for new development. Renaming it Harford Road will encourage drivers Downtown who live in northeast Baltimore neighborhoods such as Lauraville, Waltherson, Hamilton, and even White Marsh to use Harford Road as it will eventually be a two way street extending from Downtown to Harford County uninterrupted. Dunbar High has undergone extensive renovations in the past year. The other two Schools it shares a campus with have either closed or are slated for closure. This makes for a great opportunity to move Dunbar High's athletic fields to the School itself rather than having them a couple blocks to the northwest.
The current fields will also have the new Gay St. cutting directly through it. Any land leftover on the Dunbar Campus will be dedicated as Community Green Space complete with a furnished Public Square and a Community Pool (free admission) that will be the envy not just of the City, but the suburbs as well.
Church Square has appeared to have its Stop Shop and Save Anchor. That's ok, it needs to be redeveloped along with Bond St. Apartments and Town Homes to make way for Gay St. Once redeveloped the new Church Square, which will be integrated with a much busier Gay St. might be able to lure a new Grocery Anchor.
The preservation zone in this Master Plan includes newer housing. New housing has proven to be pivotal for East Baltimore. It offers what I like to call a "an island of hope in a sea of blight and decay." Existing new housing and its relevance, when redeveloping East Baltimore will be examined more closely in future posts on the same subject matter. Stay tuned!