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West Baltimore

Photo Credit: LiveBaltimore.com

West Baltimore is an area that has seen its share of hard times — poverty, unemployment, poor health, low student achievement, illiteracy, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and the list could go on. But through all of this one thing proved stronger, the area residents’ will to overcome.

Today West Baltimore is transforming offering communities with hope and genuine beauty. It’s amazing the result that can happen in a short time when neighbors work with neighbors to reach a common goal.

West Baltimore neighborhoods include:
Coppin Heights | Mondawmin | Harlem Park | Penn North | Sandtown-Winchester

Coppin Heights
Coppin Heights is an established working class neighborhood featuring tree-lined streets and many brick porch front rowhomes with garden areas. It is a predominantly residential community with commercial and industrial uses concentrated along its northern border while public land uses (i.e. Coppin State College & Carver Vocational High School) are located on its northern and southeastern border.

Coppin Heights was originally part of the Walbrook Community until 1989, when for marketing purposes, the community was renamed Coppin Heights, officially assuming the boundaries of the Ash-Co-East-Neighborhood Association.

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Mondawmin
Greater Mondawmin, perhaps the most diverse square mile in Baltimore, clusters around Mondawmin Mall and the Rouse Company's pioneer urban shopping mall. The area features schools ranging from elementary to four-year colleges, green residential areas on wide boulevards and small streets with convenient small businesses, many active churches and neighborhood associations.

This area was a countryside estate in the 19th century, characterized by large homes built by prominent city residents on the hilly countryside several hundred feet above the Inner Harbor area. Mondawmin takes its name from the estate owned by Dr. Patrick Macaulay (1795-1849), physician, city councilman, B&O Railroad director and patron of the arts. Tradition relates that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited Dr. Macaulay, who asked him what to name his home, then surrounded by cornfields. The poet allegedly looked around and replied, "Why not Mondamin, after the Indian corn god?" (Mapmakers later added a "w" to the name, and it stuck.)

Today most of the area's residential areas consist of brick rowhouses. Those built before World War II have large front porches and in some cases Victorian styling. Those built after the war tend to be two-story brick structures on wider lots than found in the inner city. A few single dwellings near the Walbrook area reflect their origins as summer homes in the early 20th century.

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Harlem Park
Harlem Park community is uniquely designed with several inner block parks that includes the historic Lafayette Square. During the Civil War the Square was used by the 3rd Regiment MD Veteran Volunteers as a campground. Later it was developed into a park with 4 Victorian built churches known during the late 1800's as “Church Square” of which the buildings still survive today. Homes in the area are mainly three story rowhouses built in the late 1920's in Italianate design with marble ornaments, spacious rooms, marble fireplaces, elegant staircases, and nice backyards.

Harlem Park is minutes to downtown Baltimore's area business offices, Social Security Administration, and Harbor Place, approximately 10 minutes by car and 20 minutes by foot. There are over a dozen churches in the community within walking distance. Other places of interest include Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the B&O Railroad Museum, Lyric Theater, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, University of Baltimore, Lexington Market, Cross Street Market, University of Maryland Hospital & Shock Trauma Unit, easy access to Interstates 95, 295, 395 & 695, and more...

This neighborhood has several community associations working towards its betterment. The Harlem Park Neighborhood Council, Inc., The Harlem Park Trust, Lafayette Square Association, Martin Luther King, Jr. Improvement Association, Harlem Park Revitalization Corp., Harlem Park/Lafayette Square Village Center and Umoja Housing Corp. are all working on such issues as housing development, community development, community resources, sanitation, public safety, education, recreation, and others.

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Penn North
Penn-North is a working class community, be it by car, mass transit, or by foot, that is minutes away from downtown Baltimore. This mostly residential community features two and three story brick row homes with large back yards. Also, Penn-North has a commercial fairway along the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor leading to downtown Baltimore.

The Penn-North community dates back over 100 years. English immigrants first settled the area in 1870s. By the 1890s census European merchants began to establish their business in the area. In the 1900s, the city's black elite began to settle along Druid Hill Avenue, McCulloh Street and Madison Avenue. By the 1920s, they expanded to North Avenue.

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Sandtown-Winchester
Sandtown-Winchester is a 72 square block community in West Baltimore. Known locally as “Sandtown” it's home to over 10,300 residents.

This community is close to Lafayette Square, Harlem Park, Druid Hill Park, Avenue Market on Pennsylvania Ave., Mondawmin Mall, Lexington Market, Baltimore Zoo, Camden Yards, and The University of Maryland.

The neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester is an area that once had little hope of recovering from many urban woes. But today, in a very brief time, a transformation process, which is coordinated by a new non-profit group, Community Building in Partnership, Inc. (CBP) has achieved many successes including: reducing crime by 15.6%, constructing or renovating nearly 300 units for home ownership, modernizing 700 units of public housing, developing a school readiness pathway to ensure that children are prepared to enter school, employing over 160 adults and 500 teenagers in transformation projects, establishing the Sandtown-Winchester Community Center, creating a family advocacy program, organizing over 100 block clubs to fight crime, implementing annual community events, and publishing a monthly community newspaper.

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