Coldspring Lane-A cross section of Baltimore Neighborhoods (Laurel, Garrison: estate, maintenance)

[Woodlands]

Coldspring Lane is probably one of a few Baltimore streets that represents a cross section of Baltimore's neighborhoods. Running from just above Ashburton/Dorchester it travels through a wide range of neighborhoods that displaying some of the City's diversity racially, economically, and various types of housing stock. Some of the more notable neighborhoods include Park Heights, Roland Park, Loch Raven, Northwoods, Laurelville, before it becomes Moravia Rd and pass through/near Beverly Hills, Waltherson and on down to Frankford before hitting I-95 east of town. It also has two major transit stops (Light Rail and Metro Subway).It is an interesting trip with several nice wooded areas, parks and views of the City's skyline.

There is a small commercial village near Loyola in Roland Park that makes for a nice stop.. if anyone has any additional information on the history/name of this commercial area, I would love to learn more about this area and/or other interesting facts about Coldspring Lane.

[Tallybalt]

The commercial strip is now called Alonsoville, after the old Alonso's bar (still extant, but much changed). Before fashion dictated the new name, I don't think it was called anything in particular, but it served as a commercial corridor for basic retail needs for Roland Park residents.

The history of the corridor is probably originally tied to the development of Evergreen, the little pocket of modest houses off Cold Spring (along Keswick and Schenley Roads) that predate Roland Park by a few years.

You should also note that Guilford abuts Cold Spring. The three houses facing Loyola dorms on the west side of Charles Street are in Guilford proper.

[barante]

Legalistically speaking, Alonsoville is not in Roland Park, which is very well defined because properties have deed restrictions and homeowners are taxed separately by their own road maintenance outfit. Occasionally, Roland Parkers want to remind the rest of the community of this fact. One occassion was a few years ago when Bolton Hill Synagogue built a new sanctuary off Cold Spring Lane. The Sun said it was in Roland Park and had to run a correction.
Roland Park, of course, was one of America's first communities to exclude blacks by deed restrictions in 1910. Three years later a company policy also excluded Jews, a ban that lasted until the late 1960s. The number of Jewish families has grown rapidly in recent years.
Incidentally, Roland Park proper has a synagogue. It is a reconstructionist congregation that meets in the building of a church off Roland Avenue, near Lake.

[Tallybalt]

The First Christian Church (where the reconstructionist synagogue meets) is in Poplar Hill, not Roland Park. The northernmost boundary of Roland Park is Northern Parkway (where Merrymount Road ends in a dead-end behind St. Mary's Seminary). Neither St. Mary's Seminary, Gilman, nor RPCS are in Roland Park proper, as the neighborhood stops at Deepdene.

The district north of Northern Parkway, including the large houses facing Northern, is North Roland Park, a separate homeowner's association. The neighborhood was slowly developed over the years by a family that once owned all the land in a private estate, and sold off a few lots here and there over the years, but the Roland Park Company did provide some consulting oversight. Descendants of the family still own around thirty acres off St. George's Road, in the woods behind the large apartment building on Falls' Road. There's some fear among residents that this parcel, which is still zoned for residential, could someday contain an apartment complex or townhouses, and the residents are working to get a rezoning variance approved that would downzone the density allowance for North Roland Park.

Past North Roland Park is Roland Park North, the small townhouse community off of Roland Avenue just before the church. Bellemore Road is the main entry for Poplar Hill, and the church is in Poplar Hill. The church is where the homeowners' association of both Poplar Hill and North Roland Park hold their meetings.

Originally Posted by barante

Legalistically speaking, Alonsoville is not in Roland Park, which is very well defined because properties have deed restrictions and homeowners are taxed separately by their own road maintenance outfit. Occasionally, Roland Parkers want to remind the rest of the community of this fact. One occassion was a few years ago when Bolton Hill Synagogue built a new sanctuary off Cold Spring Lane. The Sun said it was in Roland Park and had to run a correction.
Roland Park, of course, was one of America's first communities to exclude blacks by deed restrictions in 1910. Three years later a company policy also excluded Jews, a ban that lasted until the late 1960s. The number of Jewish families has grown rapidly in recent years.
Incidentally, Roland Park proper has a synagogue. It is a reconstructionist congregation that meets in the building of a church off Roland Avenue, near Lake.

[Woodlands]

Originally Posted by barante

Legalistically speaking, Alonsoville is not in Roland Park, which is very well defined because properties have deed restrictions and homeowners are taxed separately by their own road maintenance outfit. Occasionally, Roland Parkers want to remind the rest of the community of this fact. One occassion was a few years ago when Bolton Hill Synagogue built a new sanctuary off Cold Spring Lane. The Sun said it was in Roland Park and had to run a correction.
Roland Park, of course, was one of America's first communities to exclude blacks by deed restrictions in 1910. Three years later a company policy also excluded Jews, a ban that lasted until the late 1960s. The number of Jewish families has grown rapidly in recent years.
Incidentally, Roland Park proper has a synagogue. It is a reconstructionist congregation that meets in the building of a church off Roland Avenue, near Lake.

Thanks for the info.... this is one of the features that I like about Baltimore. It is how the City has a variety of small retail centers that are walkable from the surrounding neighborhoods. Alonsoville and some of the small commercial nodes like Mt. Washington Village, Laurelville and to some degree Hamilton represent some of that convenience and entertainment value of small neighborhood centers. Some of the City's plans discuss Park Heights (Coldspring and Park Heights Ave); Belverdere (Park Heights Ave and Belverdere) and Howard Park (along Liberty Heights near Gywnn Oak Ave) and Liberty Heights (Liberty Heights at Garrison) as other potential retail sites pending their revitalization... though they all seem up in the air at this point.

I would like to see the creation of a similiar type of retail village in the vicinity of the Coldspring Light Rail Station...possibly on the northern side of Coldspring Lane on the site of the vinegar plant and what is call "stump dump" which could all be redeveloped to include residential office and mixed use. THe Jones Falls Master Plan reference the potential for this area to be redeveloped to capitalize on its access to I-83 and the Coldspring Light Rail. Similiar developments are happened in Woodbury, and are planned at Mt Royal and Westport Light Rail Stations. With Loyola investing millions to build an athletic complex that would include a football stadium and possibly a basketball arena (though this is still up in the air) on Coldspring behind the Northern District Police Station a nice retail village may complement this development assuming it has the right mix of retail/restaurants/bars, residential and office.... maybe a smaller version of Village of Cross Keys that would span a portion of the lower hillside and up along the tracks.

[barante]

If you go back to Moshe Safdie's original master plan for Coldspring, there was supposed to be a "town center" where the Northern District police station is now, near the vinegar factory. Also, housing was supposed to hug the quarry near where the Loyola property is.