My walk: Better than Guilford
The intrepid Setting Sun Walkers were lucky today. We took our walk just before the rain came. We started from the Giant/Old Court Road parking lot and headed for Dumbarton, off Park Heights Avenue.
Dumbarton is the Jewish Guilford, built at the time when all the Roland Park Company properties (Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland and Original Northwood) barred blacks and Jews. Some of the mansions, originally occupied by merchant barons, are beyond belief. One example can be found on a hill at Ridge and Park Heights. It was big before, but was expanded a couple of years ago. Now it is huge.
We passed several other showpiece properties, including a sleek modern residence that has no exterior windows and looks like a fortress.
We crossed Seven Mile Lane and continued to Lightfoot, passing some magnificent ranchers. We then climbed the hill and crossed Smith, walking past some modest homes and ending up again on Seven Mile Lane. Returning to Dumbarton, we saw some other incredible homes, including one that looked like a castle. As we approached Park Heights, we were greeted by two baby deer. At 10:55 a.m.!
It was very humid, but my buddies proclaimed the walk to be a success. To celebrate, we sauntered to First Watch, a breakfast and lunch restaurant near Giant. Recommended.
One more piece of information about Dumbarton. In his seminal book, Kenneth Jackson claimed that when the federal government in the mid-1930s redlined 239 American cities, no Jewish neighborhood was given the top ranking. He is wrong. Dumbarton got the top grade; I have seen the review documents at the National Archives. It was homogeneous, barred blacks through deed restrictions and Eastern European Jews through a gentlemen's agreement. Another bastion of this self-selectivity, Suburban Club, was just across the road. It, too, barred Eastern European Jews.
|
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Linear Mode
