Seton Hill Open House Tour to celebrate the historic neighborhood of Seton Hill, Baltimore's old French Quarter (for sale)

[mmilanov]

Online registration has begun for the October 3, 2009 Seton Hill Open House Tour at: w ww.setonhill.org


If you are looking for a place to live in downtown Baltimore, here is your chance to get a close-up look at our neighborhood and to see what the houses look lie from the inside.

The Seton Hill Open House Tour is a neighborhood tour event, hosted with the support of Live Baltimore and Healthy Neighborhoods to raise awareness of the historic significance of the neighborhood and to promote home ownership in the area. People throughout the region are invited to learn about the Seton Hill area and view some of its significant historic buildings.

Visitors may register and pay for tour tickets online. On the day of the tour they will be able to pick-up tickets, or register on site, in the new Visitor Center for the historic Seminary Chapel and theMother Seton House. A tour of this historically significant site - to Baltimore … our Nation … and people of faith – will start off the day. Visitors will then be able to tour pre-selected private homes and homes for sale on a self guided walking tour. They will be able to learn about special tax and financing incentives for these homes, or see how residents of Seton Hill live in their homes. Visitors may opt to tour only the for sale homes, for free, if they so choose. The tour will include rental apartment buildings and information about rentals will be available.

WHEN: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 12:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST
12:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. - registration and ticket pick-up
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. - private home and home buying tour

WHERE: St. Mary’s Spiritual Center & Historic Site, 600 N. Paca Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201

Street parking available. Visitors who register online will receive additional parking information before the event. Public transportation: Center Street Light Rail stop. Walk west to Druid Hill Ave, take a left on Paca Street and Saint Mary’s Park.

[barante]

I will most likely attend the tour since I have never seen any of the Seton Hill houses.
"French" in this case requires some explanation. A community of educated, French-speaking Haitian refugees of both races formed there after 1793. A century later, the area around St. Mary's Seminary, at Paca Street, became a waystation for blacks moving away from the harbor who were displaced when railroad companies expanded. Then, replacing a German population, blacks marched northwest along Pennsylvania Avenue. That one-time turnpike evolved into a busy shopping and entertainment strip, the heart of West Baltimore’s expanding black district.