West Baltimore (Randallstown: houses, crime, suburban)

[Oakback]

Originally Posted by barante

During anti-Jewish restrictive covenants Fallstaff was built by Joseph Meyerhoff as the Jewish Guilford. Follow Fallstaff Road east of Park Heights. Some other streets worth looking are Westbrook and Labyrinth.
Arlington and West Arlington are bounded by Garrison, Cold Spring, Rogers and Wabash. Nice big frame houses. I think it is basically a nice area, but there are lots or drugs and prostitution not the main drags.

Whata ya, some kinda history buff?

(The ADC map calls it Arlington)
Have some Jewish friends who grew up in the "Park Heights" area,
a LONG TIME AGO. Even lower Park Heights Avenue was upper middle class back then. Maybe some day it will come back.

[barante]

nanlev -- Lots of people here have private agendas. Some simply hate the city, others have had something bad happen to them.
You will be fine in Original Northwood. You have a great neighborhood and a vigilant community organization.
I have lived in Baltimore for 40 years, with the exception of nearly eight spent overseas. This city is so much better today than after the paralysis that followed the 1968 MLK assassination riots, when I first moved here. Original Northwood is better, too. Today, people want to move there; in 1968 and throughout the 1970s people wanted to exit, not because they didn't like the neighborhood but because all this negativism got to them. Believe me: Negativism on this board is nothing compared to the mood of the city in the 1970s.
The amount of inaccurate or misunderstood "information" on this board is appalling.
I have lived in various parts of the city during my years in Baltimore -- in Mount Vernon, at two places in Bolton Hill, in Coldspring condo community, Union Square and now in Cheswolde. Never been broken into, never mugged.
My wife and I do lots things because living in the city is condusive to that. I also belong to a three-man walking group. We always do a destination. One day it may be the Johns Hopkins University area (happened this week), next week it's going to Hampden. We have walked the Gettysburg battlefield. In late October, we'll return to Washington to do another neighborhoods.
We immediate cancel the benefits of walking by having a good lunch. Good conversation, constructive fellowship.
One of us lives in Linthicum, AA county; another in Roland Park and I in the northwest. All of are enthusiastic about the city.

[barante]

Oakback -- Next time you are in the area, go and visit Dumbarton. Its opposite Suburban club on Park Heights, north of Slade. This is where the German Jewish merchant princes lived. Like so many neighborhoods at the time, whether rich or poor, Dumbarton formally prohibited black residents. But it also had a verbal ban against Jews of Eastern European background.
Anyway, huge houses, some with turrets.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by CTownNative

I saw the documentary movie The Corner and Baltimore looked pretty bad,and that was a true story.Theres this tight website that has pictures of urban decay in Baltimore its calles URBAN DECAY

This site and the pictures on it only confirm what I've always felt. Why are the cities of the Northeast (plus Detroit) just so depressing. Those pictures of Baltimore and Philadelphia definitely look like a post-apocalypse world and some of the ones in Washington, D.C. definitely looked more like Iraq or Bosnia than the United States. These scenes from Bmore and Philly could easily come from Liberia or Kosovo or Northern Ireland. Cities in other parts of the country has problems but aside from Los Angeles (the page for LA was down) its not nearly as bad as the cities here.

Oh yeah and gentrification isn't really a good idea. First of all, it just pushes the ghetto out into the suburbs, expanding crime and poverty into even larger areas, destroying previously nice areas. Not everyone can be rich. There will always be poor people, its how economics works. Sounds nasty but better to have the ghetto concentrated inside the city than spread elsewhere. Also as much as you gentrify a city, there are things like green space, privacy, and quiet that the most gentrified urban areas cannot offer. Hence the pull to the suburbs and small towns will always be there.

I'm a young person so I can understand one benefit of city life. People can walk to bars and get drunk without worrying about who has to drive back. Besides that, you can always drive into the city for ballgames or concerts or to work (and these days with so many office parks in the burbs that might not even be necessary).

[jonjj]

To answer your original question, I guess the worst sections would be south of North Avenue and north of Baltimore Street. But that is a generality and I am sure there may be some nice areas sprinkled around there. I am not familiar with that area and there is a lot of crime occuring around there so I tend to stay away. In terms of the west side being horrible, that is simply not true. The west side would include everything west of Charles Street and some of the city's most beautiful and safe areas fall into that category: Bolton Hill, Mt. Washington, Hampden, all of the areas going through gentrification from Baltimore Street south, Ashburton. There are others also but I don't know all of the neighborhood names.

[mrsbrown2b]

Can anyone offer information on neighborhoods in West Baltimore? I mean as far as which neighborhoods would be good for middle class,twenty-something,mixed-race couple. My boyfriend and I are moving to your city in a couple of months from Philly. We are not afraid of a not-so good neighborhood. We are not looking to spend a lot on rent, we would like something less expensive until we can get use to our sourroundings and venture into other parts of the town. Any suggestions?????

[NYMTman]

West Baltimore makes Bosnia look like the Hamptons of Long Island fame. You might think you are ready for it - but I assure you, you are not.

[TheMaineGirl]

Originally Posted by nanlev

My husband and I just bought in Original Northwood (we have yet to move up) which I believe is considered to be in the northeastern part of the city.

My gosh, I need to stop reading all the negativity on this forum about the city and promise myself I will never watch a single episode of The Wire.

You're right...way too much negativity on the internet in general...when people are anonymous they'll say anything! The Wire is a TV show and if you remember that it's a TV show, you may enjoy it. It's pretty good...although I sometimes find it a bit boring JMO.

Northwood is nice!!! Congrats on the buy!

[carolott]

I've never watched The Wire, and nor will I. Good grief, if you can't separate life from TV...God help you.

Congrats on buying your house!!

[barante]

Carolott -- Please take a look at The Wire. Best television ever. This week's New Yorker, the one with two female faces on the cover, has a big takeout on David Simon, the guy who did this, Homicide and The Corner.