Reservoir Hill
Engaged citizens, beautiful historic brownstones, public transportation access, and an amazing urban park just a short walk away
More than 4 billion people live in urban areas globally, and this number is expected to jump to 7 billion by 2050.
The livability of cities will increasingly determine the future of humanity and the planet.
As part of a CityLab course with the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University (JHU), students such as myself are exploring the challenges and opportunities of urbanization through the lens of livability.
As quality of life is threatened by pandemics, pollution, crime, failing infrastructure, civic discontent, and more, CityLab imagines intentional rebuilding for a livable future that helps transform distressed neighborhoods into flourishing communities.
This Community Profile is an analysis of the livability challenges, tremendous opportunities, and place, people, and ongoing and future projects of a Baltimore neighborhood of personal interest: Reservoir Hill.
From this 2016 Distressed Communities Index Report, note that among the 100 largest U.S. cities, Baltimore is among the most distressed cities (bottom center-right) and has moderate spatial inequality (zip code to zip code variation in wealth within the city). Cities like Detroit and Cleveland are slightly more distressed and equal than Baltimore, while cities like Cincinnati and Memphis are about as distressed as Baltimore, but more unequal spatially. ‘Distressed’ is a metric roll-up of percent of population with no high school degree, housing vacancy rate, number of adults not working, poverty rate, median income ratio, change in employment numbers, and change in number of business establishments from 2010 to 2013.
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An Introduction to Reservoir Hill:
Reservoir Hill (RH) is a historic neighborhood in central-west Baltimore, directly south of Druid Hill Park (established in 1860, about as old and large as Central Park in NYC), north of Bolton Hill, and east of Penn North.
It has a rich history: literally and figuratively!
Reservoir Hill was a premier neighborhood at the turn of the early 20th century — the place where wealthy Jewish Baltimore resided. It was a who’s who of Jewish Baltimore from the late 1880’s until the 1960’s.
During the 1970s, Reservoir Hill experienced a number of shifts in housing and resident issues: deterioration in housing and loss of many commercial strips in the neighborhood (e.g., the one formerly on Whitelock Street). Persistent issues with drug-trade, crime, and violence over the ensuing decades caused the area to fall further into decline.
Over the past 10 years, however, Reservoir Hill has made tremendous progress in remediation of blight (vacant lots, vacant buildings, creation of community gardens, alley cleanups) and there are several proposed or ongoing investments that hold promise for the future of Reservoir Hill citizens.
This profile will survey these encouraging opportunities for this unique neighborhood in a holistic manner.
In terms of adjacent neighborhoods, Reservoir Hill is bordered to the west by Penn North (a neighborhood more distressed than Reservoir Hill; separated by Druid Hill Avenue; current median sold home price of $57.5K), to the south by Bolton Hill (among the most affluent neighborhoods in the city; separated by West North Avenue; median sold home price of $520K), and to the immediate east by Remington (separated by I-83 highway; median sold home price of $213.5K).
Current median sold home price in Reservoir Hill is $187K, with median listing home price of $291.8K.
See below snapshot from Zillow of available homes in Reservoir Hill:
Reservoir Hill view from Zillow (as of 20 October 2020): close proximity to MICA (Maryland Institute of College of Arts), Penn Station (expected to undergo ~$90M of renovations starting early 2021) and Penn North (Metro stations), Druid Hill Park to north, I-83 to east, and Bolton Hill to south. Note that there are ~$300-400K homes right next to ~$50-100K homes (vacants); more on this to come.
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Five key strategies for building livable cities can be considered:
1) Healthy Habitat
2) Healthy People
3) Cohesive Communities
4) Engaged Citizens
5) Shared Prosperity
Through this frame of urban livability and sustainability, let’s begin with Healthy Habitat by examining where citizens of Reservoir Hill spend most of their time: in their homes.
The housing stock in Reservoir Hill is a tremendous asset to the neighborhood: it features a wide variety of 19th century architecture, including ornate Victorian mansions overlooking the Druid Hill Park, brownstones, and the smaller brick rowhouses typical of Baltimore.
Some of the neighborhood’s most elaborate row houses are along Eutaw Place.
Although there is much beauty in the housing stock, there is also noticeable pockets of blight:
One challenge for the area for several decades has been the 1970s-era Madison Park North complex on North Avenue, which was referred to disparagingly as Baltimore's "murder mall." It was a low-income, subsidized housing complex, but has been since demolished (began in December 2016), but drug dealing at the intersection of Linden Ave and North Ave (and general area) has still been noted.
There is a liquor store close by, by the name of Linden Liquors, which is also across the street from a new $33M, LEED Gold Dorothy I. Height (formerly John Eager Howard) Elementary School; Reservoir Hill Improvement Council (RHIC) has called for closing the Linden Liquors store, because of concerns of open-air drug use so close to young children.
Laundromat store on North Avenue, next to Linden Liquors, off of North Avenue.
Drug dealing at this intersection of North Avenue and Linden Avenue has been known to occur.
The 8-acre site of the former Madison Park North apartment complex. There is a $120M redevelopment effort, aiming to add a 50,000 sq. ft. innovation center, with goal of creating jobs and launching new startups.
Dorothy I. Height Elementary School in Reservoir Hill is one of the first of 28 new or renovated schools in Baltimore's 21st Century Schools Building Program.
Also critically important to a community’s habitat is outdoor spaces: to congregate, socially interact, play, and exercise.
Reservoir Hill has had the strong gathering spot of the Whitelock Community Farm (WCF) since 2010.
The farm began in 2010 when Reservoir Hill residents converted a vacant lot into an active urban farm with the help of hundreds of volunteers. The continued support of neighbors and the wider community has spirited the community’s vision to improve access to healthy food
Intersection of Whitelock St. and Brookfield Ave.
German Park is adjacent to the Whitelock Community Farm and thanks to community support, was recently renovated from a cement-centric park non-conducive to child play, to one better designed with children at mind:
<highlight several beautification efforts: tree planting, community gardens besides Whitelock, introduce Baltimore City Side Yard Program, alley cleanup; possible alley gating to improve safety?">
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Let’s now move to Healthy People, by examining some of the social determinants of health in Reservoir Hill.
<reference 2011 Neighborhood Health Profile of Penn North/Reservoir Hill, by Baltimore City Health Department; need greater investment in early childhood development in area; lack of preschools; relatively high middle and high school absenteeism; below city-average adult educational attainment; above city-average juvenile arrest rate, domestic violence rate, non-fatal shooting rate, and homicide incidence rate; vacant building density of 935.0 per 10,000 housing units [almost one in ten], compared to city average of 567.2 per 10,000 housing units; no grocery stores other than two corner stores, with limited healthy food options; supermarkets are outside RH; Whitelock Community Farm has Saturday market for fresh produce; life expectancy of 68.1 years, versus city-average of 71.8 years>
<For Social Determinants of Health, out of 55 city neighborhoods, Penn North/Reservoir Hill is ranked: 40th for Middle School Absenteeism, 46th for High School Absenteeism, 40th for Homicide Incidence Rate, and 43rd for Vacant Building Density>
<For Health Outcomes, out of 55 city neighborhoods, Penn North/Reservoir Hill is ranked: 42nd in Life Expectancy, 47th in Avertable Deaths, 44th in Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL), 50th in Heart Disease, 51st in HIV/AIDS, and 53rd (third worst in entire city) in Diabetes>
<show demographics, changes in racial makeup over the decades if possible>
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The third aspect of a sustainable urban village is Cohesive Communities: social capital, human connections, and networking.
<year round youth development programs, job readiness courses for youth and adults by St. Francis Center: https://www.stfranciscenter.org/what_we_do/programs_services/>
<yoga at Whitelock Farm every Saturday; weekly volunteer hours and monthly potluck cookout; Community Conservation Night with service on the farm, free community dinner, speaker panel; annual Harvest Festival (this year cancelled due to COVID)>
<bolton park neighbors, RHIC, New Lens, No Boundaries Coalition, Beth Am synagogue — community groups use the synagogue for meetings, voting, and social events;>
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Engaged Citizens is the fourth dimension of sustainable cities: civic conscience, social responsibility, and public good.
Reservoir Hill has had the benefit of several decades of leadership from the Reservoir Hill Improvement Council, Inc. (RHIC), founded in 1985.
RHIC unites, empowers, and mobilizes residents and organizations to define and take action on issues common to the Reservoir Hill community.
In 2015, a set of organizations and institutions whose collaborative work went back many years in Reservoir Hill began meeting monthly as Community Partners. Their intention was to be better collaborators, both with each other, and the community members they strive to serve.
Those presently meeting as Community Partners are the RHIC, Whitelock Community Farm, New Lens, Child First at the new Dorothy I. Height Elementary School, In For Of Inc. of Beth Am Synagogue, Dovecote Cafe, No Boundaries Coalition, St. Francis Neighborhood Center, the Druid Hill Family Center YMCA, Friends of Reservoir Hill, and the Mount Royal Community Development Corporation:
There are several initiatives to crowd-source ideas for urban revitalization and beautify the area. For example, community artwork for painting the crosswalk at Whitelock Street and Brookefield Avenue was set up on makeplacehappen.com/whitelock.
As an example to draw from, this Reverberations Crosswalk was implemented in June 2019, near the Margaret Brent Elementary School in Harwood, Baltimore:
Located at 26th and St. Paul Streets in Central Baltimore, this pavement mural enhances pedestrian safety for children and residents walking to and from Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle School. A similar concept has been proposed for an intersection in Reservoir Hill.
<if available, show voting behavior in area, as it compares to city averages; how engaged are citizens in RH in the political process?>
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Last but not least, the fifth element of sustainable urban environments is Shared Prosperity: inclusive wealth creation, social impact investing, and economic democracy.
2017 Baltimore Housing Typology Map. Note the mixture of housing types: dark blue (Market B) and light blue (Market C) in south-eastern section (and along Eutaw Pl/Madison Ave close to Druid Hill Park in northwest); light green (Market E) in center; yellow (Market G) near the Lakeview Towers complex (low-income apartments); and light orange (Market I) in most west section, neighboring Penn North. See below for definitions of Market Types A (best) through J (worst).
Note that Reservoir Hill does not have any purple (Market A), but has pockets of dark and light blue (Markets B and C).
Affluent: Purple and Blue (encircled with green in above image); Distressed: Yellow and Orange (encircle with red in above image). Note the west-east wealth divide along York Road (e.g., Guilford vs. Pen Lucy) and how Reservoir Hill (encircled with orange in above figure) sits in between pockets of relative wealthy (Bolton Hill) and the distressed West Baltimore region (e.g., Sandtown-Winchester, where Freddie Gray grew up and the 2015 riots erupted)
<insert how city is prioritizing “middle of the road” neighborhoods like Reservoir Hill that have enough traction and investments to build off of; city planners think investment in places like RH is strategically savvy>
<insert research on impact-investing and any data on Baltimore at-large; recent growth of RH (new families entering, more whites are coming in); racial and economic diversity of RH can be a strength to leverage moving forward>
Conclusion
Reservoir Hill's engaged citizens (led by RHIC and its partners) and its other strong assets (housing stock, accessibility to parks and public transportation), combined with these proposed developments / renovations to nearby institutions or places make its future a bright one:
- $90M renovation of nearby Penn Station Metro station
- $120M redevelopment of the former Madison Park North complex on North Avenue: opportunity for new mixed-income housing, an innovation center, a much-needed community health center, and retail
- Recommendation:
- Consider providing small-scale manufacturing to give residents and visitors new reasons to come spend time in Reservoir Hill area; create local products such as food, wood products, or textiles that can further the Made in Baltimore branding effort
- For individuals without a college degree, manufacturing jobs pay higher wages than other industries when compared to retail, casino, call center or other service jobs
- Consider providing small-scale manufacturing to give residents and visitors new reasons to come spend time in Reservoir Hill area; create local products such as food, wood products, or textiles that can further the Made in Baltimore branding effort
- Recommendation:
- $135M development of Druid Hill Park (potential amphitheater for small concerts, a wildlife conservatory, a lakeside cafe, kayaking, and fishing)
- Recommendation:
- Make access to Druid Hill Park much more pedestrian and cyclist friendly
- Create accessible fishing areas of the lake
- Recommendation:
- Redevelopment of the vacant city-owned land and buildings on Druid Park Lake Drive (northernmost border with Druid Lake, to the immediate west and east of Lakeview Towers)
- Recommendation:
- Consider providing another cafe or restaurant to the area besides Dovecote Cafe on Madison Avenue
- Strengthen connectivity to Druid Hill park (e.g., pedestrian bridge); make more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly to enter the park from Reservoir Hill
- Include a public gathering space for area residents to connect and socialize along or near Druid Park Lake Drive (e.g., plaza, open space, public art)
- Explore ground level commercial uses that would serve residents (e.g., pharmacy, grocer)
- Explore businesses on Western Site (bordering Linden Ave) that have synergies with the recreational uses at Druid Hill Park (e.g., running shoe and fitness apparel store, gym, smoothie bar, fishing gear and tackle shop)
- Recommendation: