Poppleton, Baltimore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poppleton | |
|---|---|
.jpg) 1100 block of Saratoga Street, with row of alley houses on 1100 block of Sarah Ann Street visible behind, in Poppleton, Baltimore | |
  Poppleton Location within Baltimore  Poppleton Location within Maryland  Poppleton Location within the United States | |
| Coordinates: 39°17′28″N 76°38′00″W / 39.29111°N 76.63333°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Maryland |
| City |  Baltimore |
| Time zone | UTC−5 (Eastern) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−4 (EDT) |
| ZIP Codes | 21223, 21201 |
| Area Codes | 410, 443, 667 |
Poppleton is a neighborhood in west Baltimore, Maryland.[1] The neighborhood is bounded on the north by West Mulberry Street, on the south by West Baltimore Street, on the west by North Carey Street, and on the east by the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.[2][3] Previously, Poppleton was construed in a broader sense extending further south to West Pratt Street or Lombard Street, but today this area is commonly described as the separate neighborhood of Hollins Market.[4][5][6]
Poppleton is the site of several Baltimore landmarks noted for their historical and/or architectural significance, including Old St. Paul’s Cemetery, Poppleton Fire Station, St. Peter the Apostle Church, Lithuanian Hall, Carter Memorial Church, the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, and Perkins Square.[7] The neighborhood also features some of the city's remaining alley houses, structures which were once prevalent in Baltimore but which are now uncommon. These houses are also noted for having been continuously inhabited by working-class African-American residents since just after the Civil War.[8][9]
Poppleton is named for Thomas Holdsworth Poppleton, an English surveyor who constructed a map which laid out Baltimore's street grid in 1822.[7][10] Much of the neighborhood's original buildings were constructed in a period between 1845 and 1880.[11]
The Poppleton area was home to the 19th- and 20th-century west Baltimore political boss John "Frank" Kelly, who lived at a still-extant home at 1106 West Saratoga Street.[12]
The construction of Interstate 170, often referred to as the "Highway to Nowhere," in the 1970's displaced 3,000 people from the area, and separated Poppleton from adjacent neighborhoods to the north. Intended to connect I-95 with I-70, the highway was left unfinished, and has since been cited as an example of structural inequality in the city; residents of the more affluent neighborhoods of Federal Hill and Fell's Point were able to successfully fight off a similar plan to build a highway through those neighborhoods.[13][14][15] By the mid-1970s, the neighborhood was already characterized by Johns Hopkins professor Phoebe Stanton as "architecturally rich but [...] in poor shape," due to the presence of vacant and previously demolished homes.[16]
The neighborhood was selected as part of a multi-million dollar federally funded redevelopment plan alongside five others in 1996, leading to the formation of an organization called the Village Center of Poppleton. Tasked with fulfilling promises to redevelop the area and attract new investment and jobs, the organization failed to deliver on its purported goals. Residents have accused the group's leader, an individual who almost entirely ran its operations, of misusing more than $2 million in funds, and the group was subject to federal audits, fines, and a 2-year suspension from the Empowerment Zone program.[13]
.jpg)
.jpg)
