From his desk inside Port Covington’s City Garage, ecologist Brett Berkley often feels the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River luring him and his co-workers out for a lunchtime walk. But while his GreenVest team works daily in support of this South Baltimore shoreline, their offices within a stone’s throw of its changing tides, that doesn’t always translate to as much facetime with the water as they’d like.

Even on a cold winter day in this otherwise visibly polluted, post-industrial landscape—interstate ramps, light and heavy rail lines, BRESCO’s towering waste incinerator, the muted drum of traffic rumbling across the Hanover Street Bridge—a brief escape outside can be quite restorative.

Despite its ailing state, the Middle Branch shoreline presents an alluring view into the natural landscape amidst the pulse of a busy city: squawks of gulls, gentle laps of waves, glimpses of ducks floating by or nesting osprey, an occasional blue heron gingerly plodding the surrounding grasses and sands as it fishes shallow waters.

“It’s very cathartic,” says Berkley, an ecologist and senior vice president for GreenVest, a Bowie-headquartered consulting company specializing in ecological resilience, restoration, and planning. “And that’s the whole point of what we’re trying to achieve here.”

With a full supply of reusable, dredged up muck from the Port of Baltimore, Berkley and a team of engineers, scientists, and other technical experts and contractors will spend the next few years restoring dozens of acres of depleted shoreline along this long neglected waterfront.

The city, partnering with the nonprofit Parks & People Foundation and the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership (SBGP), the casino revenue-funded economic development authority for this area, has tapped this technical team to help ignite a climate-resilience and biodiversity renaissance, with ripple effects for surrounding communities, too.

Their collective Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative (MBRI) looks to eventually add more than 50 acres of new wetlands, boosting the waterfront’s ability to mitigate increasingly frequent flooding and creating transformative new habitat for wildlife. And it will occur just offshore from some of the city’s most under resourced neighborhoods, which have grown more and more cut off from the rest of Baltimore by industry and infrastructure.

The MBRI is one of many layers in the grand vision of the Reimagine Middle Branch Master Plan, developed starting in 2019 and formally approved by the city’s Planning Commission in February. Led by renowned New York landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations, of the High Line fame, the plan’s better-known elements include 11 miles of shoreline trails, new parks, boat launches, fishing piers, and a since-completed recreation center for its neighboring Cherry Hill community, to name a few.

Neighbors are keenly aware of what has been lost to the shoreline’s long-term degradation, says Ethan Abbott, SBGP’s transformational projects manager. It’s a painful reality to gaze upon a riverfront underperforming, with littered beaches, spotty grasses, and diminished habitat for aquatic life.

“I think knowing that you have natural resources that are not of the quality that they should be, and what they deserve to be and that you deserve to have as a community, it’s very demoralizing to see,” he says.

But by prioritizing the plan’s wetlands restoration, Baltimore is at the forefront of cities pursuing an ever-elusive vision for a sustainable, equitable, and naturalistic waterfront. Re-establishing these areas just offshore—some 90 percent of which have been lost to erosion, dredging, and rising sea levels over the last 150 years—could transform the Patapsco as we know it, resulting in a rare influx of natural capital.

Waterfront edges today are generally considered yet-to-be developed sites for offices, residences, commerce, or even public parks. The MBRI has a different plan, aiming to instead help communities to reconvene with the water’s edge. The vision of the MBRI, and Reimagine Middle Branch more broadly, is to restore this waterfront with immediate benefits for neighborhoods, and without displacing those already living there.

“Cities across America have rediscovered their waterfronts and realized that, in order to be competitive in the 21st century, they need to be able to provide high-quality environmental and recreational amenities,” says Brad Rogers, SBGP’s executive director. “At the same time, there are cities that face resiliency challenges, and there are cities struggling with longstanding issues of environmental justice and racial justice. I would say we’re the only place where all three of those are being layered on at the scale we’re talking about.”

Few spots are better candidates for this work than the unremarkably titled “Site 5A,” just northeast of Hanover Street and Frankfurst Avenue in South Baltimore’s Brooklyn neighborhood.

 

BALTIMORE IS AT THE FOREFRONT OF CITIES PURSUING SUSTAINABLE, EQUITABLE, AND NATURALISTIC WATERFRONTS.

 

From her office on Hanover Street, Meredith Chaiken has seen the fallout of this depleted, marshy area becoming increasingly inundated during heavy rains and tidal overflows.

“That space is shared by a lot of people and it floods all the time, so it takes a tricky situation and makes it worse,” says Chaiken, executive director for the Greater Baybrook Alliance, a nonprofit community development corporation serving Brooklyn, Brooklyn Park, and Curtis Bay.

Soon, though, it will be transformed. In October, federal, state, and local officials announced nearly $48 million in funding, including almost $32 million from a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant, to fund the MBRI’s first of multiple phases. It starts with Site 5A, followed by three areas outside MedStar Harbor Hospital in Cherry Hill, and a fifth fronting BGE’s Spring Gardens energy facility in Westport.

The design for Site 5A, created by GreenVest and Baltimore-based engineering firms BioHabitats and Moffatt & Nichol, is up to 10 acres, incorporating a medley of habitats—low and high marshes, subtidal zones, mud flats, “scrub shrub” (or woody vegetation) areas, clusters of taller trees—all surrounded by forested edges and collectively rising up in elevation toward the road. The marsh’s base will be rebuilt with recycled materials, composed largely of sediment stored in the Maryland Port Administration’s Masonville Cove and Cox Creek containment facilities.

Berkley explains that this dredge from the port channels, after being tested for toxic contaminants, will be reused as a foundational building block for the aquatic habitat restoration, providing a base for the wetlands. That base will then be capped by sand and topsoil to host plants, grasses, and trees.

Construction is set to start this fall; GreenVest and SBGP are still finalizing permits and designs with city, state, and federal input, while stockpiling dredge, plantings, and other materials. But the process is moving along, Berkley says excitedly. The first wetland will take an estimated nine to 12 months to install, with others expected to follow within the next half-decade.

At the neighborhood level, amid growing anticipation, some residents have wisely asked how to keep these marshes from withering away like others before them, says SBGP’s Abbott. Fortunately, “we are working with our design team to make sure that those elements are already taken care of,” he says.

Berkley explains that the new wetlands incorporate a “custom-vented design,” likening its layout to “dendritic connections like the branches of a tree.” Once in place, this frame will promote gradual accumulation of more sediment, known as accretion, so that it won’t simply wash away. It also allows the marsh to be “self-organizing,” he says: Tides can move through freely, yet it will be stable enough to weather coastal storm surges.

The promised benefits extend beyond keeping water levels low along a flood-prone shoreline. Sediment-depleted habitats not only fail to mitigate or clean polluted water; they also fail to sustain robust ecosystems. Conversely, more robust wetlands and healthier waters on the Patapsco can support everything from micro-organisms to insects, fish, and birds of prey—something representative of “the historic habitat continuum,” Berkley says. “We’re trying to reset the system from the base of the food chain up.”

He visualizes a swell in biodiversity: growing numbers of winged predators—cormorants, green and great blue herons, eagles, egrets—feeding on schools of hickory shad and white perch returning to the Middle Branch from other stems of the Patapsco out in Howard or Carroll counties. (Another positive byproduct: fewer “fish kills,” caused by pollution and effectively low water oxygen—a regular occurrence around the harbor.)

Habitat restoration has positive implications for the humans living nearby, too, notes Zeevelle Nottingham-Lemon, executive director of the neighborhood revitalization nonprofit Cherry Hill Strong. Generations of Baltimoreans have grown used to physical separation from the water, littering without grasping the implications for waterways, and not observing functional ecosystems at work.

“It’s a connection that has to be made,” says Nottingham-Lemon. “I think one of the important things is that this doesn’t just happen around Cherry Hill and around these neighborhoods, and also that people understand why this is happening and what we can do. Understanding the things that we—the big ‘we’—have done to degrade our environment, and the fact that we have gotten to a point with technology and science that we can restore some of that—and some of that natural balance of the world around us to thrive—is huge.”

The history of local shoreline debasement dates back some 300 years here. In 1723, English merchant John Moale began mining his property at the mouth of the Gwynns Falls for iron ore while cutting down trees to power an industrial furnace. The land was also tapped for clay used to build Baltimore’s iconic rowhouses. Industry had yet to fully define the waterfront at the time of Lewis Brantz’s 1819 “Survey of the River Patapsco and part of Chesapeake Bay,” which depicts a soft shoreline with a generous delta and broader stems of the Patapsco River flowing in.

But a marked shift was underway by the mid-19th century, with the 1855 debut of a gas production plant at Spring Gardens near Westport, followed by the Carr-Lowrey Glass Company factory’s arrival next door in 1889, and a coal-burning power station in the early 1900s.

A network of rail tracks grew along the water’s edge, and on the peninsula across the water, the former War of 1812 stronghold of Fort Covington was redeveloped with mills, a distillery, and a wharf. The Western Maryland Railway would transform this area into a sprawling railroad terminal with much-desired water access, leveling the land and dredging up hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of shoreline sediment in the process. The Great Fire of 1904 also left its mark on the landscape, as journalist Dan Fesperman reported in The Sun nearly a century later: “Cleanup crews shoved much of the rubble right into the Middle Branch, filling marshes and narrowing the shoreline.”

By the 1930s, recreational access that Baltimoreans had enjoyed at famous sites like the Ferry Bar, a former beach and resort with boardwalks and piers, was significantly diminished. A 1932 aerial photograph depicts the Middle Branch more as we see it today: industry clusters in Westport and Brooklyn, the circa-1916 Hanover Street Bridge in full view, a since-abandoned freight swing bridge in active use between Port Covington and Westport, and a harder, if still-forested edge at what today is Middle Branch Park. Cherry Hill and Brooklyn are seen bordered to the east and west, respectively, by Reedbird Landfill, which was used as a city waste-dumping ground for the better part of a century.

 

“WE’RE TRYING TO RESET THE SYSTEM FROM THE BASE OF THE FOOD CHAIN UP.”

 

In the 1940s and 1950s, the city set aside 275 acres near the landfill as federal public housing for returning Black World War II and Korean War veterans, in the process founding Cherry Hill as Baltimore’s first planned Black suburb. Despite their proximity to the water, residents here and in neighboring communities like Curtis Bay and Brooklyn grew only more cut off as new industry, roadways, and rail tracks buffered the shoreline over the 20th century.

The Reimagine Middle Branch planners studying this history find it mirrors a familiar arc of urban waterfront development. There’s industrialization, where “you go from soft, green edges to bulkheads and factories and ports,” says Megan Born, a landscape architect and urban designer with James Corner Field Operations. Industry relocates elsewhere, usually to deeper water, and facilities become obsolete. Then, around the late 20th century, “you see the decline where we move from an industrial city to a post-industrial city.”

Amidst this arc, highway construction proceeds. On the Middle Branch, it occurred at a large scale, with new I-95 interchanges and flyovers carving up the waterfront. “The city, state, and federal highway system were prioritizing moving suburban folks through at the cost of the people in South Baltimore,” Born says.

Residents bear the burden of this physical separation and, ironically, quality-of-life pitfalls stemming from shoreline’s depletion, like flooding and resulting mold at home. Communities have periodically been promised change—the city’s earlier adopted Middle Branch Master Plan from 2007, for example, focused on restoring habitats, creating more recreation spaces, improving transportation, and more—and Rogers concedes that, fairly, neighbors have planning fatigue from unmet promises.

But there have been noticeable changes since Reimagine Middle Branch’s design process began in 2019. As new amenities materialize—the state-of-the-art, $23-million recreation center that opened in Cherry Hill last year, for example—there’s more cause to be hopeful.

“Actually starting to see projects that are coming to fruition is really exciting to [residents],” says Odessa Phillip of Assedo Consulting, a public outreach partner for Reimagine Middle Branch. “That’s what’s going to bring them back to the waterfront, and it’s what’s going to expose them to something they don’t know about with the ecology and the way that it serves them.”

Nottingham-Lemon has also seen an “intentional recognition” among partners to rebuild trust with strong public engagement. Examples include the Mobile Project Hub, which brought seven pop-up informal engagement sessions to surrounding neighborhoods and events last spring; Splash!, which drew hundreds out to paddle, row, and fish at Middle Branch Park in September 2021; Voices of the Middle Branch, a social media video interview series; and a partnership with the Environmental Justice Journalism Institute, which is producing a documentary and also putting young people to work with scientific data collection on water quality at a marina near Westport.

Arguably more important are ongoing check-ins with communities as the project advances. It can be difficult to include everyone—work and technology are real barriers for many residents—but the leaders of Reimagine Middle Branch have “seeded a system” of public involvement, says Nottingham-Lemon.

“What I think is really important is that they’ve taken an important historical scan and understand the need for leveraging this type of investment in South Baltimore.”

A walk along the Captain’s Trail at Masonville Cove offers a glimpse of the MBRI’s innate promise. The wildlife refuge, created by the Maryland Port Administration a mile west of Brooklyn, abruptly whisks visitors away from Frankfurst Avenue’s heavy industry to organic shoreline. A few birders are out walking, binoculars in tow, on a brisk February Saturday.

The Cove’s pair of nesting bald eagles—Baltimore’s first-ever known coupling—are perched on a branch about 50 yards away, overseeing it all, and there’s a gentle breeze in the air. The marsh’s pungent, muddy, brackish scent gets stronger toward the water, and suddenly you’re standing on soft Patapsco beachfront with a panorama of the Outer Harbor.

For most of the last century, this was a dumping ground for building debris, decrepit ships, scrap metal, timber, and more, but a cleanup effort and port-led restoration has revived it since the early 2000s. Taking up some 50 acres sandwiched among the port’s Fairfield Terminal, a CSX heavy-rail yard, and Vulcan Materials’ construction aggregates factory, Masonville Cove today is the city’s de facto proof-of-concept for urban wetlands restoration.

Baltimore, much like its Dutch sister city of Rotterdam, has been honing its craft with ecological restoration and sediment reuse for decades, from the filling-in of Hart-Miller Island State Park near Middle River beginning in the late 1970s, to the reconstruction of Poplar Island on the Eastern Shore starting in 1998, to the large-scale cleanup of Masonville Cove, next door to the port’s dredge containment facility.

The Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative is the next evolution, leaders say, in integrating scalable restoration with neighborhood life. Its success will be measured not merely in how it looks, mitigates flooding, or attracts new wildlife, but also in its ability to establish renewed human-nature connectivity.

“We should be able to see the Patapsco, feeling the presence of the water more than what we’re able to right now,” says Chaiken, of the Greater Baybrook Alliance. “The water should be a tremendous resource for the community, and it should be a piece of life in this community. The restoration and improvement of that green space, I hope it touches everybody.”

When Michael Battle was 14, his mom died from a drug overdose. His dad was an addict, too. With such hardships at an early age, he fell into a life on the streets of South Baltimore. He’d rehabilitate, then find himself back there. The Cherry Hill native, 41, was ultimately propped up by friends and family—and inspired by his own children—leading him to launch a nonprofit organization in 2011 with his wife, Danielle.

Restoring Inner City Hope (RICH) serves as a resource for the Cherry Hill community, providing events and programming throughout the neighborhood, which is home to the largest low-income housing project in Baltimore City. Battle puts extra emphasis on looking out for the local youth, because he sees a lot of little Michaels carrying trauma similar to that he experienced as a kid, and knows what it takes to deal with it.

What does RICH do?
We started off with a prayer walk, which we still do every summer, then community-building events to get people together. Then three years ago, we had an opportunity to get some space in the old Patapsco Elementary School building, and we started running programming.

All year now, we run an after-school program four days a week with more than 50 children. We teach financial literacy, entrepreneurship, etiquette, conflict resolution, self-development—and we try to make sure the whole family is involved, too. And we have a six-week summer program, where we have different speakers come in and take the children out on trips. Some of these children haven’t been outside of Cherry Hill, or not too far. We try to show them there’s a whole other world out there.

What are you planning now?
Cherry Hill really doesn’t have a squeegee-boy problem, but we do have youth who need work. We want to have something in place before they have to get involved in the street. We’re planning to open the first-ever juice bar in the neighborhood. We’ll be providing healthy and affordable foods to the community, 100-percent fresh juices, smoothies, and a plant-based menu. And the entire business will be youth-operated.

Why did you start doing this work?
I take this serious, because someone did this for me. My second mom, Mary Oliver, was my aide in Head Start and never left my side. She was always there, even when my mother was alive, and made sure I had what I needed. And she continues to be there to this day. And my aunt and uncle played a big role. After my mother passed, I moved in with them, going from the housing projects up to Loch Raven Boulevard. They were instrumental in showing me how life should go. Then I went back to Cherry Hill, had some children, and the street thing kicked in. But my kids really changed me. I knew I had to do something different. I started working and got off the streets completely. And that’s what brought me to this point.

I worked at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard until February 2019, and do this full time now. Our goal is to love, inspire, and empower these children and families. When you live this, it’s different. I go hard with these kids. I give them everything I’ve got. Because you could be saving someone’s life and having an impact. My phone is never off. Wherever people are hurting, need some love and a hug, Michael Battle will be there.

Troy Staton, 53, began cutting hair as a kid after fixing the haircut his mother gave his younger brother. And it wasn’t long before he was cutting hair for others in Cherry Hill. But after training under great mentors throughout the city, he came to understand that barbershops weren’t just a place to trim one’s tendrils—they’re community hubs.

Over the years, he used that platform for good, bringing African-American art exhibitions into his shop, and running food drives and programs with local schools. Then in 2018, he was the victim of a random shooting. Staton transformed that trauma into activism, founding More Than a Shop to bring vital resources to communities in need.

What is More Than a Shop?
More Than a Shop is a network of barbershops, beauty salons, and nail salons that brings resources to the community. We work with Kaiser Permanente to do healthcare screenings. We provide Wi-Fi in barbershops to address the information desert, we collaborate with Enoch Pratt on literacy, as well as the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital for it to become more accessible to its West Baltimore community. We educate barbers and beauticians to do sexual-health awareness, to correct misinformation being told to young adults, and to spread information about HPV and vaccination. We do training on NARCAN and overdose prevention, as well as safe disposal of medication. Those are just some of our collaborations. We make resources accessible and also do training for barbers and beauticians. In the near future, I want the vaccines to be done in barbershops and salons. We’ve begun, with the help of my son, Rashad, a tiered approach to COVID vaccination to disseminate information and get an understanding from the community about who is hesitating about getting a vaccine and understanding the reasons for that. In October or November, we’ll be looking for healthcare partners to help deliver COVID-19 vaccines just as we’ve done our health screenings.

Why? Because CVS is fine. Walgreens is fine. But what if there is no CVS or Walgreens, but there is a barber?

What makes barbershops so special?
Historically, coming out of slavery, the two jobs a Black man could have was barbering and blacksmith. As a slave, the black barber was able to travel from plantation to plantation, cut hair, and knew what was going on across the plantations and he received perks like clothes and could be deputized to be the doctor. Barbers have always known what was going on and had a sense of the structuring of communities. Some of the most influential individuals of our history and culture were children and grandchildren of barbers. Barbering has a strong historical context in our culture.

Why are the barbershops and beauty salons so important to this effort?
In our communities, there are no more rec centers. No more libraries. We suffer from information deserts, literacy deserts, food deserts. Now, there might be a community resource center and they’re well intended and provide needed services, but the average person who needs these resources lives within a four-block radius, and people do not normally leave their four-block radius. There are churches, but they only appeal to their parishioners and again, people who are right there. And a lot of the people who come to our churches come from outside the local community. Well, what sits in the middle of all of them? The barbershops and beauty salons. It’s the poor man’s country club. Everyone goes there. They’re trusted. You can decompress, you bring together children and elders. The beauticians are already equipped to do “counseling,” because your stylist probably knows you more intimately than your significant other.

You were offering resources as a pilot program when a young man came to your shop in 2018 and began shooting. How did that experience galvanize into More Than a Shop?
On Halloween, a masked young man came in and started shooting around and I became a victim of a senseless crime. I was at the hospital at Shock Trauma and the doctor said I’d been touched by angels because I had three holes in the back of my neck. The media sent cameras to the barbershop and people there spoke about all the work that I had done. Not that I thought it was work, I was just doing my part for the community. That community rallied around me—a barber. Then I knew I was doing something right. I realized it was time to share this with my fellow barbers and beauticians. That brought forth More Than a Shop.

How have you stayed positive in your mission even as a victim of gun violence?
Two things. Before that, I was part of Healing City Baltimore. Through that, I learned about trauma and trauma response and PTSD. I thank God I walked away, but being hostile wasn’t going to resolve anything. It solidified that I was doing something worthwhile in our city and it was time to move it forward.

Where do you want More Than a Shop to be in the future?
I want to create a trade association for barbers and beauticians to provide structure and stability. When the pandemic took place, barbershops and salons shut down—they had no money put aside. With More Than a Shop, our barbers were able to sustain through our collaborators even though their shops were shut down, and it’s helped them to build financial stability, to build credit.

They have also been able to get mental health awareness. You see, the young man who came into my shop and shot me? He has a barber. What happens is that young man goes to his barber and talks about it, now his barber is suffering PTSD and can’t speak up. So now we’re working with barbers to maintain their mental stability, as well as that of the community. People trust us, but we have to be informed. A healthy barber, stylist, and nail tech create a healthy community.

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EAT

July 4: The Urban Oyster COVID Cook-In

The Urban Oyster. 1704 Whetstone Way. 12-5 p.m. $12-32

To celebrate the long weekend, chef/owner Jasmine Norton and her team are switching up the seafood menu at this Locust Point hotspot. In honor of Independence Day, the restaurant will serve up all-American classics like barbecue chicken, baby back ribs, and grilled lobster tails. Match your main course with a choice of two sides, including pasta salad, green beans, grilled corn, potato salad, and baked beans. Place your order online for curbside pickup to celebrate the holiday with traditional favorites.

DRINK

July 4: Annual Champagne and Fried Chicken Dinner at Chez Hugo

Chez Hugo Bistro. 206 E. Redwood St. 5-10 p.m. Prices vary.

This downtown dining destination is continuing its tradition of pairing fried chicken with Champagne—thought to be one of the world’s greatest food combos—for the holiday weekend. The French bistro, which recently resumed indoor dining with ample safety precautions, is celebrating the Fourth of July family style with half and whole fried chickens accompanied by buttery biscuits, mac and cheese, baked black-eyed peas, and slow-cooked broccoli greens. The special menu, also available for curbside carryout, includes a wide array of sparkling wines by the bottle for adults to sip while enjoying the feast.

SEE

July 4: Virtual July 4th Visionary Pets on Parade

YouTube. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Free.

Our furry friends have been providing us some extra comfort during these challenging times, so it’s time to celebrate them with one of Charm City’s favorite Fourth of July pastimes. Though neighbors won’t be gathering to watch the parade in person this year, the American Visionary Art Museum has been collecting photos of local pets in their most patriotic attire to present virtually. Tune in to the museum’s YouTube and social media channels to watch the city’s most cuddly models strut their stuff.

HEAR

July 4: Cherry Hill Arts and Music Waterfront Festival

Cherryhillfest.com. 12:30 p.m. Free.

COVID-19 can’t silence the sounds of the Cherry Hill Arts and Waterfront Music Festival. In partnership with the Youth Resiliency Institute, the Cherry Hill Community Coalition will celebrate the Black history, culture, and self-determination of its community online with this streaming benefit concert. Tune into the festival’s website to listen to a lineup of dynamic artists and consider making a donation to the relief fund, which provides Baltimore youth with culturally-relevant arts and crafts supplies and enrichment.

DO

July 5: Family Day at the Robert Long House

Robert Long House. 812 S Anne St. 2-6 p.m.

The Robert Long House is the oldest urban residence in Charm City, which makes it the perfect place for the family take in a bit of history on Independence Day weekend. Head to the Fells Point museum to take a trip back in time to the 1760s. Tour the grounds of the historical site and watch the trains travel along the model railroad. The whole family can also enjoy games, stroll through the beautiful blooming garden, and grab a free flag quiz to take with you on your journey home.

EAT

July 4: Independence Day Deck Party

Historic Ships in Baltimore, 301 East Pratt Street. 7-10 p.m. Free-$75.

Celebrate our country’s independence and all its history aboard a historic American Treasure—the USS Constellation. Get the best birds eye view of the Harbor above the crowds and enjoy the sparkling fireworks close up. And, of course, spoil your stomach with an all-you-can-eat menu by The Classic Catering People. Guests will enjoy all-American eats including hot dogs, veggie burgers, rotisserie chicken, seafood paella, salads, and nachos.

DRINK

July 4: Dogfish Head 4th of July Takeover at Sandlot

Sandlot, 1000 Wills St. 2-11p.m. $5-10.

What’s a Fourth of July celebration without ice cold beers? At this beach takeover, sip delicious Dogfish Head brews including SeaQuench, Slightly Mighty, Super 8, Namaste White, and the 60 Minute IPA. Join the Delaware-based brewery for a day full of live music by Joi Carter, Nelly’s Echo, and Raindeer, along with games and food vendors like The Charmery. Be sure to bring your own blankets and beach chairs to take in the view of fireworks bursting above the water.

SEE

July 4: AVAM’s July 4th Visionary Pets On Parade

American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. 9a.m. Free.

It’s time for your furry friends to strut their patriotic stuff at this annual July 4th pet parade and talent show. Prizes will be awarded for Best Costume, Most Patriotic, Most Visionary Pet, Owner & Pet Lookalikes, Visionary Pet Tricks, and more. Whether you participate, parade, or just watch, it’s all free and in loving memory of supreme animal lover, Ellis Rosen.

HEAR

July 6: DDm Album Release

Metro Gallery, 1700 N Charles St. 8p.m. $10-12.

Hometown favorite Emmanuel ‘DDm’ Moss works his way up with fresh confidence and energy as he introduces his bravado, wit, humor, and heart in his solo debut album “Beautiful Gowns.” The abrasive yet pleasing voice of this hip hop/rap artist is now coming to Metro Gallery to show off his newest big, bold, and colorful beats. This Soap Powder event hosted by Eze Jackson and Ellen Gee will also feature artists Life on Planets and Nnadagi.

DO

July 4: Cherry Hill Arts & Music Fourth of July Waterfront Festival

Middle Branch Park, 3301 Waterview Ave. 1-10p.m. Free.

Celebrating the cultural vibrancy of South Baltimore through performing and visual arts, this event is sure to entertain families all day long. Come enjoy interactive arts and crafts and live music from Kerq Band, The Joe Cooper Project, Paula Campbell, and Sister Carol, who will all be activating the green spaces at Middle Branch Park. Offering a clear view of the Baltimore City skyline, the park is also an ideal fireworks-watching spot.

On Wednesday, the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership (SBGP)—an economic development authority funded by revenue from Horseshoe Casino—announced it would be awarding more than $2 million to support community projects and local parks in South and Southwest Baltimore.

The first-ever round of grants totaling $650,000 from SBGP was awarded to 30 recipients including Cherry Hill CDC, Citizens of Pigtown, Federal Hill Main Street, and Living Classrooms Foundation. The amounts are divided into three levels—up to $5,000, up to $50,000, and up to $100,000—and will be awarded twice a year.

“Neighborhoods and nonprofits across the district asked us to help them make a difference,” said executive director of SBGP Brad Rogers. “And we’ve got their backs.”

Some of the higher tier recipients include the Youth Resiliency Institute that received $100,000 for its Cherry Hill Arts and Music Festival and Living Classrooms Foundation that was awarded $90,000 to support its School Leadership in Urban Runoff Reduction Project.

Smaller grants were awarded to projects like the Pigtown community garden, a mobile pantry by Fishes and Loaves, and Southwest Baltimore Charter School—the venue for the announcement.

“Our aging school building has needed audio-visual equipment for so long,” said Erika Brockman, executive director of the Southwest Baltimore Charter School. “With this $5,000 grant, we will be able to finally take care of the problem.”

SBGP is tasked with spending its portion of the funding from the city’s casino revenue on projects that improve the life of 16 South and Southwest Baltimore communities—including Cherry Hill, Westport, Federal Hill, Otterbein, and Lakeland—as outlined in the group’s master plan.

“The needs in the community are very real,” Rogers said. “We have set an audacious goal—to have the best parks in Baltimore. Period. Because our neighborhoods deserve them.” 

Rogers explains that the goal of SBGP is to allocate 20 percent of funds for grants, 30 percent for enhanced services in the community, and 50 percent for bigger picture projects. All proposals and applications for funding allocation are vetted and approved by SBGP’s board of directors including neighborhood leaders, local business owners, and city officials.

In the coming 2018 fiscal year, SBGP will disperse about $6 million along with another $6 million from the Local Development Council—a committee also created to manage the city’s casino revenue.

Rogers also announced on Wednesday that SBGP is investing $1.4 million to improve public spaces in collaboration with the Department of Parks and Recreation. The funds will be used for maintenance and programming in local parks, but specific plans has not yet been decided.

Although plans are still being finalized, Rogers believes the overarching goal has already been fulfilled in the South and Southwestern Baltimore communities, and he is optimistic about the future of the projects.

“It’s incredibly exciting,” he said. “What you have, for the first time, is a large number of neighborhoods unified around a common goal with the resources to make it happen. We’re all committed to moving forward together.”