Clifton Park – Baltimore Magazine

Most Mouthwatering Dishes You’ll Find at the Baltimore Caribbean Festival

Cydney Hayes — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 15:05:00 +0000

If you’re looking for the perfect getaway destination this summer, it might be closer than you think. On July 14 and 15 in Clifton Park, the Baltimore Washington One Carnival, otherwise known as the Baltimore Caribbean Carnival, will bring all the island essentials right to the streets of Charm City: color, costumes, and, perhaps most importantly, cuisine.

With over 25 food vendors to choose from—and thousands of attendees to beat to the front of the lines—finding the best dishes can be difficult. Luckily, we’ve got the inside scoop on the most authentic, can’t-miss fare you can find at this year’s festival.

Jerk chicken
Jerk chicken is one of the most iconic Caribbean dishes you’ll find on the islands or in the States. Originally a Jamaican style of cooking, “jerk” refers to the method of seasoning meat—in this case, chicken—with a dry-rub or a marinade made of allspice, often called pimento in Caribbean culture, and scotch bonnet peppers. (If you’re spice-averse, look out: scotch bonnet peppers, also called Caribbean red peppers, average about 500,000 Scoville heat units. In comparison, jalapeños usually rank at about 8,000.) Jerk chicken is often cooked in wood-burning ovens to give it that rich, smoky flavor that makes this dish an annual go-to at the Caribbean Carnival.

Curried goat
Another Indo-Caribbean favorite is curried goat. Although some people are hesitant to deviate from chicken and beef, goat is one of the popular meats in the world. Due to common religious customs in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean that prohibit the consumption of beef and pork, goat is a typical, delicious alternative. In fact, the protein is such a star on Caribbean dinner tables that a goat-based stew called goat water is the national dish of the island of Montserrat. At the carnival, check out curried goat—a thick, slow-cooked stew that is brightened with flavors from ginger, hot peppers, thyme, garlic, onions, and, of course, curry. What’s more, goat is a low-fat, high-protein meat that won’t weigh you down as you partake in the lively festivities all weekend long.

Fry fish
If there’s one culinary crossover between the Caribbean islands and Baltimore, it’s that seafood is king. Fry fish, or fried fish, is a Caribbean classic. Loughton Sargeant, the executive director of the D.C. Caribbean Carnival Committee, said that fry fish can be found in two forms at the carnival this year: Escovitch style, which involves dry-frying the fish and topping it with a mix of crisp vegetables, and what he calls “stew-style,” in which the fish is fried and then doused in a rich brown stew sauce that’s as hearty as it is traditional.

Oxtail
Originally, oxtail was exactly what it sounds like: the tail of an ox. As the dish has become more popular beyond the Caribbean, however, oxtail can now refer to the tail of any sort of cattle, but the minutia has had no consequence on its unctuous flavor. To the surprise of many oxtail newbies, cattle tails are very meaty and can weigh up to four pounds. In Caribbean cuisine, oxtail is traditionally prepared in a fatty soup or stew, or slow-cooked and served over rice. While you’re at the carnival, the over-rice style might be a bit easier to eat on-the-go, but both are equally delectable.

Pelau
Pelau is to Trinidad and Tobago what crab is to Baltimore: quintessential, widespread, and served with just about everything. Pelau is a rice dish commonly simmered with peas, carrots, hot peppers, meats, and an aromatic blend of seasonings, such as parsley, thyme, ketchup, sugar, and sometimes a touch of barbecue sauce. Pelau is a perfect plate for the Caribbean Carnival: mobile-friendly, packed with flavor, and often served in sharing-size portions.

Roti
Although not usually a full meal on its own, roti is a thin, unleavened flatbread that is everywhere throughout South Asia and the Caribbean islands, particularly Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Guyana, and Suriname. Perhaps roti’s most defining characteristic is its base made from a wheat flour called atta, which is often stone-ground and contains all the nutritious parts of the wheat grain that white flour often filters out. Roti is a perfect pairing with any meat, stew, or veggie dish. Elaine Simon, the president of the Caribbean American Carnival Association of Baltimore, said that several food vendors at this year’s carnival will sell roti as a side for larger entrées.

Pholourie
Pholourie, also spelled phulourie or phoulourie, is the perfect midday festival snack. Hugely popular in Trinidad and Tobago and also a widespread street food in Guyanese and Surinamese cuisines, pholourie consists of spiced, fried chickpea dough balls. Slightly crispy on the outside, warm and satisfying on the inside, these little dough balls are full of flavor. The dough is commonly seasoned with garlic, cumin, pepper, curry, and cilantro before they hop in the deep frier. At the Caribbean Carnival, you can try pholourie with sides such as mango or tamarind chutneys to balance the deep fried snack, or velvety yogurt sauces to taste one of the simplest Caribbean decadences.

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City By The Bay

Jess Mayhugh — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:00:00 +0000

It is hard to picture East Baltimore as rural, Italian-like countryside, but you can get a sense of the rolling hills and long-gone trees from Clifton Mansion, the former summer home of Johns Hopkins. Built atop 266 acres, its panoramic views of the Inner Harbor, downtown, and TV Hill make the busy thoroughfares of Harford and Belair roads below disappear. The undulating natural topography—buried beneath dense, century-old rowhouse-laden streets—suddenly becomes visible.

“It is one of the highest peaks in the city,” says John Ciekot, special projects director for the Clifton Mansion rehabilitation project, as he leads a mini-tour of the home, which includes an ongoing restoration of an 1851 Bay of Naples mural. “Horses and carriages would’ve rolled up the toll roads here to the private entrance.”

Hopkins acquired the property, originally owned by Captain Henry Thompson, in 1841, several years after the War of 1812 horse artillery and militia commander passed away. Baltimore’s most famous benefactor soon transformed the Captain’s stately Georgian mansion into an Italianate villa, complete with a new porte cochère (a covered entrance large enough for carriages to discharge their passengers) and an 80-foot tower. The entrance hall features richly stained arch window frames, a marble floor, ornate hand-painted walls and ceilings, a black walnut staircase—and the centerpiece, a mural of Naples, its great bay, the nearby countryside, and Mount Vesuvius.

The painting was discovered in 1993 when Civic Works, the nonprofit job training and community-service organization, began leasing the long-neglected property. ‘The mural was painted over probably a dozen times,” says Ciekot “Whatever bureaucratic beige, yellow, brown, or green was in that year.”

Gillian Quinn, who is leading the restoration of the mural, says period artists often painted the scene after a Vesuvius eruption, which made the bay sky glow.
The artist who did the mural remains unknown. However, a signature is beginning to be uncovered. This very afternoon, conservators Ewa Pohl and Sue Crawford are literally scraping back the layers of paint with scalpels, further revealing the blue-green bay hues and pink-rose sky. It’s tedious work that likely will take a year to complete, but not necessarily unpleasant. “It’s meditative,” Pohl says. “We’re like monks.”

The mural faces a large window whose golden light would have—and will again soon—made the painting look different in the morning, at noon, and at dusk. The work itself has been one of small discoveries. What Crawford thought was decades-old spackling turned out to be sailboats on the bay. Generally, the conservators work with knives in one hand and cloths in the other—dampened not by some high-tech chemical solution, but something readily available when the painting was made.

“Spit,” Pohl says, dabbing the mural wall. “It still works best.”

Additional questions about Clifton Mansion and tours can be sent to cliftonmansion@civicworks.com or 2701 St. Lo Drive, Baltimore, MD 21213

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Farm City

Jess Mayhugh — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 09:00:00 +0000

Farm City

Urban farming is taking root in Baltimore. Is it the city's next growth industry?

By Amy Mulvihill.
Photography by Christopher Myers. Lettering by Jill DeHann.

One wheelbarrow-full at a time, Walker Marsh is transporting an SUV-size pile of horse manure from one end of his farm to the other.

“Man this stuff gets stinky as you get into it,” says Marsh good-naturedly, as he lifts another shovelful into the cart.

The effort, an early spring project to create compost for newly demarcated plant beds at his nascent flower farm, is an almost archetypal act of farming—low-tech, simple, wholesome—probably practiced ever since agriculture first began in the Fertile Crescent some 11,000 years ago. But everything else about the scene—at least to our modern eyes—seems jarring.

Maya Kosok at her flower Farm Hillen homestead.

Instead of long, uniform rows of crops stretching toward the horizon, the site is a half-acre triangle of compacted dirt in East Baltimore, strewn with trash and fenced by a knee-high strip of woven black plastic. Instead of a bucolic vista, the view is of Inner Harbor skyscrapers and construction cranes over the nearby Johns Hopkins medical campus. Instead of a quiet country road, there is only the persistent rumble of traffic on city streets. And instead of barns and silos, there are sad-looking liquor stores and vacant row homes ringing the farm. Marsh himself might confound some expectations, too. Do a Google Images search for “farmer” and what results, overwhelmingly, are pictures of farmers who are male, middle-aged, and white. Marsh is almost none of those things. A tall, thin 28-year-old African American with a nose ring and an easy, sibilant laugh, Marsh is a new breed of farmer on a new breed of farm—the urban farm.

“Right now, it’s just dirt but . . . we’re going to get it done. I’m a big dreamer, I’m a vision-type person,” Marsh says.

Though growing crops in urban environments is not novel—victory gardens were common during World War II, for instance—an almost revolutionary zeal for the practice is sweeping the country, and thanks to Marsh and his fellow “urban ag” compatriots, Baltimore has joined the crusade. Baltimore is such fertile ground for it that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack came to Baltimore in April to announce the launch of the Department of Agriculture’s new online resource guide for budding urban farmers. Before the press conference at Frederick Douglass High School—which had just installed garden beds and a small orchard on its campus—Vilsack attended a roundtable with some of the major players on Baltimore’s farming scene.

“There’s an awful lot going on in this space,” he said afterward. “One day, you’re just going to wake up and go, ‘This is everywhere!’”

That day may have already arrived. In recent years, the city has adopted a suite of regulations to better accommodate farming, everything from rewriting the rules about livestock (bees, miniature goats, rabbits, and chickens are allowed now in limited numbers) to clarifying the building code to permit lightweight, temporary greenhouses called hoop houses. Perhaps most ambitiously, last year the City Council passed an Urban Agriculture Property Tax Credit that provides a 90 percent tax break to farmers who produce $5,000 worth of crops annually. There is also a pending rewrite of the city’s zoning code, which would codify urban agriculture in almost all of Baltimore’s residential zones.

As a result, if you know where to look, you can now find agriculture in every corner of the city, in forms ranging from flower farming to aquaponics—a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in water). Among the city’s 17 urban farms and more than 75 food-producing community gardens, the variations seem endless.

“It’s a lot of really innovative people just trying things out,” says Maya Kosok, who runs Hillen Homestead, a flower farm on two small vacant lots near Clifton Park. “There’s a lot more potential.”

Nowhere in the city is this potential more apparent than at Real Food Farm. Totaling eight acres across two sites—one in Clifton Park and one in a nearby blighted neighborhood—the operation is supported by the larger nonprofit Civic Works. It has become what food and farm director Chrissy Goldberg calls “a model urban ag farm,” its goal less about making money than about creating new farmers. Groups from local high schools and universities constantly stream in and out of the Clifton Park site, learning about food systems, food justice issues, and urban farming. On Fridays, the farm’s woodchip-lined walkways buzz with activity as city farmers congregate to prepare for the next day’s Waverly farmers’ market, where they sell under the collective banner of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. And, as a partner with national and local job programs, the farm is a constant source of hands-on experience for aspiring agriculturalists. Marsh himself started here, transitioning from a different project under the Civic Works umbrella.

“I was doing door-to-door canvassing, basically selling home weatherization packages,” recalls Marsh, who, like many urban farmers, makes a point to offer job-training opportunities to at-risk youth on his farm. “I just didn’t like it, so I went back to the folks at Civic Works and was like, ‘Hey, is there a different job?’ And they were like, ‘Well, the only job available now is farming.’ I was like, ‘Crap. I guess I gotta farm.’ But I went out there and I fell in love with farming the first day, and I haven’t looked back since.”

Greens Grown at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Spring crops at Real Food Farm’s Clifton Park site.

Early strawberries at Real Food Farm.

Isabel Antreasian, left, and Alison Worman at Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill.

In bloom at Hillen Homestead.

Walker Marsh at his East Baltimore flower farm, Tha Flower Factory.

Farm Stand sign at Whitelock Community Farm.

Tending to the bees at Real Food Farm.

The urban farming movement is, in many ways, an outgrowth of a renewed interest in cities, which now house the majority of the world’s population and are only expected to swell. As Lindsay Thompson, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, remarked earlier this year at a Light City U conference, “Global challenges are city challenges,” meaning that making cities functional, safe, and healthy is crucial to the continuation of civilization. “So, no pressure,” she joked.

Because of urban agriculture’s potential to feed, employ, beautify, and improve ecological and health outcomes, it is often touted as a promising solution to the ills of urbanity, especially in cities like Baltimore where vacant land is plentiful, food insecurity and blight are rampant, and community resources are scarce.

But the reality is considerably more complicated. Even the movement’s staunchest allies admit it won’t completely solve food insecurity problems and its job-creating potential, at least in the short term, is modest. Still, many in the field feel its virtues—which include fostering relationship-building, community investment, and increased housing values—are overlooked.

“My understanding . . . is that there are very few folks on the city level that see urban agriculture as a permanent use [of land] anywhere,” says Allison Boyd, the director of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, which imposes soil safety and other health standards on farmers as a condition of membership. “It’s [like], ‘Oh, it’s this nice thing. It will be a placeholder until someone comes along and wants to build a row house or a condo or whatever.’”

At the heart of the matter is determining what Boyd calls “the highest and best use” of city land. For urban farmers, that is agriculture. For the city, that means whatever will generate property tax revenue—and that’s unlikely to be a farm. Indeed, very few farms in Baltimore operate on taxable private land. Most occupy city-owned vacant lots or parkland, which farmers access through one of two programs. The first, called Adopt-A-Lot, permits use of vacant land without a lease and for free on a year-to-year basis; the city can revoke the agreement at any time. The second—the Land Leasing Initiative—offers more protection but is harder to access. It provides a five-year lease with a two-year notice to vacate, giving farmers a minimum occupancy of seven years. But the Land Leasing Initiative only applies to operations deemed urban farms, not community gardens or green space, and applicants must have at least one year of successful ag experience to qualify.

Cheryl Carmona co-founded Boone Street Farm in 2010 on two vacant lots in East Baltimore’s Midway neighborhood. Over time and despite challenges, the farm thrived, expanding onto a few nearby vacant lots. Then, last fall, Carmona was informed that a developer wanted to buy one of the lots and construct an apartment building. Because Carmona was using that plot through the Adopt-A-Lot program, she had little recourse.

“We had two weeks to come up with a counterbid. We were trying to scramble and come up with $20,000,” says Carmona, who is now working to register her remaining lots under the Land Lease Initiative. Without that added cushion of protection, she calls her farm “a sitting duck.”

And this is perhaps the great irony of urban farming—the more successful the farm, the more it helps stabilize a neighborhood, the more likely it is to fall prey to redevelopment.

But Abby Cocke, an environmental planner at the city’s Office of Sustainability, thinks officials are beginning to recognize the hard-to-quantify value of urban farms and other green spaces.

“We are just starting to work out a green network plan for the city that would look at our vacant land [and determine] what are the most strategic places to keep open and not develop,” she says, calling it “an evolving conversation.”

“Right now,” she continues, “it is absolutely a different conversation every time because every neighborhood is different and every farm is different and every development is different. But we’re starting to do a better job at balancing priorities and not just thinking in one way.”

The farmers, too, are starting to think differently. While much of the farming in the city is traditional and land-intensive, there are alternatives being explored, some with great promise.

In a small greenhouse on the grounds of Cylburn Arboretum, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is backing an experiment in aquaponics, raising fish and growing salad greens in an interconnected system of water-filled tanks and troughs. Though Laura Genello, the outgoing farm manager at the Food System Lab @ Cylburn, admits the practice has its drawbacks—it is expensive to launch and energy-intensive—the soilless growing method can produce high yields, reduce labor costs, and allow for almost total environmental control.

“Other than feeding the fish and maintaining healthy water for them, they don’t require a lot. There’s no weeding, no soil prep, no tractor use or tillage,” Genello explains.

And the rewards can be great, though it’s the quick-growing greens, not the fish—which take a year and a half to mature—that are the cash crop. Through the sale of both the greens and the fish to area outlets, Genello says the Food System Lab “comes fairly close” to covering its operating costs except for her salary, which is underwritten by Hopkins. Luckily, the academic nature of the project doesn’t demand profitability, but it’s easy to see how, with a few tweaks, a similar model could reap plenty.

Carrots at Real Food Farm.

J.J. Reidy inside the urban pastoral shipping container.

Maya Kosok hard at work at Hillen Homestead.

With a toothy grin, prep-school elan, and a do-gooder’s drive, 28-year-old J.J. Reidy could be mistaken for a young Kennedy, but he’s actually the proprietor of Urban Pastoral, Baltimore’s latest—and maybe most unconventional—urban farm. In a 320-square-foot retrofitted shipping container in the parking lot behind the American Brewery building, Reidy is growing microgreens through hydroponic vertical farming, a method favored in space-squeezed metropolises like New York and San Francisco. Shallow plant beds are arranged in stacked rows and columns, and the density allows Reidy to grow about 4,300 heads of lettuce at a time in the climate-controlled, LED-lighted container—a harvest he notes is equivalent to “several football fields of open-field agriculture.”

That lettuce will be front and center next month when Reidy and his cohorts open a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in the new R. House food hall in Remington. He believes that between the growing farm operation and the eatery, Urban Pastoral will be able to demonstrate the profitability of urban farming in a way other local farms have not.

Professor Thompson, who mentored Reidy as he developed the business while a student at the Carey Business School, thinks this is crucial for the success of urban farming.

“It’s never going to take off if it doesn’t make money,” she says.

But though Thompson is pragmatic about the challenges facing urban ag, she roots for it because she recognizes its value.

“The magic of those spaces is that they can harness disruption and make it into innovation instead of disruption turning into chaos,” she says. “And that’s the big challenge of cities. Of course we’re going to have disruption because we’re mashing up all sorts of people and ideas and values. But can we harness that? The quality of place is one of the key factors in making that difference.”

After a long winter, it’s busy time at Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill. Farm manager Alison Worman and programs manager Isabel Antreasian admit that the long, cold spring has put them behind schedule. They need to weed beds, get late-started seedlings in the ground, organize a slate of community events, and prepare to welcome new employees participating in the city’s YouthWorks summer jobs program.

But Worman and Antreasian understand that Whitelock’s role as a community asset necessitates flexibility. So they don’t bat an eye when a neighbor, Omarr Newberns, accompanied by his cocker spaniel, Brooklyn, appears carrying a dead potted plant.

“Hey, Omarr, what’s up?” asks Worman, a 26-year-old who came to urban farming after graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a degree in fiber and book arts.

“These are from last summer,” Newberns says of the shriveled sprig.

“These are the basil?” Worman queries. “It’s not going to come back, but I can give you some more.”

“Okay, I kept watering and watering, trying to see if maybe it will salvage,” Newberns replies sheepishly.

He began growing herbs last year after developing an interest in cooking and now tends a potted garden in his apartment.

“Before coming here, I was going to the international store, H-mart, to find all the different types of herbs,” he explains. “Once I found the ladies had it here, I was like, ‘Hey!’ And then I started growing my own last summer because they put their green thumb in there and it worked!”

As Newberns, Worman, and Antreasian discuss herbs and coo over Brooklyn, another neighbor stops by, then another, and another. Suddenly it feels more like a party than a day on the farm, and the conversation drifts from the prior evening’s Bruce Springsteen concert at Royal Farms Arena (Newberns works security there) to reminiscences about Prince, who had been found dead earlier that day.

Worman, finally excusing herself to go grab a new basil plant for Newberns, shrugs and laughs. “Welcome to our every day.”

Barrels of tilapia at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Starter seedlings at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Laura Genello was the farm manger at Food System Lab @ Cylburn from June 2012-July 2016.

Tilapia from Food System Lab @ Cylburn is sold to local restaurants, including Woodberry Kitchen.

Real Food Farm emphasizes teaching agricultural practices to the next generation of farmers through programs such as Youth Crew, a paid year-long internship for 11th and 12th graders in the Lake Clifton area.

A toolshed at Real Food Farm.

A farmer harvests strawberries at Real Food Farm.

Real Food Farm is one of about a dozen urban farms that sells at the 32nd Street Farmers' Market in Waverly.

Lettuce at Real Food Farm.

Real Food Farm also hosts several beehives.

Totaling eight acres across two sites, Real Food Farm's Clifton Park location is the most "traditional" looking of the city's urban farms.

Myeasha Taylor at Real Food Farm's Perlman Place location.

Flower at Whitelock Farm.

Whitelock Farm is a community gathering place in addition to a food-producing farm.

Herb garden at Whitelock Farm.

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Second Trash Wheel Could Come to Canton

Ron Cassie — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:17:00 +0000

Mr. Trash Wheel may soon have a garbage-fighting sidekick to help clean up the harbor.

Since its implementation in the spring of 2014, the Inner Harbor’s trash wheel at the bottom of the Jones Falls River has collected 205 tons of trash, receiving national and international attention. Affectionately known as “Mr. Trash Wheel,” a clip of the groundbreaking device in action after a May rain storm last year garnered more than 1.1 million views on YouTube.

Now, a second trash wheel is being planned for Canton, near Pier Park, across the street from the Boston Street Safeway.

Buried Harris Creek, which is completely piped and drains two square miles of Baltimore beginning in Clifton Park, runs beneath Patterson Park and ultimately discharges into the harbor in Canton. It transports over a hundred tons of trash into the water there every year, according to the Waterfront Partnership, which has announced a $550,000 fundraising goal for the Canton water wheel project. To date, more than $175,000 has been raised through the support of the Keith Campbell Foundation, the Clayton Baker Trust, the Rauch Foundation, and local business community.

The new water wheel in Canton will be smaller (but faster) and cost approximately 30 percent less than the Inner Harbor wheel. It will use solar and hydropower to capture litter and debris before they reach the harbor and Chesapeake Bay. If the Canton effort goes as expected, a third trash wheel in South Baltimore could also become a possibility, environmental advocates said at the release of the Waterfront Partnership’s annual Healthy Harbor report earlier this month.

More information on the Canton water wheel project—as well as a link to make donations—can be found here.

And in case you’re wondering what the 205 tons of trash scooped up by Mr. Trash Wheel—who has a great Twitter feed, by the away—would’ve looked like entering harbor, picture this:

123, 670 plastic bottles
160,919 polystyrene containers
93,429 chip bags
4,767,000 cigarette butts
50,410 grocery bottles
2,725 glass bottles
534 sport balls

Yup, and at least one tire and one beer keg.

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Baltimore’s Neighborhood Parks

Jess Mayhugh — Tue, 27 May 2014 08:00:00 +0000

City dwellers often counter the argument for county life and its more plentiful open spaces with some variant of the line, “But the
entire city is my backyard!” While this rebuttal conveniently overlooks certain realities of city life—traffic; crime; noise, light, and waste pollution; having to occasionally, you know, share—there is also a lot of truth to it. Does a suburban backyard have free outdoor concerts, two zoos (yes, two), five golf courses, miles of hiking and biking trails, an ice-skating rink, Chesapeake Bay access, an arboretum, and literally dozens of pools?

Indeed there is much to celebrate in Baltimore’s park system, probably more than you know, and it’s all right outside your door. With summer bearing down on us, here’s our guide to exploring the best of your own backyard—all 4,905 acres of it.

Druid Hill Park

2600 E. Madison Ave.,
druidhillpark.org

Acreage: 745.

Special Features: The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, a disc golf course, and one of the city’s 29 public pools. Druid Hill Lake, aka the Reservoir, and Boat Lake also draw walkers, bikers, and birders to their scenic shores. The 125-year-old Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens is a jewel box of flora with five distinct greenhouses (including orchid and tropical rooms), plus a half-acre garden.

Summer Events: Every Wednesday from June through September, the park hosts an evening farmers’ market. The zoo is open daily from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and offers its much-loved Breakfast with the Animals program on select weekend mornings. The park lives up to its pagan namesake on June 21 with a Summer Solstice Celebration with hayrides, live music, tarot card readings, and storytelling.

Patterson Park

E. Baltimore St. and S. Patterson Park Ave.,
pattersonpark.com

Acreage: 55.

Special Features: The 1891 octagonal pagoda, open for climbing on Sunday afternoons through mid-October, is one of the city’s most photographed landmarks. The Boat Lake is stocked with catchable fish. Though an ice rink in the winter months, the Dominic “Mimi” DiPietro Family Skating Center hosts floor hockey rec leagues all summer. Two adjacent dog parks—one for small pooches, one for large dogs—get lots of use. For a measly $2 admission fee, gain access to the park’s recently renovated swimming pool.

Summer Events: Spy up to 200 species during Patterson Park Audubon Center’s twice-monthly free bird walks. Cast your rod in the Boat Lake June 7 at the kid-friendly Fishing Festival. The ever-popular Friends of Patterson Park Concert Series returns with two to three concerts a month in June, July, and August. And LatinoFest celebrates its 34th year June 21-22.

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park

1901 Ridgetop Rd.,
friendsofgwynnsfallsleakinpark.org

Acreage: 1,216.

Special Features: The 15-mile Gwynns Falls hiking and biking trail runs through the park. The Victorian Italianate manor house of railroad baron Thomas DeKay Winans still stands, as does his carriage house, and an American Gothic-style chapel built for his workers. For kids, a miniature steam-powered railroad with 3,400 feet of track provides free rides every second Sunday through November.Though smaller, the Carrie Murray Nature Center gives Druid Hill’s zoo a run for its money with fauna ranging from raptors to an albino Burmese python named Fluffy. (All animals are rescues or orphans.) A new “Rainforest Room” exhibit housing Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a Blue-fronted Amazon parrot named Cupid, and other exotic critters, opens June 7.

Summer Events: Carrie Murray offers nine weeks of summer camp for kids, plus regular kids’ programs focusing on owls (June 6), bees (June 21 and Aug. 30), and nocturnal insects (July 11 and Aug. 1).

Clifton Park

2801 Harford Rd.,
bmgcgolf.com/-clifton-park

Acreage: 267.

Special Features: The oldest of the city’s five municipal golf courses offers 18 holes for rates starting as low as $10. Elsewhere in the park, Civic Works’ Real Food Farm is making a go of urban agriculture with several hoophouses, an orchard, beehives, an herb garden, and field crops.

Summer Events: The golf course is open every day, weather permitting. Real Food Farm welcomes volunteers from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. every Wednesday and Friday, plus the first and third Saturday of the month from March through November.

Cylburn Arboretum

4915 Green Spring Ave.,
cylburn.org

Acreage: 207.

Special Features: Trees! From Kentucky coffeetrees to redwoods, Cylburn’s got you covered. Over three miles of trails will also take you through several gardens including daylily and rose plots. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future is conducting research in a cutting-edge agriculture practice called aquaponics on the premises. The farming method combines aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant farming) in a waste-free sustainable growing cycle. Regular tours of the project’s greenhouse are starting soon.

Summer Events: Enjoy outdoor yoga (June 7, 14, 21, 28); the Celebration of Art event (June 14-15) with exhibitions, lectures, and children’s activities; and a firefly walk (June 26).

Middle Branch Park

3301 Waterview Ave.,410-396-3838.

Acreage: Six miles of shoreline, marshes, and meadows.

Special Features: One of the city’s best-kept secrets, the park is the launch site for many area collegiate and high school crew teams. The two concrete boat ramps can accommodate anything from kayaks to large boats.The Gwynns Falls Trail runs through the park, and The Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial sits on a rise above the main parking lot.

Summer Events: The recs and parks department hosts periodic “open paddle” sessions, providing all equipment, a tutorial, and a guided tour for a nominal fee.

Mount Pleasant Golf Course

6001 Hillen Rd.,
classic5golf.com/-mount-pleasant; 6101 Hillen Rd., mtpleasanticearena.com

Acreage: approximately 110.

Special Features: In addition to the links, which have been played by the likes of Arnold Palmer, the park is home to the Mount Pleasant Ice Arena, the city’s only year-round skating pavilion.

Summer Events: Public skate times are held every day. Hockey and figure skating classes and clinics are held regularly, as well. Summer skating camps for ages 5 to 18 run from June 23 to July 25.

Canton Waterfront Park

3001 Boston St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/CantonWaterfrontPark.aspx

Acreage: 2.5.

Special Features: A boat ramp and fishing pier provide stellar access to the water.The park is also home to Maryland’s Korean War Memorial.

Summer Events: WTMD’s popular First Thursdays concert series has relocated here from Mt. Vernon due to restoration of the Washington Monument. Upcoming shows will feature national acts such as Los Lonely Boys (June 5), Strand of Oaks (July 3), JD McPherson (Aug. 7), and The Hold Steady (Sept. 4)—all for free!

Roosevelt Park

1221 W. 36th St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/RooseveltPark.aspx

Acreage: 18.72.

Special Features: One of the nicest public aquatic centers in the city can be found here, boasting a large outdoor pool, adjoining splash pad with towering water features, and a renovated pool house. Last month was the official grand opening of the first phase of the Skatepark of Baltimore. The gaping concrete bowl is ready for skateboard use and development of a street plaza landscape is in the offing.

Summer Events: Roosevelt Park and Recreation Center keeps a robust calendar of events, including coed volleyball on Wednesday and Thursday nights, community movie night (July 18), family game night (Aug. 8), and an environmental camp for ages 5 to 12 from June 23 to Aug. 15.

Fort McHenry

2400 E. Fort Ave.,
nps.gov/fomc

Acreage: 42.

Special Features: The city’s only national park is steeped in history. View the fort, barracks, the 1814 Guard House, and those immortalized ramparts.

Summer Events: Twice-monthly bird walks take advantage of the fort’s waterfront setting. As part of the ongoing bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812, the park is hosting Fort! Flag! Fire! Baltimore’s Star-Spangled Summer! with living history performances, cannon firings, fife and drum concerts, and lectures.

Carroll Park

1500 Washington Blvd., friendsofcarrollpark.blogspot.com/

Acreage: 117.

Special Features: Originally part of Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll’s Mount Clare estate and Georgia Plantation, Carroll Park’s history traces back to its pre-revolutionary site for industrial factories.The park is home to one of the two oldest Federal-style mansions still standing in Baltimore, which is open for tours guided by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in traditional period dress.

Summer Events: Carroll is the closest golf course to downtown (about three miles), making it even easier to enjoy a quick round on a summer’s afternoon. (It’s an “executive,” aka nine-hole, course.) Don’t miss September’s The Shindig Festival (tickets on sale now) featuring Jane’s Addiction, Rise Against, Gogol Bordello, and Baltimore’s own J Roddy Walston & The Business, among others.

Cimaglia Park at Fort Holabird

Pine and Oak avenues

Acreage: 40.

Special Features: While the park’s recreational history dates to the seventies, Fort Holabird was constructed by the U.S. Army and used for various purposes from the 1920s to the 1950s. Upgrades to the park completed last November improved the park’s aesthetic appeal with enhancements like pedestrian pathways. Further renovations include two new half-courts for basketball and lighting for the ball fields.

Summer Events: Grow your own fruits and vegetables—from park to table. The Baltimore City Farms program offers rental garden plots for city residents looking to plant their own produce, herbs, and flowers in personal, fenced spaces.

Federal Hill Park

300 Warren Ave., bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/FederalHillPark.aspx

Acreage: 10.

Special Features: Named for The Federalist—a ship built by 4,000 local Maryland citizens to celebrate the state’s ratification of the constitution, Federal Hill Park boasts cannons and monuments in memory of the Battle of Baltimore, in addition to unrivaled views of the harbor. Also, be on the lookout for new, Under Armour-renovated basketball courts. Little known fact: There is an extensive network of tunnels within the hill, which are rumored to have once functioned as an “underground railroad” of sorts, with escape routes, storage for munitions, and a place to store cold beer from local breweries.

Summer Events: The American Visionary Art Museum will begin its annual “Flicks From the Hill” free outdoor movie series on July 10, and continue screenings every Thursday through August 28. Once named one of Travel + Leisure magazine’s “World’s Best Free Things”, the park’s steep slopes create a natural amphitheater for audiences to enjoy alfresco films.

Forest Park

2900 Hillsdale Rd, bmgcgolf.com/-forest-park

Acreage:140.

Special Features: A classic, 18-hole golf course situated amidst the hilly green landscape with a clubhouse perfect for special event receptions.

Summer Events: June 22 and 23 mark the qualifying rounds of the 2014 STX Baltimore Putting Championship, which features two competitive divisions—adult and junior. The top three qualifiers in each division will play the finals on June 25at Mount Pleasant Golf Course.

Herring Run Park

3800 Bel Air Rd., arcadia-baltimore.org/arcadia_herringrun_c.html

Acreage: 300.

Special Features: Open, flowery fields, a running stream, winding paths, and playing fields. Considered the dog-friendliest park in the city, there is plenty of foliage to explore here with pets, family, and friends. The park is home to the Christopher Columbus monument erected in 1792, as well as bike paths, and softball and soccer fields along the length of the stream.

Summer Events: The park welcomes the first annual Herring Run Around—a 5K race on paved and dirt trails on June 28. Watershed alliance Blue Water Baltimore will host a picnic for volunteers and members following the race.

Latrobe Park

1518 Latrobe Park Terrace, sobosports.com/locs/latrobe.htm

Acreage: 6.

Special Features: Highlights include illuminated tennis courts, two basketball courts, a playground, and the gated Locust Point Dog Park, which features AstroTurf (no muddy paws!) and a waterslide for more adventurous canines.

Summer Events: Construction began on the Under Armour-funded $1.5 million Banner Field project this April, which will enhance the park with a turf field lined for football, soccer, and lacrosse. The field, named for the national anthem, will feature a sound system, scoreboard, running track, lights, and seating for 150 spectators. The Locust Point-based athletic company will also be making improvements to the playground. In summer, the park is frequented by the ASA Softball Leagues for co-ed evening games against local teams split according to skill-level.

Pine Ridge Golf Course

2101 Dulaney Valley Rd., bmgcgolf.com/-pine-ridge

Acreage: 224.

Special Features: Because nothing is ever simple, this county-situated course is actually owned and operated by the city due to its adjacency to Loch Raven Reservoir, which supplies much of Baltimore City’s drinking water. Home to many past PGA and LPGA tournaments, the 18-hole course also boasts a 45-station lighted driving range, which is open during the warmer months.

Summer Events: The Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation and House of Ruth Maryland will host the 4th annual High Heels for Hope Longest Drive Contest on June 7. Proceeds will benefit House of Ruth’s mission to provide victims of partner violence with services to rebuild their lives. The twist? All contest participants must hit their drives while wearing a pair of high-heeled shoes—minimum two inches and no wedges or platforms—which will be donated to House of Ruth at the contest’s conclusion.

Reed Bird Island/Cherry Hill Park

101 Reedbird Ave., issuu.com/baltimorerecnparks/docs/cherry_hill_splash_park_pool_schedu

Special Features: Twin green spaces bifurcated by the Patapsco River as it empties into the Middle Branch, the park was Baltimore’s first waterfront park.Its rolling topography serves as a recreation area with picnic groves, fishing piers, a stage, and a shelter. Winding walking and bike paths along the shoreline lead to nearby Middle Branch Park.

Summer Events: The active public pool is perfect for cooling off post bike ride and offers swimming lessons on Saturday mornings.

Robert E. Lee Park

1000 Lakeside Dr., relpnc.org/

Acreage: 415.

Special Features: Another county-located but city-owned park, this popular bucolic spot just over the city-county line offerswaterfront activities including kayaking and canoeing, hiking trails, and the Paw Point Dog Park, which allows dogs water access, as well. Two pavilions, one overlooking the Lake Roland Dam and one perched hilltop, are ideal for family picnics.

Summer Events: The park, which, although owned by the city, is operated by Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, offers a variety of activities for families including kayaking and fishing lessons, night hikes, and day camps. A full schedule of events can be found here.

Wyman Park

3100 N Charles St., wymanparkdell.org

Acreage: 88.

Special Features: Designed by the Olmstead Brothers, Wyman’s sweeping lawn is home to two monuments erected in honor of the Civil War. The Union Monument Plateau, engulfed by cherry trees, features a vigilant Union soldier flanked by goddesses. At the park’s other end, the Lee-Jackson Monument honors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Summer Events: Enjoy Music in the Park on June 18 and 25 with a free concert and outdoor movie. On July 27 there will be a special performance by jazz, funk, and world-rhythms band, the Swingin’ Swamis.

Source

Then and Now: Parks + Recreation

Jess Mayhugh — Wed, 21 May 2014 08:00:00 +0000

Clifton Park

The park itself was once land owned by philanthropist Johns Hopkins, and its 18-hole public golf course, built in 1915, was the first of its kind in Baltimore.

Clifton Golf Course, 2013 -Courtesy of Tom Pierce, Clifton Golf Course

Pagoda at Patterson Park

Originally intended to be an observation tower for viewing the city, the octagonal, 60-foot pagoda was designed by Charles H. Latrobe and built on Hampstead Hill in 1891.

(Photo courtesy of Deb Felmey)

Druid Hill Park Pool

The 745-acre park is one of the country’s oldest city’s parks. A group of black tennis players famously protested the park’s segregation and finally, in 1956, all facilities were integrated.

In 1827, William Patterson donated six acres for public recreational use, and Druid Hill Park, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was established as an official city park in 1860.

Park Legend

The Shepherd

From roughly 1869 until the 1940s, Druid Hill Park employed a shepherd, whose 100-plus sheep were used to keep the grass neatly trimmed.

George Standish McCleary, known as “Mr. Mac,” served as the park’s shepherd from 1906 to 1926.

That was then, this is now

Home of Duckpin Bowling

The origins of duckpin bowling remain in doubt—some trace it to New England and others here. Either way, a couple of Orioles, John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson, popularized the sport locally. Legendary Baltimore duckpin bowler Elizabeth “Toots” Barger, who started her career at Seidel’s on Belair Road and is considered the greatest female duckpin bowler ever, was the second woman inducted into the Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame in 1961.

Memories

Corinne Boyd, 96

Druid Hill Park lifeguard

“I was a lifeguard at what was called ‘the colored pool,’ and a champion AAU swimmer. We didn’t have anything to do in the summer, there was segregation then, but we did have the pool. My mother would send lunch over and my father picked us up in the evening. We’d try to convince him to stay and when he did, we’d be there until 8 or 9 p.m. at night”

Source

Clifton Park – Baltimore Magazine

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Baltimore’s Neighborhood Parks

Druid Hill Park

Patterson Park

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park

Clifton Park

Cylburn Arboretum

Middle Branch Park

Mount Pleasant Golf Course

Canton Waterfront Park

Roosevelt Park

Fort McHenry

Carroll Park

Cimaglia Park at Fort Holabird

Federal Hill Park

Forest Park

Herring Run Park

Latrobe Park

Pine Ridge Golf Course

Reed Bird Island/Cherry Hill Park

Robert E. Lee Park

Wyman Park

Then and Now: Parks + Recreation

Clifton Park

Pagoda at Patterson Park

Druid Hill Park Pool

The Shepherd

Home of Duckpin Bowling

Corinne Boyd, 96

Second Trash Wheel Could Come to Canton