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.”

CRABS GONE WILD?
According to an annual advisory report published by the Chesapeake Bay Program, Maryland blue crab populations have increased 60 percent over the last year. Despite last year’s heavy spring rains, which can impact water salinity, visibility, and oxygen levels, as well as a slow start to this year’s spring harvesting season, adult females were up 29 percent, adult males up were 38 percent, and juveniles were up 50 percent, though many watermen throughout the state have complained of poor catches. The resurgence could reduce prices throughout the summer. New research from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science also suggests that blue crab season, which are notoriously fickle year over year, might become longer and more plentiful in future decades due to the milder winters of global warming, though warmer waters could also lead to other new environmental issues for the estuary ecosystem.

GRASS IS GREENER

Despite last year’s record rainfall, the Chesapeake Bay’s underwater grasses proved resilient with nominal losses in 2018. More than 91,000 acres of underwater grasses were recorded baywide, compared to 2017’s 105,000 acres, with an estimate 50,000 acres in Maryland and some waterways still surpassing their restoration goals for aquatic vegetation. These grasses require clear water to survive and provide important habitat for wildlife such as blue crabs, fish, and waterfowl. Last year’s heavy rains carried a deluge of sediment and nutrients from fertilizer, sewage, and pollution into the bay, which impact clarity and oxygen levels. As a result, this summer’s “dead zone,” aka the annual summer area within the bay with little or no oxygen, is also forecast to be one of the largest on record this summer.

SHELL YEAH

Since launching in 2014, the Greater Baltimore Oyster Partnership, a collaboration between the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and numerous downtown businesses, have announced that they have grown their millionth oyster in the Inner Harbor. With the help of corporate volunteer oyster gardens and restoration projects along the Patapsco River, the initiative aims to increase the health of local waterways, as an adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water each day. And just yesterday, five million spat, or baby oysters, were planted in the Patapsco River, officially meeting the partnership’s goal of doing so by 2020.

WATER WORLD

The Middle Branch of the Patapsco River will soon be getting a facelift with ambitious new plans recently winning approval in a design competition for the multi-year renovation of the South Baltimore waterfront. If finalized, it would include an overhaul of the century-old Hanover Street Bridge into a no-traffic green space, as well as an 11-mile waterfront park that runs along Cherry Hill, Brooklyn, Westport, Riverside, and Port Covington with park trails, boardwalks, boat launches, an amphitheater, and other recreational spaces, while also constructing a new road to the nearby neighborhoods. The plans, submitted by Dutch architecture firm West 8, have been given the green light by Mayor Jack Young and are currently under review by city agencies.

SCI-FI NATURE
Earlier this summer, a carnivorous plant called dwarf sundew was discovered in Maryland for the very first time. One of nearly 20 types of carnivorous plants in the state, the small plant has pink petals and paddle-shaped leaves that form a rosette at the base and are covered in green and red hairs that exude a stick liquid that attracts and then traps insects. It was found on the lower Eastern Shore in Worcester County.

RENEWABLE RULES
Earlier this month, the Maryland Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the state’s public service commission could trump the power of local government to approve future power plant projects, particularly relating to solar and wind energy. Citing state law that mandates reduced greenhouse gas emissions, the ruling in accordance with state law. Advocates have said that local jurisdictions have hindered development, while critics have cited residents’ concerns over eyesores and agricultural disruptions in rural communities. Legislature passed earlier this year also requires that Maryland get half of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. At last count in 2017, water and solar accounted for 10 percent of Maryland’s total net electricity generation.

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.

It’s easy to find world-class museums in Baltimore, but arts aficionados won’t be able to see the city’s newest exhibition inside any of them. Art on the Waterfront, a temporary showcase featuring four public installations, uses the great outdoors as its gallery instead.

Produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, the exhibition snakes throughout Middle Branch Park on the Gwynns Falls Trail. Four Baltimore-based artists created the larger-than-life sculptures, which each draw inspiration from and interact with nature. BOPA will celebrate the show’s grand opening at 4:30 p.m. on July 4 with a public reception followed by a view of the Ports America fireworks from the beach.

Ryan Patterson, the public arts administrator at BOPA, says the show fills a gap in the city’s arts offerings. “We have wonderful art institutions around Baltimore where we can go see historic and contemporary artworks,” Patterson says. “The one area we miss is the kind of contemporary sculpture that gets installed on a temporary basis, something that’s a little longer than Artscape or one of those festival settings, but can really change an environment.”

Featured artists Becky Borlan, Graham Coreil-Allen, Ashley Kidner, and Matthias Neumann approach their pieces in unique ways, but with similar local themes. Borlan’s Prisms and Coreil-Allen’s Baltimore Banner Vista both pay homage to the city’s rich history of transportation, while Neumann’s Basics #24 explores the function of public sculpture in its natural surroundings.

Ashley Kidner’s Pollinator Hexagon is perhaps the most unusual installation in the exhibit—a circular garden with 19 internal hexagons, each filled with plants native to Maryland that attract pollinators, like bees, butterflies, and birds. It’s the fourth in a series of five public works by the English-born artist, who is, in his own words, “really big about trying to save bees.”

“I’m hoping that people will look at it and say, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea,’” Kidner says. “People will be inspired to go and start planting their own native plants.”

Art on the Waterfront is open to the public every day of the week and is completely free to visit by car, bike, and foot. The 150-acre Middle Branch Park, located across the Hanover Street Bridge, marks the southern end of the Gwynns Falls trail, which connects over 30 neighborhoods throughout Baltimore.

Artist Becky Borlan jumped at the chance to display Prisms next to the Patapsco River, where she says the piece takes on special resonance. “It’s sort of an appropriate context for this piece to have it next to the Baltimore harbor,” says Borlan, whose work resembles five technicolor sailboats. “I hope my work heightens people’s awareness of the visual world around them. It’s something that I’m personally very attuned to, and maybe obsessed with.”

The temporary exhibits will be on display along the Gwynns Falls Trail through September 28. There are no concrete plans yet for another showcase at Middle Branch Park, but Patterson hopes that this first edition will inspire an annual tradition of public art exhibitions.

“It’s the beginning of how we can feature new artwork in parks,” he says. “A number of really creative communities with all sorts of really great residents have visions for what that park can be.”

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.