From the late 1970s through the mid 1980s, much of my childhood was spent frequenting the local corner stores. My friends and I would go after school and all throughout the summer. All the neighborhoods—Canton, Highlandtown, and what is now Brewers Hill—were positively full of them.

The corner stores I remember sold groceries, meats, snacks, drinks, milk, sodas, snowballs, candy, and even Pinky Hi-Bounce balls, metal jacks game sets, and wooden paddle balls. As a young child, I ate ice cream kiddie cups with a wooden spoon, and as a teen, I devoured snowballs—but only certain flavors: sky blue (which tasted, well, blue), grape, spearmint, or egg custard topped with marshmallow.

Even though corner stores were prevalent in Southeast Baltimore, there’s surprisingly not a lot of written history about them. So, I decided to go straight to the source and reached out to six families of corner store owners to get a real feel for what life was like for them.

URBAN VILLAGES
Retired Senator Barbara Mikulski essentially grew up in a corner store. Her parents, William and Chris Mikulski, purchased their first shop, Willy’s, as newlyweds in 1935. It was located at 718 S. Eaton St., in what is today Brewers Hill.

“People didn’t have cars, so they lived in urban villages, where everything was within walking distance, and they shopped in the same area,” says Mikulski. “There were little mom-and-pop stores on the corners that met basic needs—a baker’s shop, a grocery store, a shoe repair, etc. Then there was the Avenue [Eastern Avenue] where we would shop for the rest.”

Mikulski’s parents purchased a house near the shop at 715 S. Eaton St., and they rented out the apartment above Willy’s. “You usually rented to a relative or somebody you knew from work or church,” she says.

According to Eric Holcomb, author of The City as Suburb: A History of Northeast Baltimore Since 1660, before the 20th century, there was no “separation of uses” in terms of zoning. “That’s why corner stores could have your house, your store, and even your warehouse in the same building,” says Holcomb.

In Willy’s early days, Mikulski’s father ran the store, and her mom kept the books while taking care of their daughters and household. When the store got busy, “Miss Chris,” as she was known to the neighborhood kids, helped out. I remember her always throwing a candy bar into the paper bag filled with my mom’s purchases.

While they initially sold canned goods and meats, as her father was an accomplished butcher, Mikulski says that her parents were forward-thinking when it came to the business.

“When World War II was over, my mother told my father that women were going to move from canned goods to frozen food. My father had one of the first freezers in the neighborhood in that store,” Mikulski says.

If her parents knew someone was ill, they would send young Barbara to their homes with their orders. They wouldn’t let her accept a tip. “You’re the grocer’s daughter. Be kind and be helpful,” they’d tell her.

Mikulski remembers the basement of their corner store being used as a fallout shelter during WWII for vulnerable populations.

“My father was an air raid warden. He and one of the other guys in their late 20s would patrol the neighborhood. And if there was ever an air-raid siren, my father’s place was one of the designated shelters,” she says. “The elderly or anyone with children would go into the basement and wait until the air raid was over. There were canned goods down there for them if needed. Whether it would’ve ever really worked, who knows?”

Her parents retired and sold the store in the early 1970s. For a while, it was used to sell meats and for catering. Now, it’s a private home that you’d never know was once a corner store.

“People didn’t have cars, so they lived where everything was within walking distance and shopped in the same area. There were mom-and-pop stores on the corners that met basic needs.”

SUPPORTING HER FAMILY
In 1957, Baltimore City firefighter Lee MacKenzie died of a heart issue. Like many men of his generation, he was the sole supporter of his family. Although she received a small amount of money from the Widow and Orphan’s Fund, his widow, Mary Magdalene “Lena” MacKenzie, needed to support her children.

So, MacKenzie bought an already existing store at 3225 Foster Ave. at the corner of Foster Ave. and Bouldin St. in Highlandtown. At the time, she and her children lived nearby at 3217 Foster Ave. and rented out the upstairs apartment above the store. Four years later, when her daughter Elinor married Jim Benzing, MacKenzie sold them that house, and she and her daughter Maria moved into the accommodations directly behind the store, while continuing to rent the upstairs.

Known as MacKenzie’s Confectionery, the store sold only key essentials since there was an A&P grocery store nearby. That included milk, bread, and eggs, plus a soda fountain—where she and Maria would make fountain sodas, milkshakes, hand-dipped ice cream, ice cream floats, and snowballs.

“When the egg man dropped off eggs to grandma’s [store], he would drop eggs off at our house too,” recalls Chris Benzing, her grandson. “I thought the egg man came to everyone’s house, because for us that was normal.”

Behind the counter, MacKenzie sold packs of cigarettes, some canned goods, cereal, soap, detergent, toilet paper, and other shelf-stable items. She also sold knickknacks, small toys, and greeting cards on a spinning rack.

Like many corner store owners, she didn’t keep stock in bulk, as vendors would come by weekly and take orders on what she needed. The next week, they’d deliver them. According to Mikulski, this is why many stores were on the corner of blocks or alleys—to make delivery easy.

The MacKenzies lived in the small apartment—living room, galley kitchen, one bedroom—behind the store, through a doorway that was always open. Their bathroom, with its clawfoot tub, was in the basement, which was also used for storage.

“The basement was the scariest. We raced through it. It wasn’t finished, and it just had their bathroom and furnace,” says Leah Benzing, a granddaughter.

“That’s where she also had all the flavors for the snowballs in big containers on a table,” adds Barbara Smith, another granddaughter.

The store front had a doorbell attached, which would ring in the kitchen. That way, if their grandmother and Maria were having lunch when the store was empty, they would know when a customer arrived.

In 1975, MacKenzie sold her store to one of her vendors, and it became Dawn’s Confectionery, named after the owner’s daughter. It’s now a rowhome.

MISS CASS’
In 1961, three months after Theresa Buerhaus Pratt was born, she and her four siblings moved with their parents to a corner store at 3800 Fait Ave. and Eaton St. in what is now Brewers Hill. Her father, George, worked full-time, and her mom, Cass, stayed home with the kids. Officially called Buerhaus Confectionery Store, it was known by the neighborhood as Miss Cass’ or just Cass’.

Although it was less than a block away from Mikulski’s parent’s shop, Miss Cass sold items the nearby store didn’t have, like comic books, newspapers, Tasty Kakes, and cigarettes. There was also a glass case of penny candy, and they sold snowballs out of the garage on the back of the house.

During many summer breaks, Pratt would work at the snowball stand three days a week from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. Before opening, she’d mix the marshmallow and mix flavors. Upon closing, she would count the money, roll the coins, and wipe everything down with bleach.

“But I got paid $5 a day,” says Pratt proudly.

Behind the store was their living room, kitchen, and the garage. Upstairs were three bedrooms, one for the four girls (who slept in two double beds), the middle room for their brother, and the back one for their parents. While she enjoyed living at the store, Pratt says there was one downside. The store opened directly into their living room, and her mom insisted on keeping one of the French doors open at all times.

“She would never close it, and it would drive us nuts because you’d be sitting there on the couch trying to watch TV or doing your homework, and if someone wasn’t right in the store to wait on them, they’d stick their heads into our living room while saying, ‘Anybody home?’” says Pratt.

In the late 1970s, Miss Cass moved the snowballs inside the store. She began selling Stewart Sandwiches, a popular, pre-packaged, refrigerated brand of pizza, hot dogs, and grilled cheese sandwiches, which customers like me would take out of the fridge and hand to Miss Cass for toasting. Even though they were cooked in the plastic, my friends and I thought they were absolutely delicious.

As time passed, people were driving more to stores, so they weren’t visiting Cass’ as much and business really dropped off. Pratt says her mom even tried to make it into a corner coffee shop, with coffees, teas, and pastries. But it just didn’t work. The store closed in 2014.

“My mom was so sad,” says Pratt. “She really loved all the kids who came to the store.”

STILL IN BUSINESS
Luigi Di Pasquale came to America from Italy when he was 14 years old. He worked for the railroad but didn’t like it and eventually left. In 1914, he opened a corner store at 3700 Claremont St. across from Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown. The building was so large, Luigi used the extra rooms as a boarding house for local men.

“We sold everything in the Italian line, from spaghetti on down,” says his son, Leo Di Pasquale, 95.

After Luigi married, he and his wife, Anna, had seven children, all of whom grew up to help at the store for a time.

“Every time mom had a baby, she kicked one of his borders out to make room for all of us—until it was all family,” says Leo with a laugh.

In the early days, besides selling groceries and candy, Leo says they had live chickens, turkeys, pigs, and goats available to be butchered for customers. Joe Di Pasquale, Leo’s nephew, who runs the family business now, says his grandparents also manufactured bleach in the alley.

In 1988, Joe and his brothers and sisters assumed ownership of the business from their dad, Luigi Jr., and moved it to 3700 Gough St., still in Highlandtown. Joe says over the years, suppliers gave them advice on how to keep the store running—stick with specialty items.

While Di Pasquale’s Italian Market still exists, it transitioned from the typical corner store to a deli and a casual eatery offering everything from subs and sandwiches to brick-oven pizzas and pasta dishes. They also grew to four locations.

“We expanded the kitchen and the menu, and we caught the prepared foods wave,” explains Joe.

Forno, which is still at the Gough St. location, is a little restaurant with a speakeasy feel. They kept a lot from the old corner store, so it looks like a museum of days gone by. And although the shop on Claremont St. has been gone for decades, it still sports a painted mural of the original Di Pasquale family and some of their wares.

“Everything in the neighborhood was close then,” says Leo. “And we were all there, working together in the store.”

THREE GENERATIONS OF LOU’S
Kristan Barbarino Wilson isn’t sure when her grandparents, Ida and Louis Barbarino, first opened Lou’s Confectionery corner store at 3401 Hudson St., but she remembers her parents, Joseph and Sharon, buying it from them in the mid-1970s.

Located across the street from what was then Canton #230 school and just a few blocks away from St. Brigid’s School, the store did a hearty business selling snacks, ice cream, soda, and candy to kids as well as canned goods, deli meat, steaks, pork chops, and cigarettes to adults.

Wilson’s grandparents lived on the first floor of the house next door, which the family also owned. Her family lived upstairs of both the shop and the house, as the second floor in each was connected. Wilson and her friends loved going into the store after closing time—truly kids in a candy store.

“We had central air in our house and store and the same phone number for both. When my parents got a phone call, but were in the store, we would yell through the air vent, ‘Pick up the phone!’” Wilson recalls with a laugh. “It was fun!”

NOT-ON-THE-CORNER STORE
In October of 1976, Libby and John Maciolek purchased Walt & Theresa’s, a store in the middle of the block at 3033-35 Hudson St. in Canton and renamed it John and Libby’s Confectionery. (Why many of these corner stores called themselves “confectioneries”—meaning a store that sells candy—no one seems to know, as they sold much more than sweets. Maybe they thought it sounded fancy.)

John and Libby’s carried groceries, canned goods, sodas, ice cream, snacks, and snowballs. In 1980, their daughter Laura Maciolek Stanton became manager, and her mom changed the store’s name again, this time to John and Libby’s Variety. In 1982, they expanded and began selling more groceries, packaged goods, penny candy, and seasonal toys.

During the spring and summer, Stanton remembers their tremendous snowball business that would have people lining down the block—especially for her mom’s homemade egg custard. Stanton, her sister, and their parents lived behind and above both sides of the store.

“My mom treated my friends like her daughters. We used to love having sleepovers because we’d come down after the store closed, and my friends could have all the ice cream, chips, and soda they wanted,” she recalls. “We had pinball machines, so it was almost like we had our own arcade, too.”

Stanton still owns the original penny machine from 1912. Many corner stores had them, and some were called “Bullseye.” Kids would put a penny in the top, and it would move down a pegboard, much like the Plinko game on The Price Is Right. If it landed in the right space at the bottom, you won a five- or ten-cent piece of candy.

As Canton was revitalized, fewer customers frequented their store. They couldn’t make a living anymore and closed in 2004. “When the community found out we were closing, they were devastated,” says Stanton. “There aren’t any stores like ours in Canton anymore. That was a different time.”

This article first appeared in our May 2026 issue. If you connected with it, consider becoming a print subscriber. 

It feels funny to describe a restaurant that has been in business since 1999 as “off the eaten path,” but that’s exactly what Vinny’s Italian Café is. A five-minute drive east from the edge of Canton is all it takes to get you there, but you might as well be a world, not a neighborhood, away. Auto-body shops on the industrial drive that is Holabird Avenue surround the white, L-shaped building with red ceramic shingles that owner Vinny Scotto helped build.

Inside, you’re greeted by a warm staff and the smell of simple, rich, traditional Italian food. “Everything is as good as it was 19 years ago,” says our waitress, Paula, who has worked at this hidden gem since it opened. “You’re in for a treat.”

On an early Saturday evening, with sporting events on a pair of TVs behind the bar of a large, open-concept dining room, our party of four settles into a booth in the unpretentious atmosphere of what locals call “the heart of Dundalk,” the historically blue-collar suburb. Families surround tables. A woman’s 28th birthday party is happening in the other room. Regular customers, like descendants of those who worked in Baltimore’s since-closed General Motors factory, order from the take-out counter, too.

Fresh pizza bread arrives on our table, then Paula is back, and we consult with her for recommendations from a menu that counts 75 dinner choices (and more for lunch, such as their trademark meatball sub, which dates back to the restaurant’s precursor, Marco’s).

We order a bottle of red, then Blue Point oysters and fried calamari for the table. Specials are typically imagined by Vinny, an Italian immigrant by way of Naples and New York, and his sons Marcello and Tony, who spent four years studying at the Culinary Institute of America. I decided on the rockfish Chesapeake with a fresh handmade spinach pasta.

My wife, who has celiac disease, enjoyed a gluten-free version of the chicken broccoli, a simple dish—chicken cooked in a rose cream sauce, tomato, garlic, olive oil, basil, and parsley, served over a bed of pasta (made with corn and rice flour, in her case) with broccoli—that is the restaurant’s top seller. Our guests went with more traditional choices, including the veal parmigiana and chicken marsala.

The portions are huge. This is one of those places where it looks like you didn’t make a dent in your food after 20 minutes of eating—and you don’t mind. Ingredients, like sweet, natural San Marzano tomatoes grown from the volcanic soil in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, are fresh. And you’re full and happy to have leftovers for tomorrow.

“The best thing is to use the right thing, you know?” Vinny says. “If I can buy something good, and it costs me a little more money, that’s okay. I’m looking to make people happy. Today, you don’t find a place like this anymore.”

That is, unless you know where to look.

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›› VINNY’S ITALIAN CAFÉ 6212 Holabird Ave., 410-633-7709. Tues.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

On a blistering cold New Year’s Eve, the body heat is welcome inside the Creative Alliance. Dancers of all ages sway to the sultry, jazzy sounds of the Bumper Jacksons on stage with local beat-boxer Shodekeh, who layers the music with percussive hums and taps. As the show winds down, patrons peruse the diverse artwork of Amy Sherald in the lobby gallery before heading to an after-party just down the street at Snake Hill, a sausage and beer bar, where a DJ spins until closing time. In other words, 2017 in Highlandtown kicked off at one of the neighborhood’s anchor institutions and ended at a bar that’s less than two years old.  

Bookended by the old and the new, the trailblazer and the trendy, the evening reflects a neighborhood that has long been undergoing a revitalization and is now seeing those changes come to fruition. Thanks to strong community partnerships, and a heavy emphasis on diversity and the arts, Highlandtown is experiencing a renaissance—a case study in how to revitalize a neighborhood while keeping its character.

“Highlandtown would be a great example of how all of Baltimore can revive,” says shop owner Juan Carlos Nuñez. “We’re firing on all cylinders with the businesses, community, houses, art galleries. But this kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight.”

The impetus for Highlandtown’s growth can be traced back decades ago. As so many things do in this blue-collar neighborhood, it stems from U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a founding member of SECO—or the Southeast Community Organization.

Along with preventing a highway from forming in the middle of Fells Point, SECO is responsible for starting the Southeast Community Development Corporation (CDC), which has had its hand in many Highlandtown success stories since its inception in 1975.

“Community development organizations were created to spur investment in disinvested areas, encourage affordable housing, and try to bring everyone together despite their differences,” says Southeast CDC director Chris Ryer.

During the late ’90s and early 2000s, local organizers in Baltimore took a cue from thriving 36th Street in Hampden and started their own Main Streets programs to encourage new businesses along busy thoroughfares. At the same time, an organization called Healthy Neighborhoods was being developed for undervalued areas of potential in the city.

This happy confluence of groups all began swirling around Southeast Baltimore and, in particular, Hollandtown, as it’s pronounced by local residents. A few years later, an arts collective called the Creative Alliance decided to move from its home in Fells Point to the old Patterson Theater. 

“Even putting the shovel in the ground started a ripple effect of something positive in the neighborhood,” says Creative Alliance co-founder Margaret Footner. “Investors took notice and the rehab kicked in pretty quickly.” 

But as is the case in so many neighborhoods around the country, initial investment does not always lead to long-term growth. So what makes Highlandtown different?

“Walking to work here every day reminded me of Sesame Street.”

“I remember when I first moved here from Queens,” says Southeast CDC’s neighborhood programs director Kari Snyder. “Highlandtown had that same flair. I heard languages from all over the world, people were so friendly and community-oriented. It sounds silly, but walking to work here every day reminded me of Sesame Street.” 

While many people in Baltimore were setting up shop in more popular neighborhoods such as Canton and Fells Point, a subtle groundswell was taking place in Highlandtown.

“When I opened up, all the Latino businesses were basically on Broadway,” says Carlos Cruz, who’s owned sports bar Carlos O’Charlie’s since 2006. “But I saw a little bit of construction here and there and had a great idea that this would be the next big area. I immediately felt welcome in Highlandtown.”

Businesses like Cruz’s remain the backbone of the Eastern Avenue corridor. Maintaining them during the recession and 2015 Uprising was no easy feat and owners leveraged strong partnerships with Highlandtown Main Street and the Baltimore Community Foundation for assistance.

Even a seemingly simple program—like a facade grant that provides a $1-for-$1 match to improve windows, doors, signage, and other exterior work for small businesses—goes a long way.  

“I’ve had many conversations about how perception is so important,” says Highlandtown Main Street manager Amanda Smit-Peters. “We work really hard to make things look nice. But we’re also teaching business owners how to apply for these grants. We never just come in and do it for them because that’s not sustainable.”

Another thing that separates Highlandtown’s community from the pack is that there are many residents “doubling down” and buying places to both live and work, like the owners of Highlandtown Gallery, RoofTop Hot, Y:ART Gallery, Snake Hill, and Michael Owen Art. 

Of course, housing itself also had to recover from the recession. But that eventually started to bounce back, too. 

“Over the last five or six years, investors came back and—house by house, block by block—you started to see that change,” says Mark Parker, pastor of Breath of God Lutheran Church and board member of the Highlandtown Community Association. 

Now, according to Live Baltimore, Highlandtown is the ninth top-selling neighborhood in the city with 30 percent growth in the value of home sales just this past year. Similarly, the building vacancy rate has decreased from 30 to 9 percent in the last 10 years.

“The first half of the decade was more under the radar with housing and businesses. That’s when you saw the opening of mom-and-pop shops like grocery stores, five-and-dimes, and barber shops,” Ryer says. “When you think about it, the neighborhood hadn’t really turned over in 100 years. It was due.”

A vibrant mural on the corner of Bank Street and Highland Avenue—a stone’s throw from Cinco de Mayo grocery store, Little Morocco Cafe, and Hoehn’s Bakery—tells Highlandtown’s history as a melting pot in a nutshell.

On the left, artist Joel Bergner used hues of amber and gold to depict European immigrants, who populated Southeast Baltimore from the 1800s until the mid-20th century. The right side, adding cooler tones of blues and greens, celebrates the community as it looks today—diverse and full of Latino immigrants.

“This has always been a neighborhood of immigrants,” Smit-Peters says. “You don’t get your Matthew’s, Hoehn’s, and DiPasquale’s around for 100 years without remembering where we started and keeping that going.”

As the mural suggests, the latest census data found that 34 percent of Highlandtown residents are Hispanic, many hailing from Mexico, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico. More recently, there has been an influx of Middle Eastern and African immigrants and refugees. 

“Jambalaya is the best way I can describe it,” says Lynne Distance, branch manager of the Southeast Anchor Library, who has worked at every branch in the Enoch Pratt Free Library system. “You’ve got a mixture of everything here. When I look to hire people, I make sure they can speak at least one or two languages.”

The immigrant culture permeates nearly every aspect of the neighborhood, from the Hispanic-owned businesses to the diverse makeup of community leadership.

“Southeast Baltimore wouldn’t be growing if not for the immigrant community,” Snyder says. “It’s incredibly important that they stay here and we do a lot of things to encourage them to stay.”

Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore partners with the Southeast CDC to provide home-loan assistance to lower income families. Also, programs through United Way help counsel people at risk of eviction. 

The library turned a former cafe into a “creation station” where local families can take (or teach) classes in cooking, sewing, and robotics. The branch also provides video job interviews for people who don’t have transportation.

In addition, residents say, the community associations make it a priority to represent the demographics of the neighborhood so that no one feels left out of the conversation.

“Our goal is that the board of directors consists of longtime residents, immigrants, and people with different economic backgrounds,” Parker says. “Our association probably has 100 active members, and we need to make sure those 100 are an accurate reflection.”

While most residents and business owners admit that Highlandtown isn’t perfect, there is an overwhelming sense of pride in its diversity.

“The neighborhood hadn’t really turned over in 100 years.
It was due.”

“If you look at the history of Baltimore, there have always been pockets of segregation,” says Nuñez, who owns Tops in Cellulars on Highland Avenue. “But we’ve got every race and every culture here and we somehow make it work.”

One way they are making it work is through the arts, like Creative Alliance’s former SalsaPolkaLooza event that blended the old and new immigrant populations. Or Artesanas Mexicanas, a program started by Maria Aldana, in which Mexican women teach traditional arts, like piñata- and altar-making, to the community.

“This is a way to show and transmit my tradition and make me feel at home,” says master artist Yesenia Mejia Knight. “I am able to show my son how his mom was raised in Mexico. I have made friendships and feel like I have a new family here.”

It’s these kinds of connections that set Highlandtown apart, Footner says: “It’s not just build it and they will come. We have made it our mission to develop relationships with very different kinds of people in the community. And we’ve drawn in outside energy from people all over the state to come and visit Highlandtown.”

An emphasis on the arts can be seen in plenty of places outside the Patterson’s walls, too. After all, the neighborhood is an official Maryland Arts & Entertainment District and its blocks are lined with local galleries, colorful murals, and creative installations. 

“We invest a lot of money into what we call place-making projects,” Snyder says. “This has been a way to re-envision how we use our public spaces and create a new identity.”

This reinvention can also be seen in a crop of businesses that have opened in the last two years. There’s the Italian corner bar Gnocco, massive brewery Monument City, whiskey distillery Old Line Spirits, and sausage bar Snake Hill, just to name a few.

“We keep joking we’ll call it the Highlandtown circuit,” says Snake Hill co-owner Randy Coffren, who has been a local resident for 10 years. “For me, this is a proud neighborhood instead of a transient one. People want to stick around because Highlandtown has flavor—it feels like a city. I don’t want to live in a place where all my neighbors look the same and drive the same BMW.”

Adjacent to Snake Hill is the 500-pound gorilla in the neighborhood, Highland Haus, a six-story building with 65 market-rate apartments built by commercial developer Peter Garver and set to open this fall in the old Haussner’s restaurant space. 

“Now what you’re seeing take shape are anchor buildings that are bigger and harder to redevelop,” says Ryer. “There’s really been a process to get them in competent hands.”

The fact that the Haussner’s property sat vacant for more than 10 years is less a testament to a lack of interest and more a sign of the careful consideration Highlandtown took to make sure that the right developer came, one that would respect the soul of the culturally rich neighborhood.

“None of us want this to be a transition to something inauthentic or corporate,” Snyder says. “We want to make sure that this is forever a diverse, friendly, accessible place to live.”

This sentiment was on full display during a block party on a warm day in May. In classic fashion, the party was all about local groups coming together to transform a block. The Highlandtown Business Association wanted to clean up the alley, Healthy Harbor Initiative wanted to put up a mural and educate students about the environment, and Highlandtown Main Street was game for all of it. 

So they all threw a party on the 3500 block of Eastern Avenue to celebrate a new mural—depicting the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay.

With the vivid waterway as the backdrop, kids played on kayaks while parents drank margaritas and a mariachi band played in the background. 

“There’s a heart in Highlandtown,” Cruz says. “And Highlandtown is in my heart.” 

We tagged along on the Southeast Baltimore Christmas Church Tour for a glimpse inside seven of the city’s oldest immigrant Catholic churches. Organized by the parish communities, with Christmas decorations in full swing, we also picked up a little local history.

These photos were shot by Anthony Monczewski, 70, also along for the tour. A retired Department of Defense employee, Mr. Monczewski is the grandson of a Polish immigrant butcher and grew up in Fells Point near Holy Rosary Church in the neighborhood once known as “Little Poland.”

Open the images below to enlarge and read more about the history of these immigrant churches.

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Sacred Heart of Jesus, Highlandtown

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Holy Rosary Church, Upper Fells Point

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St. Leo the Great, Little Italy

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St. Casimir Parish, Canton

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Our Lady of Pompei, Highlandtown

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St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Patterson Park

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St. Brigid’s Parish Hall, Canton