Mending Our Quilt

A glimpse of East Baltimore from the roof of the vacant, splendid Art Deco, six-story Highlandtown Middle School reinforces the well-loved notion of our city as a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods, as compelling from above as it is at street level. From on high, it's all sprawling, colorful geometry; on the ground, a familiar, comforting vernacular, even in areas disquieted with dysfunction.

I still wonder if my statement to the interviewers at Baltimore Housing, apropos to nothing - that I never met a house I didn't like - helped or hurt me, though I suppose it couldn't have hurt too much, because I was hired as the asset manager. But there was little I could do about row after row in decline, except tell myself these faded ladies, even the ones practically beaten to death during the riots and beyond, were merely in repose. I had to wait my whole professional life, until now, to do something significant about it.

Sort of. Truth be told, much of the worst of the worst were already gone by the time I landed here. It was the only thing to do. Most were not built to last; with no footers and party walls one brick thick, no reasonable amount of money could secure their future long-term. The riots had not ruined these particular houses, but more so time and gravity.

These houses and their residents were an integral puzzle piece of this neighborhood and they are missed and will never be forgotten. We'll honor them by building well-considered, energy-efficient, and appropriate structures sure to be filled with a lively mix of residents, merchants, and workers from all walks of life. But handsome, functional buildings - new or perfectly restored - are besides the point for some unless filled with people intent on building on the community still extant within the EBDI footprint.

The bird's eye view will remain captivating, thanks to restoration of the old, exemplary design of the new, and the diagonal trajectory of Gay Street that forever insures East Baltimore's crazy quilt template. It's a perfect metaphor for the history we make every day as we zig and zag into our future.