Bolton Hill

Bolton Hill is one of the nicest Baltimore neighborhoods that you wouldn't want to live in. It is far from Hon Baltimore, but hey--this is still Baltimore, hon!

I refuse to harp on the crime. Bolton Hill is as safe as any neighborhood in any large urban area which, while middle class to opulent, borders on an area of much need and poverty.

Bolton Hill is convenient to everything. It is just north of the "old" downtown Baltimore. Cross an intricate network of streets across Dolphin, where Howard Street disappears under the bridge. Walk north on Mt. Royal Avenue or swing around to your left where Park Avenue empties into Howard Street, at the Sutton Place Apartments. You are now in Bolton Hill. You can toss a stone to reach the Myerhoff Symphony Hall, the Lyric Opera House (where the Baltimore Opera Company went bust), Penn Station, the University of Baltimore. A resident could easily walk from her Bolton Hill home to a job in downtown Baltimore,  assuming that there are any jobs in downtown Baltimore these days.

The neighborhood, which was developed between l850's and l900, housed some impressive people in the past. Doubtless, it still does house impressive people, but since this is "now" and not "in the past" it is harder to know who they might be.

Sidney Lanier

Etta Cone

The Fitzgeralds

Garry Moore

Woodrow Wilson, U. S. President. (1210 Eutaw Place) who did graduate work at Johns Hopkins University.

Garry Moore (orig. name "Morfit" which seems to fit better) entertainer, TV personality (221 W. Lafayette St.)

Sidney Lanier - poet and musician.

Alger Hiss- prey for Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, the commie hunter. Whether he actually found one in Hiss or not is inconclusive. (1427 Linden Ave.)

Sidney Lanier - poet, musician and Confederate prisoner of war (1402 Eutaw).

Dr. Claribel and Etta Cone - The Cone sisters were patrons of the arts who donated their extensive collection to the Baltimore Art Museum. They had separate apartments at the Marlborough.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - He lived at l307 Park Ave. for a few years in the l930's while Zelda received treatment  at the old Phipps Clinic-Hopkins Hospital, and Sheppard Pratt. Fitzgerald had extensive Maryland family history, being a remote relative o the Francis Scott Key who wrote our non-singable National Anthem and has his own monument in Bolton Hill. A few years after leaving B'more, Fitzgerald dropped dead. His body was shipped to Maryland all the way from Los Angeles where his family anticipated that he would be buried in the family plot in Rockville, Md. However, the writer failed to get his first choice of cemetery because he had somehow brought down the ire of the Roman Catholic Church. Later, the R.C.'s changed their mind and F. Scott was reburied. A small park in Bolton Hill at the corner of Bolton and Wilson is dedicated to him.

In addition to these personages, dozens of other luminaries have bedded down in Bolton Hill: scientists, academics, leaders in their field.

In the late 1880's a number of Civil War Confederate veterans resided in the neighborhood. Since Maryland, as a border state, hosted some of the biggest bloodbaths in this war, it seems logical that some Confederate vets might be hanging around. In the early l900's these vets got their own monument on Mount Royal Avenue: soldiers and sailors of the confederacy! Currently, the monument cites  vets on both sides of the conflict.

In the early 20th Century, Bolton Hill, with its spacious 3 and 4 story row homes, attracted many prominent Jewish leaders. Their community extended across North Avenue (note the name "Whitelock Street")  where Linden Ave. and Eutaw Place end at Druid Hill Park. The l950's and especially l960's were years of the "great migration" of Baltimoreans to the suburbs. The Jewish community headed to northwestern Baltimore County, leaving behind magnificent synagogues which later became houses of worship for African Americans.

Bolton Hill has a powerful community organization. In 1971 the neighborhood made the National Register of Historic Places. Neighborhood identification is strong. Block parties are common. The weekend-long arts festival stretches along Mt. Royal Avenue. The neighborhood is stately. The row houses usually have extra features: balconies, bay windows, small gardens. Here and there are small parks and playgrounds. Behind the grand streets inviting narrow alley streets beckon. Early on, black families occupied these alley homes, a kind of integrated segregation. Such homes became  fashionable.

Park Avenue row homes

Artists now occupy the 1300 block of Rutter Street. Students from MICA (Maryland Institute of Fine Arts) have fanned out into much of the eastern side of the neighborhood, displaying their eclectic creativity (read: artists running amok) in the buildings that are constructed on the east side of Mount Royal Avenue, across from Corpus Christi Church. A much more traditional building at John and Lafayette Streets, originally the old Women's Hospital, currently houses MICA students.

Corpus Christi R.C. Church, Mt.Royal Ave.

Beethoven Apts. on Park Ave.

A pair of apartment houses in Bolton Hill merit mention. The Marlborough Apartments on Eutaw Place were constructed between 1900- 1910. These were meant as apartments for the wealthy. Of the 114 apartments, some had as many as l0 rooms. The famous art-collecting Cone sisters occupied separate apartments in this building.

Years passed. The tenants changed. There is a specific memory of the murder of a man  in these apartments; the man had called himself "The Romanov Prince." The large apartments were divided and subdivided. They now exist as senior housing. The Beethoven Apts. at 1518 Park Avenue once housed a variety of cutting edge professionals and others who could afford the rent). In 1978 a disastrous fire burnt out the place. (All through downtown Baltimore, people seemed to know that the Beethoven was meeting a fiery death. A philosophy professor at the nearby University of Baltimore wasn't having the best day and hoped to run home for a brief rest. Home, however, was the Beethoven Apts. The man took it philosophically). The neighborhood preservationists launched a mighty battle to have the building renovated rather than razed. How are these apartments today? Not too long ago, internet chatter suggested some very disgruntled tenants, whereas another site awarded the Beethoven top marks. A third site, possibly the manager's, pitched to prospective tenants that a move to the Beethoven would allow them to experience a lifestyle that far exceeds their expectations! (One has to hope that they had Great Expectations!)

Unlike Charles Village or Roland Park, there are few stores in Bolton Hill. The small shopping area at Eutaw Place and Wilson Streets is on the periphery. The paucity of eating places and watering holes could be viewed as a positive. There is less noise and traffic. Some years ago, a writing teacher and former Bolton Hill resident told the following story: This is a close knit neighborhood where neighbors look out for one another. The teacher was one of a posse of 5 walkers, working their shift of the neighborhood crime watch. A young teenager appeared from nowhere, brandished a gun and robbed the crime watchers.