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Roland Park

  The boundaries of Roland Park stretch or shrink, depending on whether you are talking to the Roland Park Civic League or to a realty association. Truly, there has long been a “Welcome to Roland Park” sign as University Parkway curves northward past the Hopkins University campus. Yet, this southern boundary is a good mile from Cold Spring Lane, which could also be a southern boundary. Roland Avenue runs in the same direction as N. Charles Street and about 4 blocks west. This is the part of Charles Street with the large campuses of Loyola College and Notre Dame, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mary our Queen.. Few people would count these establishments as being in Roland Park. Some realtors want to stick in Falls Road as well. Falls Road as Roland Park? No way.
   Roland Park is very parklike: large yards, tall old trees, a warren of lanes and walkways connecting many of its streets, Roland Avenue slicing the neighborhood in the middle but in no way separating its itentity. The walkways are aptly named: Squirrel Path, Sunset Path, Briar Path, many others. Long Lane squeezes its way in, behind the Roland Park Shopping Center, from the 4800 to 4900 block. Crossing Upland Road across from the Fire Department, Long Lane narrows into a path.
   The history of this neighborhood is well documented. It is said to be the first planned suburban community in the country! (The ugly suburban sprawl of a street like York Road around Cockeysville could well have taken its example). The Roland Park Company was formed, and purchased land from the Woodlawn and Oakland estates in 1891. I have always noticed a subtle British flavour to this neighborhood. Its start-up funding was backed by British investors! The Tudor-style “shopping center” was the first such in the United States, though few people would think of it as a shopping center today. It is one, in the sense of several businesses housed under one elongated structure at the N. W. corner of Roland and Upland.
   A streetcar transported residents from the city to their Roland Park homes. The streetcar terminated at a streetcar barn next to the fire station,  the current site of the Park Lynn Apts. 4 Upland Road. The garage of the Roland Park Condo at 6 Upland Rd.  served as a community stable

   Neighborhoods are comprised of places and people, and it is essential that people have a common place to nest, to socialize informally. Ideally, such would be a place where one can get food. For long years Morgan and Millard met this need. “The Morgue” was opened in 1913. It was a pharmacy with a substantial restaurant. A series of upscale restaurants have replaced The Morgue, not the same thing at all. Fortunately there is a bakery-deli on the north side of the shopping center which serves this need, for breakfast at least. The actual shopping area is the 5100 block Roland Avenue, and the center of this area is Eddie's of Roland Park.

   Eddie's is far from an ordinary grocery store. The customers all know each other. The items and the prices are a bit upscale. The grocery store has an extremely active liquor section.Some of the old timers still put their bills on the books, run up a tab! The real old timers will still call the store Victor's. Victor Cohen open Victor's in 1953, renowned for its choice cut of meat. Only in 1953 did he open Eddie's of Roland Park. There is now a sister store, Eddie's of Charles Street, above Stevenson Lane. (Eddie's delivers to homes as does its next door neighbor, Tuxedo Pharmacy).

That pharmacy is no ordinary pharmacy. Betty Davidov, one of its owners (RIP 2008), worked there over a span of 70 decades! Her family had migrated to Baltimore from Russia in 1918 in order to escape the Revolution. The people in this story were more than helpful. I remember an elderly Black delivery man who, as closing time approached, had to deliver a prescription to a particularly cantankerous Mrs. O. The man groaned. “Mrs. O......! She'll keep me there for an hour! She'll be asking me everything, why the medicine costs $40! How the hell do I know why the medicine costs $40!” This woman happened to live one apartment from my own, a fact I did not volunteer.
   Roland Parkers are discreet. Prominent authoress Anne Tyler lived in the neighborhood (whether she is still there, I do not know) and shopped regularly at Eddie's of Roland Park. A tall striking-looking woman, she glided around the store for her shopping and no one accosted her. Ms. Tyler desired anonymity and the neighborhood honored her desire. I never learned where she lived.

The main shopping area, in addition to Eddie's and the pharmacy, has a couple of banks and the ubiquitous Starbucks (Never try to get in there right after schools let out. Roland Park Country School, Gilman, and the public school occupy the blocks to the north, and their students can easily afford a triple super-Grande cappuccino with the trimmings.) For years a travel agency and a beauty salon, Johann and Rene's, held forth in this block. These were the days of the standing weekly hair appointments.. One of this team had an embarrassing way of asking his customers, “Are you on medicines?” The presumption was that certain drugs thinned certain hair. The question was asked as though the poor person in the chair needed to confess to taking about ten meds prescribed by a psychopharmacologist! When I was asked the question, I lied.

   Around the corner on Deepdene Road one finds the post office and a few specialty shops. I was sorry when the pet shop, Shear Grace, moved out. I never missed an opportunity to fawn over the two aloof but beautiful white cats. A pet supplies store had stood on Deepdene Rd. for over 60 years before being priced out by rent hikes. Gundy's Gifts came to Roland Park in the 1950's. Mrs. Ruth Nachman (RIP 2003) was the long-time owner. Two words can be used to describe this gift shop: helpful and gracious. The Roland Park Public Library opened in l924. It underwent major renovations in 2006. In earlier years, a second-time-around clothing store, run by a Mrs. Lewis, completed the Deepdene Road shopping area. Nor can any story of Roland Park businesses be complete without mention of Schneider's Hardware on Windhurst Road. It has been there forever. It carries everything. If you go in on a Saturday morning, don't think you're going to hurry the customer in front of you. That customer will ask question after question! (I should not be the person writing this article. I only lived there for 20 years).

  The neighborhood has little crime, but little doesn't mean none. The crime I most remember is an almost humorous one. St David's is an Episcopal Church located on Roland Avenue and Oakdale Rd. One night in the mid-2000's the church's huge antique grandfather clock was stolen. The church and offices had recently undergone renovations, with a special niche in the office hallway for the clock. The next morning, when the Rev. Bill Krulak opened the door, the first thing he noticed was the empty space where the clock had stood. (Surely it must be standing right now in some ritzy apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side? Roland Park people do know each other. They do occasionally have dinner parties. No local person could run the risk of giving that clock a new home!)

 

 

The Magic of Paths
 

     Keys, gates, paths are powerful archetypal and magical symbols. The unabridged dictionary offers about 50 meanings for "key," not unrelated. Traditionally a key is a small metal instrument made to fit into a lock and move its bolt. A key is also something that provides a means of clarifying a problem. A key can be a code to let you unravel a cipher, or the "connection" that gives you the answers. The most important keys are mental.

  
   A key might allow us to pass through a gate, to open a door. Many initiation ceremonies begin with the student, after a proper course of study, knocking on a door. Something else about keys: Who has possession of the key? Who is allowed access? You would give your house key only to the most trusted of family and friends. Let's run with this thought abstractly: How does it feel to be allowed to have a key? Or to be excluded from having one? Does your key allow you to enter the most private inner sanctum of your own soul or self or sense of personhood? Do you seek to lock out any part of yourself? Lock up part of yourself from others? Who? Why?



"Gate" also has multiply meanings, e.g. a movable barrier on a hinge, to control an entrance in a fence or wall. Door is related. If one is unworthy of admission, we might "show them the door." Who gets in? Who is kept out? Did you ever have a gate or door slam, leaving you on the outside? A failure to gain admittance to something that was important to you? Your imaginary gate might suggest what types of persons, actions, or even ideas or concepts you have chosen to exclude from your life or from your consciousness.
  Finally there is the path--a path that might have required some kind of mental key to allow you take your first step down the path. This "key" might be in the form of a wake-up call. Do you choose a well-worn path which many have trod before? Or to you cut your own path ?
  I offer just a few thoughts for pondering as you walk the lovely paths of Roland Park.