My fathers parents are from Baltimore and I remember going there when I was little and it looking like a pretty okay place.
But since becoming an adult and going to Baltimore the few times I have had too, my grandparents words whirl through my head because I can't comprehend the vast difference between what my family told me and what I presently see.
What happened to this town?
Right along the water front where the Chesapeake Bay comes into Baltimore is the Inner Harbor. Which is a beautiful. National restaurants have come in and brought life back into an area that was all but dead save a few working docks. After the death of the industrial revolution companies like Bethlehem Steel, and McCormick Spice Company, Bromo Seltzer, and many many more, all ceased operations in Baltimore and over the years until present, blue collar neighborhoods have turned into absolute squalor.
Now streets that were once filled with families, and children playing hopscotch, are now empty and bleak, where gangs run the neighborhood, and it takes nerves of steel to ride down it's streets.
One tenth of the particular block that we were on was actually legitimately occupied. By that I mean they had a mail box outside, there were lights on, and they had a real door. The rest of the Town houses had boarded or cement block covered windows and doors. Many of which had been torn down and broken into where one can only imagine what for.
I witnessed at least a 1/2 a dozen drug deals being conducted yesterday, and the man who lived in the house next to the one which we have up for auction was standing on his front stoop talking on a two way radio.
As I got out to take pictures, I could feel the unseen eyes from all directions peering at me out of blackened windows.
I went about my business calmly and coolly so as not show any weakness.
The empty oppressive feeling of this place is enough to push one over the edge to become a 'gang banger' or to simply slit ones wrists. The buildings are grey, the sky was grey, and not a tree or shrub on the entire street.
Once hubby hung up the signs and 'take one' box our work was done.
I got back into the car and the 9 year old was beside himself.
He was aghast at the condition of the neighborhood. He said he had never seen anything so sad, so ugly, and horrible. He couldn't believe that these conditions existed in our country, let alone our state. He said that the very worst neighborhoods in our town were a hundred times better than these, and he was so grateful for what he has.
I like to take our kids to other cities to see the way other people live. It is an education that really doesn't take too much explaining. They learn much through observing lifestyle differences.
It is very rare that we have a property in a neighborhood such as this, most of the properties that we have auctioned are more often than not 'McMansions' that the person can no longer afford and they need to sell it immediately.
The kids are always impressed by the beauty of most of these homes but, see the bittersweet reality, that the family purchased something that they really couldn't afford and have had to move on to something much smaller, and their hopes and dreams dashed.
The other thing about Baltimore, is it is a victim of the late 20th Century idea of
"Since all of the industry has left, let's make it a tourist destination!". Many cities across the country have fallen into this trap set for them by ill-equipped leaders that went to a convention and heard how great one town did by trying this, and thought it would be a great idea for their town.
The problem with this concept is very few cities are equipped to be tourist destinations, and what often ends up happening is that everything around the tourist area is beautiful and pristine, but go two blocks away from it and the contrast is astounding. Tourism is not an industry that produces anything tangible, and without real and tangible industry the city is simply not healthy and can't survive.
Very few of the residents even go to the tourists attractions, and jobs in these areas are mostly minimum wage retail, or service jobs, that are now filled with many foreign students on work visa's.
Where do the people who actually live here work? In the area we were in, it looked like they worked the block. In better neighborhoods it looked like they worked in the service industry; probably holding down two or more jobs. The really high end stuff is right next to the stadiums and hospitals or completely out of downtown. These folks work in theses places as the prices are so rediculous it would take a doctors salary to pay for them.
Yes, of course there are the universities and the hospitals. But there is no longer anything for the average person without a Degree to earn a living that will support a family. Service Industry jobs aren't Bread Winner jobs, and with out those jobs the people leave.
What is left?
Degreed Professionals who work at the Universities, Hospitals, and other high level jobs but there is nothing left for the average Joe, and the city is dying.
How sad.
My Grandparents spoke so fondly of the old Baltimore that was so safe, so friendly, such a prosperous city...
