Small Assignment 1 - A Walk Down West Baltimore Street

 

The A Walk Down West Baltimore Street project provides readers with a glimpse into the lives of residents and business owners along West Baltimore Street. The project was a collaborative effort between UMBC students and members of the community. Together they created a public history zine, several video interviews, and a virtual walking tour. This project was designed to provide the audience with an authentic history of West Baltimore Street. The zine calls it out from the very start that this history “…is really a collection of stories or glimpses and pieces of people’s stories as they lived out their lives.” These stories are used to create a narrative, making the project more relatable to the audience.

This narrative is used to argue that this negatively perceived area is still a vibrant community filled with real people who are desperate for inclusive change that will bring new residents to the surrounding neighborhoods who can benefit those already there. Being primarily mixed-use commercial West Baltimore Street many of the stories gathered for this project are from business owners. These business owners all agree that change is necessary for them to remain operational. Unfortunately for Littlepage’s Furniture Company this change came too late, and they were unable to keep their doors open.  

The West Baltimore Street project focused on the stories of current residents and business owners who provided insights on the structures that are now gone and those that remain today. I found the Cecil Clarke, Lisa Gee, and Lonnie Coombs interviews to be very enlightening. They all supported enhancements to the community like the La Cite development if the current residents were included in the decision-making process. As investors and business owners they understood that new residential construction can improve their business by drawing in new customers. Though as we have seen current and now past residents were rarely invited to the table and have suffered because of it.

Perhaps one of the most interesting buildings that remains on West Baltimore Street is the Lord Baltimore Theater. I enjoyed hearing Mr. Clarke discuss the theater in his interview and agree with his belief that if rehabilitated the theater could serve as a lynch pin for the community. Providing not only entertainment for residents but also a communal space for events that could bring people from the community together. It could also have the added benefit of drawing in people from outside of the neighborhood, like Curtis hoped for at the end of his recorded interview. As someone who is interested in architecture and old theaters I also enjoyed being able to see what the theater originally looked like after having seen its current state on our walking tour.  

This project does an excellent job at painting a picture for the audience of what it would have been like to walk down West Baltimore Street in the past while simultaneously conveying what it is like today. This is achieved by moving from east to west along the street itself stopping at various landmarks, giving the reader the ability to take the tour without having to leave the comfort of their own home. While I think everyone who is able should take the tour themselves, those who are physically or geographically unable to do so are thus included in the experience. Providing this kind of access is vital for the public humanities moving forward, granting access to a wider audience can only serve to benefit a project like this.

The zine portion of the project poses several questions to the readers, thus including the future into this study of past and present. While the reader in most circumstances cannot directly voice their answers to us. Raising questions gets them thinking and in turn ideally inspires them to participate in future projects. I thought this small detail was powerful and hope to push for this to be included in our project. I assume we will do this in our interviews, but I think that we should also try to pose those same questions to the readers as well.

I enjoyed the fact that this zine utilized a collective voice rather than the individual voices of those who worked on the project. I think that this collective voice suits the collaborative nature of the project itself. In my opinion it gives the reader the impression that this was created by the community. While we do get the individual stories from those interviewed, they are members of that community which to me gives them more weight. Being a project focused on neighbors and neighborhoods, I think that our project should aim to use this collective voice to convey the same message onto our audience.

I also noticed that his zine utilized advertising space to presumably raise money for a related cause. These ads seem to have been purchased by businesses on West Baltimore Street which is perfect for this project. Whether this was intentional or not I think that it fits very well with the theme of business owner stories. If there is a worthy cause presented to us, I think that we should try to utilize this in our project as well.

The A Walk Down West Baltimore Street project was a unique way to learn and tell the history of a street. Oral history projects like this one are needed to preserve the stories of those who have often been voiceless in historical accounts of the past. Presenting history in this way effectively creates connections between the audience and the subjects, These connections can ideally inspire a kind of empathy in readers who might join the fight to create change. While simultaneously empowering the subjects to take pride in their neighborhood’s history.