When the development of East Baltimore-Midway began in the mid nineteenth century, the area was part of Baltimore County as North Avenue, then known as Boundary Avenue, marked the city’s northern boundary. Early suburban estates in the area, such as Andrew Kennedy, who helped to build Saint Ann Catholic Church in 1874, and large property owners, like Edward Patterson, Jr., mixed with industrial and commercial buildings along York Road (now Greenmount Avenue) and Harford Road. Jenkins Lane (now Kirk Avenue) was lined with a fruit distillery, slaughterhouses, a glue factory, and a hair factory. By the 1860s and 1870s, builders had put up small detached houses and duplexes on St. Ann’s and Gutman Avenues likely to house workers at the nearby factories and parishioners at St. Ann’s Church.

Rowhouses, 500 block of E. 22nd Street (north side), Baltimore, MD 21218. [Baltimore Heritage](https://www.flickr.com/photos/baltimoreheritage/33518872790/)

In 1888, Baltimore City’s northern boundary moved nearly two miles north bringing the developing East-Baltimore Midway neighborhood into the city. In the 1890s, the area began to change with the construction of the “belt line” of the B&O Railroad just above 25th Street in 1894 and the extension of new residential streets through the old Kennedy Estate. By 1896, builders had finished rowhouses on the 500 block of E. 23rd and E. 22nd Streets. The city tore down Oak Hill, the former Boone family mansion, to make way for the extension of 21st Street east of Greenmount Avenue. The next year, residents established the Oxford Methodist Episcopal Church Montebello and Belt Street (now Jerusalem Baptist Church at Loch Raven Road and Cokesbury Avenue) as a mission church of the Lovely Lane congregation on Saint Paul Street.

Development continued into the beginning of the twentieth century with the addition of a public school (named in honor of Oliver Cromwell) in 1903. By 1914, builders including N.C. Showacre and Charles H. Gerwig had lined both sides of Boone Street, Homewood Avenue, Oakhill Avenue, Cecil Avenue, and Kennedy Avenue (south of Curtain Avenue) with new brick rowhouses. The area’s new residents were white and the new school was segregated. In 1924, white residents organized the Greenmount Protective Association in an effort to promote the continued segregation of the neighborhood in the face of Black Baltimoreans rising demand for access to housing in the city’s rowhouse suburbs.

After WWII, efforts to maintain East Baltimore Midway as a segregated neighborhood for white residents broke down and the neighborhood’s population changed from over ninety-nine percent white in 1950 to over eighty percent Black in 1960. However, African American residents moving to the neighborhood in the 1950s faced new challenges. For example, in 1948, the city established a large bus depot at Kirk and Bonaparte Avenues. In 1958, residents and representatives from the local chapter of the NAACP unsuccessfully fought to stop the operation of an automobile brake shoe service business on the 2300 block of Boone Street. Other large industrial employers left the city like the John Deere Company regional sales and distribution center which moved in 1966 from 2524 Kirk Avenue to Padonia Road in Baltimore County.

Baltimore City School Number 74 in the 2200 block of Homewood Avenue, c. 1969. University of Baltimore, Langsdale Library, [MUND Collection](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ubarchives/4703514748/)

Homewood House / Oliver Cromwell School / Public School No. 74, 2200 Homewood Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218

The new residents organized new community groups: the East Baltimore Midway Association, the Cecil Association, and a new Northeast Improvement Association. Together with the MUND (Model Urban Neighborhood Development) program, residents worked to bring new resources to their community. In 1965, Cecil Elementary School opened on Cecil Avenue. In March 1968, the Northeast Improvement Association planned a small parade for a June celebration they called “United Baltimore Day” with the goal of uniting “all the people in this area” and the city in a “better and lasting relationship.” The group observed, “We are anxious to stem, avert and prevent trouble in this area which is possible and highly probably in the Greenmount and North general area.” Organizers included Mrs. Hattie Fields, secretary for the group, who lived at 506 E. 21st Street and the group’s president John Stewart.

Unrest broke out just a few weeks later, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., damaged business on North and Greenmount Avenue. For many, however, the unrest just added to the urgency of improving conditions for community residents. In 1969, MUND supported the conversion of a former warehouse into the new Kirk Community Center. In 1974, the Greenmount Recreation Center opened at Greenmount Avenue and E. 24th Street and, in 1978, residents celebrated the opening of MUND park across the street from the recreation center.

Children waiting in line outside Cecil Elementary School for tickets to the Johns Hopkins Hospital jazz concert, 1969. [Langsdale Library, University of Baltimore](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ubarchives/4702884949/)

Cecil Elementary School/School No. 7, 2000 Cecil Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218

Unfortunately, the federal government made big cuts in funding for cities in the late 1970s and 1980s ending support for some neighborhood programs. The Enoch Pratt Free Library opened a library center at the Kirk Community Center in 1971 but tight budgets forced the library to close the small branch in July 1984. But activism has continued. In 1988, residents succeeded in their push to reuse of the former Oliver Cromwell School (which closed in 1978) and the building reopened as Homewood House with apartments for low-income seniors.

In recent years, neighborhood residents have struggled with vacant buildings and disinvestment. A few long-standing businesses, like the Wooden Nickel at 2213 Kirk Avenue, continue to attract current and former residents. Around 2012, an industrial building on Kirk Avenue was converted for use as the home of the Alternative Press Center and a DIY arts space known as The Compound. After years of advocacy over air pollution from the Kirk Avenue bus depot, Midway Park was created in 2014 as a new buffer between the bus facility and nearby houses.

Mund Park/Playground, 2323 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218

Midway Park, 2226 Kirk Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218

Explore an interactive timeline of East Baltimore-Midway history (based on this Google Sheet) and this album of photographs from the neighborhood.

References

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———. “Rehabbed School Lets Elderly Live, Give to Community.” The Sun (1837-1991); Baltimore, Md. November 1, 1989, sec. Maryland.

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