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    Fell's Point
    Fell's Point
    Fell's Point
    Ebook199 pages1 hour

    Fell's Point

    By Jacqueline Greff

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    About this ebook

    Fell's Point documents the interesting history of this diverse Baltimore community.


    Fell's Point, Baltimore's original deep-water port, was founded in 1726 by William Fell, a shipbuilder from England. The community's shipyards developed the famed Baltimore Clippers; built two of the first ships in the United States Navy, the USS Constellation and the USS Enterprise; and financed the privateers that helped win the War of 1812. In the late 19th century, Baltimore was second only to Ellis Island as an entry port for European immigrants, many of whom initially settled in Fell's Point. When the Great Fire of 1904 swept through Baltimore, Fell's Point was the only historic neighborhood that survived. In the 1960s fight to keep from being demolished for an expressway, Fell's Point became Maryland's first district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today in Fell's Point, cultures, lifestyles, and generations mingle in a romantic seaport setting accented by working tugboats, cobblestone streets, tiny brick rowhouses, and a dazzling variety of bars, restaurants, shops, and coffeehouses.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJul 20, 2005
    ISBN9781439613092
    Fell's Point
    Author

    Jacqueline Greff

    Producer, author, and long-time resident Jacqueline Greff captures Fell's Point's story using archival photographs, paintings, and maps, as well as snapshots and tales contributed by those who reflect the community's character.

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      Book preview

      Fell's Point - Jacqueline Greff

      Horn.)

      INTRODUCTION

      Fell’s Point was never an easy place to live—people with competing interests crowded together, fighting for survival. In the early days, founder William Fell and fellow shipbuilders and sea captains struggled against the sea, competing ports, and even Baltimore City, which eventually absorbed Fell’s Point against its will in 1797. The few wealthy merchants who initially lived here fled during the yellow fever epidemics. In spite of these difficulties, Fell’s Point’s shipyards developed the famed Baltimore Clippers, built some of the navy’s first ships, and financed the privateers that helped win the War of 1812. Many of the buildings lining its streets were built in the 18th and early 19th centuries by shipbuilders, sea captains, mariners, tradesmen, shopkeepers, and laborers in the shipping industry. With the advent of metal steamships after the Civil War, Baltimore moved its port facilities downstream, and the community began a long, slow decline. Fell’s Point’s bars, brothels, boardinghouses, and missions continued to cater to seamen, and it became the point of entry for waves of immigrants who found work in the canneries and other industries that thrived on its harbor location. Only the uptown area above Fleet Street was socially acceptable. When the Great Fire of 1904 swept through Baltimore, Pointers congregated in St. Stan’s Church, praying for deliverance. The neighborhood was spared by several heroic fireboats and a shift in the wind. By the mid-1900s, what is now the historic district had become known as the foot of Broadway and was considered a slum. The city planned to clean it up by using federal money to route the East-West Expressway along the harbor and through its center. In its fight to stop the road, Fell’s Point became Maryland’s first National Registered Historic District. As it recovered, a generation of bar owners, developers, entrepreneur shopkeepers, artists, and young couples looking to renovate cheap property battled for control of this tiny speck of turf. In more recent years, as Baltimore’s Inner Harbor began to thrive, developers began tearing down historic homes and industrial buildings to build office and living spaces, setting the stage for another round of turf battles that is in full swing today.

      I grew up in Iowa and had lived in nearly a dozen states before being transferred to Maryland. Kraig and I have always enjoyed living in cities. We chose Fell’s Point partly because it reminded us of the tiny homes we had seen near the harbor in Annapolis. The area was fairly rundown at the time, with many empty lots accumulating trash. The house we bought on a 12-by-60-foot lot was one of the homes purchased by the city to build the freeway. It had been nicely renovated, but we soon learned that the new paint around the windows and doors hid rotting wood, which in turn hid a colony of active termites. We loved being able to leave our cars parked all weekend, walk out our door to dozens of restaurants and bars, and take a water taxi downtown any time we wanted. Attending occasional homeowners’ association meetings and listening to ongoing complaints about the bars and parking was not as much fun. As a hobby, I began taking pictures of the buildings going up all around us in the no-longer-empty lots. Gradually, Fell’s Point became home.

      It wasn’t until I accepted an early retirement package and began working full-time with my husband, however, that I really began to understand the community and to become aware of the resources slipping away with time. One of my first projects was a documentary, Fell’s Point Out of Time, a poignant, provocative, sometimes funny, always revealing look at a community coping with change. Kraig and I interviewed 25 people who were knowledgeable about the area. The first was terminally ill curmudgeon Ed Kane, founder of the Water Taxi, who died the day after our second interview. His brother-in-law was controversial photographer turned character actor Richard Kirstel, who moved to Spain before the documentary was finished. Kraig and I flew to Maine during a snowstorm to tape Steve Bunker and Sharon Bondroff, longtime residents, shopkeepers, and community leaders driven out by gentrification.

      When I learned about the opportunity to write this book, I at first thought it would be simple, since I had already identified many photographs during production of my documentary and had accumulated extensive factual interviews. I discovered, however, that movies and print are very different media. Although both are a tribute to a very unique community, they tell different stories in different ways. My hope is that this book helps to capture the spirit and the amazing diversity of Fell’s Point and to carry these memories forward so they are not lost with time.

      The photo above was taken in 1994 when the Nighthawk was still anchored on Thames Street next to Recreation Pier. The Nighthawk was an 1880 U.S. Merchant Marine passenger vessel that had toured the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, and South America before coming to Baltimore in 1986. In 2002, Lew Diuguid, editor of the Fell’s Point Citizens on Patrol newsletter, reported that the official tall ship of Fell’s Point was sold and had gone off for Wilmington, North Carolina, without so much as a cannon round. (Photo by Anne Gummerson.)

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