Jun 4, 2009
Oh say, can you extend the Inner Harbor promenade to Fort McHenry?
rA BLUE-SKY BLUEPRINT FOR BALTIMORE
By GERALD NEILY
Fort McHenry is on a peninsula, but it might as well be an island. Baltimore’s most important and enduring tourist attraction, the birthplace of our national anthem, is also its most isolated. When befuddled tourists discover they can’t get there by following the Inner Harbor waterfront promenade, many just give up.
But extending the promenade to Fort McHenry should be much easier than anyone has imagined. Unlike some of the more out-there proposals for spiffing up the city (gondolas over the Inner Harbor, knocking down the Jones Falls Expressway, turning a century-old derelict railroad bridge into the centerpiece of walking trail to a developer’s upscale develoment) this promenade idea would face few political or physical impediments, isn’t horribly expensive and could actually happen quickly.
It should be planned now, in fact, to complement the new $14 million visitors center which recently began construction.
The current south end of the Inner Harbor promenade was the outcome of the longtime battle between the forces for old waterfront industry and the forces for new public access. You’re walking along the Inner Harbor promenade past the million dollar condos – and wham! – you can go no further. You’ve come to the end of the world of Inner Harbor tourism and smacked headlong into the world of private industry. Resolution has been drawn from stalemate.
People love to pose land use issues in terms of battles between various groups – yuppies versus real people, rich versus poor, tourists versus locals, residents versus industrialists, bikers versus joggers, etc. But in those terms, now that the land use decisions in the neighborhoods between the Inner Harbor and Fort McHenry – South Baltimore and Locust Point – have practically all been settled, it’s simply a matter of good “down to earth” design that will allow people to navigate the terrain.
Compared to most of depopulated Baltimore, this area has had a lot more winners than losers. The lines of demarcation between industry and neighborhoods are mostly clear and concise. Postmodern industry is a much better neighbor than the soot-belching sweatshops of old, so that their juxtapostion with million dollar condos actually evokes a romantic aspect. Numerous hardcore bicyclists and runners have discovered the road to Fort McHenry as well, and have fewer problems dealing with traffic and industrial conflicts here than elsewhere.
But for tourists (spelled “touri$t$”) and casual urban wanderers, Fort McHenry is still much more of a secret than it should be.
So, here’s the deal
The Museum of Industry, at Key Highway and Lawrence Street, is the current south end of the Inner Harbor waterfront promenade. Lawrence Street is so wide at this point that the city has proposed a median strip in its center and an unimpeded “view corridor” from Fort Avenue down to Key Highway and the waterfront. But instead of building a median strip, Lawrence Street should be narrowed on the east side to make room for a greenway park with an all-purpose bike/hike/walk trail which would function as an inland extension of the Inner Harbor promenade.
Beyond that, there is a large vacant lot in the east corner where Lawrence intersects Fort Avenue, which can gently guide this proposed new inland promenade eastward toward Fort McHenry. East of this lot, Fort Avenue can easily be narrowed to provide the new promenade with a safe identifiable crosswalk to the south side of street.
All the way from this point to Fort McHenry, about a mile, the south side of Fort Avenue is a natural place for a long lush leafy linear greenway park to envelop the new promenade and create an attractive new environment framing the street.
Some of this has already been done, like this view of the Fort Avenue sidewalk along Latrobe Park. Practically the whole stretch to Fort McHenry can easily be made to look like this. Much of it is already industrial buffers and simply needs to be translated into a more unified design. Much of this land is state and city owned, including play fields and a fire station. Much is parking lots that can be reconfigured to provide buffers.
Very little is actually built up all the way to the street. There is only one through street intersection - Andre Street. Fort Avenue is sufficiently wide so that it can be narrowed where necessary to maintain the continuity of this new promenade. This includes several bridges, one of which needs to be rebuilt anyway and so provides the opportunity to be widened to expand the promenade.
All of this is simply a matter of taking advantage of opportunities. After all, this is Fort McHenry we’re talking about here… The land of the free, the home of the brave, where that star spangled banner yet waves… Please stand up while you read that.
This is also a national landmark, and thus a legitimate reason for federal money to be spent. The feds have already financed most of the cost of the new Fort McHenry visitors center. The area around a national landmark up the road, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, got some major sprucing-up with federal dollars and Baltimore’s national treasure, Fort McHenry, could get that kind of treatment too.
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor promenade is already a tremendous success story. Extending it by slightly over a mile to Fort McHenry will create a new symmetry with the leg on the opposite side of the harbor to Canton. It’s as natural as singing “O” at the proper moment.
I totally agree with you here. I’m a volunteer at Fort McHenry, and the one thing lacking to the area is a better way to get there. You either drive down the street or walk/bike on the sidewalk. There needs to be a better greenway down there. Or, hey, maybe even a streetcar! Hop on at the Inner Harbor, hop off at the gate and walk or bike in!
Is there a water taxi stop to Ft. McHenry? I only ask this because, if you check out the average age of tourists on the Baltimore Tourism site, I doubt that, even with accessibility, those in their 40s-50s and/or families with small children will want to walk that far. I personally love the idea and currently jog this path frequently but I question the investment for the sake of tourism if tourists have no other reason to walk that far (i.e. no Cheesecake Factory in Locust Point).
Great idea – and could easily be coordinated with a needed extension of any Charles Street trolley to points south of the Inner Harbor along Light Street (or some other street) to Fort Avenue, so as to better serve the residents of South Baltimore – one of the last places around the harbor which has preserved some of the human scale in the built environment.
Good point, Lori.
This is a good idea that should probably initially be sold as a benefit for locals. If they use it regularly, it’s not a stretch to think that tourists riding a shuttle to Ft. McHenry will take notice. Some will choose to walk back, perhaps stopping at the forthcoming McHenry Row development on the way. At a minimum, Lawrence St. and the Fort Avenue bridge should be rebuilt with Gerry’s concept in mind.
Gerald Neily has a great concept, but it’s totally impractical. First of all, I doubt many of us hardened in the South Baltimore land use wars would think they’re settled. The waterfront from the Harborview marina to the Baltimore Museum of Industry is still unresolved.
As for diverting the promenade to Fort Avenue, it has major problems. First, the promenade was supposed to ring the Inner Harbor, not detour into built up areas. The property owners in the maritime industrial area are not going to give up their water access without a bitter fight.
I can’t believe anyone familiar with Fort Avenue would advocate narrowing it. It’s the primary route into and out of booming Locust Point and is already highly congested.
Yes, tourist access to Fort McHenry should be improved. A Planning Department that truly acted in the public interest would have dealt with that years ago. I hope it’s not too late.
A Fort McHenry promenade can work regardless of the waterfront access configuration between Harborview and the Museum of Industry. No industrial area water access would need to be taken. Fort Avenue would only need to be narrowed in several non-critical places, if at all, which would not affect traffic capacity. The City spent big bucks to build a loop road for Locust Point which greatly increased traffic capacity. Yes, Lori, there is water taxi service to Fort McHenry. The City’s strategy is to get tourists to see as much of the rest of Baltimore as possible beyond Harborplace and the Cheesecake Factory.
Gerry, I like your idea a lot. However, it’s probably too long for most people to walk. It therefore could be called the Star Spangled Banner Trail or something like that. National Historic Walkway. A promenade suggests a leiesurely stroll. Now, if this path could accommodate a very light-duty trolley or better yet, a circulator, that would be unbelievably excellent.
[...] to get federal funding for the Red Line as it is for new trails. And Baltimore Brew comes up with a completely different plan to revitalize the South [...]
Ive been nudging the city to consider the Ft McH Trail on a slightly different alignment: from the end of the Waterfront Promenade, newly extended through the Museum of Industry (and fully open to bicycles, as long as I’m dreaming) along the wide sidewalk on the east side of Key Highway to the new sidewalk along New Key Highway past Domino to Tide Point, between the Tide Point parking lots and CSX RR to an existing (but short) trail in front of Silo Point, finally between the railroad and the new housing to Fort Avenue, just across the bridge from the Fort. Not exactly waterfront either (except for a spur through Tide Point) but like Gerry’s proposal, cheap and easy to do: mostly just some widening and way-finding signs. Ultimately it could be extended along Gerry’s route, then to Riverside Park and the Gwynns Falls Trail at M&T Stadium. Dream on!
I’m sitting here in my hotel room laughing as I read this. This morning my husband, 58, and I, 56, became two of Baltimore’s “befuddled tourists” as we began a walking tour from the Tremont Plaza Hotel to Fort McHenry via the Inner Harbor Promenade. Well….at least partially on the promade. We, too, ended up in the middle of condos, and thinking we had just made a wrong turn, proceeded on to Fort McHenry on foot, courtesy of one of the Water Taxi maps, which by the way, doesn’t indicate the distance, nor do they point out that Fort McHenry isn’t really an Inner Harbor destination. We finally made it to the Fort, realizing too late to turn back that we were no longer anywhere near a pedestrian route. We toured the Fort and got a patriotic surge, but we knew there was no way we could make it back to the Inner Harbor, much less to our hotel, on foot. We were that the Water Taxi wouldn’t take us back because we had not gotten on it at the Inner Harbor, so we called a cab and two phone calls and a hour and a half later, no cab. So we walked back to the entrance of the park, and mercifully, caught a city bus back to the Inner Harbor where we ate lunch at 4 p.m. at a beautiful setting outdoors. Somewhat revitalized, we walked back to the hotel. We were naive and should have asked questions before we started our tour, but in my opinion the inclusion of Fort McHenry in any promotion of the Inner Harbor is misleading.