Fells Point | |
|---|---|
 The Fells Point waterfront at sunset | |
| Nickname: Fell's/Fells | |
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| Country | United States |
| State | Maryland |
| City | Baltimore |
| Settled | 1670 |
| Incorporated | 1729 |
| Founded | 1732 |
| Named after | William Fell |
Fells Point Historic District | |
 Storefronts along the Belgian blocks of Thames Street | |
    | |
| Location | Bounded on the north by Eastern Avenue, on the east by Chester Street, on the south by thePatapsco River andHarbor, and on the west byCentral Avenue; southeasternBaltimore, Maryland |
| Coordinates | 39°16′59″N76°35′34″W / 39.28306°N 76.59278°W /39.28306; -76.59278 |
| Area | 75 acres (30 ha) |
| Built | 1763 |
| Architect | Multiple |
| Architectural style | Italianate, Greek Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 69000319[1] |
| Added to NRHP | March 28, 1969 |
Fells Point is a historic waterfrontneighborhood in southeasternBaltimore,Maryland, established around 1763 along the north shore of theBaltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of thePatapsco River. Located 1.5 miles east of Baltimore's downtown central business district, Fells Point is known for its maritime history and character.
The neighborhood has numerous antique, music, and other stores, restaurants, coffee bars, a municipal markethouse with individual stalls, and over 120 pubs.
Across its 250 year history, Fells Point has hosted large large immigrant communities, including Irish,Germans,Jews,Poles,Ukrainians,Russians,Czechs, andSlovaks. Since the 1970s, middle- to upper-middle-income residents have increasingly adopted the area, restoring and preserving historic homes and businesses. Sometimes now called "Spanish Town,"Upper Fell's Point to the north alongBroadway has gained a sizableLatino community, primarilyMexican andCentral American immigrants, mostly since the 1980s.
This Fells Point waterfront is an upscale residential area and tourist destination featuring first rate hotels and restaurants. A short walk from the Inner Harbor, the neighborhood can be reached by foot,water taxi barges, bus or car. It is one of several areas in and around Baltimore listed on theNational Register of Historic Places, (maintained by theNational Park Service), the first designated from Maryland, and is one of the first registered historic districts in the United States to combine two separate waterfront communities (along withFederal Hill to the southwest across thePatapsco River and theHarbor on the "Old South Baltimore" peninsula of "Whetstone Point" atFort McHenry).[2][3]
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First described by a European seafarer as "Long Island Point" in 1670, the area later to be known as Fells Point was a thin little peninsula jutting out southwestward between the streams ofJones Falls andHarford Run (later covered over by Central Avenue) to the west andHarris Creek to the east (nowculverted beneath the community ofCanton) and further east to Colgate Creek (now surrounded by the Dundalk and Sea Girt Marine Terminals). Later land was patented with the title of "Copus Harbor". NearbyBaltimore Town to the west at the headwater of thePatapsco River's Northwest Branch was land patented under the name of "Cole's Harbor" and "Todd's Range" to William Cole and later sold to Charles and Daniel Carroll. This area was later established as a "port of entry" by theGeneral Assembly of theProvince of Maryland in 1706. After several local farmers and plantation owners originally planning to establish a town on the northeastern shores of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco (also known as "Ridgeley's Cove") were stymied by the objections of local owner William Moale, who thought the land was too valuable as a site of iron ore deposits. So the new town site was moved further to the northeast to the head of the Northwest Branch. Established as a town by the authority of theColonial Assembly on July 30, 1729, (and signed by GovernorBenedict Leonard Calvert on August 8), several streets were laid out in the "Original Survey" of January 12, 1730, with the main one going east-to-west called "Long Street" (later by the 1760s as "Market Street", then renamed East and West Baltimore Streets) and several others intersecting from north-to-south such as Forrest (later Charles), Calvert, running north from "The Basin" (today'sInner Harbor) in 1730.
Joined in 1732, to the northeast along the banks of the stream "Jones Falls" (which originates in northernBaltimore County near thePennsylvania border) by the laying out of several streets on a northwest to southeast angle by David Jones and named"Jones's Town" with streets such as Front, High, and Low. Founded by William Fell, who was attracted by its deep water and proximity to agriculture and thick forests,[citation needed] Fell's Point became a shipbuilding and commercial center. About 1763, William's son Edward Fell laid out streets and began selling plots for homes. The waterfront village port grew quickly, and eventually incorporated with nearby Baltimore Town to the west and Jones Town to the northwest (which had merged in 1745) in 1773 to form a new Town of Baltimore and later beginning in 1796 and taking effect in January 1797, becoming incorporated by the State of Maryland's act of theGeneral Assembly to become the City of Baltimore (under the title of "the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore").
In 1784, the combined town's market house system was expanded from the original first Centre Market (later known as "Marsh Market") on Market Place (between East Pratt Street to the south and Long Street (later called Market Street, then East Baltimore Street) to the north from 1767. Two additional market areas were established shortly after the end of theAmerican Revolutionary War in 1784. Known first as the "Western Precincts Market" and renamed later as the Lexington Market (by future West Lexington and North Eutaw Streets) on land donated byContinental Army Col.John Eager Howard (1752-1827), an influential Baltimore citizen with a large estate named "Belvidere" surrounding the town to the west and north). To the east borders of the town in that same year was the new "Eastern Precincts Market", also later renamed Fells Point Market or Broadway Market which was located for several blocks length between Fleet Street and Thames Street at the harborside. Later the municipal market system extended to include 12 markets spread throughout the center city by the early 20th century. All became focal point and gathering places for their neighborhoods and attracted customers from the entire city and metropolitan area. The area grew wealthy on the tobacco, flour, and coffee trades overseas through the 18th and 19th centuries.[4]
Fell's Point shipyards became best known for producing topsailschooners, sometimes called "Baltimore clippers", renowned for their great speed and handling. They were excellentblockade runners, and were frequently used as armedprivateers. The schooner"Pride of Baltimore II" is based on the"Chasseur", built by Thomas Kemp, which was one of the most successful privateers built in Fell's Point during theWar of 1812.[5]
During theWar of 1812 (1812-1815), Fells Point's yards built and supported dozens ofprivateers which preyed on British shipping vessels. Between 1810 and 1815, the yards produced over 150 schooners.[6] Consequently, Baltimore became a principal target of the British during the war, which eventually led to the attack on the city and the bombardment ofFort McHenry in September 1814. Because of this, many people have claimed the British referred to Baltimore as a "nest of pirates", citingHezekiah Niles' "Niles' Weekly Register", the famous nationally circulated newspaper. However, no such reference has ever been found to support that claim.
It has been an immigrant neighborhood since the 19th century, in part because it was a major point of entry into theUnited States,[7] but mainly because jobs were available in Baltimore's industries and on the waterfront. In the era before mass transportation, immigrants crowded into the cheap housing near the shipbuilding yards, warehouses and factories of Fells Point. This added to the multicultural fabric of the area, but also caused the more affluent to move into other parts of the city.
In 1835, the later famous abolitionist, writer/author, public speaker/orator, agitator and minister/ambassadorFrederick Douglass (1818-1895), while still enslaved, was hired out to the shipbuilderJohn A. Robb as a caulker at the Fells Pointshipyard.[8][9] In hisautobiography, Douglass recounts that, years earlier, the first time he had been sent to Baltimore, the Fells Point neighborhood was where he taught himself to read and write, copying the letters with which the men in the shipyard labeled boards and "making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers."[10]
Fells Point remained a shipbuilding center until theCivil War, when it could no longer handle the larger ships (also now built with steam power and paddle wheels/screw propellers) then coming into use. Likewise, the shipping industry slowly moved away to larger facilities, some of the newer shipyards further downriver with deeper waters close to shore on the outerPatapsco River, and the Fells Point area became a manufacturing center, with innovations in canning, along with nearbyCanton to the east, which was an early commercial/industrial and residential development by the Canton Company of the O'Donnell family and Pattersons in the early 1800s.[11] and packing. The neighborhood escaped serious damage[12] during theGreat Baltimore Fire of February 1904, which destroyed the downtown financial area further west. Eventually, much of the manufacturing left the city by the 1980s, resulting inurban decay until preservationists in the 1960s, 1970s and late 20th century organized to save the area's historic buildings and neighborhood waterfront fabric along withFederal Hill on the other western side of the newly renamed with proposed redevelopment of theInner Harbor (formerly called "The Basin") from a proposed East-West Highway ofInterstate 95 which was to run north to south down the East Coast states, begun in the mid-1960s.
AfterWorld War II (1939/41-1945), manyout-migrants from ruralAppalachiasettled in Fell's Point. In the 1960s, following thecivil rights movement, manyAfrican Americans settled in the neighborhood.[13]
In 1965, city, state and some federal transit planners proposed to linkInterstate 83 (Jones Falls Expressway going north from downtown since 1962), withInterstate 70 (a cross-country highway stretching west to east - from Baltimore toSacramento, California, but would be designated here as I-70 West) andInterstate 95, (the main East Coast,Maine toFlorida super-highway) by building an elevated highway along the north shore of theBaltimore Harbor and Port. This project would have entailed extensive demolition within Fells Point, and across the river in Federal Hill/South Baltimore and the highway would have cut off the remainder of the neighborhood from the waterfront. An"expressway revolt" against the proposals was raised by local residents and derailed the project. Another proposal had I-83 going under the harbor in an alignment that completely avoided Fells Point, but that was scrapped as well. Fells Point's addition to theNational Register of Historic Places (supervised by theNational Park Service of theUnited States Department of the Interior) prevented the use of federal funds for the road project, and contributed to the project's cancellation.[14] One of the leaders of the revolt was social workerBarbara Mikulski, who was later elected aCity Council member and later aU.S. Representative followed by as aU.S. Senator from Maryland, one of the first women elected to that upper chamber of theUnited States Congress and by 2014, one of the longest serving when she retired.
Fells Point achieved some fame as the central setting for the 1990sNBC TV network police dramaHomicide: Life on the Street, (based on the bookHomicide: A Year on the Killing Streets byDavid Simon ofThe Baltimore Sun, the city's longtime daily newspaper) and has been the site of manyfilms shot in Baltimore.
Fells Point, located to the east of theInner Harbor, suffered extensive flooding duringHurricane Isabel in September 2003,[15] with water as high as 10 feet.[16]
Fells Point includes a diversity of historic architecture.Flemish bond brickwork is used in some of the earliest homes, while row housing is prominent of nineteenth and early twentieth century construction. Gabled roof buildings and Victorian homes are also interspersed with other housing and use types.[17][18]
Historic buildings include:
In 2012, Fells Point was selected by theAmerican Planning Association as one of the Great Places in America (neighborhood category),[19] which "celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning".[22]
Fell's Point Fun Festival started in 1966 in response to the proposedI-95 freeway that was to run through the neighborhood. The original purpose of the festival was to raise money to help save Fell's Point and to raise awareness of the historical significance of the neighborhood and its plight. The weekend-long Fun Festival, celebrated in October, has an estimated attendance of over 700,000. The event includes entertainment, arts and crafts vendors, and cultural and culinary offerings.[23]
Fell's Point Privateer Festival is an annual weekend-long festival in April celebrating the privateer and maritime history of Fell's Point. Activities include educational demonstrations, a pub crawl, pet costume contest, and pyrate's ball.[24]
Halloween in Fell's Point occurs annually on October 31 celebratingHalloween. The informal gathering takes place in and around Broadway Square and Thames Street. As the evening goes on, hundreds of individuals come dressed in costume and participate in taking photos, trick-or-treating, and pub crawling.[25]
Fell's Point Olde Tyme Christmas Festival is held during the first weekend in December and includes a traditional Christmas market, pet costume contest, and a Reindeer Run pub crawl.[26]
At thecensus[27] of 2010, 3,168 people resided in the neighborhood, 61% white, 24.9% Hispanic, 7.4% African American, and 6.7% other. 37.0% of occupied housing units were owner-occupied, and 17.4% vacant.
83.7% of the working-age population were employed, 4.0% were unemployed, and 13.1% were not in the labor force.[28] 7.5% of families and 12.6% of the population were below thepoverty line. The median household income wasUS$46,167.
Several films and television shows have been filmed in Fell's Point.
Some fictional works make reference to Fell's Point.
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