The Neighborhood

Seventy years ago, in 1939, my father graduated from the Johns Hopkins University Physics Department . The campus was on Charles Street, which is just a short drive from where I am sitting today. The Kennedy Krieger campus is a part of a huge, state of the art, multizillion dollar campus that includes the medical school and the John’s Hopkins Hospital. As I was driving around the neighborhood today I kept trying to see it through my fathers eyes back in 1939. Back then, Johns Hopkins was funded by B&O railroad stock. During the depression, when the stock market hit rock bottom, John’s Hopkins was in deep financial trouble. My father remembers John’s Hopkins laying off some of its finest European Physics professors due to budget cuts.

Today, in 2009, Johns Hopkins is clearly thriving, but most everything else in the neighborhood is in sad disrepair. A few blocks over is a proud, well preserved brick building that runs the entire city block . It has majestic columns and perfectly preserved scroll writing etched into the façade that declare it a school built from 1905 – 1906. The façade also proudly lists its original superintendent’s name and founders. The entire building is boarded up and almost every window broken. But the structure is gorgeous. And viewing it through my NYC eyes, I was surprised to see not a speck of graffiti on it. There is a surprising lack of graffiti anywhere in this neighborhood. There is another building, much like the Flatiron building in New York, that beautifully takes up a pie shaped city block – completely boarded up. What will become of these architectural treasures I wonder? These two fine buildings are just blocks form the campus I am sitting in now. My father must have seen these city blocks when these fine structures, and the tall empty row houses that surround them, were in their prime. It will be very interesting to see what the next 70 years bring. In the era of the intense health debate, it’s clear, at least in this neighborhood of Baltimore, that the medical institutions are just about the only thing really thriving.

Also - Happy Fifth Wedding Anniversary Bob! It's been amazing. You are our steady hand.