Jul 7, 2017

Text by Jacques Kelly

: Single family homes line Soller Point Road and Yorkway Roads in Dundalk in 1955. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Memorial Stadium and the surrounding parking lots are packed during the All Star Game in July 1958. (Robert F. Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: West Baltimore’s Poe Homes housing project under construction in 1940. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Snow on rooftops in East Baltimore reflects the light in 1973. (Richard Childress/Baltimore Sun)

: The Maryland Casualty Tower Building stands over the Baltimore skyline in 1937. It was torn down in 1986. (Baltimore Sun)

: The Jones Fall Expressway interchange is seen under construction at 28th street in Baltimore in August of 1961. (Robert F. Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: The Pennsylvania Railroad tracks run through the Jones Falls Valley at Cold Spring Lane in 1958 prior to the construction of the Jones Falls Expressway. (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Tobacco Warehouse in Fells Point in 1920. (Baltimore Sun)

: The steamships ‘Avalon’ and ‘Eastern Shore’ are docked in Baltimore’s inner harbor in the early 1900s. The photo was taken from the top of the National Bank Building on Light street.

: Inner Harbor construction is seen in 1973. (William LaForce/Baltimore Sun)

: Looking west, I-95 construction is seen in 1976 as it prepares to cross the Baltimore Washington Parkway and Russell Street. (Lew Bush/Baltimore Sun)

: The Hampden Reservoir abuts Falls Road in 1958. It was filled in 1960 and is now part of Roosevelt Park. (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: Single family homes are seen on Garnett Road (foreground) in Parkville in 1956. (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: The Colgate neighborhood is seen under construction near the intersection of Eastern Ave and North Point Road in 1955. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Patterson Park in March 1939. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Baltimore’s Inner Harbor piers are seen in 1939. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Greeenmount Cemetery is photographed from above in 1938. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Baltimore City is seen in an aerial survey photo in 1956. (Baltimore Sun)

: Tract housing is seen adjacent to Baltimore Municipal Airport in 1950s. The airfield is now Dundalk Marine Terminal. (Baltimore Sun)

: The parallel bay bridge keeps stretching further out into the Chesapeake Bay as this 1971 aerial photo shows. The view, taken from the western shore, includes the present bridge which can been seen to the right of the new span. (William L. LaForce, Jr./Baltimore Sun)

: The Guilford Reservoir stands out in the aerial of the surrounding neighborhood in 1938. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: The crowd attending the annual Maryland Hunt Cup point-to-point race is seen in 1931. (Baltimore Sun)

: Downtown Baltimore is seen from above in 1975. (Lew Bush/Baltimore Sun)

: Westport Station, Consolidated Gas Co. (H. B. Leopold/Baltimore Sun)

: An aerial view of Fort Smallwood Park in the summer of 1930 shows the pier, the bath houses, bathers and boaters. (Baltimore Sun)

: Kelly Ave crosses the Pennsylvania Railroad in Mount Washington in 1958. (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: Pennsylvania Station in 1958 during the construction of the Jones Falls Expressway. (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: Port Covington piers in front of Gould St plant in 1940. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Morgan College is seen looking south along Hillen Road in 1939. (Robert Kniesche/Baltimore Sun)

: Development King’s Ridge near Old Harford and Taylor in 1956, (Richard Stacks/Baltimore Sun)

: President Street and the JFX construction in 1979. (Joseph DiPaola/Baltimore Sun)

Baltimore’s constantly changing landscape reveals itself in aerial photographs. Over the years Baltimore Sun photographers have flown over the construction of the Baltimore Beltway, the reconfiguration of the harbor and the building of public housing tracts in old neighborhoods.

A light snow coating the roofs of Baltimore rowhouses provided contrast for East baltimore flyovers. While the city streets are straight, creating a grid of right angles, the roads and avenues of Baltimore County twist and turn. No matter how much physical disruption alters the scenery, there is always some constant, some non-changing landmark. The old Memorial Stadium vanished in the 1990s, but the rowhouses along 36th Street remain. While the old Westport Power Plant also disappeared, the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River reminds us of its location.

The construction of the Jones Falls Expressway about 55 years ago altered many landmarks along Falls Road and the Jones Falls Valley. Sun photographers documented what had been a reservoir in Hampden. It was filled and is now a public park.

Looking back at Baltimore from above

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