Text by Donna M. Owens, For The Baltimore Sun
When Matthew Muir arrived in Baltimore to attend college, the native New Yorker lived in a few neighborhoods while seeking a community that best suited his taste for urban living.
He landed in Mount Vernon three years ago, and it felt like home.
Drinking water in Baltimore before the turn of the 20th century was, to put it mildly, unsanitary. Unfiltered water from streams, wells and springs were funneled to reservoirs throughout the city. Outbreaks of disease from waterborne pathogens were common, as were complaints of odor and taste.
In 1881, the Gunpowder Falls was connected to Lake Montebello, a new reservoir that improved water conditions throughout the city. But it wasn’t until Sept. 13, 1915 — 100 years ago this week — that the city’s most significant water-related development occurred with the opening of the filtration plant at the lake. It was called one of the “biggest and most important undertakings in the history of the city” by Robert L. Clemmitt, the city’s acting water engineer and president of the water board.
On Saturday, the city will celebrate the Montebello Centennial with music, activities, historical exhibits and more.
Excitement, jitters, and sometimes tears mark the beginning of the school year for children in Baltimore.
Freddie Gray, 25, died on April 19 — a week after he was injured while being arrested by Baltimore police. Video of the arrest surfaced, protests have broken out and an investigation into his death is under way.
And now, the city is reacting. Here’s a look at the protests around the city and the reaction from the neighborhood where Freddie Gray lived — Sandtown.
In 1931, Gerald Griffin wrote for The Sun that “in slight over a year, there will be a great bustling and stirring about in the region of Calvert and Fayette streets, as a result of which Baltimoreans again will find their post office back at its old stand, but in a new building.
Baltimoreans are quite generally familiar with the fact that the old building was not torn down because it was structurally unsafe or “worn out”; for it was constructed so solidly that its existence would have approached a theoretical “forever,” but the enormous growth in the volume of mail handled in Baltimore — from 146,604,622 pieces of ordinary mail in 1890 to 733,484,969 in 1930 — made it essential that an additional room and facilities be provided, and it was decided to erect the new building on the desirable site of the old one, a choice also made logical by the fact the Federal Government owned the ground.”
At the turn of the century, Baltimore’s street sweepers were called White Wings because of the fancy white uniforms they wore, complete with coats and ties and matching pith helmets.
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