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Students in UB’s Community Studies & Civic Engagement (CSCE) program discovered a laboratory of urban decay and renewal on the doorstep of their own campus last semester. The program, intended to prepare students for careers in the public nonprofit sector, focused on a historically rich area north of campus that has become the focus of a renewal effort in the past four years.
In early 2002, the state of Maryland designated the Station North Arts & Entertainment District, one of four official arts and entertainment districts across the state. In the waning days of that year, the Baltimore City Council passed enabling legislation (ordinance 02-0835) granting property tax benefits and admission/amusement tax exemptions and, in spring 2003, passed additional legislation (ordinance 03-532) rezoning 11 warehouse buildings in this district to allow mixed residential and commercial/industrial use. The object of all this legislation was to renew a 100-acre urban district centered on Charles Street and North Avenue just above Pennsylvania Station.
A matrix of public incentives is interwoven in support of the corridor’s renewal. The district is part of the larger North Central Baltimore National Historic District designated by the National Park Service in 2002, and most is included in the vast Baltimore City Heritage Area - which offers further incentives to insure that historic Baltimore is preserved and prospers.
As part of the curriculum for the course Dr. Jessica Elfenbein arranged for guest lectures given by individuals working and living in the district. She also arranged field trips to the area led by Jennifer Mange, executive director of Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc. Station North, the new nonprofit created to manage the district, opened its office last November in space provided by the Maryland Institute College of Art.
A significant percentage of the CSCE students’ final grade was based on their “Biography of a Block” project. This assignment required the students to undertake original research on a building, organization or community group located on one block in the district. The students’ final papers were sent to Special Collections and will be part of the Station North Collection. It is hoped that Station North Arts & Entertainment will house its organization’s papers here as well.
To enhance their research papers, students were encouraged to make use of current photographs and photographs taken in the 1980s by Elaine Eff, former folklorist for the city of Baltimore, and currently a cultural conservation administrator with the Maryland Historical Trust. Arrangements were made with Eff to deposit her photographic slide collection in Langsdale’s Special Collections Department. Among the 161 slides were 37 related to the block the students were researching. The photographs, taken as part of Eff’s own North Avenue Project, were supplemented with newspaper articles related to the community. Tom Hollowak, head of Special Collections, arranged to have the images mounted on Special Collection’s web site, which allowed students to easily access images for incorporation into their papers.
