Fell’s Point

Visitors to Fell’s Point today feel an instant connection with the past. This is a hard-won past that has been fought for and restored at great cost. The streets are clean, the buildings are well-kept, and the residents are solidly middle class. The less affluent, although often more interesting, can afford to live only on the fringes or just visit.

Fell’s Point is currently a thriving mixed business and residential district bordered by Harbor East and Harbor Point on the west, the expanding Johns Hopkins Hospital area on the north, and Canton on the east. It offers dozens of restaurants, bars, and small shops within walking distance, with grocery, pharmacy, and medical services within one to two miles.

On Saturday mornings in the warmer months, Broadway Square is filled by the Fell’s Point Farmers Market, which features the best local produce, foods, and crafts. April through October, Second Sunday antique market vendors sell a wide range of antiques and collectables. (Courtesy of Steven Dembo.)

Baltimore has more row houses than any other city in the United States. Grand row houses were built in better neighborhoods, but most of those in Fell’s Point are much smaller, designed to be affordable to tradesmen and immigrants. Many are on Fell’s Point’s famous alley streets, which are too narrow for parking.

All have been rehabbed and renovated, many several times over. During the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fell’s Point’s annual Mother’s Day House Tour, one can tour 10 to 20 modern and historic homes, each with its own individual history and personality.

Fell’s Point has also had several larger housing and mixed-use developments. Probably the most challenging was Marketplace at Fells Point. In 2005, two local businessmen purchased several buildings in the blighted 600 block of Broadway. Over the next decade, the project expanded to encompass two city blocks, stalled during the recession of 2008, and was acquired and completed by larger developers. Marketplace offers 159 luxury apartments and about a dozen retail stores. It does a good job of blending into the Fell’s Point streetscape, even though the center core is 60 feet high with panoramic city views and only the historical facades of the original buildings were able to be salvaged.

The old wharves where the Crescent now stands were major business hubs of the industrial east side. This land has often shifted with the many changes in Fell’s industries. Situated on the end of Copus Harbor, this area once served as a shipyard, coffee warehouse, guano factory, ice-manufacturing facility, oyster and vegetable packing companies, and finally, the Arundel Brooks Concrete Company. Names such as Hooper, Swann, Belt, O’Donnell, and Booth once adorned the many factories and wharves located here. (Courtesy of Ruth Gaphardt.)

The Crescent, located at 951 Fell next to Henderson’s Wharf, was completed in 2006 on the grounds of the old Arundel cement plant. The Crescent includes a 262-unit, eight-floor apartment building, waterfront townhouses, and a marina. This is a view from Canton with Harbor East in the distant background.

The industrial east side of Fell’s Point has been transformed into high end apartments and million-dollar condos. The residential complex known as Union Wharf was once home to some of Fell’s Point’s long-standing industries. Guano factories, oyster canning operations, and chemical production once generated horrid smells throughout the east end of Thames Street. Most recently, Finart gallery was located there.

Today, Union Wharf stands on the site at 915 S. Wolfe Street between Thames and Fell Streets. This new development does a great job of blending into the neighborhood and simulating a historic interior. It features 281 apartments with a fitness center, bar, screening room, infinity pool, three courtyards, and a restaurant.