Volume 54 • Number 3
Two Bolton Hill music maestros will perform classical and opera compositions on Wednesday, March 18, at the second free winter public concert at Corpus Christi church, beginning at 6 p.m. The concert is hosted by BHCA and the Basilica Oratory at Corpus Christi.
Even prior to the COVID pandemic, Bolton Hill has had a high number of work-from-home resident professionals, especially in government. But greater demands for regular office appearances are threatening that comfortable arrangement.
What do you really know about where we live, beyond Bolton Hill’s historical roots, its charming architecture and your friendly neighbors? A deep dive into available census and other gathered data about the neighborhood offers several surprises for those who see us strictly as a neighborhood of grand old three-story 19th century red brick rowhouses with white marble steps and high ceilings.
Although part of a family that is clearly on a fast track, Cleo Liu Koppell is decidedly cool and calm – more focused on the muffin and yoghurt before her on a recent morning than any weighty issue of the day. That’s as it should be for a two-year-old with doting parents, two cats to keep at arms-length, and a reliable playmate to hang with just a few doors down Lafayette Avenue.
“Have you seen how bad the dip has gotten on Lafayette west of Park Avenue?” a friend emailed last week. “It kind of provides some de facto traffic calming.” This provoked reminiscence of the hurricane-like flooding of Bolton Hill after a sinkhole developed 47 years ago at the intersection near Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.
Most of us are proud of our travel photos, and we all have snapped a few good ones from an airplane window. Yet the photography of John Loggins rises above the best. Most recently, en route to Puerto Rico from the airspace near DCA, John captured District’s landmarks, the U.S. Capital and the Washington Monument, covered in snow. On his descent, he documented the frothy white of the ocean’s waves and the blue seaside of San Juan.
If you spend time around Park Avenue north of Mosher Street, odds are good that you’re on land once owned by Judge William Frick. His country estate is labeled on the 1851 Plan of the city of Baltimore, situated near the top of what was then called Grundy Street (later Park Avenue), where the Friends School condos are now.
Continuing the public-private partnership that’s been in place for 166 years, neighbors Chris Ryder and Lisa Summers (who live in the Park Avenue home built for one of the 19th century Park Place commissioners, Basil Wagner) serve as the Bolton Hill Community Association Park Stewards for the 1600 block Park median. Working together with Gary and Bobbi Schilling, the 1700 block park stewards, they helped establish Friends of the Park Avenue Medians (FOPAM) in 2022 to coordinate the restoration of Park Place.
If your vehicle has a current parking permit decal or placard for Bolton Hill (area 3), you should have received an email from the Baltimore City Parking Authority with instructions to renew online. You’ll need a renewed permit to park on Bolton Hill streets by April 1. When you renew online, there should be an option to “Pickup at Office,” which you should choose if you want to pick up your new parking permit(s) at the Bolton Hill parking permit community pick-up event, Saturday, March 21 at 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Memorial Episcopal Church.
Local zoning is a cornerstone of Maryland housing development and preservation, ensuring orderly hyper-local land use across its diverse urban, suburban, and rural landscapes. Bolton Hill today exists as it does because of a variety of local issues, opportunities and challenges. While current law delegates zoning authority to local jurisdictions, the proposed Starter and Silver Homes Act (HB 239/SB 36), pending in the General Assembly, seeks to preempt these controls by limiting minimum lot sizes and setback requirements to increase resident density.
