Oh no not the owner of the building deciding what to do with it! I better use the power of whining to make sure this rotting shit heap goes untouched until it falls down in a stiff breeze.

Dammit! They are everywhere! Thanks for the heads up.

This isn't redevelopment. This is tearing down 5 historic rowhomes for a private prayer garden. It would be a different story if they planned on building new housing on the lot, but they're not.

Do you have inside knowledge? Have you read the engineers report? Do you have any experience renovating historic buildings and determining which ones can be saved and which can't? If no, why do you have such a strong opinion on the topic?

There will be one more when they demolish this. They just are being clever by calling it "hardscaping."

Cool, they should sell them to someone. It's a unique, historic, dense block of incredible housing that someone could absolutely profit off of redeveloping even if they have to underpin and brace.

100% gonna be a parking lot

The majority of the time I walk or bike by it is locked. Admittedly it's only once or twice a week. So no, they're not lying.

Thx for that, good info to have!

I agree with you. Change in moderation can be revitalizing, even if it's a bit counterintuitive for a historic district. That block in particular feels lifeless. Though instead of demolishing places I wish they would build on top of all of those parking lots in Mount Vernon. It's ridiculous how many there are.

Nope. Completely repealed.

Definitely following this post! I’ve wanted to get a pair of roller skates for a while! I would love to hear about roller skating parties with good old school funk and R & B, like this song!

tearing unique historic buildings that could easily be used for housing down, potentially structurally compromising other historic buildings (it's not easy to tear down just one/one chunk of row houses!) to make a private prayer garden/"hard scape space" (so like... concrete slab?) in the middle of a very dense urban area is the opposite of helpful, though! it's not NIMBYism to say that a tax-exempt, wealthy religious institution with a congregation that comes from mostly outside of the city may not have the priorities or the needs of actual city residents in mind. like sure, if you want to fall into whataboutism what you're saying could feasibly be true somewhere, but the material reality at hand here makes it inapplicable to this situation.

I can't remember who (I think it is Dorsey) is pushing the city to go after religious orgs' tax exemptions on properties that aren't used for religious services. These houses likely fall into that category, while a 'prayer garden' would not...

> They are not perfectly good buildings, the article says they are dilapidated and can’t be restored.

No, the article says the church claims they are dilapidated and can’t be restored. So let's just say I'm not just gonna take them at their word on this.

not to mention that a lot of this architecture is just plain impossible to replicate in this day and age! some of it is prohibited by zoning, some of it has been made by craftsmen who just don't exist anymore, some of it is just cost prohibitive to build new. this would be a really irreparable loss to historic architecture for the sake of "hard scape space" (a private concrete lot?) and a "prayer garden" in an area with several good sized, public parks within walking distance.

someone broke down the cost, and iirc the church has spent about $1750 per building per year on them, which is really barely anything and hardly enough to cover upkeep. they're allowing them to fall into disrepair via neglect, honestly.

i used to pass the prayer garden twice a day, every day on my walk to and from work--a good 75% of the time it was locked, and the rest of the time it was empty. i was tempted to walk through it a few times, but it's really unwelcoming because it seems like they don't actually want people to use or enjoy it!

Seriously? I am a liar??? Perhaps I am mistaken, but my understanding is that the garden is kept closed because they do not want the people getting food and services from the church congregating there.

Unpopular opinion: while seeing history go away is a loss, trying to preserve every single historical building mutates into the NIMBYism that holds America back.

Unfortunately the Elk Room is part of Atlas

Check out Putty Hill Skateland. They have Saturday morning lessons that are great for kids and adults. They have beginner lessons and intermediate lessons and lots of time to practice beforehand and afterwards. Great vibes there

Sprouts up in Towson almost always has fresh okra.

waverly market runs throughout the year, just after Thanksgiving it's a winter market. this means vendors are not limited to only selling things they've grown/made themselves, so okra isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Midtown-Belvedere doesn't have vacants problem, this is just degrowth.