Lame. God forbid we make the neighborhood better with a real park. Hope the old farts who are afraid to make a right turn on 41st street are happy with themselves. There wasn't even a road there when Grandison Hoe owned it...

Yet another suckup to drivers who want ugly neighborhoods, this time wokewashed.

Loved being called racist in the opposition newsletter because I donated money to build a park to make hoes heights better

“The mayor made the decision himself, on the basis of equity to the Hoes Heights community, which uses this road fully and regularly, and I think that’s a good thing that everybody should embrace moving forward,” said Destry Jarvis, a member of the Roland Park Presbyterian Church’s Racial Justice Task Force, during a meeting of the Roland Park Civic League on Wednesday.

A conservationist, parks advocate and co-author of “National Parks Forever,” Jarvis has followed the Roland Water Tower planning process closely. Now that the roadway will stay, he said, plans are in the works to name it after Grandison Hoe, a freed slave for whom Hoes Heights is named.

So Destry Jarvis is a conservationist, parks advocate and co-authored a book “National Parks Forever” and is advocating instead to keep the road in place and not make it a park? I’m lost.

How is it lame? The residents advocated for the road to stay open, and so it did.

If there was a "real park" and one was traveling west across Cold Spring or north up Roland, there would be no easy access to the community.

And so what that there wasn't a road there when Grandison Hoe owned it?

False. The majority of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods voted for a park. We took a vote to close the roads and reviewed multiple plans for the park. A vocal minority of old people who didnt understand how to access a web page then put up a stink, said they were disenfranchised (there were signs everywhere saying how to vote online and at the park itself), called the process racist, got the mayor's ear and he reopened the road.

>west across Cold Spring

What a tragedy, a driver may have to drive literally one more minute from the water tower to 40th St in order for everyone to have a public park.

>or north up Roland

Why would you travel north on Roland to enter Hoes Heights? That doesn't make any sense. You take 40th to Evans Chapel and go north from there.

>How is it lame? The residents advocated for the road to stay open, and so it did.

The residents are lame. Lame residents live in that neighborhood. They indicated that by sacrificing a park because it would make a TINY inconvenience to their lives. They confirmed it by wokewashing the preference.

Hmm, reminds me of what happened with the Monument Street cycle track...

Hi, I'm a Hoes Heights resident. There will still be a park at the base of the tower, and this decision means the design of that park (and traffic calming on the opened street, for pedestrian priority within the park) can move forward. This was a situation where the Roland Park Community Foundation took up the task of renovating the tower, which is awesome, but made the case to close the streets without considering the input of Hoes Heights residents, whose only easterly (and northeasterly) access point is this road. It would have been fucked up for the community organization of a historically segregated neighborhood to take an actively used, necessary entrance to a historically Black enclave and pave it over because it would be "better" as a park, which is what was happening. The racial history of Roland Park, Hampden, and Hoes Heights is fascinating, and I appreciate that the mayor saw the status quo as perpetuating a subconscious racial inequity in the history of these neighborhoods and made a decision which favored the voices of Hoes Heights residents.

This decision has also been the result of several years' worth of traffic calming efforts to try and make the other entrances and exits to Hoes Heights along Evans Chapel safer. We had meeting after meeting with DOT, Councilman Torrance, and Councilwoman Ramos, and they understood that leaving the road fully closed was literally a hazard. I personally witnessed two car crashes involving someone trying to get into/out of Evans Chapel while the tower roads were closed - people speed like demons around here and that south exit is nearly blind. God help anybody who had to leave this neighborhood by car during rush hour. I originally wanted the road closed (because green space, sure!), but over the past couple of years, and through listening to the voices of the people who have lived in this neighborhood longest - who are Black and working class and largely elderly - my mind was changed. In general, this is a highly walkable area with a substantial bit of existing public green space. (How about that pending parcel of park land from the RP country club, 1/4mi away!) The road around the tower isn't some massive panacea, and there will still be a new park designed there. But speaking as a resident of this neighborhood, this was necessary.

The majority of the neighborhood wanted this. Sorry that all the hipsters in Hampden don't get what they want. We did. Butt out.

Edit: The ageism in this thread is shameful too. We care about our elderly neighbors. Their opinions, their safety and their history matter, they've been here forever.

There will still be a park! If anything, this decision puts to bed the most contentious part of the design process so that actual design can now move forward. Basically, parks are good, but this was not a neglected space in need of park-ifying, it was an actively used access point to a neighborhood with a history of Black intergenerational wealth in a heavily segregated part of the city. So there will be better usage of existing green space (which is already used as a gathering place for neighborhood residents) as well as maintained access to the neighborhood.

With the tower road closed to cars but open to walking, biking and rolling, there were two ways to get from the majority white neighborhoods to the majority white neighborhoods (let's be real on what historically Black means) by car and one way if you were using a mobility device. Now there are three ways by car and zero ways by mobility device. The older residents who own cars may win, but the residents with mobility challenges or without cars who were entirely invisible in this second process of privileged organizing under the banner of equity may as well continue to not exist.

There was an awesome proposed grid connection through Skyview that these same communities fought, seeking a gate to block access to maintain the "secluded nature" of the community.

Most of our neighbors here are Black, but go off, Remington lol

Here's the fascinating thing though - this park doesn't really provide extra pedestrian access to HH. No matter which way you slice it. I move on foot through 21211 and honestly without any actual changes made to the roadway things are exactly the same for pedestrians as they were during the closure. There are still crosswalks and lights where there were crosswalks and lights before. If anything, the street closures were dangerous for our (again, largely elderly) neighbors because they *don't* walk due to mobility issues, drive instead, and had to deal with legitimate driving hazards to get out of here. This is the feedback that was given at our community meetings and it was remarkably unilateral. You can still walk through the park, and the park will still get a redesign. And FWIW the neighborhood is still predominantly Black, please take your erasure of Black Baltimoreans elsewhere. Historically Black acknowledges that this is a neighborhood that has been a safe haven for Black families while surrounding neighborhoods blocked them from residence.

It's amazing how ageist and racist supposedly progressive hip white people get when they don't get what they want in a neighborhood they don't even live in. Y'all are like a Portlandia sketch. You can put a park there! Your grocery store? Put a park there! Your house? You can put a park there!

Try doing it in a wheelchair and I think you'll see the difference between having that cut through as access or trying to navigate to the intersections drivers are complaining are too far to drive and too dangerous to cross.

It's simply not safe as a shared street in present condition.

And there's no erasure here. Maybe look at the census.

Idk if you've looked at this thing called the census, but you could give it a try.

I have looked at my fucking neighbors

Apparently not all of them.

Ok Remington.

Yeah, ever heard of Heathbrook? If you look at the census info, the Heathbrook subneighborhood is where all the white people live (on Roland Heights and Wood Heights). Evans Chapel is the street with the access problems. That's the original parcel passed down by Grandison Hoes. That's where all the Black folks still live, and Hoes Heights as a historic neighborhood is still predominantly Black. The Census has awesome information if you don't try to wield it like a sledgehammer.

The closed street was entirely blocked with concrete (then plastic) barricades. It's a coarsely paved and then-unmaintained road that wasn't designed or suited for folks in a wheelchair. The opened street is moving forward with a park redesign to improve pedestrian access and make it safer. I'm sure you've also noticed the extensive road-diet changes on 41st which, as a pedestrian resident, have genuinely made it safer to move around here without a car. It is actually better to get in and out of the neighborhood on foot than it was before, and that has fuck all to do with the road around the tower.

The traffic calming is great. Sucks neighbors have been advocating to get it ripped out.

you are using the words “pave it over” to describe not letting people’s cars drive through it, which gets at how stupid this whole line of argument is

Typical out of touch take to use data instead of on the ground knowledge

Now that cars are back let's just hope the redesign actually follows the law (complete streets legislation) and is actually ADA compliant. Not holding my breath.

And they should be able to age in place for as long as they can/want.

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>and had to deal with legitimate driving hazards to get out of here

If grandma can't navigate turning from Roland to 41st to Evans chapel, then she needs to hang up the keys.

This is incredibly ageist and ableist.

You think people who aren't capable of turning right.... should drive? Okay boomer

I care about the mobility of my neighbors. And I take exception to people dismissing their needs as defects rather than accommodations for our neighbors. And I’m 34. I just possess a modicum of decency and concern for the welfare and safety of others.

The ability to do something and the safety of doing it are also two different things. But I understand that the 20 something gentrifiers in surrounding neighborhoods who don’t actually live in this neighborhood feel incredibly entitled to lecture to the folks who have lived here forever because “green space”.

>And I take exception to people dismissing their needs as defects rather than accommodations for our neighbors

I agree that people who can't drive down the block and turn around are defective.

Spoiled Hampdenites don’t get what they want and throw a fit, trash their supposedly progressive values and resort to ableist and ageist insults because boo fucking hoo they don’t have another place for their dogs to take a shit. Big surprise.

Please explain what "woke" means in this context. I have no idea what idea you are trying to convey.

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