Canton Greenway
Canton Greenway
Baltimore Greenway, Baltimore, MD
The Baltimore Greenway Trails Network is an off-street 35-mile trail network intended to connect existing and planned trail systems, neighborhoods, schools, and destinations across our entire city. One of the last incomplete segments of the network, the Canton Greenway seeks to connect the historic Fells Point Area through the Canton Waterfront Park up to the Norfolk Southern rail corridor. Research into the history of the area informed potential interpretive and design opportunities for a more detailed design and public understanding of the area.
The blurry interface between land and water along the Baltimore Harbor allowed fish, oysters, and other wildlife to thrive in the marshes, bay grasses, and forests and informed the settlement and growth reflected in our city today. Indigenous peoples used the forests and coastal wetlands as seasonal hunting and fishing camps. Cleared by colonists for timber, three settlements colonial settlements were incorporated to form the City of Baltimore, each with its own street grid oriented to a different shoreline. As the city grew, industry and the movement of goods transformed the dynamic shoreline into a hardened edge for industry and commerce. Grids of streets and rowhomes were laid out for the growing population of laborers in close proximity to the two biggest industries in Baltimore, shipbuilding and canning which flourished because of the construction of rail lines and allowed Baltimore to become a center for industry. As a result of this increasing industrialization and urbanization, public parks began to emerge in the mid-1800s and a “bucolic escape” for recreation, education, and moral uplift. Patterson Park became the first gift of land given to a city for the purposes of recreation. The waterfront promenade was established in the 1960’s as part of the Inner Harbor Master Plan. Today, the Canton Greenway seeks to bring people back to the waterfront and continue the legacy of recreation with increased access. This project has the opportunity to reconnect people to not just physical places, but the interweaving histories that continue to resurface.
A temporary pilot project will direct users from the waterfront promenade, across Boston Street to the future greenway path. The intersections of Ellwood, East, and Clinton Streets with Boston Street are painted with cross stitches of blue and green, reminiscent of the historical, blurrier interface between land and water before the edges were hardened.
Project timeline: 2021 - 2022
Client: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Scope: Visualization, Research, and Pilot Project
Project Type: Waterfront | Park | Urban | Culture | Greenway
Partners: Unknown Studio Team
