When I created the map of the Baltimore Sun’s recipe contest winners, I thought a lot about what the city looked like in 1911, when the contests were run.
I looked at old maps, and imagined life on the city’s outskirts. The 1898 Bromley Atlas showed a sprinkling of buildings out in the Northeast. By the 1915 Atlas, there were many more. (The area appeared in the Baltimore County atlases as it was not yet annexed into the city.) The streetcars were making it possible for families to live along Bel Air and Harford roads, and commute into the city for work and play.
By the late 20th century, the neighborhoods in the Northeast were as much “city” as other neighborhoods were, and as much a party to the various problems the city was facing.
In 1969, a group of church organizations banded together to form HARBEL, an umbrella organization encompassing social services and neighborhood associations. The name was a mashup of the two major roads through the area, Harford and Bel Air. Though HARBEL involved many religious groups, it also partnered with secular groups to offer mental health care, drug treatment, counseling, healthcare, food, housing, and more.
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