The city demolishes the first of five vacant properties in the Govans section of North Baltimore.
Photo by: Mark Reutter
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake rolled into a struggling North Baltimore neighborhood yesterday and announced “a big step forward” in conquering the city’s colossal vacant housing problem by tearing down a rowhouse.
Her press office called it the “first major Vacants to Value demolition event” under her mayoralty.
A giant excavator awaited the mayor’s arrival on the 700 block of McCabe Ave.
She made her way to a podium set up next to the excavator and told about 25 residents:
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake speaks at the "demolition event." Karen DeCamp, of the York Road Partnership, is behind her. (Photo by Mark Reutter)
“This is Vacants to Value in action. What you see here today is a big step forward to rid this community of blight and make Baltimore’s neighborhoods better, safer and stronger. This is a great example of how community partners can come together and make real progress on one of the Baltimore’s toughest and most stubborn challenges.”
About 20 vacant houses are concentrated on the 600-800 blocks of McCabe. Other boarded-up properties are mixed with occupied and sometimes well-kept properties on neighboring Craig, Glenwood and Alhambra avenues.
Karen DeCamp (of York Road Partnership) and Monica Gaines (of the Woodbourne-McCabe Association) said they had fought for years to get some of the most dilapidated properties leveled.
The neighboring rowhouse at 716 McCabe took a battering from yesterday's demolition. (Photo by Mark Reutter)
Yesterday DeCamp and Gaines, along with City Councilman Bill Henry, took turns at the controls of the excavator to “celebrate” the tear down of 714 McCabe, a small rowhouse built in 1925 whose facade quickly crumbled into a heap of bricks and lathing under the pounding of the bucket scoop.
Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano said the city planned to tear down four more vacants in the area to help stabilize the housing stock.
In addition, two non-profits, Habitat for Humanity and Neighborhood Housing Services, planned to buy and rehabilitate 15 vacant houses and were seeking to acquire 20 more properties to fix up.
As it began to drizzle, Graziano warned that “Baltimore has suffered over 50 years of disinvestment.” While change will not take place overnight, “in time we anticipate even greater transformation that will encourage investment and facilitate growth in Baltimore’s neighborhoods.”
Then everybody left to let P&J Contracting Co. cull through the 21-foot-wide hole in the block.
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