Westport, Baltimore

Westport sits along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, and its past runs deeper than the waterfront suggests. The neighborhood traces its beginnings to the seventeen hundreds, when residents worked the industries lining the shore. It became notable as a site of Black civic life in Baltimore's segregated era: the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro Leagues played here at Westport Stadium during the nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties.

Mount Auburn, one of the largest and most historic African American cemeteries in Baltimore, lies within the neighborhood as well, founded in eighteen seventy-two. The Interstate Two Ninety-Five construction in nineteen fifty-two cut the neighborhood in two, accelerating decline. The glass plant and power generating station that had anchored employment both closed in later decades, leaving Westport one of the city's most isolated communities. Redevelopment plans have circled back to it repeatedly ever since.