What was built
- Established or development period
- 1880s–1920s
- Peak period
- 1930s–1960s
- Who built the community
- Black Baltimoreans in rowhouse neighborhoods along Pennsylvania Avenue and in Rosemont and Harlem Park.
- Black population
- Tens of thousands of residents across the affected neighborhoods.
- Businesses
- The Pennsylvania Avenue corridor held hundreds of Black-owned businesses.
- Financial institutions
- Not yet documented
- Churches
- Numerous historic congregations.
- Schools
- Not yet documented
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- Not yet documented
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- The Royal Theatre, a major stop on the Black theater circuit, demolished in 1971.
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- High rates of Black rowhouse ownership in Rosemont, achieved despite redlining.
- Economic significance
- One of the oldest and largest Black urban populations in the country.
What happened
- What happened?
- Construction of the 'Highway to Nowhere', a 1.4-mile sunken expressway stub built in the late 1960s and early 1970s for a cancelled interstate, demolished roughly 971 homes and 62 businesses and displaced about 1,500 residents in Franklin-Mulberry. Organized opposition in Rosemont and Fells Point stopped the rest of the highway, leaving the stub in place.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- Planning for Interstates 70 and 170 through West Baltimore.
- Underlying historical context
- Highway planning through Black neighborhoods, redlining and disinvestment; the road was never completed after successful citizen opposition elsewhere.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Highway · Eminent Domain · Urban Renewal
- Date or period of destruction
- 1968–1979
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- Not yet documented
- Estimated deaths
- Not yet documented
- People displaced
- Approximately 1,500 residents.
- Homes destroyed
- Roughly 971 homes.
- Businesses destroyed
- Approximately 62 businesses.
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- A sunken highway trench that carries little traffic and severs the neighborhood.
- Was compensation paid?
- Condemnation payments for takings.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- No
- What was rebuilt?
- Not yet documented
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- The Highway to Nowhere remains; federal Reconnecting Communities funding has been awarded to study removing or capping it.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- West Baltimore community coalitions, the federal Reconnecting Communities award and the Red Line transit planning process.
- Historical significance
- A highway that displaced 1,500 people and was never finished, the clearest physical monument to the cost of highway planning in Black neighborhoods.
Sources
- Primary recordFind
Maryland State Archives and Maryland Department of Transportation records
- Source lookupFind
Baltimore City Department of Planning
- Source lookupFind
Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland Department collections
- Source lookupFind
U.S. Department of Transportation, Reconnecting Communities awards
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Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.