Hampden, Baltimore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hampden is a neighborhood located in north Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Roughly triangular in shape, it is bounded to the east by Wyman Park, to the north by 40th and 41st Street, and to the southwest by the Jones Falls Expressway. The Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University is a short drive to the east.
Hampden was originally settled as a residential community for workers at the mills that sprung up along the Jones Falls; its first residents were in place before the area was annexed to Baltimore City in the early 20th century. Many of its residents came to the area from the hill country of Kentucky, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania, looking for work in the mills. This influx cemented the image of the neighborhood for the decades that followed as a white, working-class, socially conservative enclave. However, like most of Baltimore, Hampden declined somewhat during the economic troubles of the 1980s-90s.
In the 1990s the neighorhood, conveniently located vis-a-vis Johns Hopkins and downtown and relatively safe when compared to other, more blighted areas of the city, was discovered by artists and other bohemians , who began the process of gentrification. Over the past decade, housing prices in Hampden have skyrocketed, and the area's commercial center, a four block stretch of West 36th Street known as The Avenue, has seen trendy boutiques and restaurants occupy storefronts that had become vacant when the aforementioned economic downturn forced many of the Avenue's traditional retailers to close. It is also home to Morton Street Dance Center, Atomic Books, Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and popular Mobtown Players.
In contrast, traditional residents have deep roots there, and there is a certain tension between longtime Hampdenites and so-called "hamsters" (Hampden hipsters).
But Baltimore has in recent years embraced certain aspects of Hampden's traditional culture; the neighborhood is home to the annual "Hon Festival" (also called HonFest and named after the term "Hon," a term of endearment used by Hampdenites and Baltimoreans generally), which features attendees who tease their hair into the enormous beehive hairdos of the 1960s. The festival also features a contest to find the best "Bawlmerese," Baltimore's unique accent, since Hampden's accent is generally considered the thickest of all the city's neighborhoods.
Most of the housing stock in Hampden consists of modestly sized two-story rowhouses. There are very few areas amenable to further development in the neighborhood, a factor in the rising housing costs in the area. The Woodberry station on the Baltimore Light Rail system is just on the other side of the Jones Falls Expressway, within walking distance of much of the neighborhood.
Hampden received perhaps its most prominent nationwide exposure in 1999, when Baltimore native John Waters filmed his movie Pecker there. Starring Hollywood actors like Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Martha Plimpton, and Lili Taylor, the film celebrated Hampden's traditional culture just as it began to, in some ways irrevocably, fade.
