History
Upton was one of the most affluent African American neighborhoods in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The Pennsylvania Avenue commuter rail station on the Baltimore and Potomac Rail Road was built in 1884. By the 1920s, Upton was home to most educated African American property owners in Baltimore. To its south and west were the poor and working class African American neighborhoods of "The Bottom," and to its east were German American and Jewish American neighborhoods.
Pennsylvania Avenue was the premiere shopping strip for black Baltimorians, inspiring comparisons to Lenox Avenue in Harlem. It was home to professionals such as doctors and lawyers, retailers who served a middle class and upscale clientele, jazz clubs, dance halls, theaters, and other public and private institutions for the black community. Upton was also the staging grounds for much of the local and national civil rights movement. Booker T Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey all visited local churches. The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP was based in Upton. Cab Calloway grew up in Upton, and Eubie Blake performed his debut in a club on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Royal Theater, at Pennsylvania and Lafayette, became a mainstay on the Chitlin Circuit.
In the mid-20th century, Upton's population swelled due to the popularity of the neighborhood and the pressures of segregation that kept African Americans confined to certain areas. Single family homes were subdivided into small apartments, and Pennsylvania Avenue's sidewalks crowded on Saturday nights, as loud music and heavy drinking became popular vices of Upton residents. Upper income black families began abandoning the area for neighborhoods further from the center of the city. In the 1960s and '70s, controversial urban renewal projects destroyed much of Upton's historic architecture, especially in the southwestern portion of the neighborhood. The result ultimately only replaced a portion of what was removed, as once the buildings were razed it was difficult to secure developers to build new construction. The Royal Theater was demolished in 1971. Further problems faced Upton during this time in the form of economic depression, housing abandonment, crime, and racial rioting.
Read more about this topic: Upton, Baltimore
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