The 2100 block of Monument Street is anchored by the Baltimore’s Northeast Market, a honeycomb of vendors selling fish, meat, fried chicken, barbeque, bulgogi, deli sandwiches, and baked goods. The commerce spills onto the surrounding sidewalks, where open-air peddlers hawk sunglasses and socks, CDs & DVDs, umbrellas and pepper spray. Unemployed entrepreneurs polish headlights, sell loose cigarettes, and do whatever else they can to make ends meet.
The 4700 block of Liberty Heights Avenue is a portrait of survival and adaptability. It’s a self-governed, informal economy where the currency is respect. Space is shared by merchants, churches, longtime residents, and drug dealers. Immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, West Africa, and Korea have set up shops alongside a dwindling number of African American-owned businesses. Trust is earned here, not given lightly.
Signal producer Aaron Henkin and electronic musician Wendel Patrick stay true to form in this second installment of their award-winning audio documentary series, Out of the Blocks. Henkin’s interviews blend with Patrick’s original music to generate an evocative collage of lives in juxtaposition: octogenarian pigeon racers, evangelizing barbers, philosophical convenience-store clerks, reformed and not-so-reformed drug dealers, and more.
The corner diner, Soul Source, is the hub of the 2100 block of Edmondson Avenue. The manager, Joyce, has been serving breakfast to the locals for 30 years. Her restaurant looks out onto a West Baltimore block scarred by gunshots and stabbings. But the block is more than its scars. It’s a block where a Pentecostal pastor keeps her faith in the face of suffering, where a reformed drug dealer works as a kitchen appliance repairman, and where a political reporter from Kashmir has found sanctuary working behind the counter at a sandwich shop.
4700 Eastern Avenue is in Southeast Baltimore’s Highlandtown neighborhood. Over the past fifty years, the story of the American Dream has been written and rewritten in this community, as two distinct waves of immigrants have taken their turns settling in and opening up shop.
The 6300 block of Reisterstown Road is tucked just inside the Northwest Baltimore city limit. Orthodox Jews from Russia and Iran operate kosher eateries, and Nepali Hindus run carry-outs and gas stations. Add to the mix a public library branch, a used-car dealership, and a home-security expert who specializes in cracking safes, and you get an idiosyncratic cast of characters who all manage to share a stage in the theater of city life.
On the 3300 block of Greenmount Avenue, you’ll meet store clerks and restaurateurs from all over the globe – Pakistan, Mali, Korea, China, Thailand, Eritrea, and the Ukraine. You’ll also meet born & bred Baltimore entrepreneurs, bar-flies, and street corner preachers.
The 200 block of West Saratoga Street is nestled in the frenetic bustle of downtown Baltimore. Church bells ring in a duet with the clanging Light Rail, city buses rattle and hiss, and loud sidewalk conversations compete with the din. These are the sounds that reverberate through a block peppered with Bengali body oil shops, barbershops and salons, a magic candle store, and the shoe-repair shop of a Russian cobbler.
Back in the 1800’s, they literally herded pigs through the streets of Southwest Baltimore’s Washington Village, from the terminus of the B & O Railroad to the neighborhood’s meat packing plants and butcher shops. The nickname, ‘Pigtown,’ has stuck, but the industry is long gone from this part of the city. These days, the neighborhood is known for unemployment, homelessness, and drug addiction.
The locals call it ‘Black Wall Street,” and it’s earned the nickname. Seventeen black-owned businesses operate on the 2400 block of St. Paul Street, which sits on a bustling intersection at the geographic center of Baltimore city. In this episode, we meet the crew at Reflection Eternal Barbershop, where an aspiring music producer creates hip hop tracks in between haircuts.
The South Baltimore neighborhood of Cherry Hill looks out across the Inner Harbor to the downtown skyline, but it’s a world unto itself. The block at the heart of the neighborhood is 600 Cherry Hill Road, and Out of the Blocks field producer Melissa Gerr introduces us to the preachers, barbers, shop owners, and neighbors who call it home.
In this series, we travel to the 600 block of Deepdene Road in North Baltimore’s Tuxedo Park neighborhood. The sounds of city traffic give way to the natural harmony of cicadas, birds, and frogs on this tree-lined residential block, nestled up against the city’s Stony Run Trail.
7200 Harford Road is about as far north and east as you can get and still be in Baltimore City. It’s tucked just inside the county line, and downtown feels far-off when you’re out here.