Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Gene Sweeney
Eutaw Place in Baltimore City was once one of the grandest boulevards in the country, designed in 1854 with promenade gardens in the center and elaborate fountains and statuary. It was intended to resemble Paris' Champs Elysee and became a prototype for American landscaped parkways.
But Eutaw Place, and the surrounding Bolton Hill neighborhood, went through a period of decline in the 1950s and 1960s as the enormous single-family houses were broken up into apartments and families left the city.
Today, the neighborhood is on the upswing and an award-winning renewal of the Eutaw Place median gardens is evidence of that renewal.
Begun in 2006 by the Bolton Hill Garden Club and paid for with almost $50,000 in grants and donations, the gardens in the 1800 block of Eutaw Place sparkle with the sound of a fountain and are flooded with seasonal color. And it has become a gathering place for neighbors, too.
Using a plan for renovating the gardens found in old files, and with the cooperation of the city Department of Parks and Recreation, the Bolton Hill Garden Club completed the renovation in 2009 and has since won both state and national recognition for the project.
The Governor's Silver Beautification Bowl was awarded at the state convention of Federated Garden Clubs of America, and the project won first place in Historic Preservation - The May Duff Walters Achievement Award for Preservation of Beauty - at the national convention.
Here is a look at the median before the project, courtesy of the Bolton Hill Garden Club.