Without much fanfare, a new route from Fells Point to the Inner Harbor opened this winter. You traverse it via shoe leather, roller blade, bicycle or baby carriage, the personal transport forms much in evidence despite the chilly weather this weekend.
This is the bulkhead view of Baltimore, a walk that is a window on the present and past, history and industry, river biology and pop sociology.
After more than a decade of planning, the brick-paved harbor walk that began at Pratt and Light streets in the middle 1970s is now complete, without interruption, to Central Avenue and Lancaster Street on the western edge of Fells Point.
This means the brick boardwalk system now extends from the foot of Federal Hill all the way around the Inner Harbor to Fells Point.
With a few non-troubling gaps in this pedestrian system, the walk resumes again near Thames and Bond streets and goes almost to Canton.
My trek began at Broadway and Eastern Avenue in the heart of the Fells Point commercial neighborhood. The place was humming Saturday afternoon. The shops, one part Ocean City Boardwalk and one part antique flea market, generate a lot of foot traffic and browsers everywhere. A welcome sight, after what seems like a dozen years of discussion, is the restoration of an ancient block of buildings along the north side of Thames Street, between Broadway and Bond. This is the oldest surviving part of Baltimore.
The quay walk actually began at the Brown's Wharf complex at the foot of Broadway.
This location affords the best views across the harbor to the still industrial Locust Point neighborhood, where a big bulk carrier was unloading raw sugar at the Domino plant.
A deep maroon tug, the Cedar Point, was anchored alongside Recreation Pier.
The walk went westward and soon encountered a large Thames Street parking lot, once a major old Terminal Corp. warehouse. While it has been razed (part of the price paid for opening up views of the water), a rotting timber pier remains open to careful inspection.
The wharf is strong enough to hold two sets of ancient rusting railway tracks that probably once supported Northern Central (Pennsylvania Railroad) steam locomotives or horse-drawn freight cars.
Today this part of Baltimore is in the throes of transition from a sooty and well worked industrial neighborhood.
Wait for the outcome to see what will actually be constructed here.
I'm not sure that Baltimore has gotten used to the redevelopment potential of its Patapsco coast.
Because of the pollution clean up of the Allied Signal site on Block Street (a lingering remnant of that heavy industrial personality), walkers have to take a non-water route northward along the irregular Belgian blocks of Caroline Street, once the heart of the lumber yards served by Patapsco River-Chesapeake Bay trade schooners.
Here I encountered a pair of photographers dressed in foul-weather gear and Doc Marten shoes, saddled with heavy equipment.
They were crouched down taking a picture of a fire hydrant valve.
One of the more visually interesting aspects of the walk is the part of the harbor now claimed by Living Classrooms, a group dedicated to training teen-agers in the arts of maritime carpentry and other manual skills.
The boat yard is at the old City Dock, a protected canal-like backwater bulkheaded with massive granite slabs.
The Baltimore Harbor Foundation's well designed signs give a little biology lesson.
You can read about marsh plants, winter low tide and ducks.
I was a little skeptical about this until I looked up and spotted one of the ducks the sign identified.
The newest stretch of harbor walk begins at the foot of Central Avenue.
This brick-paved promenade is level and smooth.
The marina adjacent to it is already filled with bobbing pleasure boats.
The newly opened walk has yet to develop much of a personality. That will take some time.
It's funny to see a neighborhood's streets installed and paved and served by dozens of street lamps, but not a house or apartment in sight.
The main landmark here is an unfinished marina-cafe building at a turning in the land at the foot of Jones Falls.
It has a large semi-circular deck and the top of the building has four clocks facing each direction.
Before long, maybe 20 minutes from take-off time in Fells Point, you are walking along Jones Falls (the stream, not the expressway) and entering the domain of the Inner Harbor tourist.
On one of the several pedestrian bridges near the new Columbus Center, I spotted several weekending groups outfitted in caps and sweatshirts detailing their origins -- Camden Catholic, Camden High, Rahway track and the Trenton State swim team.
There were more Eagles and Phillies hats and jackets than Orioles orange and black.
I knew the walk had arrived at its conclusion.
I was back in foreign territory.