Amidst re-investment all around the perimeter, the former "Superblock" area on West Lexington Street in Baltimore's Westside, the former heart of retail in the city remains a large dead-zone day and night. Until last Saturday. Baltimore's first ever "Night Market" put together by the Chinatown Collective changed everything, at least for one night.

West Lexington Street, a former pedestrian shopping street
was teaming with life, once again. In the background
the many forms of downtown living (Photo Philipsen)

Coinciding with the Lunar Mid-Autumn Festival, the first-ever Charm City Night Market will host musical acts, artists, food vendors, storytellers, and cultural ambassadors - all converging on an historic block of Baltimore’s Chinatown.
This epic outdoor block party will connect Lexington Market to Park Avenue, spanning the city’s intertwined communities of color. Bounce between fun, insightful performances, dope food from local vendors, and a soju/sake/beer garden while learning something, meeting someone new, and envisioning a future where we all party together late into the night. (Event announcement)

For one evening the Westside was teaming with thousands of young people who came to find out about the night market and what Asian culture has to offer. This wasn't just another ethnic festival, the location and the theme hit a spot and brought out a new set of people to an area in which they would normally never set foot. Phil Han, the 32-year-old Korean-American owner of the Mount Vernon restaurant Dooby’s gave the Baltimore SUN an entire theory why this festival was just the right thing at the right time, and she seemed to have it exactly right.

"Some of the country’s most celebrated fine dining restaurants are Asian, and consumers of all backgrounds are more willing to engage with ethnic foods and drinks, such as the soju-based cocktail he’ll serve at the Night Market. [...] If you tried to do this five or 10 years ago, it wouldn’t be so easily accepted. [...]“But I think now you have this younger, millennial audience that’s maybe traveled, or gotten more exposure to the world … and I think it’s great they’re certainly more curious about things than ever before. Factor in the smash success of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians” this summer, and it feels like the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community is having a moment. U.S. citizens increasingly embrace their cultural identities, there couldn’t be a better time for this wide-ranging community to come together"

Announcement poster

Luckily the Downtown Partnership and other established organizations such as the Market Center merchants saw the potential and supported the new group that had formed around the Chinatown Collective (see the details in the SUN article linked below).

Night markets go back to a long standing Chinese tradition and also exist in several North American cities with a large Asian population or "Chinatown" such as San Francisco. The Milwaukee Social Architecture firm NEwaukee brought the concept of a market at late hours to its hometown as a method of reviving downtown.

In Baltimore, downtown revival, the Chinese tradition, and Baltimore's historic Chinatown, now a single ailing block on Park Avenue flanked by another even more ailing block to the north and south, were tied together, an inspiration of the Chinatown Collective. Many of the longstanding urban activists such as Laurie Feinberg from the Planning Department, Dan Sparaco, Assistant Deputy Mayor under Stephanie Rawlings Blake's, Ridgely's Delight activist Bill Reuter, former Charles Street bookstore and coffeeshop owner Jimmy Rouse and many others were on hand to witness the miracle, with sparkling eyes recalling the City Fair as an early attempt of bringing people back to the city through a party. Most folks in the streets were not yet born when City Fair was a Baltimore attraction.

The large crowds formed such long lines for Asian themed food stands that many sought their luck in the businesses further north on Park Avenue. For example in the Ethiopian restaurant that sits directly in the block that could still count as Baltimore's Chinatown. Many more ventured even further north, where abandoned sagging Westside blocks meet Mount Vernon. At the seam recently new apartments sprung up along Franklin Street and a while back, on the ground level of a converted Hochschild Kohn warehouse, which now houses also higher end apartments, the Mount Vernon Market. It was full to capacity from the overflow crowds, they could find Asian food here as well. The Trinacria restaurant right across the street from the market, was packed with those who rather stuck with Italian selections.

Dance performance on a stage across Lexington
Street in front of the former Read store.

Meanwhile, the grassy lot that replaced a whole ensemble of historic stores on Lexington and Park was ground zero for the night market with booths lining the edges and a large stage presenting juggling, paper tigers and circus tricks. This lot is as empty as the "superblock" is vacant, because the Weinberg Foundation which owns it, is still waiting for the City owned block to the south to take off. The Baltimore Development Corporation has thankfully given up on the original full-block-all-in-one renewal idea. BDC indicates that several properties including the stately Barger Gutman building, will soon see re-use.

New life in the old retail core of Baltimore is something that shouldn't last for only one night. The hunger of so many people to inject life into this particular part of town should reinvigorate everybody who has already despaired or manages the Westside in business as usual mode.

(see more pictures below)
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore Magazine: Asian-American Community Celebrates Past and Present With New Festival
Baltimore SUN: In Baltimore's forgotten Chinatown, a new festival will celebrate Asian-American history and culture

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