druid hill park

this is my office away from home, parkie's lakeside pavilion in druid hill park.

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here's a view from the backside of it, with the parkie's sign hanging from the roof.

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this is my desk. the thing that makes parkie's so superior to all other city park pavilion offices is that it has electrical outlets. you have to bring your own 50-foot extension cord, but that's not much of a hassle.

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here i am, hard at work. or something.

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here's the view from the front of the office. just beautiful.

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the view off to the left.

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the view down the hill a bit.

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07/07/2000 -- the last time i had the camera at the park, i took a walk around the lake and took pictures, but didn't realize i had the camera set to shoot closeups; the resulting pictures were useless. so, i took some more to replace those shots today. what a beautiful day! it was hot and sunny, but not humid, so i followed peter's example and took off my shirt, read awhile, took my walk and got some sun. more about that later...

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the view from the park bench where i was reading.

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another view.

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looking across the lake. more about those apartment buildings in a bit...

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the three currently inhabited apartment buildings.

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further proof that this camera is useless for shooting anything far away. i shot this because memorial stadium is in it, and the city plans to tear it down. that thing on the horizon with the black things sticking up from it (stadium lights) is it. :)

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looking toward downtown.

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wow; you really can't tell what anything is on the other side of the valley. if you could, you'd see the spires of johns hopkins university's homewood campus, and stieff silver company, which closed for awhile but now seems to be open again. (maybe as a different company? dunno, but they haven't taken the stieff sign down.)

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senior highrises on the east side of the lake. sadly run-down considering the view they offer.

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the tower. they keep that door locked so you can't climb up in it. boo.

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we should be allowed to swim out there and jump off this, don't you think?

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run-down houses along the side of the lake. i don't get it; this should be grade a real estate.

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good to know someone has the sense to rehab this place and sell condominiums in it. the sign in front says "opening spring of 2000". oops. never trust launch dates. at least the fence is gone from around it. and at least they had the good sense to knock out the windows on the sides and make balconies!

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the place next door is just sitting there unloved. bummer. :( there's a "for sale" sign on it if anyone's interested.

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now this is the place. look at that balcony on the top floor. mmmmmmmmm... wonder what the rent is there.

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the spanish-style place next to it is nice, too.

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druid hill park pool. what a neat idea to have a fire hydrant-like spray for the wee ones! :)

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the pool.

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yes, i got some sun. :) i'm quite the lobster.

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wonder how that's going to feel in the morning...

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the other thing that makes druid hill park the place to bring a laptop -- clean bathrooms a short walk away! what the hell else do you want?

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another neat idea. "safety city" is a miniature city filled with streets, sidewalks, traffic signs, stop lights, etc. schools bring little kids out here and teach them how to be safe about crossing streets. i pointed it out to peter, and he said he knew some adults who could stand a few lessons there.

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safety city.

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tennis is very big in the park. i've never seen the courts empty.

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a couple of young players.

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looking down the set of courts near the pool.

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a good view of the length of the lake.

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these people are serious about their quiet. you can't see all of them very well, but there are four (4) speed bumps on this little street.

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the aftermath of a violent storm the previous night.

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one of my cubicle mates.

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one of the fancier tennis courts.

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i don't think he stands a chance.

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the old swimming pool. they just started filling it in a few weeks ago.

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looking toward the diving boards.

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the building at the end of the pool. park offices, i suppose.

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04/13/2001 -- wow!

i went to the office to work for awhile, but power had been turned off in the pavilion (boo!), so i just worked until the battery ran out, then headed around the hill, where i ran into this! not only has the pool been filled in, it's been seeded with grass, the shower building has been restored and given this water motif on the roof, and the sidewalk all around has been redone with these beautiful patterns. what's up?

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well, i walked down and found that a winding brick path had been laid through the woods between the tennis courts, and there was a sign along it explaining why the work had been done.

this section of the park provided baltimore's "separate but equal" facilities from 1909-1955, and was the only place in the city park system available for use by blacks. "pool number 2" and the tennis courts here were the training grounds for black athletes in the city for the first half of the century.

a short distance from here is the conservatory, which used to have tennis courts on either side of it. one of the earliest demonstrations in the baltimore civil rights movement took place here in 1948 when 500 people assembled to watch a match between black players on these whites-only courts. the police came and put a halt to it, carrying the players off the court when they sat down and refused to leave.

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the pool's been restored as a memorial; here's a view looking back at the steps. the pillars mark the corners of where a fieldhouse used to stand. on the right are a couple of benches and a sign giving specific information about the pool, which was used from 1921-1955. the city pools were integrated in 1956.

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