Poppleton residents miss their neighbors.
Ms. James was a retiree who lived alone on the 1100 block of West Fayette Street. She rarely left her home. If she saw neighbors she knew, she would peek her head out and ask them to pick something up for her from the store. The houses that surrounded her were vacant, the residents displaced. She was the last one left on her block.
She worried about fires from the panhandlers who had moved into her neighbors’ vacant rowhouses. Progress was supposed to be coming to Poppleton, but the progress was not designed for Ms. James. She died in her home long before any new development would appear and the block was cleared.
Nearly 20 years later her neighbors are still waiting for that progress.
On August 20, 2024, six legacy residents of Poppleton and the Poppleton Now Community Association filed a lawsuit against Baltimore City and the developer–La Cité of New York City–claiming the development deal they signed in 2006 is unconstitutional. However the legal case plays out, the stories of Poppleton residents should be heard. What happened to them and their neighborhood is a miscarriage of justice, one that happens in Black and Brown neighborhoods across the U.S.
Sonia Eaddy and her family have been fighting the displacement of residents in Poppleton since they learned about this development scheme back in 2004. Baltimore City devised a plan to give 526 properties of “vacant land” to a private developer. However, the land was not vacant. More than 150 homes were occupied with families and taken using eminent domain–the power to take private properties for a “public use.”
The people and the homes in Poppleton matter. Their history and their stories matter.
The Eaddy family’s three-story brick rowhouse on the 300-block of North Carrollton Avenue was built in 1871 and has been owned by two Black families since 1928. The Sewell family sold the home to Eaddy’s father Donald Waugh, who was an arabber at the Carlton Street stable for many years, in 1992. He grew up in Poppleton and still lives around the corner on Carey Street. He sold the home to his daughter to accommodate her growing family. The Eaddys raised five children and today host many of their 13 grandchildren and four great grandchildren in their family home.
In 2022, as the result of residents’ organizing and a public outreach campaign, Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration negotiated an amendment to the development agreement. Along with the 11 alleyhouses on Sarah Ann Street, the Eaddy home is now part of a CHAP local historic district that residents fought to establish. Shelley Halstead of Black Women Build is redeveloping the Sarah Ann street homes for affordable homeownership.
Nothing was ever paid to the Eaddy family for all they suffered in their fight for their home and the decades of living in a neighborhood that was condemned.
In order to remove the Eaddy family home from the development footprint, the City paid $260,000, the “just compensation” the Eaddy family was owed from their eminent domain case against the City, to La Cité. Nothing was ever paid to the Eaddy family for all they suffered in their fight for their home and the decades of living in a neighborhood that was condemned. Throughout the ordeal the Eaddys paid their mortgage and their taxes every month. The two “luxury apartments”–all La Cité has built in nearly 20 years–currently have an outstanding water bill of over $648,000 due to Baltimore City, according to the city’s water bill website.
The homes of the other plaintiffs, the Walkers and the Gunns, are in the shadow of those luxury apartments and surrounded by the vacant land of progress deferred. They have been affected by the condemnation of their neighbors even though their homes were never actually condemned.
Yvonne Gunn’s grandparents came to Baltimore from Columbia, South Carolina in 1925 and moved to Poppleton. Her grandparents began renting 1056 West Fayette Street in Poppleton in the 1930s. Her grandparents rented the home for many years. All four of their sons served in World War II. One son was able to save and purchase the home for his parents.
In 1985, when that uncle was retiring and moving out of 1056 West Fayette, he sold the house to Mrs. Gunn and her husband William to keep it in the family. Mrs. Gunn says, “The family house is open to everyone in the family.”
The Gunns were initially supportive of the development project, but over the past decade the displacement and abandonment created a sense of fear as the Gunns lost their neighbors, endured uncertainty, and became embarrassed when family and friends would come visit and ask, “Why are you still here?”
The Gunns were initially supportive of the development project, but over the past decade the displacement and abandonment created a sense of fear as the Gunns lost their neighbors, endured uncertainty, and became embarrassed when family and friends would come visit and ask, “Why are you still here?”
Since 1985 when they became homeowners, the Gunn family has invested in and restored their historic home. “I have a three-story rowhouse with a full basement. There were maybe 70-80 houses just like mine in Poppleton. Some right on Fayette Street,” Mrs. Gunn explains. “They were wiped off the face of the earth. If my house was in Federal Hill or Canton in today’s market it would be worth a half-million dollars.”
The development project haunts the Gunns. Mrs. Gunn says there were many close-knit families like hers throughout the Poppleton community before this project. The Gunns remember numerous promises made by the La Cité developer regarding investments in the community, such as a promised tennis academy for local kids and 1% of the total development cost being reinvested back in the community. As a past president of the community association, Mrs. Gunn says all these broken promises, including that her home value would increase, caused great harm.
Sterling and Francina Walker live at 1020 West Vine Street, one block north of the Gunns. Mr. Walker was born in Poppleton on 938 West Saratoga Street by a midwife. He remembers when Poppleton was a beautiful and walkable neighborhood before the Highway to Nowhere, MLK Boulevard, and all the demolition and destruction of the historic homes of Black families.
“Back then we did not have a big voice of what was going on in the neighborhood. So, things were changing, and people accepted it,” Mr. Walker explains. “There was a whole lot that this neighborhood had that was taken away from it.”
Mr. Walker would pick up his mother Gloria Beverly from church in Poppleton. She wanted him to drive her around so she could show him all the places where she grew up in West Baltimore. Today she is 96 and closely follows all the news on the Poppleton redevelopment.
After he returned from serving in Vietnam, Mr. Walker worked at the Baltimore City jail for 41 years. On his way to work one day, he saw that they were building new brick rowhouses in Poppleton. He convinced his wife Francina, who is a health care worker, to move back to Poppleton and become homeowners.
They bought their home at 1020 West Vine Street in 1986. They only had to put down $526 and paid around $370 per month on their mortgage, which included a $37,000 loan from HUD–which was forgiven if they lived in their home for 10 years–and a $25,000 loan from Mercantile Bank. They now have paid off their home, which is how public funds for affordable housing are supposed to work–for the public good of the city’s hard-working residents.
The Walkers also host many family events and holidays in their home. When Mr. Walker heard about the development coming to the neighborhood, he worked to form a neighborhood association to fight to keep his and his neighbors’ homes.
Baltimore City and the developer promised rowhouses, homeownership, and that displaced residents could move back. There have been so many broken promises in Poppleton and so much harm to those who have fought to remain.
The Poppleton Now Community Association board, which includes all the plaintiffs along with more recent residents and a local pastor (and for which I have been acting secretary), all approved this statement in support of the lawsuit:
We have lost family, friends, and neighbors during the traumatic period of this failed redevelopment plan. Homes and businesses have left our neighborhood and various promises of community benefits have been broken.
We want to work with the City and any future developers to make sure we have a thriving neighborhood that welcomes various income levels, invests in current homeowners and tenants, provides affordable housing, and welcomes back our displaced neighbors who would like to return. We want investment in our community and community-led planning moving forward. We ask the City and any developers to work with the Poppleton Plan, our requests for greenspace, and established community assets.
Invest in us and Poppleton and Baltimore city will thrive.
Poppleton residents continue the fight for their neighborhood and for past neighbors, like Ms. James–who can no longer continue the fight.
Nicole King is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies at UMBC, where she has worked with residents on the A Place Called Poppleton project since 2020. She was acting volunteer secretary of the Poppleton Now Community Association from 2021 to 2022. She is a pro bono consultant on the Poppleton lawsuit.
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