Mission Impossible

Having had previously taken this course and done research in the community Saturday was not my first introduction to the area. However it has changed quite significantly in such a short period of time, proven by the fact that Dr. King and I both got turned around a couple times. Just as it did for me in 2012, the trip fueled ideas and solidified others. I'm still putting things together in my head but I am glad I took the tour for a second time.

I have begun to look into the gardens in Fairfield and have found a few articles but I am continuing to delve into different sources, along with those that I used previously. Knowing that my topic will not produce many sources, I am ecstatic with the fact that I have found some without delving too deep. So far I have only been able to find newspaper articles, but I have discovered that the sources I would be most interested in are going to be the hardest to find. The Baltimore Museum of Industry holds a vertical file on BethSteal and the Fairfield Ship Yards, within this file I found many sources that could possibly help me if not by anything more then steering me toward another possible source. When I chose my topic I understood that it would be a difficult task to complete but the excitement that comes over me when I find something I thought would be impossible to find. This will definitely be a paper that grows over the span of the semester.

Listening to Linda Shopes for the second time has cleared up questions that have arisen between the first time and this time. I was glad to have held onto so much of the information, realizing that I knew what she was going to cover before she started talking. While the information was not new for me, it was good to have a recap so that I am well aware of what I am supposed to know.

Teamwork makes the Dream work

In 2012 we worked very minimally with the art students. I'm excited to be working closely with them this year. Not only will the cooperation help with the design of the t-shirt but we can also come up with designs for buttons and other things to sell. I would also like to gain a deeper understanding of artwork that both originates and represents the community and its past. If it is possible the art students could work to make stories come to life, maybe create an animation that depicts parts of an oral history. If we are able to find photos from different eras of the same thing, a time lapse photo could be created.

Connections will be helpful in terms of the fundraiser, not only do we have history type information we have art that opens the door to an entirely different group of people. More avenues for the word to get out and a wider array of things represented at the event will help us have a more productive fundraiser.

I hope the ideas, no matter how crazy, keep coming!

Ode to Fairfield

My capstone paper revolved around the WWII shipbuilding industry in Fairfield and how it affected the local residents as well as the community as a whole. For the duration of this semester I would like to keep Fairfield as my main focus, but this time around I would like to see what I can find so that I may better understand the environmental and food aspect of this community. I would like to look in to the use of gardens within the area as well as the presence, or lack there of, of grocery stores. I would like to discover whether the gardens and local food stores had any effect on the community and if they possibly helped the community thrive. 

Having done prior research on the Fairfield area, I find many connections with the Love Canal debacle. In both situations they set themselves up for failure. If you know something is so incredibly bad that it has to be disposed of in such a manner, as with Love Canal, then who in their right mind decides to put a community on top of it? Fairfield did similar things, knowing they were zoned for heavy industry they went ahead and built homes within spiting distance of dangerous plants. I researched industrial accidents in the area and there were quite a few times in which the was an accident at the plant that directly effected residents, yet they did nothing to try and fix this problem. While Baybrook does not sit quite as close as Fairfield to the industry, they are still being greatly impacted by it. While on the tour in 2012, as well as many other trips I took to the area, I was repulsed by the smell of sewage. There is currently a waste water treatment facility on the peninsula that has a stench that not only hovers over the area in which it operates; but also is pushed out into the neighboring communities, including but not limited to Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. This sewage as well as other waste is not safe for human interaction so they pump or dump it where someone has declared it to be much safer to handle. To bad that idiot doesn't have to wake up every morning in the middle of it all, maybe then he'd gain a better understanding of how these communities have seemingly been looked over all these years.

This is all that is left of what used to be a great place to live.

Weedon Street in Fairfield

We meet again.

While the goal of this class is to raise money to help sustain the Filbert Street Garden, the social mission is to provide a collaborative gathering between people to remember the past, connect with the present, and preserve for the future so that growth is possible.

While this class is meant to focus mainly on the areas of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay, I have found in my previous research that the neighboring community of Fairfield has mirrored the growth and break down of Baybrook. I wish to further my research within the community of Fairfield and see what I can learn about the use of gardens. This would continue into attempting to gain an understanding on whether or not the use of local and community gardens, as well as the amount and location of grocery/dry good stores, helped Fairfield. Understandings like these might give us incite on why the Baybrook communities need community gardens and how it can be used to not only grow flood, but also help grow the community. Chris Landers' piece about the Baptist church and the community that flocked there every Sunday even though no one lived in the area anymore shows that people want somewhere to go and to be together. While a church and a garden are two very different things they both bring people varying benefits. We want this garden to be loved and invested in by the community's residents. So much so that even if they leave the neighborhood they still feel a connection that will either bring them back to the garden or entice them to continue the tradition elsewhere.

In order for this event to succeed we need to take a page from Delores Hayden's book on place memory. We need to create the opportunity for events to happen that will forever stick in a persons mind. Whether they are 6 or 56 we want them to say "Remember that fantastic day at the garden? We should make that a weekly thing." Simply by introducing an idea and giving it back to the public the concept of the garden can stick and years from now people will be taking their kids and their grandkids to the garden with the hopes that they too will fall in love with the place.


Children learn best with use of reward, and what is more rewarding knowing that you are able to enjoy something you created all on your own? Teaching kids to garden is not only convenient, since the garden is right next to the school, but it will also teach them how to garden and eat fresh. (The only reason I was willing to try green beans when I was little is because I helped grow them in our families garden and now they are one of my favorite veggies.)

I know I am jumping ahead a bit but thinking forward to the event I wish thinking about the possibility of having people (not only kids) plant seeds to take home and start their own gardens. May be a possible income option?
Also a garden and park clean up would be nice again this year.

Chris Landers, "The Church at the End of the Road: First Baptist Church Of Fairfield Ponders Giving  Up The Ghost, But Not The Spirit,” City Paper, February 14, 2007 

Delores Hayden, “Place Memory and Urban Preservation,” in The Power of Place: Urban Landscape as Public History (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1997) 44-78.