This Jane Jacobs Walk explores the hidden geography of the Jones Falls corridor and how transportation infrastructure, redevelopment, art, and public space have transformed Baltimore’s relationship to the river over time. Participants are invited to gather by 4pm at Area 405 (405 E. Oliver St) to take in the new exhibition CONFLUENCE. The group will leave Area 405 by 4:30 pm at the latest, so please make sure to arrive before then.

Beginning at Area 405 in Station North and ending near the visible river corridor, participants will examine how the Jones Falls continues to shape neighborhoods, mobility systems, and urban life even where it has become buried beneath streets, highways, and development. The walk will include discussions of adaptive reuse, transportation infrastructure, neighborhood change, ecological restoration, and emerging artistic interventions reconnecting people to the river corridor.

Themes will include creative and community futures, infrastructure and neighborhood transformations, the hidden geography of the river corridor, artistic and ecological reconnection at MICA, and a direct encounter with the Jones Falls itself. Residents and participants are encouraged to share observations and lived experiences along the route. The first in a series of Dreamwalks from our Jones Falls 2076 project, stay tuned!

Itinerary:

1. Area 405 (Starting Point)

2. Open Works

3. Greenmount Avenue & Preston Street Area

4. E. Biddle Street Bridge

5. Fallsway Fountain

6. St. Paul Street & Mount Royal Avenue

7. Penn Station

8. MICA Gallery Alley – MICA Connector – MICA Park

9. Baltimore Streetcar Museum & the Jones Falls River (Final Stop)

Walk Guide:

Begoña Pecharroman is a social anthropologist who has lived in Baltimore since 2021. Before moving to Baltimore, in 2016 she started organizing Jane Jacobs Walks in her hometown, Donostia–San Sebastián (Basque Country, Spain) as a way to share with neighbors the belief that urban planning should be a collective process in which communities have the power to express their needs and shape the future of their cities.

After arriving in Baltimore and realizing that no Jane Jacobs Walks were being organized locally, she began organizing them in 2022. Since then, she has used these walks as opportunities for residents, artists, activists, and neighbors to collectively observe, discuss, and imagine Baltimore’s urban spaces and futures.