Highlandtown

The history of the Highlandtown neighborhood is reflective of many areas of Baltimore. Established in 1866 as “Snake Hill,” a village outside of Baltimore, the village was renamed Highland Town in 1870 and made part of Baltimore city in 1919. It is one of Baltimore's trditional Blue-Collar neighborhoods and, for that reason, it was designated as part of the Patterson Park/Highlandtown Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places.
Highlandtown was traditionally one the Baltimore's main commercial and industrial hubs. As with other cities across the country, the neighborhood suffered a period of decline beginning in the 1970s as the manufacturing sector declined and department stores were replaced by suburban shopping malls. Beginning in the later 1990s and early 2000s, however, efforts to revitalize the area were undertaken. Chief among these was the designation of the portionof Eastern Avenue running through the neighborhood as a “Main Street District,” part of the National Main Street Program.
Along with economic revitalization Highlandtown is experiencing an ethnic change with a growing Latino propulation joining the traditional blue-collar Polish, Italian, Irish, and Greek residents. A middle-class area, the neighborhood does have several small businesses and is also the headquarters of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.