Publish date: 2024-01-12

• I explored a mostly-abandoned outdoor mall in Baltimore that was a thriving market in the 1800s.
• Poverty and decreasing population have contributed to the area's loss of businesses and customers.
• Abandoned buildings remain, but efforts to repurpose them are in place.

Old Town Mall is a mostly-abandoned shopping district in Baltimore, Maryland.

Read more: I explored an abandoned amusement park and found stunning art-deco attractions and a thriving artists' hub

I recently visited to take a closer look at the mostly-abandoned structures and learn about the history of the area.

The site is located in east Baltimore's Old Town neighborhood and covers 16 acres, as reported by the Baltimore Sun in 2014.

Source: Baltimore Sun

Read more: I'm a New Yorker who visited Baltimore for the first time. Here are 6 things that surprised me the most.

In the 1800s, a market was constructed here with dozens of buildings from row houses to Victorian, art-deco, and modern architectural styles, according to Baltimore Heritage, a preservation organization.

Source: Baltimore Heritage

The market thrived for a century. But by the 1940s, Baltimore residents began flocking to the suburbs, dwindling the neighborhood's population, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Source: Baltimore Sun

The strip remained open while business owners struggled in the mid-1900s. "Old Town's shops have grown shabby, its streets are dirty and crowded, and its houses are dilapidated and appear to be leaning on one another for support," a Baltimore Sun reporter wrote in 1967, according to the same article.

Source: Baltimore Sun

In an effort to revitalize the area in the late 1960s, the city transformed the market into a pedestrian mall by closing off the streets and updating the area with street lamps, plants, and a fountain, the Baltimore Sun reported in 2012. This is when the strip was named Old Town Mall.

Source: Baltimore Sun

But by the 1980s, the mall was rundown again due to poverty and unemployment in surrounding areas, according to Atlas Obscura.

Source: Atlas Obscura

Over the past two decades, the city has sought out developers to revitalize the mall, according to Baltimore Business Journal articles from 2020 and 2004, and a Baltimore Sun article from 2009.

Sources: Baltimore Business Journal, Baltimore Business Journal, Baltimore Sun

Walking around the once-thriving market, I noticed that many of the buildings looked frozen in time with faded signs.

Many of the buildings I observed had broken windows ...

... or giant holes where windows used to be.

But not every building was abandoned. A couple of businesses seemed to be running with a handful of people walking in and out of them.

Plans to restore the area again are in the works after other developer projects failed over the last few decades, Baltimore Business Journal reported in 2020.

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

According to the same article, Henson Development is rebuilding and repurposing the abandoned structures to make a shopping center with apartments. During my visit, I did not observe any residents.

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

Some buildings have already been repurposed, like the Nevermore Haunt, an old furniture store that Owner Joe Hudson transformed into a seasonal haunted house in 2016, the Baltimore Sun reported. It operates in October, according to their website.

Source: Baltimore Sun, The Nevermore Haunt

I hope to see this place revitalized, but I left the site feeling grateful that I got the chance to document it while it still feels frozen in time.

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