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Pigtown

Carroll Park

June 9, 2013

29. Tour Dem Parks, Hon!

“You just rode under the oldest railroad bridge in North America,” says Ed Orser, who literally wrote the book on the Gwynns Falls, to two-dozen bicyclists touring Charm City’s parks, mill valleys, and streams. Pedaling past the granite B&O bridge, listening to the “falling” stream, Orser stops at Winan Meadows, named after Thomas Winans, who made a fortune building Russia’s first railroad and put his estate here.

“Where you’re standing right now would’ve been a four or six-lane highway if people hadn’t fought to preserve this area,” Orser says. “Route 70 ends not far from here. It’s 2,000 miles the other way to Utah and plans called for it to go downtown and meet I-95.”

Approaching a picturesque small dam in historic Dickeyville, several riders get off their bikes for photos, shocked they’re still within city limits. “I’m flabbergasted,” a young woman tells two friends.

The 25-mile tour, organized by Eli Pousson, Baltimore Heritage’s director of preservation and outreach, is a sub-event of the annual Tour Dem Parks, Hon! ride, which has attracted a record 1,300 participants this morning. The ride loops through 745-acre Druid Hill Park and the Jones Falls Trail, later heading towards Federal Hill.

Of course, it isn’t all parks and streams in Charm City.

Stopped at a traffic light on East Baltimore’s once notorious and now simply downtrodden red light district, Pousson notes that nearby St. Vincent de Paul’s once held a regular 2:30 a.m. Mass for the printers and strippers who both pulled late shifts in the neighborhood.

“I’ve wanted to organize a vaudeville and burlesque bike tour for a year and a half,” Pousson says, glancing dejectedly around “The Block.” “But sometimes those things look better on paper than they do in reality.”