Walking Baltimore. Evan Balkan

       Start on S. Caroline St., south of Lancaster St. As you head toward the water, passing the Living Classrooms site, you’ll first come across a large open area on your right, just past Dock St. The site extends southward for several blocks, past Philpot St., named for Brian Philpot Jr., who emigrated from England to Baltimore in the mid- to late 1700s. This is the AlliedSignal Site, where, in 1845, Isaac Tyson Jr. founded the country’s first bichromate plant. The factory processed chromium until the late 1990s. The site underwent extensive environmental cleanup and awaits reuse. Perhaps it’s apocryphal, but some historians believe that the term “hooker” originated on this slice of land, as it was originally shaped like a hook and many prostitutes used to ply their trade here. In an 1846 speech in England, Frederick Douglass recalled the ghastliness of this area: “Many a night have I been wakened in Philpotts-street, Baltimore, by the passing-by, at midnight, of hundreds of slaves, carrying their chains and fetters and uttering cries and howlings, almost enough to startle the dead. They were going to the market to work in cotton or sugar, going off to be killed in the space of five or six years, in the swamps of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana.”

       At the end of S. Caroline St., where it intersects with Philpot St., continue heading straight toward the water and you will soon come to the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Park. This is a unique museum, focusing on the extraordinary lives of its two namesakes. While many recognize Frederick Douglass, Isaac Myers remains a little-known figure. But his life was also astonishing. Myers owned and operated a shipyard, the Chesapeake Marine Railway & Dry Dock Company, just one block west at Philpot and Wills Sts.; he was the first African American in the country to own and run a shipyard. Just outside the front door of the museum is a repair site for historic ships. In between is a bust of Frederick Douglass. Artist Marc Andre Robinson created and installed this striking sculpture in 2006. Douglass’s presence here next to the ship repair facility is apropos; during slavery he worked these very docks as a ship caulker. See the “Back Story” for more on Douglass.

       Turn around to head back in the direction of S. Caroline St., but take a right onto Thames St. The street’s name is meant to mirror London’s famous river. If asking directions, however, don’t be surprised to hear the name pronounced several different ways: “Thames” with a long “a”; “Tems,” like the river; and “Thames” with a soft “th.” (Most Baltimoreans either pronounce it with a hard “T” and long “a” or with a “th” at the top.) In another block, you’ll come to Bond St. To your right is the brightly painted Bond St. Wharf, a renovated retail and office space complex. On the corner of Thames St. and Bond St., at 1532–34 Thames, used to be a house owned by George Wells. He owned and operated a shipyard across the street and received the Continental Congress’s commission for the Virginia, the first ship of the navy for a country on the brink of a revolution. Wells went on to build many other ships as part of a fleet of shipbuilders throughout Fells Point; many of these ships saw action in the War of 1812. Today, the CanUSA corporation, a paper-recycling company, has its headquarters in this renovated building. Connected to the Wells House, on the corner at 854 S. Bond St., is the façade of the old London Coffee House (1752), the last surviving colonial-era coffee house in the United States. Here, pre-Revolutionary patriots met to talk about the coming insurrection