I was happy to read that Charles Village was voted as a top ten neighborhood by the American Planning Association. I lived in Charles Village for 8 years, never owned a car, and had little reason to ever leave our little enclave, except to get to the Charles Movie Theater.
When I think back on my days in Charles Village, I realize we didn't know how good we had it. Those row homes that line Charles Street, St Paul Street and Calvert Street were so large and fabulous. Most of them were broken up into apartments with one on each floor. I had 6 different addresses while I lived in Baltimore, always moving into the apartment with some slight advantage over the previous one.
There were many things these apartments had in common like beautiful bathrooms - all ceramic subway tile walls with a row of hand painted fancy tiles with relief images of grapes or oak leaves, claw foot tubs and octagonal black and white floor tiles. The kitchens were often retrofitted into the pesky middle room and were furnished with 1920's stoves, undersized fridges, and no counter space. If you were lucky, you had access to a backyard and could grow some tomatoes or sleep on an upstairs porch. Everywhere windows were in awful condition. If two unattached people shared the apartment, they would each have a bedroom and there wouldn't be a living room. Couples could have living room and we even had a dining room in one of our apartments because the tiny kitchen was converted from an old sleeping porch.
We could get everything we needed in just a few blocks. Like many CV residents, I would go down to Eddie's for groceries just around dinner time, run into some friends and decide to spontaneously make and share the meal together. I enjoyed the proximity to the Museum with its boat load of Matisse paintings and the walks we would take in nearby Roland Park and Guilford.
I thought when I finally outgrew having a one bedroom apartment I would move into house on Guilford or Abel Avenues. So cute!
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