Waverly, Baltimore

Waverly is a historic village in the heart of Baltimore; it is a culturally diverse neighborhood with an active community life, innovative schools and affordable housing. Located near I-83, York Road and major bus connections, Waverly provides easy access to downtown Baltimore, Towson, and the beltway. Waverly is middle class neighborhood with a high percentage of home ownership and a very active community association (Waverly Improvement Association}.

ubdivisions

Waverly has two sub-divisions.

The area known as Waverly (-north) has Greenmount avenue as its western border, 39th Street as its northern border, Ellerslie as its eastern border, and 33rd Street as its southern border. The community association for this area is called the WIA, or "Waverly Improvement Association".

The area known as "Better Waverly" (from the olde English term meaning "greater" or "larger") occupies the area east of Greenmount avenue, south of 33rd St., from 29th street, and around the corner to Loch Raven Blvd.

History

Ancient Waverly was first was named "Huntingdon," after St. John's Episcopal Church Huntingdon, the community's oldest church dating from the 1840s. In 1840 the town of Waverly included six buildings all clustered near the 3100 block of York Road: a shoemaker's shop, a corn husk depot, a blacksmith, and three small stone houses. The shoemaker, Jacob Aull, was an immigrant from Bavaria whose sons built the houses in Waverly's first housing boom and whose daughter Louisa became a neighborhood historian. Surrounding this little village, away from York Road, there were the estates, summer houses, arboretums and horse farms of the affluent.

In 1866 a large parcel of land, much of it previously used for pasture and farming, was bought and divided into lots. New avenues were laid out. More houses were built, as were the first firehouse, the town hall, and finally the Post Office. Obtaining the Post Office led to the change of name to Waverly, after Sir Walter Scott's first novel " Waverley", to avoid confusion with the myriad Huntingdons.

Baltimore schoolteacher and poet Lizette Woodsworth Reese's "Waverly, A Victorian Village" uses poetry and anecdotal prose to depict the neighborhood during the turn of the century. The frontispiece from this volume, a woodcut of a fruit tree, can be seen at the entrance to the Waverly public library branch.

Another notable Waverly resident was Major Venable, a lawyer who wrote a standard legal textbook and dedicated much of his personal time to improving Baltimore's public parks. Venable street is named after him (Baltimore Sun).

The trolley line "Waverly to downtown" was the first in the United States.

This neighborhood was the home of Memorial Stadium, where the Baltimore Colts and the Orioles played. The stadium was recently torn down and replaced with Memorial Place, housing for senior citizens.

Although it has rural origins and a history as a suburban village, by 1974 Waverly was considered part of the urban community and was defined as such in Gallup Polling. Residents of the 900 block of Homestead Street were asked whether Nixon should resign. According to the story, the first residents alerted all the others to be home and answer the door, and soon the President was gone. [cite web|url=http://www.livebaltimore.com/nb/list/wvrly/|title=Waverly|publisher=Live Baltimore Home Center, Inc.|accessdate=2008-05-04]

Architecture is primarily row houses and wood Victorian single family houses. Some of the latter are in a historic district designated by the city's Center for Historic and Architectural Preservation, [cite web|url=http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/historic/|title=CHAP|publisher=City of Baltimore|] entitling owners to tax incentives for maintaining the historical integrity of the buildings.

Waverly is home to one of Baltimore's few farmer's markets. [cite web|url=http://www.32ndstreetmarket.org/main.html|title=Waverly Farmer's Market|publisher=Market Coop] .

Notes

External links

* [http://www.waverly-live.com WIA site]