Orchard Street is the dividing line.
On one side is Orchard Mews, a subsidized townhouse development built in the late 1970s.
On the other side is Seton Hill, home to some of Baltimore's oldest rowhouses, built in the early 1800s and tucked away in a maze of narrow alleyways.
They share a proud history that dates back to the days of the Underground Railroad and the Orchard Street Church, built by a former slave, and a compact area bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Pennsylvania and Druid Hill avenues.
The people who live in Seton Hill complain that the drugs, crime and violence emanating from Orchard Mews keep their historic enclave from becoming the "French Quarter of Baltimore City."
The people who live in Orchard Mews say they are for the most part good people trapped by gunmen and drug dealers who live elsewhere.
An undercover Baltimore police detective was shot Friday trying to make a drug buy on Orchard Street. One bullet grazed his chin; another shattered his jaw. Police raided a townhouse on the street yesterday and recovered two handguns. Three people were arrested.
Police Commissioner Frederick L. Bealefeld III said the suspects were not strangers to the area. "They ran into a house in that block," he said yesterday. "They were holding guns in that house. ...They live around here."
Yesterday, a choir warmed up in the historic Orchard Street Church, their booming voices escaping to the cold street. Amid a brief shower of snow, two homicide detectives slowly checked the sidewalks and gutters, lonely figures on an otherwise deserted street. Black boots swung from an overhead power line, marking drug turf.
Melva Smith, the property manager for Orchard Mews, opened her office in the aftermath of the shooting. She defended the neighborhood as solid and respectable, but not without problems. "We're having some difficulty with drug dealers, like they have all over Baltimore," she told me. "We are working hard to make the area more livable. We have many good people here trying to raise their children."
But Karen J. French, president of the Seton Hill Association, complained that the owners of Orchard Mews have refused to hire security guards. She said meetings with management elicit promises but no results. Now they've hired an attorney to press for change.
