On Saturday morning, thousands of people running the marathon will turn northwest onto McCulloh Street. About the time they hit the first water station, they will run right over the spot where Israeli Mason was shot and killed Sept. 13. At that point, they will be within three blocks of where three other killings occurred this year.
As they continue on the route, they will pass within a block of 13 other spots where people have been fatally shot, stabbed or beaten since January, including eight on the city's east side.
Along McCulloh and on three streets through a dangerous stretch of East Baltimore, police have recorded 12 robberies, 13 assaults, 28 burglaries and 26 car break-ins from Aug. 1 through Sept. 26, the maximum time span that can be searched on the Baltimore Police Department's Web site.
Runners will pass one block south of where a dozen people were shot in July at a cookout on Ashland Avenue honoring a slain gang member.
Designing a 26.2-mile course through any city can be difficult and trying to avoid pockets of blight and crime next to impossible. The marathon course for the Baltimore Running Festival goes through waterfront neighborhoods, the Inner Harbor, by stately rowhouses along Patterson Park, near the Johns Hopkins University, around Lake Montebello and through downtown.
It also cuts a path through some of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in the city - such as a stretch of McCulloh near North Avenue and North Washington and East Madison streets.
On the east side, runners will go through blocks lined with boarded-up rowhouses and will be captured on police surveillance video. They'll pass signs on vacant dwellings advertising a company that will "Gut 4 U." They will lose count of the number of for-sale and foreclosure signs, and of stores called Cut Rate Liquors.
Runners also will go by bulldozed blocks and new rowhouses that are part of the Johns Hopkins Hospital redevelopment plan. They will see signs that say "Building a Better Baltimore." Charlene Ames Bourne, who heads the Eastern District Police Community Relations Council, said the race is a good opportunity for people to see her neighborhoods without being confined to a car.
"You see things in a totally different manner when you're not driving, some positive, some negative," she said. "On the positive, they will see the things Johns Hopkins is doing in the area. At the same time, they will be able to see where we actually need help. ... I want the runners to come away with the impression that East Baltimore is transforming into a model community."
