Downtown’s Park and Mulberry, once home to Martick’s restaurant, turns a corner

A few years ago an engineer and architect argued that the old Martick’s restaurant would be too costly and difficult to preserve. That sentiment did not go well with the corps of Martick’s fans who assembled that day at Baltimore’s Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation.

This summer a new apartment building has risen around the successfully preserved but as yet unrestored bar and restaurant that was once a bohemian hangout for artists and musicians and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Martick’s was a safe space (certain nights of the week) in the days before community standards of acceptance and tolerance changed.

Martick’s was a place where Billie Holiday was once a guest. There’s also a report Leonard Bernstein turned up there as well.

The outcry to save the fondly remembered Mulberry Street building proved successful. And while the site is under heavy construction, there’s no mistaking this improbable preservation victory.

The apartment house has risen on the site of a decrepit early parking garage. The developer is also stabilizing a group of 19th century homes along Park Avenue as a construction crane works away redeveloping the corner of Park Avenue and Mulberry Street.

The site is west of the Central Enoch Pratt Free Library and the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Assumption.

The Park Avenue corridor is a part of downtown Baltimore that gets little recognition. A lack of high real estate values has unintentionally preserved the street’s mix of architecture and old-fashioned shops and businesses. The street’s anchor is the National Shrine of Saint Alphonsus Liguori Church, an 1845 Gothic Revival church with a steadfast and active congregation.

Baltimore people have a sentimental and contagiously quirky attachment to the Park Avenue corridor  — not unlike the way we love Fells Point. It’s antique and unpretentious.  Anyone who’s lived in these parts for a good while likely had a meal here, bought a flag at the store that once sold banners or shopped at the old Julius Gutman’s.

The neighborhood flagship store was Abe Sherman’s news operation. Blessed with a gruff personality, Abe believed the customer was always wrong. People loved his rough treatment.

The neighborhood enjoyed a certain uneven reputation. During the 1920s “the businesses along Mulberry Street were regularly raided for illegal gambling, operating opium dens, and violating the Volstead Act,” said a city Preservation Commission report, referring to what was known as Prohibition.

More than 100 years ago, maybe earlier, it was home to what we called Chinatown. There’s still an Asian grocery store surviving and a couple of small restaurants. The eatery sensation of the 1970s, Mee Jun Low, disappeared years ago and its home on West Mulberry Street is now an affordable living apartment house.

As the Martick and the parking garage site gets rebuilt, so do other properties. The entire block between Clay and Saratoga streets is under heavy preservation refurbishment. A while ago a building within the complex was fitted out and used as a location for the new Apple TV+ series, “Lady in the Lake,” starring Natalie Portman.

And nearby, at Lexington and Liberty streets, the former American National Building and Loan (earlier still, the Park Bank) is being fitted after years of vacancy.

There’s a Baltimore curiosity here. You can walk just a block away and find yourself squarely in a heavily-invested, fine looking place. Just east of this area, along Cathedral and Liberty streets, is such a location. The Washington Monument is a short walk away as well.

This does not mean the Park Avenue corridor is a glammed-up boutique neighborhood. It is not and there are still dozens of places that need reinvestment and TLC. But the heart and soul of this part of the city appear to be in the midst of a good thing.