Streets of Baltimore - Baltimore Ghosts

Just who Glen Edwards was is not quite certain. In any event, the street bearing his name came to be known as "Good Husband's Row," as it was reputed that the residents of this tiny street tended to buck the trends of the era, with wives working wage earning jobs, and husbands staying home to raise the family. The truth to this little tidbit of folklore is nearly impossible to verify.

In any event, Glen Edwards Avenue as it was, was a most unusual street in many respects. It was a small diagonal artery sandwiched in a valley between the Baltimore & Ohio belt line and the regular grid of streets that eminated Westward from Howard Street near 22nd. Despite the chasm in which it resided, it was not dead end, with a connection at Hampden Avenue on its Eastern end, and a connection to Falls Road at the West, by use of a rather substantial tunnel beneath the B&O trackage.

The streets origin and demise are bit tricky to surmise, though the 1897 survey map reveals the street and its dwellings, while streets maps from the 1960's also show it listed, though by this point servered from its Western connection through the tunnel. Interestingly, a survey map from the 1870's shows Gilmore Lane (now the segment of Vineyard Lane in Peabody Heights) continuing on to a connection at the Falls Turnpike, along a path that appears to be that of later Glen Edwards.

1897 City Survey Map shows the tiny street known as Glen Edwards Avenue, which appeared to consist of 26 very small row houses. Note the grade of Hampden Avenue, which drops 25 feet in a distance of about 200 feet.

1870's map predating the B&O line offers other possibilities concerning the origin of Glen Edwards Avenue. Could it and Gilmore Lane and/or Old York Road been one and the same?

To stretch the possibilities, Gilmore/Vineyard with its connection to Old York Road at 30th Street, and the seeming extension to Falls Road could actually make Glen Edwards a long forgotten fragment of the original York Road, a challenge to verify considering the dearth of maps available before the York turnpike was constructed.

In any event, Glen Edwards is no more today, aside from a call-out from history minded Conductors on the streetcards at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, whose line intersects its old path. The occupied portion of its length has been filled in, and is now largely occupied by the storage lots of the Yellow Transportation Company.

However, one particularly fascinating relic perserveres. The old Glen Edwards Avenue tunnel entrance beneath the B&O tracks remains intact to the present day,largely filled in with dirt fill. Still, it offers a fasinating and revealing glimpse of this bizarre little street in which the husbands were good.


The portal of the Glen Edwards Avenue tunnel, while well concealed during leafy months, stands starkly visible in winter months, particularly with the aid of the fresh layer of snow. View looks East from the shoulder of Falls Road	Looking somewhat closer at the tunnel, one sees the fill that obstructs much of the tunnels depth. I did not venture closer, after hearing rumors that the tunnel houses homeless persons.

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