Your arrival puts you in one of Baltimore's oldest continuously operating public markets, serving Fells Point since 1784. Broadway Market occupies two market sheds facing each other across a central alley, a layout that dates to the original nineteenth-century design and allows the market to serve as both a commercial space and a neighborhood gathering place. The market grew up alongside Fells Point's maritime community, providing provisions for ships' crews, fresh seafood for the neighborhood's families, and a daily meeting place where the neighborhood's mix of nationalities could trade, argue, and gossip.
The Fells Point neighborhood was among the most ethnically diverse in nineteenth-century Baltimore — German, Polish, Ukrainian, Greek, and Italian immigrants settled here in dense rowhouse blocks, each group establishing its own church, its own taverns, and its own customs while sharing the market, the streets, and the waterfront. Broadway Market reflects that diversity in its mix of vendors — traditional produce and meat stalls alongside specialty food vendors representing the neighborhood's changing demographics. The Saturday morning market draws residents and visitors from across the city.
The white marble stoop tradition — Baltimore homeowners scrubbing their front stoops with white marble-ground pumice every Saturday — was particularly strong in Fells Point, and the gleaming stoops along the side streets give you a sense of the neighborhood pride that has characterized this area for two and a half centuries.