Few American waterfronts have been copied as often as this one, right down to the brick promenade beneath your feet. In 1950, the Inner Harbor was a working industrial waterfront — grain elevators, coal piers, fertilizer plants, and railroad yards crowded the shoreline, generating traffic, noise, and pollution. By 1960, as the port mechanized and container shipping moved to deeper waters, those industries began to leave, and the harbor became a blighted wasteland of rusting infrastructure and empty warehouses.
The city, led by Mayor William Donald Schaefer and developer James Rouse, made the audacious decision not to rebuild for industry but to transform the harbor into a public amenity. Harborplace, the twin glass-and-steel market pavilions designed by Benjamin Thompson and Associates, opened in 1980 and drew eighteen million visitors in its first year. The National Aquarium opened in 1981.
The Maryland Science Center, the historic ships, and the convention center followed. The Inner Harbor revival became the template for waterfront redevelopment in cities across the country — Baltimore's most exported idea. The brick promenade where you are standing, designed to be wide enough for crowds but intimate enough for individuals, replaced what was once a working wharf.
The harbor that once smelled of coal dust and fish now smells of sunscreen and funnel cake.