Lynn's Photo Fun

By nuttymartini

BALTIMORE MARYLAND USA

I'm visiting my son here and love the photo ops. The streets are lined with tens of thousands of brick and Formstone faced rowhouses. Many consider the rowhouse the architectural form most closely associated to the city. Some rowhouses are dated as far back as the 1790s. Most row houses are just 10 to 12 feet wide.
Gentrification is a process by which middle-class people take up residence in a traditionally working-class area of a city, changing the character of the area. Federal Hill, became a hotbed of investment and rehabilitation, particularly by young professional baby boomers who had grown up in the suburbs but worked downtown.

At the right end of this row of brick rowhouses is one covered in Formstone, a plaster compound creating the appearance of rock. It is commonly applied to brick rowhomes and is most strongly associated with Baltimore. Film director and Baltimore native John Waters described formstone as "the polyester of brick."
I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.
John Waters

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