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Hampden, BaltimoreHampden is a neighborhood located in north Baltimore, Maryland. Roughly triangular in shape, it is bounded to the east by Wyman Park, to the south by 33rd Street, to the north by 40th and 41st Street, and to the west by the Jones Falls Expressway. The Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University is a short drive to the east. Hampden was originally settled as a residential community for workers at the mills that sprung up along the Jones Falls; its first residents were in place before the area was annexed to Baltimore City in the early 20th century. Many of its residents came to the area from the hill country of Kentucky, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania, looking for work in the mills. This influx cemented the image of the neighborhood for the decades that followed as a white, working-class, socially conservative enclave. By the 1980s, the area was also notorious for prostitution and heroin. However, in the 1990s, the neighorhood, which was conveniently located vis-a-vis Johns Hopkins and downtown and relatively safe when compared to other, more blighted areas of the city, was discovered by artists and other bohemians, who began the process of gentrification. Over the past decade, housing prices in Hampden have skyrocketed, and the area's commercial center, a four block stretch of West 36th Street known as The Avenue, has seen trendy botiques and restaurants largely displace traditional retailers. The traditional residents have deep roots there, however, and there is a certain tension between longtime Hampdenites and so-called "hamsters" (i.e., Hampden hipsters). But Baltimore has in recent years embraced certain aspects of Hampden's traditional culture; the neighborhood is home to the annual "Hon Festival" (named after the term "Hon," a term of endearment used by Hampdenites and Baltimoreans generally), which features attendees who tease their hair into enormous beehive hairdos. The festival also features a contest to find the best "Bawlmerese," the city's unique dialect, since Hampden's accent is generally considered the thickest. Most of the housing stock in Hampden consists of modestly sized two-story rowhouses. There are very few areas amenable to further development in the neighborhood, a factor in the rising housing costs in the area. The Woodberry station of Baltimore's Light Rail system is just on the other side of the Jones Falls Expressway, within walking distance of much of the neighborhood. Hampden received perhaps its most prominent nationwide exposure in 1999, when Baltimore native John Waters filmed his movie Pecker there. Starring Hollywood actors like Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Martha Plimpton, and Lili Taylor, the film celebrated Hampden's traditional culture, just as that culture began to in some ways irrevocably fade. External Link: Hampden Village Merchants Association
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