Howard Street Super Block
Back when I was a kid – a very little kid – the intersection of Howard and Lexington Streets was where the department stores were. I’m talking the upscale shopping emporiums of Baltimore City and Central Maryland. Hecht’s, Hochschild Kohn, Hutzlers, and Stewarts were the four Baltimore biggies when I was just a pup. My Grand Mother worked in the China Department of Hochschild’s for many years. Many years later, I worked at one of the suburban branches – another story for another day.
Across Howard Street from the Hecht Company was the Reads Drug Store. One of the slogans was “Run Right to Reads”. A few years before I was born, Reads was one of those places where only some people were free to shop and have a meal at the lunch counter.
Well to make a long story short, a group of students at what is now called Morgan State University said, “we’ll just see about that.” (I’m pretty sure that’s not what they said but you get the point) The set about staging a sit-in at the lunch counter of the Downtown Reads as well as one near the Morgan campus. Within a week the whole chain was desegregated.
One of those students earned her doctoral degree and later became a professor at Morgan. Helena Hicks was memorialized in spray paint on a steel door just down the block from Reads on Lexington Street.
Dr Helena Hicks – Historic Reads Sit-In change maker
It is important to note that the Reads lunch counter sit-in predated the more historic one in Greensboro North Carolina by five years.
Flash forward to the second of September. On the afternoon of September 2nd 2025 the block south of Reads burned. The fire burned through the afternoon and into the night. By the following morning 11 buildings were lost. The police and fire department arson investigators have yet to reach a conclusion as to the cause.
Before and after views of building demolition
All the buildings between Reads and Fayette Street were in danger of collapsing. Owing to that danger the Light Rail traffic was halted between North Avenue and Camden Yards.
By September 22 all traffic along the light rail corridor was restored.
#Downtown #Fire #SuperBlock