Description

Downtown Baltimore is the central business district of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Mt. Royal Avenue to the north, President Street to the east and the Inner Harbor area to the south. It consists of five neighborhoods: Westside, Mount Vernon, City Centre, Inner Harbor, and Camden Yards.In 1904, downtown Baltimore was almost destroyed by a huge fire with damages estimated at $150 million. Since the City of Baltimore was chartered in 1796, this downtown nucleus has been the focal point of business in the Baltimore metropolitan area. It has also increasingly become a heavily populated neighborhood with over 37,000 residents and new condominiums and apartment homes being built steadily.GeographyCity Center is the historic financial district in Baltimore that has increasingly shifted eastward and into the Inner Harbor. Hundreds of businesses are found here, and it remains the center of life in Baltimore. The area is home to the majority of Baltimore's skyscrapers including the Bank of America building, the M&T Bank Building, the Transamerica Tower, the Baltimore World Trade Center, the old IBM building, and the massive Charles Center district. It includes historic Charles Street as well as significant avenues of commercial and cultural activity along Pratt Street, east to west, and St. Paul Street-Calvert Street, north to south.