Neighbors Brighten the Night with Sidewalk Café Lights

[This story originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of the South Baltimore Peninsula Post.]

Café lights have been stretching across the sidewalks of South Baltimore’s brick rowhome neighborhoods for the past few years, transforming our nighttime streets into an evening fairy tale scene with their soft glow from bulbs reminiscent of the early 1900s Edison lights.

While in other parts of the city, such as Canton and Butchers Hill, these lights have sprouted from neighborhood initiatives with some support from BGE and the United Way, in SoBo they have largely been the work of individuals inspired to create a comfortable nighttime gathering space outside their homes.

On Jackson Street in the Riverside neighborhood, it all started with planting some trees for shade. When Gary Lam and his wife moved into the 1600 block in 2002, it was “a concrete desert,” with no trees or shade, Lam recalls. He thought it needed to be more inviting for neighbors to gather outside, so he asked the city for trees.

Throughout 18 months, the neighbors watched as TreeBaltimore dug tree pits and planted 27 trees. Part of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, TreeBaltimore provides free trees to residents. The neighbors really enjoyed coming home from a hard day at work to decompress in that new welcoming outdoor space, Lam said.

The neighbors grew closer.  When Christmas rolled around in 2013, Lam decided to throw a party for his six-year-old daughter and the other 26 kids that had since been born or moved to the block. Lam and the neighbors hung incandescent and LED string lights for a week and brought in Santa on a fire truck.

The light bulb moment came when the block decided to leave up the white lights to continue having socials outside, Lam said. At the beginning of the pandemic, Lam made eight, two-foot-square sidewalk planter boxes with eight-foot PVC poles anchored inside. These became the bases to string lights from one end of the block to the other. The boxes could be moved as the trees grew.

“We were making our block a fun and cool place to live,” Lam said. The street had so much pride, they nicknamed themselves the “Greatest Street in America,” a playful take on the Baltimore bench slogan “Greatest City in America.” This street is now a point of interest in Google Maps. The lights inspired a friendly rivalry with the neighboring 1500block of Jackson Street, which decided to hang its own year-round lights.

A few streets west, on the 1400 block of Battery Avenue, Nate and Julie Carper liked the look of the Jackson Street lights. Nate had experience with glass-bulbed café lights on his rowhouse’s roof deck, which quickly shattered in high winds. In 2016, the Carpers strung six houses on their block together with café lights for festive holiday lighting. Thankfully, they add, these were made of durable plastic and have had no problems. Costco sold 50-foot strands for $1 per foot. The Carpers also created a colorful lighted sign made of bendable plastic tubing that reads “Battery Believes” and hung it high above Battery Avenue for Christmas.

They positioned the sidewalk lighting low enough to feel like the inside had come outside. On occasion, the Carpers brought out a screen for a group Orioles sidewalk watch party.

The lights also made people feel safer on the block, Julie Carper said. “It is cool when people say, this is how I walk home. For a while we had a street light that was out. It got so dark, it felt naked and dim. It is nice to be able to do something else about lighting the street.”

So the Carpers started on an expansion plan. First they strung lights on their side of the block, coordinating the work with a neighbor who had a ladder and tools to drill into the rowhouse brick to attach hooks and string wire from Ace Hardware. The Carpers control the lights for their side of the block. Now both sides of their block are illuminated with café lights.

Nearly every resident was supportive of the project, and many offered a few dollars for materials. Both Lam and the Carpers say the electrical bill for lighting their side of their blocks is less than $10 a year.

The sidewalk lighting “makes conversation and meeting easier, more spontaneous,” said Nate Carper. “We feel safer and can see others by shining a light on community spirit.” – Rachel Cohen

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Apply for SoBo Peninsula Café Light Block Grant

Key Group of Cummings & Co. Realtors is offering a one-time $1,000 community grant to help a SoBo block install café lights. The application deadline is August 31. Click here for details.