The area around Patterson Park is a much different landscape than when the Patterson Park Community Development Corp. was launched 10 years ago.
At that time, the neighborhood was in a severe state of deterioration, overrun by drugs and most people probably wouldn’t have walked outside at night. Today, though, the organization?s Founder and Executive Director, Ed Rutkowski, says the community is evidence that “once a neighborhood starts to decline, it doesn’t have to end that way, it doesn’t have to get worse.”
“We?ve proven that you could stop and then reverse decline,” said Rutkowski. “I think our major accomplishment has been the changes in the neighborhood and the revitalization in the neighborhood. It?s a completely different place than it was six or seven years ago. We?ve proven we can take the city back block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.”
Rutkowski said he originally founded the organization after residing in the area with his wife since 1986. He said he witnessed first-hand the decline of what once was a prestigious Baltimore community, and he wanted to do something about it.
“We started to see the beginnings of the decline in late ?80s into the early ?90s and it was fueled by the crack epidemic,” he said. “At some point, it hit a tipping point and then the decline accelerated because more and more people wanted to get out.”
Since founding the nonprofit corporation, Rutkowski said there have been two major initiatives ? real estate development and support of other organizations that do positive work in the area. He said the organization has purchased more than 500 area homes that could have been sold to slum landlords. It also has renovated several hundred of those homes for affordable rental units and home ownership opportunities.
Additionally, it has also sponsored such community organizations as Friends of Patterson Park, Banner Neighborhoods and the Patterson Park Public Charter School.
Tim Almaguer, executive director of Friends of Patterson Park, said the development corporation has been invaluable in furthering its mission to make Patterson Park an area people want to frequent.
“They understood that?s there is a seamless relationship between the park and the community,” he said. “If the park gets better the community gets better. Since Patterson Park is the front yard and back-yard of the community in order to develop a nice cohesive community you have to invest equally in both, and they?ve done that.”
