Residents come together to save ‘sacred’ green space in Roland Park

And then dozens more, marching along leafy, respectable Roland Avenue like Russian revolutionaries.

Except there were children in the brigade, and mothers pushing strollers, and more carrying signs: “Keep the Park in Roland Park.”

And then you came to St. David’s Church several blocks away and found the basement hall filling up half an hour before meeting time.

So many people kept coming in that soon all the seats were gone, and then every bit of standing room was filled, and scores of people had to stand outside to try to hear the words coming over a loudspeaker.

The meeting was about a piece of real estate, but who cares about this particular real estate besides Roland Park’s residents?

This isn’t just a story about property, it’s about a community pulling itself together for a cause when it’s so much easier to stay home in the air-conditioning, in isolation, and watch a way of life slip away.

“This is the biggest and most passionate gathering of its kind I’ve seen in my 69 years in Roland Park,” said city planner Martin Millspaugh, who has seen a few community meetings in his time. Millspaugh guided the rebuilding of Charles Center and the Inner Harbor.

“You’ve never seen Wasps so emotional,” said Stan Heuisler, longtime resident and former editor of Baltimore Magazine.

He was chuckling at the slightly out-of-date ethnic reference, but not for long.

In the next sentence, Heuisler added, “Where do we go if this doesn’t work? Do we have to lie in front of the bulldozers? Nobody’s against institutions, nobody’s against old people. But this is just wrong.”

The details have been in the news for a few weeks now.

The Baltimore Country Club owns 17 acres of Roland Park land, currently used for sledding and tennis and kids playing and grown-ups letting their dogs romp about.

Club officials want to sell the acreage to the Keswick Multi-Care Center for a large senior citizens complex with more than 300 beds, 150 employees, 400 parking spots and an entrance on Falls Road, through which will travel employees, visitors, residents and various delivery trucks in an area of hilly, winding streets.

The club believes it has the right to sell the property to whomever it wants — no matter the historic ties it cuts off in the process.

Once upon a time, the club was based here, but then joined the late-20th-century flight to suburbia.

In a difficult economic time, it has dawned on club officials that there is money to be made in the property.

Roland Park understands.

In the past few years, the neighborhood association has made three specific offers — $4.25 million — to buy the property, but says it has never gotten a response from club officials.

“And all of a sudden,” said Blake Goldsmith, who has lived in Roland Park for 40 years, “they drop this like an H-bomb.”

So now it will go to the zoning experts and the lawyers and the politicians. Some of them were there the other evening.

“This is prized open space,” said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, “and should be preserved for the community’s use. This outpouring says so. As a kid, I used to sled down that big hill when it snowed. It’s still a part of what makes this such a livable city.”

Later, speaking to the big crowd, he called the parcel “sacred land.”

Del. Lisa Gladden added, “This is the kind of neighborhood everybody deserves. You’ve made a choice to live in the city. You deserve this. It’s your right.”

But rights don’t come without a fight. And that’s what really makes this story compelling. It’s about people coming out of their homes and realizing they’re not alone, their lives overlap with people who have common passions, and they all wish to keep things together for the next generation.

CORRECTION

This past week, in a column about the death of Nicole Sesker, stepdaughter of former Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm, I mistakenly confused Garrison Avenue with Garrison Boulevard. The first is near Park Heights, the second near Liberty Heights. The mistake was based on errors in early published reports, but the final error was my own. Worse, many of the same social ills that led to Sesker’s death — drugs, desperation — remain little different from one part of the long street to another.