From the forward by Jacques Kelly: Printed histories have a way of bypassing neighborhoods. Mount Washington is no exception to Baltimore's list of oversights. Despite the very considerable interest in the city's residential sections, which are now attracting new, younger families who are unfamiliar with their newly adopted surroundings, the stories of communities' pasts are limited to a handful of newspaper clippings filed away in public libraries. These stories never really answer the most asked questions: "How did my house and street get to be the way it is today." If Mount Washingtonians act somewhat more independent than other neighborhoods, the past gives some explanatory clues. It was always a community separate from its neighbors - older, with its won institutions, with definable geographic boundaries. With its won railroad station, stores, clubs, bridge and sport (lacrosse), it was clearly its won little sanctum. Here, after two centuries, is the Mount Washington story.