A ‘paradise’ amid the rocks and weeds

Baltimore Sun

It has been years since visitors to North Gay and Washington in East Baltimore have seen anything much but blight. Boarded-up rowhouses line the streets. Weeds flourish in sidewalk cracks.

But Walker Marsh looked at the Broadway East neighborhood and saw possibility. Marsh, 28, has created a flower farm that is an oasis of neighborhood beauty, put teenagers to work and holds out the promise of becoming an engine of economic opportunity.

“People look at a neighborhood like this and they don’t see much in the way of hope,” Marsh said while watering hundreds of plants at the half-acre site of Tha Flower Factory. “I’m hoping this shows there’s a lot that can be done with the resources we have.”