The loss of Baltimore's bridge has snarled traffic. How do commuters cope?

Apr 9, 2024
Previously, 30,000 cars and trucks would traverse the Francis Scott Key daily. Now all those vehicles have to find other routes.
About 30,000 vehicles used to travel the Key Bridge every day. Now all those cars and trucks have to find other routes.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

How crews on cargo ships stranded in Baltimore are working to maintain good "seafarer culture"

Apr 5, 2024
Ship crews are used to a life in motion. Now the mostly international workers could be stuck in port for weeks.
Captain Prachya Prengsieng stands aboard the Phatra Naree, a cargo ship with a crew from Thailand. It’s docked right next to the collapsed Key Bridge, and can’t leave the Port of Baltimore.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

For thousands of workers who rely on Baltimore's port, work has slowed or stopped

Apr 3, 2024
That includes longshoremen who unload container ships, warehouse workers who store the goods and restaurant servers who feed them all.
Workers use an overhead crane to move a reel of telecommunications wire at the Trans American Trucking & Warehouse facility near the port.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

Baltimore's port closure could upend jobs and supply chains for months

Mar 29, 2024
Baltimore's port could be closed for months, keeping people out of work and leaving freighters looking for places to route their loads.
Above, the Seagirt Marine Terminal at the Port of Baltimore in September 2018. Baltimore’s port supports more than 150,000 jobs — 15,000 of them through direct employment.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

To fight vacant housing, Baltimore turns to the blockchain

Jan 29, 2024
The city hopes the technology behind cryptocurrency can streamline transactions. It's part of a proposed plan to address blight.
Someone once painted 1415 Myrtle Ave. in Baltimore sky blue; it's been vacant since at least 2016. A pilot program would record all of the now 13,600 vacant properties in the city on the blockchain.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

Who's the "we" behind those "We Buy Houses" signs?

Apr 28, 2023
Real estate wholesalers offer convenience, but at what price?
"We Buy Houses" signs on a street corner in Baltimore. Often they're posted by real estate wholesalers.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

What happens when a family finally gets off the housing voucher waiting list

Mar 23, 2022
Housing vouchers can change recipients' lives but often come after years of waiting.
Kiarra Boulware with her young daughter, Brooklynn, at their apartment complex in Odenton, Maryland. A housing support program enabled them to move to a neighborhood with better conditions, including an improved educational environment for Brooklynn.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

For public good, not for profit.

An abandoned block is reborn in West Baltimore

Nov 10, 2021
In 2019, Poinsetta McKnight was one of the last homeowners living on her block. Now with seven restored homes, “I’m seeing it come up.”
Black Women Build - Baltimore threw a party in October to celebrate the progress on the block.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

As lumber prices soar, reclaimed wood gets a second look

Jun 1, 2021
High building costs have changed the equation for vintage materials.
Max Pollock, owner of Brick + Board in Baltimore, salvages old-growth lumber from vacant houses and industrial buildings.
Amy Scott/Marketplace

A Baltimore church grapples with its racist past

Apr 27, 2021
A personal connection to slavery sparked a reckoning that lead to reparations.
Deacon Natalie Conway stands in front of Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore.
Amy Scott/Marketplace