Maybe nothing seems more quintessentially “old Baltimore" than the era of the great family-owned department stores in the Lexington and Howard streets corridor. While efforts to revitalize the downtown Westside shopping district around Lexington Market stalled for decades—and remain so—the city's shopping scene spread in recent years to distinct new destinations.
Women's Industrial Exchange
A consignment shop and restaurant dating to 1880, the nonprofit mission remains the same: “to provide opportunities for local craft artists to refine, market, and sell their handmade goods to supplement their income." Meanwhile, the Exchange's restaurant offers the best of home-inspired comfort food for lunch.
Lexington and Howard Streets
The heart of the downtown shopping district and a holiday shopping tradition for generations of Baltimoreans, the Lexington and Howard area was home to Hutzler's, Hochschild-Kohn, and Stewart's, among others.
Read's
In Baltimore, the Read's Drug Store at Lexington and Howard streets was the site of one of the country's first anti-segregation sit-ins.