Baltimore's Public Markets: Past and Present

Baltimore's public markets have a long and sometimes controversial history. Learn more about the markets past and present!

Lexington Market

Lexington Market, originally known as Western or New Market, was started at the western edge of the city at the turn of the 19th century to take advantage of the trade with the recently opened Northwest Territory. The first market shed was built c.…

Broadway Market

Broadway Market, the first city market in Baltimore, was located near the Fells Point docks in order to take advantage of all the goods arriving regularly from the Eastern Shore and elsewhere. Like all public markets, it served as a major gathering…

Hollins Market

The market was conceived in 1835 after piano makers Joseph Newman and his brother Elias Newman were given permission by the city to erect a market on the 1100 block of Hollins Street. In 1838, winds from a severe storm destroyed the original market,…

Northeast Market

Northeast Market was established in 1885 as the area around Johns Hopkins Hospital was developed. The market was enlarged in 1896 and, in 1955, the original wooden structure replaced and modernized with a massive brick building with funds from a…

Avenue Market

The first building for the Avenue Market, originally known as the Lafayette Market, was built in 1871. In the twentieth century, the market and the Old West Baltimore neighborhood thrived as the Pennsylvania Avenue became a center of Baltimore…

North Avenue Market

Touted as "modern market in the country," and now considered an early prototype for suburban shopping centers, the North Avenue Market opened in 1928 with twelve retail stores and twenty-two lane bowling alley on the second floor at a cost…