O'Donnell Heights is a neighborhood named for a

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

development in the far southeastern part of the city of

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is located south and east of

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

, just west of the border with Baltimore County, and north of the

St. Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

neighborhood. The community was built to house

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

workers during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Today operated by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the original 900 unit development was modernized in 1983. The neighborhood, which also contains privately owned and rented

rowhouse A terrace, terraced house ( UK), or townhouse ( US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses sharing side walls. In the United States and Canada these are sometimes known as row ...

s, is separated from Highlandtown by

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many dead people are buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ) implies th ...

, and industrial areas. It is in close proximity to the Point Breeze Industrial Park and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Graceland Park O'Donnell Heights Elementary School #240 is located at Gusryan and O'Donnell Streets. As of May 2007, many of the World War II era public housing buildings in O'Donnell Heights have started a demolition phase as a means of making room for a brand new

mixed-income housing The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...

area. O'Donnell Heights is predominantly

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, with growing

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

and

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

populations as well, according to the 2010 Census. Notable former resident

Dominique Wilkins Jacques Dominique Wilkins (born January 12, 1960) is a French-born American former professional basketball player who primarily played for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Wilkins is a nine-time NBA All-Star, a seve ...

went on to gain fame in the N.B.A., and returned to his neighborhood to build a basketball court for the community in the early 1980s.

External links

Baltimore Public Housing profileThe Legend of the O'Donnell Heights Phantom
East Baltimore Public housing in Baltimore {{BaltimoreCityMD-geo-stub