Penn-North station is an underground

Metro SubwayLink The Metro SubwayLink is a rapid transit line serving the greater area of Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, and is operated by the Maryland Transit Administration. The segment in Downtown Baltimore is underground, and most of the line out ...

station and transit hub serving many buses in West

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. Its name comes from its location and neighborhood it serves Penn-North, at the corner of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and North Avenues. It is the deepest underground station, eighth most northern and western station on the line, and the first station when starting from

Owings Mills Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. Per the 2020 census, the population was 35,674. Owings Mills is home to the northern terminus of ...

that does not have free parking.

Station layout

Artwork

In September 2021, the

Maryland Transit Administration The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) is a state-operated mass transit administration in Maryland, and is part of the Maryland Department of Transportation. The MTA operates a comprehensive transit system throughout the Baltimore-Washingt ...

(MTA) announced the installation of a new

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

project at Penn-North station painted by Baltimore artist Megan Lewis on a $60,000 commission. This is the first new artwork commissioned for the Baltimore Metro subway system in many years.

History

Excavation and construction

Penn-North station was referred to as North Avenue station during its planning and construction, in reference to just North Avenue and not including Pennsylvania Avenue in the name. The station is the deepest in the Baltimore Metro subway system, with its platform 120 feet below street level. Penn-North station, like the other underground stations of the Baltimore Metro subway system, was constructed using the

cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube constr ...

method. The excavation for the station mostly occurred in

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

-derived residual materials. The underlying geology consists of the crystalline

metamorphic rocks Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...

and their derivatives which are characteristic of the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

physiographic region which contacts

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...

formations along the diagonal

Fall Line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...

in Baltimore.

Mondawmin station Mondawmin station is a Metro SubwayLink station in Baltimore, Maryland. It is located under the intersection of Reisterstown Road and Liberty Heights Avenue in the Mondawmin neighborhood, adjacent to the Mondawmin Mall. It is the northernmost u ...

and Upton station, the other subway stops built in the northwestern portion of the underground alignment, are also underlain by metamorphic Piedmont material. The excavation for Penn-North station was supported by soldier piles anchored in the earth beneath it; extending through soil up to 50 feet below street level and through rock at greater depths. References points were installed and monitored to survey the impact of structural settlement on the buildings adjacent to the excavation. The area around Penn-North station at the time of excavation included two-story residential

rowhouses In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house (British English, UK) or townhouse (American English, US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings party ...

two- to three-story warehouse-type buildings. 0.14 feet of settlement was measured and attributed to gradual

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...

drawdown which occurred during the excavation, resulting in deep-seated lateral movements which caused little observable distress on the overlying structures. Penn-North station opened in November 1983 when trains started running on the Baltimore Metro subway line. While investments occurred in the areas around many of the Baltimore Metro stations, initial plans for development around Penn-North station in the 1980s fell through.

2015 protests

In April 2015, riots broke out around the station protesting the

death of Freddie Gray On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department over his legal possession of a knife. While being transported in a police van, Gray sustained injuries and was taken to ...

References

External links

North Avenue entrance from Google Maps Street View
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penn-North (Metro SubwayLink station) Metro SubwayLink stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1983 1983 establishments in Maryland Railway stations in Baltimore Penn-North, Baltimore Druid Heights, Baltimore Railway stations located underground in Maryland