The Wire on Google Street View

This weekend I was moonlighting at the VA. The charge nurse was from Philly. He was commenting about how dangerous Philly was and how much safer he felt around here, even in West Oakland and the Tenderloin. I politely informed him that Philly, even the sketchy parts around Temple, had nothing on Baltimore. I explained that Baltimore's contraction (population now around 700,000, population in the 1960s, around 1 million) left hundreds of boarded up rowhomes that have become shooting galleries, squatters dens, and rats nests.
I like to show people that within 1 block of Johns Hopkins Hospital, there are boarded up rowhomes. This is pretty easy to do on Google Street View.

Start on Monument and Broadway. The dome of Johns Hopkins Hospital is visible while looking southeast:

Walk a block north on Broadway to Broadway and Madison. Amdist the northward expansion of the Hopkins medical campus, our first strip of rowhomes has vacants. You'd think for property within one block of a major medical center, they'd be able to find a paying tenant:

Let's see what's going on one more block north, on Broadway and Miller. Looks like the po-pos are out on this fine day:

I wonder what's going on by that tree up there?

Looks like someone is having a bad day:

Ahh, Baltimore. You never fail to impress. I think this series of images was game, set, and match to the charge nurse's argument...