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Lack of caches in Druid Hill Park? (Baltimore)


HaLiJuSaPa

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I had some business in Baltimore yesterday and today and hit most of the I-95 "rest area" caches along the way.

 

But while driving from my motel down I-83 to downtown, about halfway down I saw from the road what seemed to be an amazing stretch of woods and parkland surrounded by buildings and apartments, reminiscent of Central Park in NY City but smaller and a lot quieter, kind of made me think of the relatively unknown Seton Falls preserve in the Bronx where I have a multi (though I hardly think what I found yesterday is unknown).

 

I stopped by on my way back to the motel and learned it was Druid Hill Park, apparently the largest park in the city's borders.

 

I didn't have my GPS with me while at the park, but looking at the GC.com Google map there appears to be only 1 cache in the park:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...23-b7b5f77b4dec

 

I didn't get a chance to go back and hunt that cache, but I was quite surprised that this place would be so lacking in caches (I know if I lived in the area I'd have one or two hides there) and I was wondering if anyone on here from the area would know why as I'm an "ignorant out of towner" who doesn't know any better. My theories, however are:

 

1) Some regulation limiting most parts of the park from having hides (i.e. I know the zoo is part of the park).

 

2) Place is not safe (or as in the case of my Seton Falls hide in NY, people perceive it as unsafe)? (I don't think I'd roam there late at night, but didn't look too bad in my view).....or maybe there were a lot more caches in the past and they got muggled a lot?

 

Anyway, I'm just curious, thanks.

Edited by HaLiJuSaPa
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I had some business in Baltimore yesterday and today and hit most of the I-95 "rest area" caches along the way.

 

But while driving from my motel down I-83 to downtown, about halfway down I saw from the road what seemed to be an amazing stretch of woods and parkland surrounded by buildings and apartments, reminiscent of Central Park in NY City but smaller and a lot quieter, kind of made me think of the relatively unknown Seton Falls preserve in the Bronx where I have a multi (though I hardly think what I found yesterday is unknown).

 

I stopped by on my way back to the motel and learned it was Druid Hill Park, apparently the largest park in the city's borders.

 

I didn't have my GPS with me while at the park, but looking at the GC.com Google map there appears to be only 1 cache in the park:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...23-b7b5f77b4dec

 

I didn't get a chance to go back and hunt that cache, but I was quite surprised that this place would be so lacking in caches (I know if I lived in the area I'd have one or two hides there) and I was wondering if anyone on here from the area would know why as I'm an "ignorant out of towner" who doesn't know any better. My theories, however are:

 

1) Some regulation limiting most parts of the park from having hides (i.e. I know the zoo is part of the park).

 

2) Place is not safe (or as in the case of my Seton Falls hide in NY, people perceive it as unsafe)? (I don't think I'd roam there late at night, but didn't look too bad in my view).....or maybe there were a lot more caches in the past and they got muggled a lot?

 

Anyway, I'm just curious, thanks.

Ohhhh... welll...

 

ummm....

 

uh... ...sorry about the sneaky trick that we played on you wherein we hacked into the Groundspeak server via a back door and hid the cache listings for all of the 314 caches in Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, save one that we accidentally overlooked. We were just tryina be funny and pull your leg by hiding those 313 caches! Really!

Edited by Vinny & Sue Team
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On a more serious note, Druid Hill Park is, to my best knowledge, a Baltimore City Park. And, there is absolutely no formal permission/approval/application required for caches placed in ANY Baltimore City Park or Baltimore County Park, and the matter has never even been raised by the city or county, despite the fact that there are thousands of geocaches in Baltimore City parks and Baltimore County parks, some of them very well known. In fact, I own 5/5 extreme caches in both Baltimore City Parks and Baltimore County Parks, and the park employees simply gave me a bored look when I asked about permission issues.

 

And, there appears to be NOTHING in the entire knowledge base/database (including the forums and archives) of the Maryland Geocaching Society about permission problems for/with cache placements in Druid Hill Park, so there it appears that there are no legal, ethical or permission problems associated with placements in Druid Hill Park.

 

I do remember that at one time I had checked out the possibility of placing a horribly extreme 10/10 multi-stage geocache in a major river which passes under the streets of Baltimore via a gigantic tunnel, and the first stage would have been located in Druid Hill Park, and I do remember noticing with some amazement that there were no existing geocaches nearby, anywhere in the park. Very strange!

 

The potential of crime is definitely an issue in much of the park, by the way.

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On a more serious note, Druid Hill Park is, to my best knowledge, a Baltimore City Park. And, there is absolutely no formal permission/approval/application required for caches placed in ANY Baltimore City Park or Baltimore County Park, and the matter has never even been raised by the city or county, despite the fact that there are thousands of geocaches in Baltimore City parks and Baltimore County parks, some of them very well known. In fact, I own 5/5 extreme caches in both Baltimore City Parks and Baltimore County Parks, and the park employees simply gave me a bored look when I asked about permission issues.

 

And, there appears to be NOTHING in the entire knowledge base/database (including the forums and archives) of the Maryland Geocaching Society about permission problems for/with cache placements in Druid Hill Park, so there it appears that there are no legal, ethical or permission problems associated with placements in Druid Hill Park.

 

I do remember that at one time I had checked out the possibility of placing a horribly extreme 10/10 multi-stage geocache in a major river which passes under the streets of Baltimore via a gigantic tunnel, and the first stage would have been located in Druid Hill Park, and I do remember noticing with some amazement that there were no existing geocaches nearby, anywhere in the park. Very strange!

 

The potential of crime is definitely an issue in much of the park, by the way.

 

Never heard of the Park, and I think the only time I've been in Baltimore are some layovers at BMI. :blink: But I'm quite certain this is a neighborhood thing, if I could be so politically incorrect; inotherwords, the park probably isn't in a very safe neighborhood.

 

I remember a thread (I can probably find it if need be), where a foreigner posted a screen shot of a Geocaching.com Google map of Detroit, and wondered why there was a "hole" with no caches placed there. Quite a few people posted screen shots of places with other "cache holes" such as Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and a few other major U.S. Cities.

 

Sounds like a great park though. The website linked to on the only cache in the whole park is very interesting.

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On a more serious note, Druid Hill Park is, to my best knowledge, a Baltimore City Park. And, there is absolutely no formal permission/approval/application required for caches placed in ANY Baltimore City Park or Baltimore County Park, and the matter has never even been raised by the city or county, despite the fact that there are thousands of geocaches in Baltimore City parks and Baltimore County parks, some of them very well known. In fact, I own 5/5 extreme caches in both Baltimore City Parks and Baltimore County Parks, and the park employees simply gave me a bored look when I asked about permission issues.

 

And, there appears to be NOTHING in the entire knowledge base/database (including the forums and archives) of the Maryland Geocaching Society about permission problems for/with cache placements in Druid Hill Park, so there it appears that there are no legal, ethical or permission problems associated with placements in Druid Hill Park.

 

I do remember that at one time I had checked out the possibility of placing a horribly extreme 10/10 multi-stage geocache in a major river which passes under the streets of Baltimore via a gigantic tunnel, and the first stage would have been located in Druid Hill Park, and I do remember noticing with some amazement that there were no existing geocaches nearby, anywhere in the park. Very strange!

 

The potential of crime is definitely an issue in much of the park, by the way.

 

Never heard of the Park, and I think the only time I've been in Baltimore are some layovers at BMI. :antenna: But I'm quite certain this is a neighborhood thing, if I could be so politically incorrect; inotherwords, the park probably isn't in a very safe neighborhood.

 

I remember a thread (I can probably find it if need be), where a foreigner posted a screen shot of a Geocaching.com Google map of Detroit, and wondered why there was a "hole" with no caches placed there. Quite a few people posted screen shots of places with other "cache holes" such as Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and a few other major U.S. Cities.

 

Sounds like a great park though. The website linked to on the only cache in the whole park is very interesting.

 

I remember that thread too. But my impression (and again, this could be the "naive tourist" in me) was that this park/area was more like the northern part of Central Park in NYC (which is southern Harlem, and is kind of rough (though less so than 20-30 years ago), but OK enough nowadays that tourists go there and there are caches in that section) than like the "holes" on the maps of Detroit, or the southwestern 1/4 of the Bronx (of course, the Bronx in general was almost one big hole before I and a couple of others got to it :antenna: ), or Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy (which is a lot less rough now too due to partial gentrification.....there are much rougher parts of Brooklyn like East NY and Brownsville where the "holes" are warranted, but Brooklyn in general lacks caches to begin with for some reason), etc. I read that the city zoo is in this park and there's some exhibit for kids to learn about safety using a scaled down model of the city, and I saw very little graffiti (unlike some other parts of town I drove through), combine this with how close it was to Johns Hopkins University I didn't think of it (at least parts of it) as a "ghetto park" either.

 

But again, I don't know Baltimore very well, so I can't say. Thanks for all the feedback.

Edited by HaLiJuSaPa
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Wow. We moved her north of Baltimore nearly 2 years ago. I have seen and heard of Druid Hill Park, but never really looked very closely at it, either for caching or from the historical perspective. From what little I know of the area, I do suspect that the safety of the area may well be the reason why the lack of caches exists. However, I have to thank the OP for bringing this cache, and it's page to my attention. I think I just found my "current fascination".

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Druid Hill Park is one of Baltimore's premere parks, almost as old as the city itself. It is the home of the Baltimore Zoo, a major Arboretum and some vast open spaces and woodlands. You will find some great architecture in the form of Gazebo's, Pavilions and grand old buildings (whose purpose eludes me completely). It was quite the cultural space for many many years, when the neighborhood was in it's heyday, and the surrounding properties were much sought after because of their proximity to the park. In fact it was such a fine area, that most of the locals in the area would sleep out in the park during the summer to escape the heat before the advent of Air Conditioning.

Such is not the case any longer. Like so many other fine areas of our Old City, it simply is not safe, with the exception of the Baltimore Zoo. The local Police do maintain enough of a constant presence to keep the local thugs at bay in that area. And I do mean "At Bay", not eliminated. This is done simply to gaurantee the financial survival of the zoo, and thereby protect the re-election goals of the politicians.

As for the rest of the park . . . Let's just say that it is well known and documented as a grand location for crime and danger. It has enjoyed periods of relative peace and quiet from time to time, even playing host to some big name concerts and gatherings within the African American Community. But it always re-emerges as a hot spot for violent crime, drug dealers, body dump counts, and vice despite the repeated best efforts of the responsible members of the community to turn it around. The city simply cannot afford to maintain the level of police presence required to keep the area truely safe. Not that it would matter if they could. Baltimore City Police are also a problem, as they are well known for there less than polite and gentile treatment of the citizenship. No sane person wants to be subjected to their abuse either. If I were to go "in town" for anything, and found myself in need of directions etc, I would feel much more at ease asking a local drug dealer than a Baltimore City Cop for help. You would be less likely to abused or beaten. It is almost preferable to socialize with the criminals than the cops. The local police have become so jaded from dealing with the local "criminal citizens", that they treat everyone like a criminal. The politicians ignore this fact, as long as the numbers for crime help them win elections. Then they wonder why nobody wants to come into the city to spend money. Go figure!

Hate to admit it to the rest of the world . . . but our city has been invaded and overun by the criminals as well as the Nazi style of police work and corruption that makes the whole place undesirable. There are still some nice areas in the city. The ones that don't have any regular need of police presence, which happen to be the ones that don't have too much drug traffic or murder either. They are also the areas that are just too boring to bother visiting for anything else unless you live there.

I noticed that someone said there are a few hundred caches in Druid Hill Park. If you are the daredevil type, go for it. Have fun doing them while your here. I'd like nothing better than to see the Park return to a place worth visiting. It really is a shame to surrender such a great place to the scum that have ruined it. For my own wellbeing, I'll wait till some of you visitors prove it's safe again before I'm going into that zone of danger. It just isn't worth the chance for me or my family. There are thousands of caches in areas that are much more hospitable, sane and safe. I'll work on them for now.

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I noticed that someone said there are a few hundred caches in Druid Hill Park. If you are the daredevil type, go for it. Have fun doing them while your here. I'd like nothing better than to see the Park return to a place worth visiting. It really is a shame to surrender such a great place to the scum that have ruined it. For my own wellbeing, I'll wait till some of you visitors prove it's safe again before I'm going into that zone of danger. It just isn't worth the chance for me or my family. There are thousands of caches in areas that are much more hospitable, sane and safe. I'll work on them for now.

 

No, the guy who said that there are hundreds of caches there was just trying to be wacky and zany. Trust me, there is only one cache there in that park. Big City neighborhoods certainly do change over the decades, especially in our Mid-Atlantic region, often referred to as the rust belt. Politically correct to say it or not, there are very few caches in the 'hood in major cities.

 

In my personal experience, The Buffalo Science Museum is located in a bad neighborhood, although I'm sure it wasn't 50 or more years ago when it was built. And yes, there is a cache there. :laughing: There's also a local college which has found itself pretty much surrounded by "the hood", not unlike Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Edited by TheWhiteUrkel
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Could you imagine geocaching there today when this happened? Druid Hill Park Gang Meeting

 

(Baltimore, MD.) Baltimore City Police say they broke up a massive gang meeting in Druid Hill Park this afternoon.

 

Police spokesman Donny Moses says people who were in the park reported the huge gathering, which consisted of between 100 and 200 people around 4 p.m. today and the police helicopter "foxtrot" spotted the meeting from the air.

 

"We believe it was a gang meeting," Moses said.

 

When police from the Central, Northern and Western districts arrived, along with the Criminal Investigation Unit and the Regional Auto Theft Task Force--about half of the crowd dispersed.

 

According to Moses, those who remained acted as if they were organizing a flag football game. Dozens were detained and questioned, two were arrested and one gun was recovered.

 

The park is great but the neighborhoods surrounding it are not. Currently the Bloods Crips and Hells Angels, MS13 have shown up in the area the last couple of years.

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