Preston Gardens

Preston Gardens was named after Mayor Preston, who ordered its construction in an attempt to halt the progression of Black residents into Mount Vernon. Mayor Preston believed neighborhoods with the presence of Black residents experienced an inevitable decline in status, health, and structural integrity due to their presence. In order to build Preston Gardens, Mayor Preston ordered the demolition of black housing, three churches, and the old headquarters for the Afro-American in the courthouse area of Baltimore. 

Mayor James H. Preston led a search for additional segregation tools after he came to power in 1911. America's local government had not yet widely discovered condemnation as a land-acquisition tool and none had used it to pursue racial goals. Mayor Preston was a pioneer on both counts. He presided over Baltimore's first government-sponsored African American removal project decades before post-World War II urban renewal. 

He declared that health conditions justified the segregation and relocation of blacks on a vaster scale. Mr. Preston announced that he would introduce an ordinance to compel blacks to have homes only in those segregated areas. He would do this by invoking the city's police powers in order to protect the health of white citizens. Blacks would be quarantined as they "constitute a menace to the health of the white population."