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Among Baltimore’s packed rowhouses and apartment buildings sits forested terrain marked by towering leafy trees, wildlife and rocky streams spilling foam.
Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is the most extensive greenspace in Baltimore City and the second-largest urban woodland park in the nation. But it is a neglected treasure. Piled trash often lays on lush grass, missing signage leaves visitors wandering on over 1,000 acres and damaged structures deface the parkland’s greenery.
“Trees fell and collapsed the fence on the tennis courts. It’s been that way for over six months. That’s just unacceptable,” said Mike Cross-Barnet, the executive director of Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.
Now Cross-Barnet and allies have crafted the most detailed plan yet to change things: a proposed city-state partnership that will be extensively studied under a bill that passed in the Maryland General Assembly during the most recent legislative session.
Under the bill, officials will review steps needed to establish a city and state partnership to manage the park and designate it as a state park. It requires an advisory committee and local resident focus groups to assess the park’s needs and operational costs, with oversight from the city and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. A report on the evaluation will be submitted to the Maryland General Assembly on Dec. 1, 2025.
Gywnns Falls/Leakin Park consists of contiguous lands acquired by the city. The city obtained portions of land along Gwynns Falls for a stream valley park, based on a 1904 recommendation report from the Olmsted Brothers, a landscape architectural company. Those lands form portions of the Gwynns Falls Trail.
In the 1940s, the city also acquired Crimea, the former estate of Thomas Winans, who made his fortune constructing railroads in Russia. The money for the acquisition came from a bequest made 20 years earlier by Baltimore lawyer J. Wilson Leakin, leading to the establishment of Leakin Park. The parks are collectively known as Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.
But the park’s more recent reputation is less grandeur and more grim.
In popular memory it is the spot where the body of Hae Min Lee, a high school student at Woodlawn High School, was found in 1999, a case famously chronicled by the “Serial” podcast. Most recently, police arrested a man for physically and sexually assaulting a 71-year-old woman during a walk through the park’s trail, the Baltimore Police Department reported in November.
While few park rangers and police occasionally patrol the park, and the city has increased trash removal, the city is unable to provide the park with the care it deserves, said Baltimore Del. Malcolm Ruff, the partnership plan’s sponsor and a Democrat representing Maryland’s 41st district.
“The narrative surrounding Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park has been nothing but negative and unfortunately, there have been limited resources from the city to be able to change that narrative,” Ruff said. “The city just simply has not had the resources.”
A partnership plan would reduce the issues that plague Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park, Ruff said. Over the next 18 months, the advisory committee and focus groups will explore improvement plans that could involve designating park rangers, determining regular patrols by either city police or the sheriff’s office, establishing a visitor center, repairing the park’s trail, hiring park staff, enhancing recreational amenities and restoring the park’s historic sites, Ruff said. He said funding would come from the state’s Program Open Space, established under the Department of Natural Resources.
The discussion will determine the roles of the city and the Department of Natural Resources. It would also set out properties owned by the state, city or a non-profit within the city that are suitable for inclusion in the park, and if the landowners are willing to enter into a partnership agreement.
If the plan reaches fruition, it would be the latest in a long line of interventions providing state resources for Baltimore institutions. The Baltimore Zoo became the Maryland Zoo in the 2000s, after an infusion of cash. Baltimore’s jails, public schools and the bus system are effectively state agencies, based on funding and management.
Baltimore City is one of two jurisdictions in Maryland without a state park — the other being Wicomico County. So when Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park, a non-profit and volunteer caretaker of the park for over 41 years, approached Ruff with a proposal of a state partnership, he took the opportunity, he said.
“We’ve been fighting for the park for a long time,” Cross-Barnet said. “It’s been a big challenge because we are a small volunteer group and there’s only so much we can do.”
The non-profit dedicates more than 1000 hours of volunteer time every year to maintain the park. Volunteers garden and pick up trash along the park’s trail. They also host large clean-ups twice a year to tend to illegal trash dumping. Despite the organization’s efforts, maintenance remains a problem.
If the partnership is approved, Ruff hopes to introduce a service learning year option for ages 18 to 22 and a conservation Jobs Corps site for high schoolers. They would be engaged in conserving and restoring the park.
Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is home to a 15-mile trail for biking and hiking and a diverse range of plants and animals. Over 1,000 species inhabit the park. The white-throated sparrow, eastern bluebird, porcelain berry, princess tree and white-tailed deer are among its flora and fauna.
Charlie Suchi, a park user, takes daily walks along the park’s trails. He lives in an apartment building close to the park and sees the park as a chance to enjoy nature without having to go far.
“This is basically my backyard,” Suchi said. “Living in the city, you don’t always get a lot of chances to be out in nature.”
Suchi said he takes walks during the day because he doesn’t feel safe at night. Safety is an issue he would like the bill to address, he said.
The park is where Kelly Weekes and her teenage son spend most of their afternoons. They play football on green fields and take long walks around the park.
For Don Kirk and his childhood friends, Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is where they grew up. Park users for over 50 years, Kirk recalled how they would catch crayfish in the streams and “trail the trails.”
“We know the park, all of the trails in the dark. That’s how familiar we are with this park,” Kirk said. “It’s a hidden gem in Baltimore City. When you look at Leakin Park, you automatically think that’s where they dump bodies. But we saw the good side of the park.”
If all goes well, the park may become a state park in the summer of 2026, after the General Assembly convenes, according to Cross-Barnet. For now, they will continue to advocate for the partnership and will not celebrate until the bill is approved.
“We have a long way to go to get to the finish line,” Cross-Barnet said.
