Inner Harbor
About Inner Harbor
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The Inner Harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, is an historic seaport, tourist attraction, and iconic landmark of the city. The harbor is actually the northwest part of the estuary of the Patapsco River. It is the leading tourist destination in Baltimore. According to the Baltimore Sun, 13 million tourists visit the harbor each year. The harbor is within walking distance of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium and has a water taxi that connects the Inner Harbor to Fells Point, Canton, and Fort McHenry.
A major U.S. seaport since the 1700s, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was chiefly an industrial port until the 1970s, when it was turned into the main cultural center of the city by then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer. Harborplace, the waterfront festival marketplace, officially opened on July 1, 1980. Since being reincarnated as a cultural hub, the Inner Harbor has become the home to many tourist attractions. In recent years, the area along the waterfront to the east of the Inner Harbor (in the direction of Fells Point and Little Italy) has been developed with condominiums, retail space, restaurants, and hotels; this ongoing project is known as Inner Harbor East (or simply HarborEast).
In September 2003, the Inner Harbor area was flooded by Hurricane Isabel.
On March 6, 2004, a Seaport Taxi (now out of business, and operated by the Living Classrooms Foundation), capsized in the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River near Fort McHenry during a storm; 5 passengers died in the accident. While occurring over a mile downstream of the Inner Harbor, it nonetheless was associated with the Inner Harbor by news reports and casual observers.