Baltimore Fishbowl | Can Maryland Help Save Baltimore’s Leakin Park? –

Among the crowded houses and apartment buildings of Baltimore is a wooded area marked by towering leafy trees, wildlife, and foaming rocky streams.

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is the largest green space in Baltimore City and the second largest wooded park in the country. But it is a neglected treasure. Piled trash often litters the lush grass, missing signs leave visitors wandering the more than 1,000 acres, and dilapidated structures degrade the park’s greenery.

“Trees fell and collapsed the fence on the tennis courts. It’s been like this for over six months. It’s just unacceptable,” said Mike Cross-Barnet, executive director of Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.

Now, Cross-Barnet and allies have drawn up the most detailed plan yet to turn things around: a proposed city-state partnership that will be studied extensively under a bill that passed the Maryland General Assembly in during the most recent legislative session and took effect in June. 1.

Under the bill, officials will review the steps needed to establish a partnership between the city and state to manage the park and designate it as a state park. An advisory committee and local resident focus groups are needed to assess park needs and operating costs, with oversight from the city and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. An evaluation report will be submitted to the Maryland General Assembly on December 1, 2025.

Gywnns Falls/Leakin Park consists of adjacent land purchased by the city. The city acquired tracts of land along Gwynns Falls for a valley park based on a 1904 recommendation report from Olmsted Brothers, a landscape architecture firm. These 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 building railroads in Russia. The money for the purchase came from a bequest made 20 years earlier by Baltimore attorney J. Wilson Leakin, which led 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 grand and more somber.

In popular memory, it is where the body of Hae Min Lee, a junior at Woodlawn High School, was found in 1999, a case made famous by the podcast Serial. Most recently, police arrested a man for physically and sexually assaulting a 71-year-old woman during a walk on a park trail, the Baltimore Police Department reported in November.

While few rangers and police occasionally patrol the park and the city has increased trash removal, the city can’t give the park the care it deserves, the Baltimore Del. said. Malcolm Ruff, the sponsor of the partnership plan and a Democrat representing Maryland’s 41st. district.

“The narrative around 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 didn’t have the resources.”

A partnership plan would reduce the problems plaguing Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park, Ruff said. Over the next 18 months, the advisory committee and discussion groups will explore improvement plans that could include appointing park rangers, establishing regular patrols by either city police or the sheriff’s office, establishing a visitor center, repairing the park trail, hiring park staff, improving recreation facilities and restoring historic park sites, Ruff said. He said the funding will come from the state’s Open Space Program, 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 determine what properties owned by the state, city or a city non-profit organization are suitable for inclusion in the park and whether the landowners are willing to enter into a partnership agreement.

If the plan goes through, it would be the latest in a long line of interventions that provide 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 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 more than 41 years, approached Ruff with a proposal for a state partnership, he jumped at the chance.

“We’ve been fighting for the park for a long time,” Cross-Barnet said. “It’s been a big challenge because we’re a small group of volunteers and there’s only so much we can do.”

The nonprofit dedicates more than 1,000 volunteer hours each year to park maintenance. Volunteers garden and pick up trash along the park’s trail. They also host big cleanups twice a year to tend to illegal littering. Despite the organization’s efforts, maintenance remains a problem.

If the partnership is approved, Ruff hopes to introduce a service-learning year option for 18- to 22-year-olds and a Jobs Corps conservation site for high school students. They would be engaged in the conservation and restoration of the park.

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is home to a 15-mile biking and hiking trail and a diverse array of plants and animals. More than 1,000 species live in the park. The white-throated sparrow, eastern bluebird, chinaberry, princess tree and white-tailed deer are among its spotted flora and fauna.

Charlie Suchi, a park user, takes daily walks on 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 have much chance to be in nature.”

Suchi said she takes walks during the day because she does not 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 in the park.

For Don Kirk and his childhood friends, Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is where they grew up. Park users for more than 50 years, Kirk recalled catching crayfish in streams and “following the trails.”

“We know the park, all the paths 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 the bodies. But I saw the bright side of the park.”

If all goes well, the park could become a state park in the summer of 2026 when the General Assembly meets, according to Cross-Barnet. For now, they will continue to advocate for partnership and will not celebrate until the bill is passed.

“We have a long way to go to get to the finish line,” Cross-Barnet said.

In connection with