Times Change And So Can Neighborhoods

"Locust Point old-timers came by the hundreds yesterday to a traditional spring dinner to feast on fried chicken, reminisce about the past and wonder whether their tight-knit peninsula can survive the tidal wave of upscale residential development. 'They are just smothering us,' Joan Bolton, 70, said of developers who are transforming the old neighborhood of longshoremen and blue-collar workers near Fort McHenry into a pocket of gentrification, with houses selling for more than $400,000.Meanwhile, giving residents plenty of food for thought is the flurry of development proposals on the peninsula, which has only one access road, Fort Avenue. Hope Marston, 77, who lives in a house her mother bought for $1,350 after World War II, said, 'Now the taxes are almost that much.' When it was pointed out to her that the value of her house has undoubtedly also multiplied, she responded, 'Let's say I could get $100,000 for it. Where the hell am I going to go for $100,000? We never asked to be discovered,' she said. 'Undiscover us and let us alone.'