The Müuse Atlas / United States / Maryland / Baltimore

Filming in Federal Hill, Baltimore

Painted brick rowhouses with white marble steps, below a hill that looks over the harbour to downtown.

Hanover Street looking south at Hughes Street, three storey brick rowhouses running down both sides of a wide asphalt road, parked cars and street trees along the kerb.

What Federal Hill looks like

Painted and red brick rowhouses run two and three storeys along narrow, irregular streets below the hill. forms the western edge, wider than the side streets, with rowhouses running down both sides toward Cross Street. White marble front steps sit along many of the blocks, especially the row facing the park on . Cornice lines rise and fall from one rowhouse to the next rather than running level along a block.

A grass hill rises at the eastern edge of the neighbourhood, an open lawn on top with the ground dropping straight down toward the harbour. From the top, downtown Baltimore's towers sit directly across the water.

Cross Street is the commercial spine, a market hall under one roof with stalls running the length of the block and older painted signs above the storefronts on either side. keeps a mix of brick rows and a surviving wood-frame house, its clapboard front painted blue between two brick neighbours.

Key Highway runs along the water's edge, brick rowhouses giving way to a run of modern condominium towers stacked with balconies toward the harbour. The sits near where the two meet, a rounded red brick building with a mirrored mosaic front.

Shot in Federal Hill

Jodie Foster's 1995 comedy Home for the Holidays filmed exterior shots at a nineteenth century rowhouse in Federal Hill. The Baltimore Sun's own casting call report from that week names the neighbourhood but not the block.

Home for the Holidays, 1995

Nineteenth century storefront rowhouses on Cross Street, stone veneer and red brick fronts, three storeys with ground floor shops and cars parked along the kerb. The kind of nineteenth century rowhouse the production used, not the specific one, since the source does not name an address.

The production used a nineteenth century Federal Hill rowhouse for exterior shots, alongside its main locations in Lauraville and Arcadia. The Baltimore Sun's report from the casting call does not name the block, so the photograph here shows the kind of nineteenth century rowhouse found across the neighbourhood rather than the specific one used. Street View

What Federal Hill can double for

South Boston in Boston, Massachusetts

Thomas Park sits at the top of Dorchester Heights, South Boston's own hill above the harbor, ringed by late nineteenth century rowhouses with the same raised view down to the water. The Dorchester Heights Historic District covers the blocks around it. Boston's bow front rowhouses and the hilltop monument itself would need to stay out of frame to hold the illusion. Try searching rowhouses around Thomas Park now.

Queen Village in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Brick rowhouses run near the Delaware waterfront here, with the same mix of painted brick and a few surviving wood frame houses on the short blocks. Front Street and the blocks toward Second Street carry the closest scale to Federal Hill's own streets. Queen Village's cobblestone paving and colonial era trinity houses are a giveaway in a wide shot. Try searching brick rowhouses near the waterfront now.

Old Town Alexandria in Alexandria, Virginia

The cobblestone block of Captain's Row on Prince Street has Federal style rowhouses from the same period Federal Hill takes its name from, brick and clapboard fronts side by side. Alexandria's houses are better kept and the brickwork more uniform than Federal Hill's plainer stock. The cobblestones and colonial signage identify Alexandria specifically and would need dressing out. Try searching Federal rowhouses on Captain's Row now.