Brick and stone rowhouses on a hillside above the Jones Falls, and the Falls Road storefront John Waters used for Pecker.
What Hampden looks like
Hampden's houses are two storeys tall, brick or stone, set close together on streets that climb the sides of the Jones Falls valley. Some keep bare brick or stone fronts, others are faced in Formstone, the simulated stone cladding found across Baltimore rowhouse blocks. On the 1300 block of , stone duplexes stand with covered porches and small front yards close to the sidewalk.
Storefronts line , known locally as the Avenue, under painted signs for about four blocks. Rowhouses continue south of the Avenue on streets like , red brick fronts with rounded bay windows repeating from one house to the next.
runs along the valley's western edge, past , and Atomic Books in brick and stone storefronts. Stone mill buildings from the Jones Falls cotton mills still stand in the valley below, including 's arched gable end and brick smokestack on Clipper Mill Road.
The 700 block of strings its rowhouse fronts with dense strands of Christmas lights every December. Painted window screens, a Baltimore folk art form, still appear on a few basement windows nearby. Each is a hand painted scene set into the mesh.
Shot in Hampden
For Pecker in 1998, John Waters filmed storefronts along Falls Road and West 36th Street as themselves. The production also used the Hampden Food Market at 1017 West 36th Street, the Bargain Hut at 908 West 36th Street and an alley behind the 3500 block of Hickory Avenue.
Pecker, 1998
John Waters used the storefront at 3853 Falls Road as the Pelt Room, the strip club in the film. Directly across Falls Road at 3838 Falls Road, the storefront now home to Service Photo played the Claw Machine, the bar Pecker's father owns. Street View
Manayunk climbs a hillside above the Schuylkill River in its own old mill valley, with stone and brick rowhouses stacked along narrow cross streets. Main Street runs the same storefronts under painted signs that West 36th Street does in Hampden. Manayunk's rowhouses run taller and its Main Street strip runs longer, so a tighter frame on two or three storefronts holds the match better than a wide shot down the block. Try searching hillside mill valley rowhouses now.
South Bethlehem in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
South Bethlehem holds worker rowhouses that climb the hill above the Lehigh River near the old Bethlehem Steel mills, brick and stone fronts set close together the way Hampden's own blocks are. Its period runs from the 1900s into the 1950s, close to when Hampden's own rowhouses went up. The steel mill buildings themselves are larger and set further back than Hampden's stone mills, so keep wide shots to the rowhouse streets rather than the old plant. Try searching steel mill worker rowhouses now.
Fishtown's rowhouses are the same close set two storey brick as Hampden's, many faced in Permastone, a rival brand of the same simulated stone cladding as Hampden's own Formstone fronts. Its streets are flat rather than climbing a valley, which sets it apart from Hampden's own hillside blocks. Skip any wide shot that would show the flat street grid or the Delaware waterfront, since neither matches Hampden's stream valley terrain. Try searching close set brick rowhouses now.
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