Park Heights parties on, even without Preakness around the corner

For years, as Pimlico Race Course welcomed in its annual flow of customers for Preakness Stakes weekend, the neighborhood it lives in, Park Heights, was left out.

“Year after year, traffic would be directed into Preakness and traffic directed right out of this community,” said Yolanda Jiggetts, the head of Park Heights Renaissance. As businesses reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic, her team decided to do something about it.

It started the George “Spider” Anderson Music & Arts Festival with no more than a few dozen lawn chairs in a vacant lot on Park Heights Avenue. Now, five years later, the event has exploded even without the 151st Preakness Stakes around the corner. On Saturday afternoon, as Laurel Park hosted the horse race, dozens of vendors, hundreds of performers and thousands of attendees walked down several closed Park Heights Avenue blocks to celebrate their community.

“It has grown every year,” said Jiggetts, adding that she sees Pimlico as a complement to the economic development work happening in the area.

Residents still brought out lawn chairs and watched as performers and DJs took to the stages at opposite ends of the festival. Three local marching bands kicked off the party as they came down the avenue to the front stage just before 2 p.m.

Soon after, Jiggetts told festival-goers over the microphone, “Let’s party. Let’s eat. Let’s support the local community.”

“We’re keeping the Preakness in Park Heights, baby!” she said.

Some people enjoying the sunshine and music on the avenue were residents of Park Heights. Others were from different Baltimore neighborhoods. One person, Tiffany Blye, drove from D.C. for the event.

Blye, who wore a bright pink fascinator hat, floral pants and a red blouse, said she had been to the Preakness Stakes twice but this was her first year at the Spider Anderson Festival. She wore her “Preakness best” in hopes of winning the best-dressed contest and the $5,000 prize.

“I really came to see not only the vendors but the outfits, the fascinators, the hats on people,” Blye said.

Food and retail vendors lined both sides of the street. Latasha Randall was selling cupcakes, cheesecakes and her most popular item, pound cakes, through her business, Sweets 2 Treats. Randall, a Park Heights native, said she had been to the festival before but it was her first time selling her baked goods.

Even though the race moved temporarily out of Pimlico this year, Randall said it brought the community together and people in the neighborhood were “even more excited.”

“We all decided to come out because we wanted people to know who we are and we wanted to be seen,” she said. “We loud this year.”

The festival celebrates the Park Heights community as well as George “Spider” Anderson, who was the first Black jockey to win the Preakness in 1889. A colorful mosaic sculpture of the horse racing icon stood at the center of the festival near The Terraces at Park Heights, an affordable senior living facility five blocks from Pimlico.

Around the corner from the statue was a “kids zone,” set up with a DJ stage on one side and pony rides and inflatable slides on the other. Baby Stacie, Baltimore’s own 8-year-old rapper, was getting ready to perform as other kids danced in the grassy area.

Kelly Johnson, who said she attended the first humble version of the festival, said “it’s just amazing to see how much bigger it has gotten.” Johnson wasn’t shocked to see the neighborhood out in full force, even without Pimlico in operation.

“I feel like the culture and the spirit of Baltimore is still here,” she said. “So even though Preakness is there, maybe temporarily, it doesn’t take away from the culture here.”