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Upton – Avenue Market
Metro SubwayLink station
Upton station in April 2019.
General information
Location	1702 Pennsylvania Avenue Baltimore, Maryland, 21217
Owned by	Maryland Transit Administration
Platforms	1 island platform
Tracks	2
Connections	MTA Maryland Buses
Construction
Parking	No
Accessible	Yes
History
Opened	November 21, 1983
Passengers
2017	1,551 daily
Services
Preceding station Maryland Transit Administration Following station Penn–Northtoward Owings Mills Metro SubwayLink State Centertoward Johns Hopkins Hospital
Location

Upton–Avenue Market station (formerly known simply as Upton station) is an underground Metro SubwayLink station in West Baltimore, Maryland located near the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Laurens Street. The station takes its name from the surrounding Upton neighborhood and the nearby Avenue Market at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is the ninth most northern and western station on the line.

History

Upton–Avenue Market station was referred to as the Laurens Street station during its planning and construction, in reference to the street which intersects Pennsylvania Avenue nearby.

Excavation and construction

The Laurens Street section of tunnels at Upton–Avenue Market station were constructed in a cut-and-cover operation through deeply weathered residual rock from a parent granitic gneiss material. Extensive exploration and mapping of the subsurface conditions was conducted prior to excavation and construction in order to obtain a detailed understanding of the heterogeneous mixture of soft and hard residual material at the site. This profile informed the support and mining procedures implemented for the project. Classification of the residual materials informed the tunnel design, which was supported by liner plates, steel ribs, posts, wall plates, and invert struts; the final lining was made from reinforced, cast in-place concrete. The presence of hard, dense rock-like fragments among the residual material necessitated some blasting methods in addition to conventional earth excavation methods.

Artwork

The MTA commissioned artist Romare Bearden $114,000 to create "Baltimore Uproar", a 14' x 46' Venetian glass mosaic in the station's mezzanine. Constructed in Italy before being shipped to the US, the mosaic features Baltimore-native Billie Holiday and six jazz instrumentalists. Primarily based in New York, Bearden worked as a cartoonist at the Baltimore Afro-American from 1935 to 1937.

References

1. Metro SubwayLink Cornerstone Plan (PDF) (Report). Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Transit Administration. August 28, 2019. p. 15. Retrieved November 20, 2021.
2. "Laurens station bid $36 million". The Sun. February 1, 1978. p. C2.
3. Myers-Böhlke, Brenda (1983). A characterization of deep weathering profiles in foliated, metamorphic rocks for tunneling and shaft sinking (Doctoral). University of California, Berkeley.
4. Frost, Julian. ""Baltimore Uproar"". baltimoreheritage.org. Baltimore Heritage. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
5. Berle, Jon. "A Look Back at the Art of the Metro Subway". MTA. Maryland Transit Administration. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
6. "Romare Bearden Biography". Bearden Foundation. Retrieved 3 November 2024.

External links

• Laurens Street entrance from Google Maps Street View

39°18′18.17″N 76°38′11.8″W / 39.3050472°N 76.636611°W / 39.3050472; -76.636611

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