Old Baltimore family vows investment in city's future

“There was always a sense of pride about the history of the family in Baltimore”

Carey Street, named after 18th-century port merchant, councilman and Quaker abolitionist James Carey, runs through some of the most challenged neighborhoods of West Baltimore.

A mile and a half east in the downtown commercial district stands the gleaming Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, which is celebrating this week the inauguration of its first dean, thanks to a $50 million gift in 2006 from William Polk Carey, the merchant's great-great-great-grandson.

The New Yorker's commitment to his hometown and family legacy does not end there. The 77-year-old real estate financier said yesterday that he wants to help restore the city to the commercial glory his forebears knew and intends a major bequest that could permanently ensure that the Carey name is once more associated with Baltimore's economic revival. Read more