A 'ghost town' stage for Baltimore's annual Preakness Stakes

By the end of the weekend, the Tysons could make upward of $2,000 (no charge for the bathroom).

But the cash was only part of the dazzle of the spectacle that brought as many as 130,000 visitors a year to Park Heights, the working-class neighborhood adjoining Pimlico. "It was so exciting; there would be so many people from all walks of life," said Monica Tyson, a nurse who is Lillie's daughter.

Not this year.

With the novel coronavirus prompting Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to delay the Preakness until Saturday and cap attendance at 250 people, Park Heights and greater Baltimore have lost - at least for now - an event that city officials and residents view as their version of the Super Bowl.

The showcase horse race, which is normally held in May, is only one aspect of a party that has long drawn the well-heeled and well-dressed, along with politicians, gamblers, and revelers who gravitated away from the grandstand and toward the less decorous confines of the infield.

"Not having a crowd is a major buzz kill," said Baltimore Democratic City Council member Isaac "Yitzy" Schleifer, whose district includes Pimlico. "You have no other event in Baltimore that brings in so many people."

A majority-Black neighborhood 10 miles northwest of downtown Baltimore, Park Heights has long contended with blight, high unemployment and violent crime. Nearly a quarter of the area's population lives below the poverty line.

While Pimlico is the neighborhood's main attraction, residents say they rarely benefit from their proximity to the track - except on Preakness weekend, when some have gotten temporary jobs inside the racing complex or made money with self-styled businesses they operated from their front yards.

With no crowds descending for Saturday's race, the silence is another gut punch for a city that in recent years has endured a riot, a spate of corruption scandals and an unyielding rash of carnage. In Park Heights, the pandemic has dulled otherwise friendly residential streets; neighbors, especially those who are elderly, now stay indoors, their shades drawn.

"It's like a ghost town around here," said Maceo Price, 72, the owner of a grocery store and a Park Heights resident. He said the Preakness has long been an opportunity for him to show his children and grandchildren how to start a business - on his front stoop, selling soda and candy to racing fans arriving from far and wide.

"It's a way to teach them how to make money," he said.

Across the street, Patricia Williams, 51, who left her warehouse job in March because she did not want to travel during the pandemic, said she liked to spread the Preakness wealth, sending cars to park at her neighbors when her lawn filled up.

"That was my hustle money," she said, estimating that her family could make $500 parking cars on race day. "Now we've lost the crowds, and we have lost the money."

A few blocks away, across from a high fence that concealed the track, Tyisha Fulton, 32, stood on her mother's porch, a thin cigar between her fingers. A gaggle of small children - her siblings' and her own - were running up and down the stairs.

Fulton said she has never attended the Preakness because admission is too expensive. But she and her siblings, she said, have made hundreds of dollars each year selling hot dogs, hamburgers, bottles of water, candy, T-shirts and hats.

They have used the money to send their children to summer camp.

"We'd be out here from the moment it starts until it ended, and we'd make $1,000," she said. "It's good that they shut it down because of the virus, but it messes with people's money."

Fulton said she hasn't worked in six months, in part because she can't get babysitting help and she doesn't want to leave her four young children unattended while schools are closed. She visits her mother daily and commiserates with neighbors who seem to grow more depressed as the pandemic goes on.

"It's making people cuckoo," she said.

On Thursday afternoon, a man was shot and injured a couple of blocks away. From the corner of Park Heights and West Belvedere avenues - with jockeys at Pimlico visible in the distance, circling the track on their horses - the sound of gunfire was audible, followed by sirens.

"Anyone who asks 'What happened?' isn't from around here," said Wanda Tyson, 61, watching as police officers used yellow tape to cordon off Park Heights Avenue. "There's always shooting around here. All you got to see is the yellow tape and you know what's happening."

The Preakness, she said, is usually a momentary respite from the day-to-day grind.

"We were just coming back from the riot and now this," she said of the virus.

Half a block away, on Park Heights Avenue, Marvin Jones, 62, a juvenile justice minister for Youth for Christ, stood with his religious pamphlets and a stuffed lion, which he said was intended to symbolize that "God is king."

Jones said the absence of the Preakness crowds deprived him of an opportunity to meet people and spread his faith.

"It's like heaven to me," he said of the race. "I stand outside the gate and I say, 'Can I give you some good news from God today?' No one says, 'No.' "

Walking by, Antoine "Shamir" Williams, 47, said the missing Preakness crowds are a small issue compared to the violence that so often rattles the city. He motioned toward a lamppost, where there was a shrine for a recent homicide victim - a mix of flowers, beads, heart-shaped balloons and empty liquor bottles.

"It's bigger than the Preakness," Williams said. "How many times do we have to cry when a little baby is shot in their home because someone has a gun?"

A few blocks away, Nathaniel Dorsey, 70, walked out of his house and headed for his job at a supermarket.

Sure he misses the crowds, he said, describing the Preakness as a "big family get-together." But he has other pressing concerns: saving money to fix his dilapidated porch, keeping his job and staying alive.

"I thank the Lord every day I open my eyes," he said from behind his surgical mask, before turning to catch his bus.