Whats with all these letters and numbers like X1, B2 and K1W?
Those are the Martenet section numbers. Early in the life of the firm, Martenet divided the metropolitan region into sections (like zip codes) for purposes of organizing our records. This served to speed subsequent archive searches. For reasons explained below, it is not necessary anymore to understand where the sections were, but for purposes of history, we’ll explain it here anyway. The Baltimore downtown area was designated K, and further subdivided into K1 and K2, Baltimore Street being the division line, and yet again K1E and K1W (east and west). South of the K’s, I1 and I2 covered Locust Point and the land immediately to the west. Surrounding the K’s and running counter-clockwise from the Fells Point area were A1, B1, C1, etc., to H1 in the southwest part of the inner city. These sections extended to the 1816 city limits (North Avenue, etc.). Extending those sections farther out to the 1888 city limits, radially, were A2, B2, C2, etc. Using major radial geographic features he sub
