On the afternoon of December 31, 2008, a group of my neighbors paced around the intersection of Harcourt Road and Juneau Place, squinting up unhappily as high winds whipped the trees. The blustery weather threatened the scheduled New Year's Eve celebrations—not only the Inner Harbor fireworks display, but also our own Third Annual Arcadia Ball-Fall in northeast Baltimore.

My fellow Arcadians had already spent forty-five minutes struggling to raise the ball-drop pole, a reconfigured sailboat mast that we'd used the year before. The shifting breezes made an already awkward task much harder, shoving the big tube around like a wind-tossed treetop.

Our community was counting on us to make a glittering orb descend from on high, precisely at midnight, without anyone getting clobbered by an unmoored 30-foot mast. People were bringing tables, food, hot drinks. The ball must fall—but how?

The notion of staging a New Year's ball-drop started three years ago with Gene Nuth, a past president of the community association who lives near the corner of Harcourt and Juneau. From his front walk, Nuth has an excellent view of the downtown skyline, 5 miles away. Every New Year's Eve, a small but noisy group of merrymakers would gather across the street to watch the Inner Harbor pyrotechnics. Nuth's inspiration: Invite the whole neighborhood. And drop a ball. He pitched the concept to Arcadia's current and past presidents, who officially greenlit the project.

Nuth made the first pole from PVC pipe; Bob Mayes devised a sphere of chicken wire and Christmas lights. Word went out via e-mail and by way of various local networks: the monthly women's book group, the monthly sing-along group, the line at the counter at the Red Canoe book store. A crowd of about fifty turned out for the first ball-drop. The second year, maybe eighty came. The thing had momentum. The third annual event was confidently announced to the news media.

Then came the fierce wind. I stood by, awaiting orders while the more senior male Arcadians wrangled good-naturedly. Let's try this! Hold on a minute! I've got it! Look out!

Somebody proposed hanging the ball from a tree. Nuth, an avid sailor, wasn't ready to give up his mast. "I think I've got something that'll help," he announced. He marched off to his garage while several of us scouted up and down both streets looking for suitable branches.

Arcadia, if you've never heard of it, is one of the eight neighborhoods that have recently branded themselves as Greater Lauraville. Our little ball-drop festivity is typical of this section of northeastern Baltimore. Various neighborhood institutions, celebrations, clubs, and enterprises proliferate here. The trend has accelerated in recent years as our main street, Harford Road, has sprouted new businesses, some of which have gained citywide followings. This past summer, the Lauraville-Hamilton Main Street organization initiated a weekly open-air market. Every Tuesday, neighbors of all ages and colors mingle on a former vacant lot, sampling fare from a half-dozen local eateries and locally roasted Zeke's Coffee.

When my wife and I moved to the area sixteen years ago, things weren't nearly so lively. The commercial strip was depressing and dingy; most of the couples we knew were far too busy with small children to be organizing street fairs and such. By far the biggest neighborhood event was the Arcadia Yard Sale, another Gene Nuth brainstorm, dating back to about 1980. Our only "destination" business was Koco's Pub, deservedly famous for its crab cakes. 

Many factors have contributed to the area's surge in community life. For one thing, neighbors tend to know each other. Gene Nuth and Bob Mayes' friendship goes back to their boyhoods in Belair-Edison. My wife and I were recruited to the area by friends who already lived here; we, in turn, have urged friends to relocate. Secondly, the area is populated by teachers, public servants, small business owners, nonprofit staffers, mid-level administrators, artists, and designers—creative, competent types. A lot of us are baby boomers whose children no longer need our micromanagement, freeing us up to meddle in public affairs. Most of us feel lucky to have found a comfortable and reasonably safe place to live within the city. In sum, we have resources, we have time, we have networks, and we have a stake in the place where we live.

Such attributes are hardly unique to Greater Lauraville—nor do they guarantee a vibrant community. To catalyze these elements, somebody (or a small group of somebodies) has to decide that it's worth the trouble. It's not necessarily fun. Fifteen years ago, a very small group of neighbors persuaded Safeway to put a store on Harford Road, where a hideous old bus barn once stood. The process was extremely contentious—some of us still have scars—but landing the huge corporate grocery store paved the way for the small independent businesses that followed. It took years, but a new, self-confident identity has emerged in the area, spawning further rounds of creative activity.

By comparison, getting a ball to fall was ridiculously quick and easy.

While Gene Nuth was rummaging in his garage, we found the perfect tree, an oak just 25 feet from the corner, with a stout horizontal limb about 18 feet up. Roger Trageser, the neighborhood electrician, went home, got his company van, parked it just uphill from the oak, climbed onto the van roof, and easily tossed a rope and a power line over the waiting branch.

Meanwhile, Nuth emerged from his garage with some sort of improvised tool in hand and surveyed the situation with evident disapproval. "You guys went to Plan B mighty quick," he said.

That night, despite the weather, the orb fell on schedule. More than a hundred of us cheered, ate, drank, and made merry. The city's official fireworks, meanwhile, had been cancelled.

Later, Nuth explained that he wasn't really annoyed at us for abandoning our struggle with the mast. The whole exercise was really just about getting people to collaborate and get a positive result. By those measures, the night was a success. "In the Middle Ages, after the harvest, they got everybody to help build the cathedral," he said. "Once the process starts, it sucks everybody in. It's the process of it."

—Tom Chalkley