culture – Baltimore Magazine

School Selection Season

Megan McGaha — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 21:51:26 +0000

Mike Boyle’s three children each attend different independent schools: Kinley, 16, is a junior at The John Carroll School in Bel Air; Mikey, 14, is a freshman at Loyola Blakefield in Towson; and Delaney, 11, is a sixth grader at Harford Day School in Bel Air.

While keeping track of their extracurricular activities can be a logistical challenge—especially factoring in the hour-long drive from their home in Bel Air to Towson—Boyle says it’s worth it for each child to be in an educational environment where they thrive.

“The school has got to work for the kid,” says Boyle, who is an alumnus of John Carroll.

Like many Baltimore-area families, school pride runs deep for the Boyles. “I have probably 50 relatives who went to John Carroll, so every time we get together it’s like a reunion,” he says.

But despite the family legacy, Boyle and the children’s mother gave their kids the opportunity to help choose the school that was the best fit for their academic, athletic, and extracurricular needs.

“I had to check those emotions a bit and let Mikey make the decision,” he says of his son’s choice to attend Loyola Blakefield.

“While facilities and location vary, we knew they all had rigorous college prep programs and that at any one of these schools, if you put your effort in, you can be well-positioned for the next step,” he adds. “At that point it came down to feel: What did the kids think was right for them?”

With 28 independent schools in the Greater Baltimore area and more than 100 across the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, there are an overwhelming number to choose from. That’s why admissions experts say it’s so important to start the school search process early.

Families should begin the process by creating a list of what is most important to them, recommends Kim Slade, director of enrollment management and outreach at Severn School, an independent school enrolling students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade at its lower school in Arnold and sixth through 12th grade at its upper school in Severna Park.

“That could be anything from college placement, to specific sports, or how far they are willing to commute,” she says. “Doing that homework ahead of time enables families to narrow down their list of schools they consider to those that are most appropriate.”

For the high school or middle school level, Slade suggests having the child make their own list of important factors.

“Then, as a family, they can have a conversation so that everybody is on the same page about what’s important, as well as an understanding about who is ultimately making the decision,” she says. “Are parents making that decision, or are they narrowing down a list from which the student can choose any of the schools? The time to know that is before decisions must be made, so that everybody is clear from the get-go.”

One thing that makes independent schools unique from public schools is that each has its own unique mission statement and the freedom to offer a broader curriculum that comes with not being tied to state mandates and budgets.

“Every independent school has a mission statement, and they value different things within that mission,” Slade says. “Evaluating if that mission aligns with your values as a family is a really helpful and important place to start.”

The fall of the year before you want your child to attend, get to know the schools on your list through events like the open house, shadow day, school tours, and interviews. Once you have the application materials, make a calendar of important deadlines and materials you need to gather, including those for financial aid, standardized testing, transcripts, teacher recommendations, interviews, and more.

Most application deadlines are in December and January, but due to the combination of winter break, the busy holiday season, and unpredictable winter weather, Slade recommends families aim to submit their applications before the holidays.

“Families can’t control when a school releases their child’s transcript or when teachers fill out recommendations, so the earlier they ask for these things the better,” she says. “The onus should not be put on a teacher or a child’s school to meet deadlines at the last minute.”

The open house is one of the best opportunities to get to know a school quickly. (See the open house guide in the following pages.) Held annually in the fall, these events make it easy for families to tour facilities and meet key contacts like administrators, faculty, and coaches, and ask questions of current families and alumni.

Even if families feel they already know a school well, it’s still a good idea to come out to official admissions events like the open house.

At that point it came down to feel: What did the kids think was right for them?

“It shows your interest,” says Diane Russell, director of enrollment management at Harford Day School, an independent school for children age 3 through eighth grade in Bel Air. “As many touchpoints as possible are helpful to see how committed a family is to the process.”

Russell recommends arriving with specific questions in mind, especially in terms of your child’s needs.

“If your child has a particular interest or gift in a certain area, or if they struggle in a certain area, this is an opportunity to find out how a school responds—each school may have a different approach,” she says.

Since COVID-19, Russell notes that some schools, including Harford Day, continue to offer virtual visits or information sessions in addition to in-person events, making it more convenient for families to get an early sense of the school before coming out in person. It’s also a good option for families who are looking at schools outside of their area or for those who want a low-key way to start the process a year early.

While the open house is a one-stop shop to get to know the best a school has to offer, it’s an admissions-focused event and not a typical representation of the day-to-day school culture. To get that insight, Russell recommends families connect with current community members and attend events on campus that are open to the public, like sporting events or theatrical productions. “These kinds of opportunities can be really instructive in addition to all the typical events,” she says.

Another change since the pandemic? Independent school admission has gotten more competitive in some areas, Russell says, due to the larger-than-normal influx of families who moved their children from public schools to independent schools, which were largely able to continue some form of in-person learning while public schools were closed. “Many of us are fuller than we were before the pandemic,” she says.

While the competition shouldn’t deter families, it’s even more reason to make your interest in a school known by attending events and communicating frequently with admissions staff.

Families should also be careful to check the availability of tour and shadow days since many schools have narrowed the availability since the pandemic. “It takes a bit more diligence and pre-planning on the part of families to know the options, so you don’t miss an opportunity,” says Slade at Severn.

Shadow days, when prospective students attend a full or partial school day with a current student, offer an opportunity to get to know the school’s culture from the inside. (See the sidebar for more on making the most out of the shadow day.)

While it can be nerve-wracking for a student to shadow an unfamiliar school with an unfamiliar student, Slade implores parents to trust the process.

A common mistake, she says, is requesting that friends shadow together or with a current student they already know, such as a neighbor or older sibling. Because it can distract prospective students from forming their own impressions of the school, it’s a practice that Severn strongly discourages. “We want them to see Severn through their own eyes,” Slade explains.

She also recommends families think of the application process as developing a relationship with the school. “That relationship should be built on trust and transparency,” she adds, and families shouldn’t try to gloss over any details that they think could hurt their acceptance.

By being honest about a child’s talents, interests, and needs up front, schools can best assess if they can meet those needs and families will end up at the school that is the best match. “There’s a right school for every child, but not every child is right for every school,” she explains.

Typically, schools begin to share their admissions decisions in mid-March and enrollment contracts and deposits are due by April.

Wait-listed for the top choice? If so, Slade recommends parents stay in communication with the school about the desire to stay on the waitlist or the decision to accept an offer at another school.

Severn, for one, uses the term “wait pool” since the students are not ranked by priority but rather create a group from which staff can pull to round out the incoming class when space comes available.

“Check in periodically,” Slade says. “Schools are not bothered by it. Admissions officers are trying to manage not just the yield of new families but also returning families, and things happen over the course of spring and summer—families are transferred, families move out of state—so we as a school are just as eager to know who is realistically still in our wait pool as the families are to know whether a space is available.”

The best part about the process? Getting to enrollment. While the process can be stressful, it’s designed to help students end up at the perfect school for their needs. At independent schools, enrolling in the school is the beginning of a lifelong relationship.

“You can really become part of a community that isn’t just about school itself but something larger that becomes a part of your children’s lives,” says Russell at Harford Day. “We have our alumni come back after graduation to visit us and many of them, when they get married, it’s their Harford Day friends that are in their wedding party. So it’s a long-term relationship.”

DAY IN THE LIFE

CROFTEN RESIDENT MACKENZIE GETZ, a sophomore at the Severn School, had such a great experience during her own shadow day at the Severna Park school that she signed up to host other potential students as soon as she enrolled.

Getz is a member of the sailing, swimming, and archery teams at Severn, as well as the archery and Red Cross clubs. In her first year, she was matched as a host with four prospective students looking to enter Severn for ninth or 10th grades.

“If I can share my experience in my first year with these other kids who are having their first experience at the school, I think I can connect to them at a better level,” she says. “I know what it’s like to transfer in.”

Here, Severn School sophomore MacKenzie Getz shares her shadow day tips:

HOW ARE SHADOW STUDENTS MATCHED WITH HOSTS?
The prospective students share their interests and they match me with students based on those interests. One of them was a sailor, I was a sailor, and one was a swimmer, I was a swimmer. It adds more of a personal connection between the host and the shadow. The students can learn more about their interests at the school, and you have something more to talk about.

WHAT SHOULD STUDENTS EXPECT FOR THE SHADOW DAY?
My job as a hostess is to show them what a normal day is like. They get to sit in on all my classes and get to know their way around the school, so that next year if they enroll they already know the environment. If they play a sport, I show them the fields on a free period and introduce them to coaches or teachers.

HOW CAN STUDENTS MAKE THE MOST OF THE EXPERIENCE?
Ask a lot of questions and just be yourself. I wish more students would ask me, especially if they play a sport, what the schedule is like. I also wish they would ask more about what the clubs are like and how they work. A lot of students don’t ask about that, and we have so many clubs to offer at Severn. And if you go to the school the next year and you see your host on campus, go say hi.

READY, SET, ENROLL

A timeline of the independent school application process

The path to finding your child’s perfect school is a long one. Follow this monthly checklist provided by the National Association of Independent Schools to make sure you hit the important milestones. Don’t forget to start the year before you want your child to attend. Visit parents.NAIS.org for more helpful tools.

AUGUST
▶ Define your ideal school
▶ Create a list of schools that match your child’s needs
▶ Research and ask questions of schools on your preliminary list

SEPTEMBER
▶ Attend school fairs to gather materials and get first impressions
▶ Browse schools’ websites to learn more about their programs and philosophies
▶ Request admissions and financial aid materials
▶ Create a calendar of deadlines for the schools on your list
▶ Register for any standardized tests required for admission
▶ Schedule individual school tours, class visits, and interviews

OCTOBER
▶ Visit schools during open houses, attend information sessions, and take tours
▶ Finalize the list of schools to which you will apply
▶ Take required standardized admission tests

NOVEMBER
▶ Request teacher recommendations from your child’s current school
▶ Start working on applications, financial aid forms, student questionnaires, and essays

DECEMBER
▶ Request transcripts at the end of your child’s first semester
▶ Complete applications, questionnaires, and essays

JANUARY
▶ Most applications are due in January or February, along with tests scores, references, transcripts, and financial aid forms

FEBRUARY
▶ Turn in any final applications before the deadlines
▶ Visit schools and have your child participate in a student shadow day

MARCH
▶ Watch for school and financial aid decisions starting in mid-March
▶ If your student is accepted by multiple schools, decide which school your child will attend

APRIL
▶ Sign and return enrollment contracts and send deposits

MAY–SEPTEMBER
▶ Attend events and activities for new parents and students

SAVE THE DATE

BELOW IS A LIST OF OPEN HOUSES at schools in the Greater Baltimore region. The time of the open houses, when available at press time, is printed directly after the name of each school. Dates and times are always subject to change, and many schools prefer that prospective families visit their websites for information on virtual and in-person tours, open house dates, shadow options, and more. Always visit the website of the school or call for the most up-to-date information.

ARCHBISHOP CURLEY HIGH SCHOOL
10/29, 10/30, 10 a.m.-noon
3701 Sinclair Ln.
410-485-5000, archbishopcurley.org
Grades: 9-12, all male
Affiliation: Catholic/Franciscan

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING HIGH SCHOOL
Contact the admissions office to schedule tours.
8080 New Cut Rd., Severn
410-969-9105, archbishopspalding.org
Grades: 9-12, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

BALTIMORE LAB SCHOOL
Visit the website for more information.
2220 St. Paul St.
410-261-5500, baltimorelabschool.org
Grades: 1-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

BETH EL @ FEDERAL HILL
Call for tour information.
1530 Battery Ave.
410-528-6001, bethelbalto.com
Grades: 2-5 years, coed
Affiliation: Jewish

BETH TFILOH DAHAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Upper: 10/27, 11/15, 11/30, 9 a.m.; Middle: 11/10, 12/7 9 a.m.; Lower: 10/20, 11/8, 9 a.m.;
Register online: bethtfiloh.com/bmag
3300 Old Court Rd., Pikesville
410-486-1905, bethtfiloh.com
Grades: 15 months-grade 12, coed
Affiliation: Jewish

THE BOYS’ LATIN SCHOOL OF MARYLAND
10/16, 10 a.m.
822 W. Lake Ave.
410-377-5192, boyslatinmd.com
Grades: K-12, all-male
Affiliation: Non-denominational

THE BRYN MAWR SCHOOL
Upper School: 11/5, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
109 W. Melrose Ave.
410-323-8800, brynmawrschool.org
Grades: K-12, all-female; The Little School, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

CALVERT HALL COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL
11/13 11 a.m.-2 p.m. (registration required)
8102 La Salle Rd.
410-825-4266, calverthall.com
Grades: 9-12, all-male
Affiliation: Catholic and LaSallian

CALVERT SCHOOL
10/4, 10/19, 11/3, 11/16, 12/7, 9:30-10:30 a.m.
105 Tuscany Rd.,
410-243-6054, calvertschoolmd.org
Grades: K-8, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL
8/30 10-11 a.m. New Student and Family Orientation
6200 N. Charles St.
410-486-3686, cambridgeschool.org
Grades: K-8, coed
Affiliation: Christian

THE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
10/22, 12-3 p.m.
2800 Edison Hwy.
410-732-6200, thecatholichighschool.org
Grades: 9-12, all-female
Affiliation: Catholic

COLUMBIA ACADEMY
Visit the website for more information.
10350 Old Columbia Rd., Columbia (multiple locations)
410-312-7413, columbiaacademy.com
Grades: Junior K-8, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

CONCORDIA PREPARATORY SCHOOL
10/29, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m.
1145 Concordia Dr., Towson
410-825-2323, concordiaprepschool.org
Grades: 6-12, coed
Affiliation: Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

EASTERN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
Visit the website for more information.
1100 Mace Ave., Essex
443-809-0190, easterntechhs.bcps.org
Grades: 9-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational, public

FORK UNION MILITARY ACADEMY
Admissions Fair 11/19 and 12/10 9 a.m.-1 p.m. (pre-registration required)
4744 James Madison Hwy., Fork Union, Virginia
Main: 434-842-3212,
Admissions: 434-842-4205, forkunion.com
Grades: 7-12 and post-grad program, boarding, all male
Affiliation: Christian

FRIENDS SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
Middle and Upper: 10/20 9 a.m.;
Pre-Primary and Lower: 11/8 9 a.m.;
All grades: 11/15, 4:30 p.m. and 12/8 at 9 a.m.
Pre-register at friendsbalt.org/admissions
5114 N. Charles St.
410-649-3200, friendsbalt.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Quaker

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL
Tours for prospective students and families held Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
300 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills
410-363-1500, gfs.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, all-female except coed preschool, boarding and day grades 8-12
Affiliation: Non-denominational

GERSTELL ACADEMY
10/22, 10 a.m.
2500 Old Westminster Pike, Finksburg.
410-861-3000, gerstell.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

GILMAN SCHOOL
Visit the website for information.
5407 Roland Ave.
410-323-3800, gilman.edu
Grades: K-12, all male
Affiliation: Non-denominational

GLENELG COUNTRY SCHOOL
10/21, 11/8, 12/7, 1/5, 2/22, 3/30, 9 a.m.
12793 Folly Quarter Rd., Ellicott City
410-531-8600, glenelg.org
Grades: Age 2-grade 12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

GREENSPRING MONTESSORI SCHOOL
On-campus information sessions: 10/6, 11/3, 12/1, 1/12, 2/2, 3/2, 4/6, 5/4, 9-11 a.m.
10807 Tony Dr., Lutherville/Timonium
410-321-8555, greenspringmontessori.org
Grades: 18 months-grade 8, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

HARFORD DAY SCHOOL
Middle School Visit Day: 11/8
Fall Admissions Open House: 11/13, Noon-2 p.m.
715 Moores Mill Rd., Bel Air
410-838-4848, harfordday.org
Grades: Age 3-grade 8
Affiliation: Non-denominational

HARGRAVE MILITARY ACADEMY
12/10, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
200 Military Dr., Chatham, Virginia.
1-434-432-2481, hargrave.edu
Grades: 7-12, plus post-graduate for boys
Affiliation: Baptist

THE HIGHLANDS SCHOOL
Call to schedule tour.
2409 Creswell Rd., Bel Air
410-836-1415, highlandsschool.net
Grades: K-12, coed. Rolling admissions
Affiliation: Non-denominational

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION SCHOOL
Pre-K to Grade 8: 11/4, 9:30 a.m.;
Middle school: 10/7, 6 p.m.
112 Ware Ave., Towson
410-427-4801, theimmaculate.org
Grades: Pre-K (age 3) through Grade 8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

JEMICY SCHOOL
Contact the Admission Office to schedule a meeting.
Upper school: 11202 Garrison Forest Rd., Owings Mills.
Lower and Middle School: 11 Celadon Rd., Owings Mills
410-653-2700, jemicyschool.org
Grades: 1-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

JOHN CARROLL SCHOOL
Open House: 11/5
Discovering John Carroll: 9/27, 10/12, 11/15, 12/7, 4:30-6 p.m.
703 E. Churchville Rd., Bel Air
410-838-8333, johncarroll.org
Grades: 9-12, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

KRIEGER SCHECHTER DAY SCHOOL
Schedule a personal tour with the Director of Admissions.
8100 Stevenson Rd.
410-486-8640, ksds.edu
Grades: K-8, coed
Affiliation: Jewish

LOYOLA BLAKEFIELD
10/23, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
500 Chestnut Ave., Towson
410-823-0601, loyolablakefield.org
Grades: 6-12, all-male
Affiliation: Jesuit Catholic

MARYVALE PREPARATORY SCHOOL
Upper: 10/21 and 11/8, 9-10:30 a.m.;
Middle: 10/28 and 11/15, 9-10:30 a.m.
11300 Falls Rd., Lutherville
410-252-3366, maryvale.com
Grades: 6-12, all female
Affiliation: Catholic

McDONOGH SCHOOL
Lower: Tours every Wednesday 9/14 to 11/16
Middle: Tours every Tuesday 9/13-11/29
Upper: Tours every Thursday 9/15-11/30
8600 McDonogh Rd., Owings Mills,
410-363-0600, mcdonogh.org/admissions/ways-to-visit
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed, day and 5-day boarding
Affiliation: Non-denominational

MERCERSBURG ACADEMY
10/10 100 Academy Dr., Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.
Admissions: 717-328-6173, Main: 717-328-2151, mercersburg.edu
Grades: 9-12, plus post-grad year, boarding and day, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

MERCY HIGH SCHOOL
10/22, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
1300 E. Northern Pkwy.
410-433-8880, mercyhighschool.com
Grades: 9-12, all female
Affiliation: Catholic

MOTHER SETON ACADEMY
Visit the website for more information.
2215 Greenmount Ave.
410-563-2833, mothersetonacademy.org
Grades: 6-8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

MOUNT DE SALES ACADEMY
Visit the website for more information.
700 Academy Rd., Catonsville
410-744-8498, mountdesalesacademy.org
Grades: 9-12, all female
Affiliation: Catholic

MOUNT SAINT JOSEPH HIGH SCHOOL
11/6, 11 a.m.
4403 Frederick Ave.
410-644-3300, msjnet.edu
Grades: 9-12, all male
Affiliation: Catholic

NATURE PRESCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
(Formerly Hunt Valley Country Day School)
Call to schedule meeting.
200A Lakefront Dr., Hunt Valley
410-329-9867, naturepreschoolbaltimore.org
Grades: 2-5 years
Affiliation: Non-denominational, nature-based early-childhood program

NOTRE DAME PREPARATORY SCHOOL
10/15, 8:30 a.m.-noon
815 Hampton Ln., Towson
410-825-6202, notredameprep.com
Grades: 6-12, all female
Affiliation: Catholic

THE ODYSSEY SCHOOL
Inside Odyssey: 1/19, 6:45 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
Snow date 1/26, 6:45 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
3257 Bridle Ridge Ln., Lutherville
410-580-5551, theodysseyschool.org
Grades: K-8, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

OLDFIELDS SCHOOL
10/15, 12/10, 4/15
1500 Glencoe Rd., Sparks Glencoe.
410-472-4800, oldfieldsschool.org
Grades: 8-12, all female
Affiliation: Non-denominational

OUR LADY OF GRACE PRE-SCHOOL
Prospective parent tours every Wednesday.
Register online, gracepreschoolbaltimore.com
18310 Middletown Rd., Parkton
410-329-6956, olgs.org
Grades: Preschool, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL
10/30, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
1704 Old Eastern Ave., Essex.
410-238-1163, olmcmd.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP SCHOOL
Call for times.
4801 Ilchester Rd., Ellicott City
410-744-4251, olphschool.org
Grades: Pre-K to grade 8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

THE PARK SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
Visit the website for information.
2425 Old Court Rd.
410-339-7070, parkschool.net
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

PAULINE MASH SCHOOL FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
Call for tour information.
8101 Park Heights Ave.
410-484-0411, bethelbalto.com
Grades: birth-5 years, coed
Affiliation: Jewish

PEABODY PREPARATORY
Preparatory Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.
Call for times.
21 E. Mount Vernon Pl.
667-208-6640, peabody.jhu.edu/preparator
Grades: Music and dance instruction for all ages and abilities, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

REDEEMER CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL
Visit the website for more information.
6415 Mount Vista Rd., Kingsville
410-592-9625, rccs.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Christian

ROLAND PARK COUNTRY SCHOOL
Upper: 10/13, 4-5 p.m.; Middle: 10/20, 4-5 p.m.;
Lower: 11/3, 4-5 p.m.
5204 Roland Ave.
410-323-5500, rpcs.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, all female except coed preschool
Affiliation: Non-denominational

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI SCHOOL
10/1, 1/29, 11 a.m.
3617 Harford Rd.
410-467-1683, sfa-school.org
Grades: Pre-K to Grade 8., coed
Affiliation: Catholic

ST. JAMES ACADEMY
In-person open house 11/ 15, 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.;
Virtual open house: 12/6, 12 – 1 p.m.; See website for virtual tour.
3100 Monkton Rd., Monkton
410-771-4816, saintjamesacademy.org
Grades: Pre-K-8, coed
Affiliation: Episcopalian

SAINT JAMES SCHOOL
Visit the website for more information.
17641 College Rd., Hagerstown
301-733-9330, stjames.edu
Grades: 8-12, coed
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. JOHN’S PARISH DAY SCHOOL
In-person open house 10/15, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.; 11/17, 5-6:30 p.m.; 1/7,10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.; 2/16, 5-6:30 p.m.;
Virtual open house: 10/27, 11 a.m.
9130 Frederick Rd., Ellicott City
410-465-7644, stjohnspds.org
Grades: Age 3-Grade 5, coed
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. MARK SCHOOL
Call for times.
26 Melvin Ave., Catonsville
410-744-6560, stmark-school.org
Grades: Pre-K(3)-8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

ST. PAUL’S PRE AND LOWER SCHOOL
Parent Information Sessions: 10/14, 11/14, 12/7, 1/9, 9-10:30 a.m. 11232 Falls Rd., Brooklandville
Preschool: 410-823-0061; Lower school: 410-821-3029, stpaulsmd.org/coed
Grades: 6 weeks-Grade 4
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL FOR BOYS
Parent Information Sessions:
Middle School: 10/25, 12/9, 1/10, 8:45-10:45 a.m., Virtual: 11/17, 6:30-7:30 p.m.;
Upper School: 10/20, 11/8, 11/15, 12/6, 1/6, 8:45-10:45 a.m., Virtual: 11/15, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
11152 Falls Rd., Brooklandville
410-825-4400, stpaulsmd.org/boys
Grades: 5-12
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
Parent Information Sessions:
Middle School: 10/18, 12/13, 1/13, 8:30-10:30 a.m., Virtual: 11/8, 6:30-7:30 p.m.;
Upper School: 10/21, 12/7, 1/11,8:30-10:30 a.m., Virtual: 11/9, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Visit Days: Middle School: 10/12, 10/18, 11/4, 11/9, 12/6, 12/9, 12/13, 1/9, 1/13;
Upper School: 10/3, 10/7, 10/14, 10/21, 10/25, 11/2, 11/8, 11/15, 11/18, 12/7, 1/6, 1/11.
11232 Falls Rd., Brooklandville
410-823-6323, stpaulsmd.org/girls
Grades: 5-12
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. TIMOTHY’S SCHOOL
Visit the website for more information.
8400 Greenspring Ave., Stevenson
410-486-7401, stt.org
Grades: 9-12, boarding and day, all female
Affiliation: Episcopalian

ST. URSULA SCHOOL
Call for times.
8900 Harford Rd., Parkville
410-665-3533, stursula.org
Grades: Pre-K(4)-8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

SANDY SPRING FRIENDS SCHOOL
Call for times.
16923 Norwood Rd., Sandy Spring
301-774-7455, ssfs.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Quaker

THE SCHOOL OF THE CATHEDRAL OF MARY OUR QUEEN
10/11, 11/15, 1/31, 9 -11:30 a.m.
111 Amberly Way.
410-464-4100, schoolofthecathedral.org
Grades: Pre-K(4)-8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

SEVERN SCHOOL
(now merged with Chesapeake Academy)
Lower School: 10/4, 1/12
Middle and Upper schools: 10/20, 7 – 9 p.m.
Lower School: 1185 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., Arnold.
Middle/Upper School: 201 Water St., Severna Park.
410-647-7700, severnschool.com
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

SHADY SIDE ACADEMY
Call for information. 423 Fox Chapel Rd. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
412-968-3000, shadysideacademy.org
Grades: Pre-K-12, coed, day and boarding (board only high school)
Affiliation: Non-denominational

SPRINGDALE PREPARATORY SCHOOL
Call for times.
1000 Green Valley Rd., New Windsor.
410-671-0072, springdaleprep.org
Grades: 6-12, day and boarding, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

TONG LE MONTESSORI SCHOOL
Call for times.
805 E. Fayette St., Suite 100.
410-929-1628, tonglemontessori.com
Grades: Ages 6 weeks-6th grade
Affiliation: Non-denominational
Mandarin Chinese immersion program

TRINITY SCHOOL
Call for times.
4985 Ilchester Rd., Ellicott City
443-744-1524, trinityschoolmd.org
Grades: Pre-K(3)-8, coed
Affiliation: Catholic

WALDORF SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
Windows into Waldorf: 10/20, 11/29, 12/15, 9-10 a.m.
4801 Tamarind Rd.
410-367-6808, waldorfschoolofbaltimore.org
Grades: Pre-K-8, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

WEST NOTTINGHAM ACADEMY
Call for times.
1079 Firetower Rd., Colora
410-658-5556, wna.org
Grades: 9-12, day and boarding, coed
Affiliation: Non-denominational

Source

Best of Baltimore 2021: Arts & Culture

Aaron Hope — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 21:01:29 +0000

By LYDIA WOOLEVER AND CHRISTINE JACKSON
With Janelle Erlichman Diamond and Max Weiss

August 2021

Best of Baltimore

Best of Baltimore 2021: Arts and Culture

Our annual compendium of the people and places that make Charm City great.

By LYDIA WOOLEVER AND CHRISTINE JACKSON. With Janelle Erlichman Diamond and Max Weiss.

August 2021

Photography by Schaun Champion, Mike Morgan, Philip Muriel, Christopher Myers, Matt Roth, Sean Scheidt, and Scott Suchman

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCHAUN CHAMPION

ARTIST TO WATCH

McKinley Wallace III

Whether it’s his small-scale paintings at solo shows or his large-scale murals across the city, the work of mixed-media artist McKinley Wallace III will stop you in your tracks. Perhaps at first, it’s the bright, bold use of the color blue that draws you in, but upon closer inspection, that cerulean or sapphire speaks to either peace or the abuse of power. Exploring themes such as race, history, and place, the 2021 Baker Artist Award winner’s collage of painting, drawing, and archival photography is meant to engage the community. Exhibit A: His recent “A Promising Future” in Upton, created with West Baltimore youth from Jubilee Arts.

ACTRESS

MOSES INGRAM

The only thing better than binging Netflix’s addictive drama The Queen’s Gambit? Finding out that Moses Ingram, the actress who plays the pivotal character Jolene, is from West Baltimore. Ingram, who went to the Baltimore School for the Arts, brings a wonderful lack of sentimentality to the part. Her Jolene has been hurt, but she won’t let it define her—and her resiliency and self-possession ultimately rubs off on heroine Beth. It’s a captivating performance and Hollywood took notice. Not only is she now officially Emmy nominated for her work on The Queen’s Gambit, her next two projects are even more high profile: Joel Coen’s Denzel Washington-led adaptation of Macbeth and the Star Wars miniseries, Obi-Wan Kenobi. We can say we knew her when.

INSTALLATION

THE AVENUE

SHAN Wallace’s studies of archives and imagery are always worth a long look, but this series of collages stretching down the sidewalk on Art Museum Drive outside of the BMA beg for multiple passes. Together, five vignettes tell the story of Black culinary history, from its roots in Africa to the people and communities that have fed places like Baltimore, Charleston, and Greensboro for centuries. Titled The Avenue in honor of Baltimore’s historic Pennsylvania Avenue, this exhibition, up through the fall, is the product of Wallace’s education in the legacies, past and present, of Black Americans in our food culture.

COLLECTOR’S ITEMS

ALBUM

No Stagediving

Last fall, beloved rock club Ottobar found a way to keep music alive in a year without concerts. This compilation featuring and benefiting the local music scene captured the soundtrack of our city when we needed it the most.

BOOK

The Office of Historical Corrections

From a viral Confederate flag bikini to fact-checking the public record, this collection by Danielle Evans, the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize recipient and a Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars professor, tackles timely topics in illuminating ways that leave you wanting more.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Shae McCoy

Baltimore’s vacant buildings get new life through the photography of Shae McCoy. Her recent book, West Baltimore Ruins, captures colorful, textured photographs of the city’s forgotten spaces in an intimate time capsule. A coffee-table must.

ZINE

PalatePALETTE

When its vibrant cover hit Instagram, we rushed to our local bookstore for a copy of this new zine from Krystal Mack’s In Absence Of Studio. It’s a beautiful testament to Baltimore’s foodways and workers, as well as the power and resilience of the community that feeds us.

POEM

“Beneath the Shell” by Kondwani Fidel

As Visit Baltimore launched its rebrand last summer, Kondwani Fidel's "Beneath the Shell" appeared on signs all over town. We’ll be proudly displaying our copies of the poet’s ode to our city's goodness—and our much-loved crabs—from Globe at MICA long after the banners come down.

A Bag of Rocks for a Bag of Rice by Phaan Howng, Asian Arts Gallery / Joseph Hyde.

ART SPACE

Towson University Asian Arts & Culture Center

Fifty years ago, then Towson State College began a mission to engage students with other cultures and challenge, through art, the dehumanization of Asians fueling U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia. To that end, the Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University was born, and for half a century, the AA&CC has been educating students and the community at large about Asian art and culture with exhibitions, artist residencies, lectures, and more. From the Asiavan program of the 1970s to the annual Asia North Festival today, the AA&CC has become an invaluable resource for sharing cultures and bringing people together. Here’s to the next 50.

FILM

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE

Documentarian Theo Anthony is part sociologist, part poet, and part philosopher. His second documentary, All Light, Everywhere, is about the dangers of our surveillance state. But it’s equally about the way we see things, our desire for some kind of universal truth, and the limitations of consciousness, with Anthony giving us entry to places we wouldn’t otherwise have access. Again and again, the documentary has us questioning everything we perceive—indeed, the very notion of a shared reality.

MAESTRA

MARIN ALSOP

From the moment she arrived 14 years ago, Baltimore audiences took to new Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Marin Alsop—the first woman to helm a major American symphony—and she to them. She was the perfect conductor for this town: unpretentious, community-focused, forward-thinking, with a wicked sense of humor. Now that she’s stepping down from the BSO podium, Alsop leaves a lasting legacy—an orchestra performing at its artistic peak, an OrchKids program that changed thousands of young lives, and an audience that has come to see symphonic music as accessible, fun, and for the people.

LIVING LEGEND

VALERIE MAYNARD

Valerie Maynard is a name all Baltimoreans need to know. The 84-yearold, Harlem-born printmaker and sculptor has called the city her home base for years now. Part of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s, her profound, pioneering artworks, including powerful black-and-white collage-style prints and linocuts, speak to both the deeply personal and political, centered on themes of social inequality, civil rights, and liberation. If you were lucky, you were able to view pieces from across her internationally renowned, six-decade career during a recent retrospective—her first major museum exhibition—at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where her works are now part of the permanent collection.

PLAY

PIPELINE

This Everyman Theatre drama—written by Dominique Morriseau, directed by Paige Hernandez, planned and staged with streaming in mind—did not offer the escapism that so many of us reached for this past year. What it did instead was take a heart-wrenching look at institutional racism in our schools, and the expectations that students, educators, and those in between must navigate. Actress Eleasha Gamble’s fear and ferocity as mother and public-school teacher Nya give this story its heart, while actor Dylan J. Fleming’s quiet intensity as her son, who has been pushed beyond what he can handle, offers lessons, and eventually, scripture, for providing students with care and a chance to succeed.

COURTESY OF EVAN WOODARD/ SEBASTIAN MARIN

@salvagearc

Evan Woodard embodies the old saying: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” The Baltimore-based history buff explores the region’s woods, waterways, and abandoned buildings in search of relics from the past—old medicine bottles, pieces of pottery, antique coins, toys, and so on—evolving his hobby into bonafide archaeological digs and donations to the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Follow along for local history lessons, and a side of the city you’ve never seen.

STREET ART

JULIET AMES

Just as we reached peak Netflix and Zoom burnout, Juliet Ames of the Broken Plate Co. swooped in and saved us from ourselves through street art. The local artist decided to convert the city’s iconic yet oftoverlooked salt boxes into canvases covered in crabs, Natty Boh, Divine, and even cicadas, which sparked a quintessentially Baltimore movement. Creative neighbors all across the city joined in on the fun. It’s one of the few things about this past year that we’ll look back on with fondness.

Corner Life

Mike Smith — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Twenty years ago, Joel Lee, a 21-year-old Korean-American beginning his senior year at then-Towson State University, was robbed, shot in the face, and killed while heading to a classmate’s home in Northeast Baltimore. “He wanted to borrow a computer-science book because he was determined to get his grades even higher this year,” his friend, Folashayo Babalola, told The Baltimore Sun after the September 1993 murder. “Joel was very quiet, very ambitious,” Babalola continued. “This has really shaken me. . . . ”

The brutal slaying also shook Baltimore’s Korean-American community, whose leaders still recall the tragedy. Already feeling under siege following attacks directed at Korean-American merchants in the 1980s and 1990s, the Lee case and trial was followed closely in the city. The acquittal of the accused two years later by an almost all African-African jury spurred a protest march downtown and appeared to reflect a troubled relationship between the Korean-American community and traditionally African-American neighborhoods where many of their businesses were located.

(It wasn’t only in Baltimore where relationships between Korean-American merchants and the African-American community were overheating. A year before Lee’s murder, in Los Angeles, Korean store owners were caught in the middle of rioting following the acquittal of white police officers in the beating of Rodney King. In New York, there had been Korean-American store boycotts.)

In Baltimore, there was also a boycott of a Korean-American-owned store, which was eventually closed by the Health Department. And there was a contentious debate over the renovation of the Lafayette and Belair Markets, where Korean-immigrant owners felt they were being pushed out by the city.

Into this fraying backdrop, the Baltimore-based Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland (KAGRO) was founded in 1995. Forming a nonprofit to help Korean-Americans deal with vendors and navigate the myriad city regulations had been discussed for six months, says Jay Park, who operated a Park Heights liquor store for 25 years and was an early KAGRO president. But the group’s focus quickly expanded in the wake of the Lee trial—which was followed by a wave of four Korean-American store shootings in an eight-day period in January 1997. Immediately, KAGRO began working to build relationships in local communities—starting a scholarship fund, organizing outreach events, and attending meetings. Merchants tried to develop a better relationship with the city police, which had proved a struggle, if for no other reason than the cultural and language barriers.

“The timing [of KAGRO’s launch] wasn’t tied directly to the Lee case,” says Park, “but it concentrated our attention on the most pressing issues we had to deal with, which were not problems with the vendors.”

At his son’s memorial service, Joel Lee’s father said he didn’t “want my son’s death to have no meaning.”

A generation later, Park believes something positive can be connected to that tragedy. “Up until that time, I think we had been looked at and treated differently because of our skin color, our language,” Park says. “But after that, I think people saw us coming together and began to see us as a part of the community, too.”

“Korean-Americans, we don’t have a lot of resources when we arrive.”

But it has never been easy running a corner store in Baltimore. Crime and poverty persist in wide swaths. And now, after decades of struggle on tough corners, city officials are planning to significantly reduce the number of neighborhood liquor stores—the vast majority of which are owned by Korean-Americans. In a sense, Park says, KAGRO members “feel under attack again.”

Among the first things KAGRO did 18 years ago was start a scholarship program for local students. Since then, the association has awarded about $300,000, via annual grants to students in the neighborhoods where KAGRO-member stores are located, as well as to high-school and college-age children of store owners. Two police officers are also annually awarded “appreciation” honors at a ceremony at the Greenmount Senior Center.

The scholarships, as well as different community events and outreach forums, Park says, helped defuse tensions over time. “We tried to go around and get questions from the community, we tried to listen and get the community’s perspective as well as the merchants,” Park says. There were also meetings with former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke’s Korean liaison and municipal departments, and later with the O’Malley and Dixon administrations. By 2004, the Maryland Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had produced a report—years in the making—that found that, while problems persisted between the African-American and Korean-American store owners, “some merchants enjoy friendly relationships in the neighborhoods where their stores are located . . . ” The report, however, also found that “city agencies can do more” to provide services without bias. Not that there wasn’t work needed on the store owners’ side.

“There are cultural differences between the West and East,” says Jin Wook Kang, a restaurant owner and lower Charles Village liquor-store operator. “In our home country, making eye contact is viewed as disrespectful in certain relationships, for example, between a student and a teacher; with a police officer or government official. We listen, but we look down. In our home country, we put change on the counter and push it toward a customer—it’s considered more polite than touching someone’s hand. But here, someone would tell police, ‘They’re rude, they put the change on the counter and push it toward you.’ The opposite was true. It was a misunderstanding. But things have improved a great deal.”

Jay Park arrived in Baltimore as a 17-year-old in 1973, at the start of a Korean boom following the 1965 Immigration Act, which abolished nation-based immigration laws giving Europeans preference. Ninety-five percent of Korean-Americans consist of post-1965 immigrants and their children. In the Baltimore region, the Korean-American community has grown from 2,000, Park estimates, when his family arrived, to 60,000.

“My father dreamed of a better life, a better life for his family—the land of opportunity—and he applied for immigration,” says Park, a fit and young-looking 57, casually dressed in a maroon golf shirt tucked into gray slacks at KAGRO’s office at North and Maryland Avenues. He speaks in accented but perfect English, smiling as he recalls his family’s early struggles to acclimate and make ends meet in their third-floor Patterson Park apartment. “Immigration was open to ‘skilled labor’ immigrants and he was an auto mechanic. He brought the whole family and only had $400. I think about it—there were seven of us—five siblings. Where does anybody get that kind of courage?” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

His father eventually landed a Sparrows Point union job, where he punched a clock for 15 years. Park graduated from Towson in 1980 with a business degree, and, after a series of entry-level retail jobs, including door-to-door sales, he decided to strike out on his own. It was not just a desire to be self-employed; it was almost a necessity, he says.

“All of us have a family . . . counting on us, and this is the one thing we know.”

“First-generation Korean-Americans, we don’t have a lot resources when we arrive,” Park says. “People may have a lot of education in Korea, but they don’t know anyone and might have limited language skills. So, people pull resources together. We pull our own funding together, sometimes through a gye—a fund community members contribute to each month and then have access to. That’s how a lot of Korean-American merchants start—even today—though less than before.”

Michelle Ha, current KAGRO president, has been here since 1980 and lives above her East Biddle Street liquor store, which she’s owned for 15 years—not far from where Park’s family first settled. She throws an annual spaghetti block party, collects school supplies for neighborhood kids, and gives away Thanksgiving meals. “I love doing those things,” Ha says. A community council member, she works closely with Eastern District police—she has the commander’s cell-phone number—and officers know her by name. She also puts together an annual summer Day of Hope festival at Bocek Park, which includes children’s activities and rides.

“She’s a fixture in that community,” says Lt. Col. Melvin T. Russell, commander of the department’s community partnership division. “When I need help, she is one of the first people I call. She serves as a go-between with the small businesses [and police], and I know she provides holiday meals for hundreds of people. The city needs more people like her.”

Ha, however, is concerned about her future. Baltimore may need committed activists like Ha, but city officials don’t want the kind of business she owns in residential communities anymore. Part of the city’s massive rezoning effort entails scaling back the number of liquor licenses. Proportionally, the rollback will hit the Korean-American community, which owns the majority of corner “Class A” liquor stores, hardest.

Currently, there are 1,330 liquor licenses in the city. About 300 are “Class A” licenses, of which 128 are slated for cuttng. Thomas Stosur, Baltimore City’s director of planning, notes studies showing a correlation between crime, violence, poor public-health outcomes, and the number of liquor stores in densely populated residential areas. He adds that the last time the city underwent a rezoning overhaul was in 1971 when the 128 current liquor licenses the city wants to remove were “grandfathered” in. “We refer to them as ‘non-conforming’ because, under current law, they wouldn’t qualify for a liquor license because they are in a residential area,” Stosur says. “That’s where that number comes from.”

Stosur adds that many “Class BD-7” licenses (bars that do a majority carryout business) will be affected as well and are not typically Korean-American owned. In both cases, he says, the city intends to assist storeowners in retooling their business, if possible, so they can remain. Owners may sell their licenses, though that won’t be easy, Stosur admits.

Councilman Nick Mosby, who successfully sponsored a bill last year to stop liquor-store sales of candy, soda, and snacks to minors, says the effort to remove liquor stores from residential streets is overdue. “At the end of the day, this is an opportunity to build healthier communities,” he says. “Our juveniles grow up surrounded by liquor stores to a point where it becomes normalized. I ask people, ‘Where do you live? Would you put up with it on your block?'” Mosby acknowledges many owners have developed good neighborhood relationships, but says rezoning liquor stores out of residential areas and away from city schools is just common sense. Mosby expects the proposed rezoning to come before the City Council this fall—hearings last spring were emotional and contentious with KAGRO members voicing opposition—with a vote next spring. Owners “will have had 3 to 4 years to make necessary adjustments,”he says.

Still, Park, Ha, and KAGRO members feel they were excluded from the rezoning discussions. Park points out that while many businesses fled in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the Korean-American business owners stayed. Many in the Korean-American community did move their residences to Baltimore and Howard Counties, but still worked with city officials to reduce crime and improve neighborhoods where they owned businesses. Station North, where KAGRO’s office is located, never quite became “Korea-town,” as Park puts it, but remains the center of the city’s Korean community and includes popular restaurants that date back to the 1980s. Those restaurants and the Korean community helped keep Station North viable before its Arts & Entertainment District designation and recent boom. “Now,” says Park, “they don’t need us anymore, and it’s goodbye.”

Of course, most of Park’s children, like other store owners’ kids born here, don’t have an interest in taking over the family business. Not after watching their mothers and fathers spend seven days a week, 12 hours a day, operating a corner store in a gritty section of town, often stuck at a cash register behind bullet-proof glass.

“Our kids don’t want that,” Park says. “They want professional jobs.”

Their parents, however, can’t afford to lose their stores, where their income and retirement remains tied up.

“All of us have a family and people counting on us, and this is the one thing we know how to do,” Ha says. “Once you start, you have so much money and time invested. How do you get the return that you have worked hard for?”

Source

Beyond Kimchi

Jess Mayhugh — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:30:00 +0000

When TV personality, chef, and food writer Andrew Zimmern came to Baltimore last summer, he visited a variety of eating establishments including Angie’s Soul Food at Lexington Market and Chaps Charcoal Restaurant for pit beef. But he also wanted to go to several of the area’s Korean restaurants while filming an episode for the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods America. At Nam Kang on Maryland Avenue, Zimmern chowed down on octopus bibimbap and fish-roe jjigae before heading to Shin Chon Garden Restaurant in Ellicott City, where he continued his eating foray. (The episode is scheduled to air in late March.) During his food tour, Zimmern said of the places he visited, “Those things are authentically Baltimore.” Indeed. Beginning in the ’70s and until the ’90s, there were solid pockets of Korean immigrants in Baltimore. Ultimately, urban flight shifted the Asian-population concentrations toward the counties, particularly Howard County with its excellent public-school system. But in the city, a cluster of Korean restaurants still remains in the lower Charles Village neighborhood, just north of where the first Korean grocery once stood (the Far East House on North Avenue) and just south of The Johns Hopkins University, which provides a constant stream of Korean students seeking comfort food. We offer a roundup of several popular restaurants with a glossary of Korean foods and a primer on eating-and-ordering etiquette. All you need to do is bring an appetite—and a sense of adventure.

Baltimore City

Nam Kang, 2126 Maryland Ave., 410-685-6237. While the original Korean restaurant in Baltimore was Seoul restaurant (which later relocated), Nam Kang ranks as one of the oldest in town. The basement space once housed a Brazilian and an Ethiopian restaurant, but now serves arguably the most consistently well-prepared Korean food in the city. Like other restaurants in the neighborhood, it is open until 4 a.m. It features Korean barbecue dishes, but they are prepared in the kitchen rather than traditionally at the table.

Jong Kak, 18 W. 20th St., 410-837-5231. One of the few remaining Korean barbecue restaurants in town (the original, Ehwa, met its demise when Light Rail construction along Howard Street closed that area to traffic), Jong Gak features tabletop barbecue. But unlike most barbecue restaurants, they use braziers with hot charcoal, instead of a gas flame, for cooking.

Nak Won, 12 W. 20th St., 410-244-5501. Located next door to Jong Gak, this restaurant has very similar offerings, as well as a space for private events.

Following Korean etiquette

No one should eat until the eldest person at the table begins to eat. In Korea, this is often observed, even among friends belonging to the same age group. But for the sake of practicality, it’s okay to to ask if everyone is ready before starting to eat.
Always offer to pour water, tea, and especially alcohol for others before pouring it for yourself (eldest first, of course). When consuming alcohol, pouring yourself a glass is considered bad form, so don’t be surprised if a Korean dining companion insists on pouring it for you. When receiving a pour from someone older than you, hold your cup with two hands.
If sharing from communal dishes, do not eat directly from the plates or bowls. Instead transfer them to your own small bowl or plate. (Always ask for extra dishes in advance on such occasions.)
Although not commonly observed among those familiar with each other, it is considered polite to transfer food from communal plates to your own by turning your chopsticks around and using the fat ends, so the narrow (germy) ends are away from the food.
When eating something that’s accompanied by a dipping sauce (for example, dumplings), instead of dipping directly into the communal sauce dish, ladle some with a spoon onto the morsel you have transferred to your own plate.
It’s often observed that Asians “slurp” their noodles. This is not quite true. Koreans employ more of an inhaling action, so that the noodles are sucked in along with air (lips not sealed around noodles), which helps to minimize splashing and also cools the noodles as one eats them.
Never leave chopsticks sticking straight up in a bowl of rice and never transfer a piece of food directly from chopstick to chopstick. Both are considered bad luck.

In the ’burbs

Shin Chon Garden Restaurant, 8801 Baltimore National Pike, No. 27, Ellicott City, 410-461-3280. Despite having gone through changes in ownership, Shin Chon remains the best Korean barbecue restaurant in the Baltimore metro area. They employ tabletop gas grills and serve excellent cuts of meat, a dizzying array of condiments and banchan (side dishes), and even supply the traditional barbecue accompaniment—doenjang jjigae, which is a rich, fermented soy-based soup with tofu and squash. Andrew Zimmern declared it one of the top five Korean restaurants he’s visited in the United States.

Han Joong Kwan, 9338 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City, 410-461-1099. Serving mostly Chinese-influenced cuisine, the restaurant, also known as the Silver Dragon, is best known for its jajangmyun and jjamppong. The noodles, while not handmade, are regarded as the best in the area.

Kimko Seafood, 10176 Baltimore National Pike, Suite 116, Ellicott City, 410-480-1442. The only restaurant in the area that features hwe, or Korean-style sashimi, Kimko boasts entire walls of fish tanks with all manner of marine animals that provide the freshest possible raw seafood. Most raw fish dishes are served according to how many guests are in a group, or by the actual animal, such as a whole live abalone or even live baby octopus. The cooked food is also excellent, and a multi-course menu offering nearly a dozen dishes can be had for a very fair price.

Honey Pig, 10045 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City, 410-696-2426. Honey Pig is a Korean barbecue mini-chain known for being open 24 hours and for its low prices, which makes it popular with students and late-night revelers. The atmosphere can be rather high energy at times. The barbecue is cooked on small hibachi-style camping stoves, so it’s difficult to obtain the proper sear and char, but again, the price is certainly right.

Hansung, 3570 St. Johns Ln., Ellicott City, 410-750-2753. A local favorite that is gaining a wider following, this restaurant is a combination of Korean and Japanese food, including the ubiquitous sushi and sashimi, as well as cooked dishes like yakitori and udon.

BonChon Chicken, 3419 Plum Tree Dr., No. 102, Ellicott City, 410-465-0515. The long-awaited opening of this Korean fried-chicken chain saves devotees a trip to its location in Virginia for the crispy, juicy, spicy-sweet poultry dish. Eat in or order carryout. Call ahead or be prepared to wait. The chicken is cooked to order and takes 20-30 minutes to prepare.

Hanoori Town, 822 N. Rolling Rd., Catonsville, 410-747-8315. Located next to H Mart, this sprawling, free-standing food court with a central dining area is surrounded by counters offering items like Korean soups, rice dishes, broiled fish, sushi made with ham and American cheese, and Korean-style shaved ice topped with fruit or sweet-bean paste.

Lotte Food Court, 8801 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City, 410-750-9656. If you get hungry while grocery shopping in the Lotte Korean supermarket, you can just park your cart and head to the in-house food court. Individual stalls serve traditional Korean food, as well as Japanese home-style food and sushi. There is also a very good Korean bakery.

Lighthouse Tofu BBQ, 9380 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City, 410-461-6560. Despite its name’s implications, the restaurant (there’s another location in Rockville) is neither a vegetarian nor a barbecue place. It specializes in soon dooboo, a very soft form of tofu that is most often made into a spicy seafood-and-vegetable-based soup. Soups are customized here, from ingredients to the level of spice.

Goong Jeon, 202 Crain Highway North, Glen Burnie, 410-768-9788. Representing a dwindling pocket of Korean presence in Anne Arundel County, Goong Jeon has been around longer than its Howard County counterparts. The restaurant offers Korean barbecue cooked on gas-flame grills and friendly service.

Woomi Garden, 2423 Hickerson Drive, Wheaton, 301-933-0100. Woomi Garden serves probably the best Korean barbecue in Maryland and is definitely worth the 45-minute trip from Baltimore. It offers fresh meats, excellent marinades, and well-made banchan (side dishes). Also well-prepared are the fresh mung-bean pancakes and another traditional accompaniment to barbecue—naeng myun, which are chewy buckwheat noodles served in a refreshing cold broth.

Understanding the Food

Korean cuisine reflects a geography similar to Maryland.

True Korean cuisine is incredibly diverse, in part a reflection of the country’s varied and compact landscape. In the mountains, wild boar and pickled ferns are served at roadside inns, while just a few hours’ drive east, fresh seafood can be found in port cities dotting the vast coastline. Is it any wonder Koreans chose Maryland as a new home? Korean food is divided into groupings like “soups” and “rice dishes” and into lifestyle categories like what to eat when ill or drinking.
In Baltimore, we have access to a range and quality (if not quantity) of Korean restaurants that rival much larger communities.

Barbecue
Cooking at the Table
One of the most recognizable and influential Korean food imports is Korean barbecue. Its origins lie in a form of preparation called jeok, in which skewers are used to cook meat over an open flame. The modern form involves various cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and sometimes seafood and lamb. The meat is cooked at the table and eaten communally.

Soups
A Main Course
Korea is one of the world’s great soup cultures. There are two main delineations: jjigae, which generally refers to highly spiced, heartier stew-type soups, and guk, which usually indicates a higher ratio of broth to solid with less aggressive seasoning. Soups are always a main course. They usually start with fish or meat stock and are often enriched with a soy-bean paste.

Noodles
Two Main Types
Noodles make up a surprisingly small segment of Korean cuisine, with the most popular noodle dishes derived from Chinese preparations. The two main ones are jajangmyun, which are wheat-flour noodles dressed with a thick gravy made from fermented black beans, and jjamppong, which are the same noodles except they come in a spicy, seafood-laden broth.

Rice in a Stone Bowl
A Korean Casserole
Basically the casserole of Korean cuisine, bibimbap, which translates to mixed-up rice, is rice with an assortment of vegetables and meat (often leftovers when made at home), bound together by a spicy sauce and often enriched with a fried egg. A deluxe version is served in a heated stone bowl, which results in a crust of crunchy browned rice.

Hwe
Raw Fish
Koreans eat a lot of seafood and especially enjoy it raw. Korean-style raw fish, known as hwe, differs from Japanese sashimi in that the fish is usually a firm, white-fleshed flat fish such as flounder and is often dressed with a soy and garlic sauce without wasabi.

Korean Fried Chicken
Usually Legs and Wings
A niche product that skyrocketed in popularity in the ’90s and early 2000s, Korean fried chicken has lots of fans. The chicken is not battered; rather, it is lightly floured, then “double-fried” and glazed, resulting in a super-crispy, almost glassy exterior with a sweet or spicy, garlicky flavor. Usually only legs and wings are served with pickled radishes.

SHARED FARE: Food For Drinking. The dishes are often salty, spicy, and/or fatty, and are served in large portions meant for sharing. Popular ones include dooboo kimchi bokkeum and samgyupsal.

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DiverCity: Reason To Believe

Web Intern — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

On a brilliant sunny day, Mercedes Eugenia steers her 2004 Acura sedan down Liberty Heights Avenue near Gwynn Oak. Not particularly attractive, the block has a seen-better-days quality, with a shuttered Super Pride market across the street from the long-darkened Ambassador Theater. Although the 4-G’s liquor store does a brisk business, as does the New York Fried Chicken carryout, it doesn’t look like the sort of place that would attract investment.

Here, in the heart of Howard Park, there’s no waterfront glitter and high-rise sparkle—qualities we’ve come to equate with urban development—in sight. Commuters driving this well-traveled stretch of road, connecting Liberty Road in Baltimore County to the city’s northwest corridor, probably aren’t aware that Howard Park is undergoing profound change, economically and socially.

The redevelopment going on here has been under the radar. It doesn’t involve any of the usual nonprofit funders or government programs. The people behind it haven’t issued a single press release. So motorists passing through wouldn’t even know to look for it. Still, they may have noticed more women wearing headscarves.

Eugenia, who grew up in Howard Park, has been president of the Howard Park Civic Association for the past three years. “If you drive down this main street, you have no idea what is actually here,” she says. “It in no way reflects what we have on these side streets.”

With that, Eugenia makes a few turns and lets up on the accelerator as she cruises down wide, tree-lined avenues. Skirting Hillsdale Park and the Forest Park Golf Course at the neighborhood’s southernmost boundary, she drives past three-story homes with wraparound porches, 1940s era cottages, vinyl-sided ranchers, and brick rowhouses—most of them exquisitely maintained with colorful flowers and shrubbery, close-clipped lawns, and, often, ornamental latticework on the doors and porches. “This is the flip side of Roland Park,” she says.

Some residents are out working in their gardens; others sit on their porches and raise a hand in greeting as Eugenia rolls past. Children race down the sidewalk on scooters. “Here, you have the ability to relax,” says Eugenia. “It reminds me of Charleston, South Carolina.”

Eugenia notes that Howard Park has more than 80 percent homeownership, and most of these homes sit on sizable lots, 7,000 square feet on average. But its population is aging, and with that comes instability as longtime residents pass away or move into nursing homes. “Upwards of 40 percent of our residents are senior citizens,” says Eugenia, “and we’re trying to make sure their needs are met, because we don’t want to lose this neighborhood.”

Factor an infusion of drugs, crime, and absentee landlords into the equation, and the prospect of losing Howard Park becomes all too real. “What you have here are pockets of drug trafficking,” says Eugenia. “There are some open-air [drug] markets. That’s nothing unusual for an urban area, but it’s unusual for the residents here, because they’ve never experienced that before. It’s not overwhelming or overbearing, but it’s a foothold we don’t want the drug dealers to have.”

She points to a house on the right that used to be a crack house, but a Muslim family lives there now. In the next block she points out another former drug house that’s been bought and renovated by Muslims.

Eugenia turns onto Maine Avenue. “Some people refer to it as Islamic Way,” she says. “It’s not completely Islamic, but there is a concentration of Muslims on this street. The houses here are beautiful, or they’re in the process of being redone. We’re quite pleased with what they’re doing.”

She stops beside an SUV that has just pulled to the curb in front of a huge house. A woman and three girls get out; the girls are carrying book bags—an Islamic school is located down the street—and they’re all wearing headscarves. Eugenia hollers to one of them: “Where are your glasses?”

The girl, about 13 years old, approaches the car window and explains that her glasses have been lost and she’s getting contacts. “But don’t you need to see in school?” Eugenia asks.

“I can see okay enough to do my work,” the girl responds, before asking Eugenia to come by later for a visit. Eugenia says she’ll do that, and the girl runs off toward the house and disappears inside.

A casual, seemingly inconsequential exchange, it’s nonetheless emblematic of what’s going on in Howard Park. “Around here, we have youth that you’re not afraid to talk to,” says Eugenia. “They are friendly, articulate, and educated. You can tell they are being raised in a family-friendly environment.”

She continues down Maine. “There is a revitalization occurring here on multiple levels and not just on the surface,” she says. “The catalyst has been, quite frankly, the infusion of the Islamic community.”

In the basement of a house in the 4100 block of Liberty Heights, Joshua Salaam cuts a length of copper wire.

Above him, the dilapidated home is almost completely gutted, a three-story shell of a building. Around him, workers come and go, some carrying debris. Wearing denim work clothes and a kufi (head cap), Salaam coils the wire and smiles. “There’s a lot of work to be done here,” he says.

The house, one of six adjoining properties purchased by an investor in Virginia, is in the process of getting new plumbing, electric, and drywall, along with a new roof, replacement windows, and siding, if needed. The investor is Muslim. The real estate company that made the sale and the contractor doing the rehab are Islamic. So is the roll-off company providing dumpsters to the work site. The three companies—The Development Group, Development Group Construction, and Roll-Off Services—are affiliated, and based in Howard Park.

Salaam is the manager of Development Group Construction. “They’re like sister companies,” he says of the three entities. “The investor who bought these properties from us is also using our construction company. Plus, a lot of the people who work for us live in the neighborhood. Ultimately, we’re trying to keep the dollars circulating in this area.”

Salaam’s cell phone rings. Someone working on the house next door needs an Allen wrench. With the coil of wire over his shoulder, he locates a set of the wrenches and hustles over to the other house, which is almost finished being rehabbed. Inside, the smell of paint hangs thickly in the air. Every wall, ceiling, baseboard, and molding sports a fresh coat of white paint. All the bathroom fixtures are new. “It’s looking pretty good, isn’t it?” Salaam asks, fully aware of the answer to that question.

“We’re not caught up in simply chasing a dollar,” he continues. “There’s money to be made everywhere, and if your intent is strictly to go where the money is, you might achieve that goal. But it might be at the expense of your own neighborhood. Our focus is bringing the money here and raising up this area.”

The cell phone rings again, and Salaam wanders outside to take the call. “Yes, I have it, 13 feet,” he says. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

With that, he places the copper wire in the bed of his pickup truck, and drives off to another work site.

Salaam’s boss, John Cason, is the man behind much of the redevelopment activity. Sitting at a conference table inside the Development Group offices at the corner of Liberty Heights and Granada avenues, he wears scuffed work boots, black sweats, and a Hasim “The Rock” Rahman jacket—Cason is the heavyweight champion’s father. One office wall is lined with books, including the Annotated Code of Maryland, William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues, and multiple copies of a Qur’anic concordance. A sign over the door reads “Tactical Room.”

“One of the only things Howard Park has is the potential to develop solid community,” says Cason, “and that’s exactly what we, as a society, need more of. We have become a disjointed society, just looking for individual success and not realizing the collateral damage of not building and strengthening community. We live in neighborhoods as individuals, not community members. We care more about the value of our neighbor’s house than the person who lives in it. This happens to whites, blacks, Christians, and Muslims—you can go across the board.

“You probably live in a community where you have a certain amount of economic status, and you know people who live around you, but you don’t really know them. You say “hi” and “bye.” You talk about the golf course, or whatever it is you talk about. You are there solely because of your economic ability, and that’s it. As a result, you may not share the same morals and values. You may have nothing else in common.”

Cason, who has lived in Howard Park off and on since 1969, speaks from experience. The first member of his family to attend college, he got a degree in engineering and moved out of the neighborhood. He took a good job in Hunt Valley and relocated to Baltimore County. “For African Americans, it’s the typical upward and out story,” he says. “It’s the American success story—go to school, get a job, and start making good money so you can buy that nice car and house. I did that.”

But after getting out, he posed a series of tough questions to himself, questions such as: Am I welcome in my neighbor’s house? Can I rely on my neighbor in times of need? Can I trust my neighbor with my family and my property? Do I share common moral values with my neighbor?

Uncomfortable with the answers, he returned to Howard Park in 1998. By that time, Cason had converted from Christianity—both of his parents were Christian ministers—to Islam. “I always had some basic questions about the religion that I couldn’t resolve,” he says of his conversion. “But Islam, for me, provided all the answers.”

He formed the Development Group in 2001, with an eye toward facilitating more of a Muslim presence in the neighborhood, although his overall objective was broader. “Muslims and non-Muslims alike are looking for a suitable environment in which to work and raise their children, while worshiping God,” he says. “They want safety, peace of mind, and comfortable homes; an environment where they can grow, live with their children, and get old without feeling abandoned; and they want that environment to endure and be sustained over generations. Everybody wants that.”

Cason bought houses in need of repair—some were vacant, some were being used for illicit purposes—rehabbed them, and resold them to Muslim families. Because Muslims are forbidden to charge or pay interest, Cason describes how the sales were financed in accordance with Islamic principles: “Usually, I would buy the property, fix it up, and sell the property for an 80 percent profit margin over 15 years. That percentage sounds high, but it’s moderate.”

He explains: “Let’s say I buy a house for $50,000 and put $50,000 into it. Then, I have $100,000 into it, and I’ll sell it to you for $180,000. I’ll hold the note and not charge any interest. You pay me $1,000 a month for 180 months. It’s that simple, and I make money over that 15-year period.”

Upwards of 65 properties in the neighborhood have been purchased by Muslims in this manner. Cason estimates that 85 families, or about 300 Muslims—almost all of them American-born—have moved to Howard Park as a result.

Attorney Melvin Bilal purchased a home through Development Group and moved to Howard Park from Columbia, where he had lived for 30 years. Bilal, a former army lieutenant who currently serves on the board of directors at Provident Bank, says he “never imagined moving to Baltimore City,” but a visit to Howard Park during a business trip changed all that. “I was impressed with the friendliness and brotherhood of the Muslims here,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I want to be part of this kind of community.'”

Leon Faruq and his wife, Noni, sold their Mount Washington home and moved to Howard Park in 2003. “I wanted the opportunity to live close to other Muslims,” says Faruq, who counsels ex-inmates (see Baltimore, August 2003, “Wanted Man”). “Muslims present in their living space a wholesome environment, which is important for family life. Anything that runs counter to that, Muslims will work to correct.”

The neighborhood had a similar appeal for Joshua Salaam. A former law enforcement officer in the Air Force with a criminal justice degree, Salaam moved from Germantown with his wife and two small children in 2003. “I didn’t just come here to be part of a Muslim community, although that affords me a certain comfort level,” he says. “I also came here to be part of a Muslim community that has a purpose in effecting a positive change in the general community.”

These newcomers now occupy renovated houses that likely contributed to blight in their previous incarnations. It sounds like a win-win situation, but it hasn’t been without its challenges. “Seeing a substantial number of Muslims scared some folks in the neighborhood,” says Cason. “After all, it’s been a long time since Howard Park experienced this degree of change.”

Howard Park was booming in 1947, the year the Howard Park Civic Association was founded. In 1898, there were just three houses south of Liberty Road (Heights). But by the end of the Second World War, there were few building lots left as a steady stream of construction transformed Howard Park’s open space into a leafy suburb.

After developers pressed for rezoning that would allow higher density, residents banded together to form the civic association and successfully fought the change. The association also spearheaded efforts to build an athletic field for local children. When the field was completed in 1949, 4,000 residents attended the dedication, which featured a parade of cars, decorated bicycles, and a half-dozen marching bands. Over the next few years, the increasingly active membership sponsored softball and bowling leagues, an annual Spring Dance at the Dixie Ball Room, and “Howard Park Day” picnics at Gwynn Oak Park. By 1952, the group had 1,120 paid members—who were all white, like the neighborhood itself.

That changed in August 1959, when an African-American family bought a home in the 5500 block of Belleville Avenue. More blacks followed, prompting an exodus of whites. “Those who remained were sometimes reserved toward the newcomers because they had never known Negro neighbors, and had been exposed to rumors linking neighborhood deterioration to race,” wrote Henry Suter, in his 1971 history of Howard Park. “But when they found that most Negro householders began to improve their property almost as the moving van was driving off, the older residents slowly came to recognize the unimportance of color as between good neighbors.”

Despite Suter’s sunny outlook, whites abandoned Howard Park, and years later, its population was still hemorrhaging. Howard Park lost 20 percent of its population between 1980 and 2000 (outpacing a citywide decline of 17 percent over the same period), according to a Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies report. That number seemed to baffle the researchers, who took note of “Howard Park’s suburban characteristics,” “affordable single-family detached homes with yards,” and “low occurrence of crime.”

They also pointed out that families with children were the neighborhood’s most rapidly decreasing household type, dropping by a staggering 50 percent since 1980. “This trend is difficult to explain,” the researchers wrote, “as key indicators suggest this would be an excellent neighborhood for households with children.”

No one had to tell John Cason that. He knew Howard Park was an ideal spot for families with children. And he knew the neighborhood was in desperate need of such an infusion. “I saw Howard Park go down,” says Cason, “and I knew we had the ability to raise it up.”

The newcomers were initially met with suspicion and, in some isolated instances, religious bigotry or outright hostility. In one oft-told incident, a longtime resident supposedly said she’d prefer a crack house to having Muslims as next-door neighbors. Such sentiments and suspicions escalated after 9/11, especially after two sheiks—one from Sudan, the other from Morocco—moved into the area, and an Islamic Center was established on Gwynn Oak Avenue.

“Four or five years ago, there was a lot of suspicion,” says Eugenia. “You’re looking at people who dress differently. You’re looking at people that moved into the community in a very systematic manner. Most people operate out of a base of fear rather than a base of knowledge, and, of all the religions on the planet, people know the least about the Islamic religion. We have an innate fear of that which we do not know.”

As attendance increased at the Islamic Center’s daily prayer services, parking became a concern in the area. That issue, along with stalled renovations at the Center, strained the relationship between the Muslims and a few neighbors in the immediate vicinity. Some complained that worshippers occupied too much on-street parking, while others contended that the half-finished Center was an eyesore. [Apparently, both issues are being resolved—a parking lot will be built at the Center, and money is being raised to renovate the building in a more timely manner.]

But overall, the fears and suspicions receded, as the Muslims became active in the community at large. Far from insular, they are increasingly engaged, both politically and socially. Melvin Bilal even ran for City Council in 2004—as a Republican.

Eugenia estimates that, of the Howard Park Civic Association’s 350 paid members, 150 are Muslim. She also points out that Joshua Salaam is chairman of the association’s board of directors. “And it wasn’t the Islamic community that made the difference in voting him in,” she says. “It happened to be the senior citizens. They love him.”

“What we’re trying to create here is a positive, neighborly atmosphere,” says Salaam. “Being neighborly isn’t just Islam, it’s part of Christianity, too. But how many people actually practice those aspects of knowing your neighbor? We’re trying to bring that back. In Islam, it says that you shouldn’t eat if your neighbor is hungry. How would you know that unless you’re in contact with your neighbor? That’s why the community can come to us and say, ‘We need help with this problem.'”

When drug dealing proliferated at Liberty Heights and Gwynn Oak last year, hundreds of Muslims participated in a rally that successfully drove the dealers from the corner. And when drug trafficking surfaced around a convenience/liquor store near Rogers Avenue, and the owner could not address it, Cason’s Development Group purchased the building. “I told him to move,” says Cason, “because he was a detriment to the community.”

“The Muslims are a dream come true for the president of a community association,” says Eugenia. “If there’s anything I need with regards to this association, I can call and get it. From protesting on corners and attending meetings downtown to circulating petitions and organizing clean-up drives, I’m able to call on them and get the job done. I can depend on them.”

Back at the Development Group offices, cason pulls a copy of the qur’anic concordance off the bookshelf. It’s a handsome volume, with a deep blue cover and gold lettering. Cason put together this edition—an alphabetical index of every word in the Qur’an that also notes the placement of each word’s occurrence in the text—which was an enormous undertaking.

Cason says that while studying the holy book, he searched for an English language concordance to help with his studies. He couldn’t locate one and was told that all the published concordances were in Arabic. Thinking it would be a useful tool for Engish-speaking Muslims, he went ahead and made one himself. “People ask me, ‘What gave you the right to do it?'” he says. “‘You have an associate’s degree in engineering. This is something a Ph.D. should do.’ “What gave me the right to do it is that no one else did it. There was a need for it. It’s just like what we’re doing in Howard Park,” Cason continues. “No one else was doing it, and there was definitely a need for it. So we’re doing it.”

He pulls a binder off the bookshelf, a binder containing copies of his companies’ payroll checks. “We don’t pay people under the table,” he says, turning the pages and noting that half of his 30 employees are non-Muslim. “We are employing the people of Howard Park, and you don’t necessarily have to be Muslim to be part of what we’re doing. We’re looking for people who want to come here and build community. We’d like them to respect Muslim values—that’s all we’re asking.”

Cason points out that no government money is involved. “This is bootstrap,” he says. “This is not some program, and we do not take a single dollar from the government. We’re doing this on our own.”

“Why did I do it that way?” he asks, anticipating a question he’s obviously heard before.

He re-shelves the concordance, letting the question hang in the air. He returns to the table, smiling. “Because I need to be able to say to others, ‘Go do it in your community,'” he says. “I want to set an example and show African Americans how to do it, and I want to show Muslims how to do it.

“But that’s not all. I also want to show Baltimore City that it can be done.”

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