The night before the biggest game of his life, Bruce Zimmermann walked on to a quiet, empty, mostly dark Camden Yards field to imagine how things might go the next day—and take in the setting.

In a scene from a baseball fairytale, a little after 9 p.m. on Sunday, with no one else around, the 27-year-old that grew up a 20-minute drive away near Ellicott City stepped on the pitcher’s mound at Oriole Park and gazed at the sights.

There was the Opening Day logo spray-painted in white in the grass behind home plate. The new deeper, and higher left field wall, reconstructed in the offseason, to help pitchers just like him. And, of course, his eyes drifted to the iconic brick warehouse in right field, gently lit in the black sky.

“It was storybook, in a way,” Zimmermann said.

So was what happened the next day.

In the 30th Opening Day in Camden Yards on Monday afternoon—and the first home opener in two years where most of the stadium’s seats were filled—Zimmermann’s performance compelled thousands of fans to chant his first name, as if he were the New Jersey-born lead singer of the E Street Band.

Bruuuce!

On a warm spring afternoon, the 6-foot-1, 220-pound leftie buttoned-up his No. 50 Orioles jersey and threw four scoreless innings. He tossed 66 pitches in all, and allowed only three hits to power the Orioles to their first win of the year, a 2-0 victory over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. (If you’re a fan of symmetry, it was the exact same score the Orioles won their first-ever game at Camden Yards, 30 years ago.)

For a guy only beginning his second full big-league season, who grew up in the Baltimore suburbs, went to high school at Loyola-Blakefield, and then had a mostly unremarkable stint pitching at Towson University, it was as magical a day as they come.

“This one will always be up there for sure,” Zimmermann said afterward, standing near his locker. “I have to put it right there with my debut, maybe a little bit more, with everything and the environment. The first time seeing Oriole Park like that, as a player, was incredibly special.”

It was for those of us in the crowd, too. For one thing, the noise was back, along with the sense of a freewheeling, communal experience that, even with limited crowds last year, has been largely missing from Camden Yards since 2019 because of the pandemic.

On Monday, when Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins smacked a go-ahead, two-run single in the second inning, scoring lightning-fast shortstop Jorge Mateo all the way from second base, the cathartic sound of celebration was reminiscent of a big playoff moment.

“Oh yeah,” Mullins said. “That was awesome. It was an exciting moment. And we’re going to have a lot more.”

Frankly, Opening Day 2022 felt almost normal, as if we had we not lived through the past two years.

I was one of the rare few to attend the last two home openers. In 2020, I sat with a few dozen onlookers in the press box for an eerie July game against the Yankees played in front of no fans and in near silence with hand sanitizer use strongly encouraged.

Last year, a limited capacity of roughly 10,000 fans took in the O’s more traditional early April opener against the Boston Red Sox. We wrote then that it was a step toward life as we used to know it.

This year’s Opening Day marked another, and perhaps the biggest—in a baseball context. It was a crisply played game in which health protocols and COVID-19 worries finally seemed secondary to what happened on the field.

Before Zimmermann’s first pitch, fans strolled down Eutaw Street in orange-and-black gear, without masks, some in pursuit of a fresh Boog’s Barbecue sandwich, others in search of a table at Dempsey’s Brew Pub on the first level of the warehouse.

Yet a few other architecturally-inclined minds—and some kids in search of baseballs from the Brewers warming up on the field—headed straight to something new: the remade left-field stands.

In the offseason, the O’s removed roughly 1,000 seats from the short porch in left, making the field larger and home run wall a little higher, a design intended to reduce the number of home runs that fly out of the park, some that would be routine flyouts in other pro stadiums.

If it looks like someone—or specifically, construction workers—carved a slice out of what used to be there, that’s exactly what happened. There’s also now an awkward sharp corner in deep left field that we hope no one runs into full speed.

One game into the season: So far, so good.

Eventually, everyone (the crowd was announced as a sellout of 44,461 but there were obvious empties to the contrary) found their seats, and the lower bowl filled beneath a clear blue sky and gentle sun, as the orange carpet was rolled out in center field to cap off orchestrated pregame ceremonies.

As part of the festivities, Mullins received a giant Silver Slugger trophy—marking his peers voting him the best hitter in all of baseball at his position in 2021, following a breakout season in which he became the first Oriole ever to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a season.

Fan favorite, cancer-beater and longest-tenured O Trey Mancini, who started at designated hitter, received the loudest ovation. First baseman Ryan Mountcastle, who set a team record for home runs by a rookie last year, beating a mark previously held by Cal Ripken Jr., enjoyed a loud welcome back too.

After the game, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, who, like the rest of us, didn’t sign up for the circumstances of the past two years, said, “It was fun to hear Orioles fans cheering, and a lot of them. Our guys fed off the energy.”

Also during pregame, on the scoreboard in center field, Baltimore-based poet and author Kondwani Fidel delivered a video tribute to Camden Yards’ 30-year anniversary that gave us chills.

The Morgan State University choir, which performed the national anthem at Oriole Park on April 6, 1992, did the same this year (more symmetry!), while a giant flag from Fort McHenry was draped behind the green facade.

And, for the ceremonial first pitch, Kortez Baker, the son of slain Baltimore City police officer Keona Holley, as well as relatives of the three city firefighters who died in action in January, and the one who survived, John McMaster, took positions near the mound.

Then there was Zimmermann, who became the first Maryland-born pitcher to start a home opener for the Orioles since 1990, and first to ever do it at Camden Yards. And it happened nearly four years after he first joined the Orioles organization as a minor-leaguer via a trade that sent pitchers Kevin Gausman and Darren O’Day to the Atlanta Braves.

Before the game, Hyde said he hoped Zimmermann could handle the obvious butterflies in anticipation of the moment. He started 13 games last year after being called up late in 2020, but had never started Opening Day in his hometown ballpark. (Thus the night-before walkthrough, perhaps.)

After the game, Hyde said, “Zim pitched extremely well,” and highlighted his effective mix of fastballs, changeups and curveballs.

So how was Bruuuce’s anxiety level? “Pretty manageable,” Zimmermann told us. “It was high, but I knew it was going to be high. It was another start, with a lot of added adrenaline. I was more concerned about just getting through a clean first inning and setting up the rest of my outing.”

After a 1-2-3 first inning, we heard his first name being chanted a little bit in appreciation from O’s die-hards. And, after the second inning, when he struck out a batter with an off-speed pitch and a runner on second, it felt like we were at Springsteen concert. Same at the end of the third, when he got out of a bases-loaded jam following a brief mound visit from pitching coach Chris Holt.

“Walking off and hearing the Bruuuce chant and everything,” Zimmermann said, “that really hit and fired me up a little bit more.”

So did the knowledge that a large crew of longtime supporters, including his parents, aunts and uncles, and former college coaches were in attendance behind home plate.

Admittedly, though, Zimmermann tried not to look at them. He feared even a momentary distraction in the loud, jumpy environment could veer him from the vision of success he’d had on the mound in the quiet moments at Camden Yards the night before.

“Internally, there was a lot going on,” he said. “Usually, I do try to peek up, but [with] the magnitude of the day today, it was just kind of, ‘Stay focused as long as possible.’”

That was about four innings. On the surface, a performance of that length might not seem like something worth much glory, but it was the most that was expected of him. Given an abbreviated spring training stemming from labor negotiations between Major League Baseball owners and players that delayed the start of preseason and Opening Day, Zimmermann’s pitch count on Monday was predetermined to be 70.

He finished four just shy of his maximum, and he looked sharp, striking out four and allowing two walks. Two-thirds of his pitches were strikes, a very good sign of things to come.

“It’s a long season ahead,” Zimmermann said, “but getting this win and everything about today was the perfect way to set off a hopefully long, healthy, successful season.”

It was a 52-foot, 10-ton object of controversy, curiosity, and for the most part, derision, when it was installed in front of Penn Station in 2004. A Baltimore Sun editorial described the aluminum, five-story Male/Female work at the time of its placement in the city-owned plaza south of the station as “oversized, underdressed and woefully out of place.”

Sun columnist Dan Rodricks wrote that artist Jonathan Borofsky’s intersecting male and female silhouettes resembled the robot Gort from the sci-fi, horror movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. A local cabbie, who regularly picked up fares at the station, called it “an abomination” in one story. Several times, City Paper readers voted the massive sculpture—a $750,000 donation from the Municipal Arts Society— Baltimore’s “Best Eyesore.”

Almost immediately, it prompted chatter about moving it from its prominent position outside the 1911-built Beaux-Arts style station.

And now, oddly enough, just as the city seems to have finally grown accustomed to it, the fate of long-controversial Male/Female may be in doubt.

In order to handle the new generation of high-speed Acela trains, as well as the expectation of more passengers in coming years, Amtrak has pledged a $90 million overhaul of Penn Station. Those plans include a transformation of the historic station into a more pedestrian, bicycle, bus, and cab-friendly transit hub—and, if developers can raise more funds—a new mixed-use development in the surrounding area.

No official has said the giant sculpture needs to be moved to remake Penn Station. No one has indicated it will stay. There is simply is no sight of the 52-foot statue in current renderings and maps. Bill Struever, CEO of Cross Street Partners, one of the developers and planners on the Amtrak project, noted in an email that indeed the sculpture had engendered strong feelings over the years. He also stated he “is staying agnostic on the statue.” Ultimately, Struever says, he expects a resolution on the development of the south station plaza—and thus the statue—will grow out of a community planning process.

The current working proposal calls for moving the taxi/drop-off area to Charles and St. Paul streets, which will serve a new Lanvale Street rail concourse on the north side of the station. That plan, Struever says, creates an opportunity to rebuild the south station plaza into a more pedestrian friendly space with the potential for events and programming.

In the meantime, however, the statue has grown on at least some Baltimoreans over the last few years. As Baltimore magazine contributor Ed Gunts noted in a short piece in 2015, one early defender of the Male/Female statue was Bill Griffith, creator of the Zippy the Pinhead comic strip, in which the sculpture has appeared. John Waters has said he likes it, too. Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director of the American Visionary Art Museum, noted several years ago that even “The Eiffel Tower was detested” when it went up.

Asked again last week about the statue, Hoffberger said she wished “there was something that was more in tune with the station’s history as a link that gave homage.”

“It’s there and I think there are people that love it,” she says. “I don’t know how thematically it was decided on. There’s a bigger issue—the front of Penn Station is really historic and iconic to Baltimore,” adding the structure may be obscuring that. “I’m very big on preserving older architecture particularly of iconic sites.”

Baltimore architect and artist Jerome Gray said he believes the size of the statue overwhelmed city viewers at first, but since its installation people have become accustomed to it. He added the sculpture’s provocative intersection of the male and female forms—and its colorful, single, pulsating heart, widely visible at night—personally appeals. “I love weird things,” he says. “And I like anything that challenges you. In that way, it’s great. It makes you think.” (Initially, the sculpture’s beating heart was to be red, but it was switched to blue-magenta at the city’s request out of concerns the color red would be seen as a reminder of the city’s tragic homicide rate.)

Gray adds that it’s not unprecedented for the city to move works of art. The Orpheus statute, for example, at Fort McHenry was shifted from its original location. Others around Druid Hill Park have been moved in the past.

In 2015, City Paper contributor Michael Farley called the statue an “accidental monument to a consideration (or lack thereof) of gender identity and sex that’s distinctly Baltimorean.” He nominated it “the kinkiest artwork” in the city.

 

Borofsky, for what it’s worth, never liked to comment too much about the themes in his own work, preferring to leave it for the viewer’s interpretation. His public projects, including other large scale human forms, can be found around the world.

Eli Pousson, formerly of Baltimore Heritage, moved to the city a few years after the installation of the statue, but quickly became aware of the criticism of work. “It was abstract, difficult to categorize in terms of explicit meaning,” Pousson says. “It wasn’t your normal, marble famous guy. It plays with the [traditional] masculine and feminine forms, which also probably invited some of that response.” It’s interesting, Pousson continues, that today more people seem to respond positively to the statue as gender, sex, and queer identities and norms evolve in the eyes of society.

“Personally, I’m a fan,” Pousson says. “I’d suggest rather than spending money to take down public art, the city and developers use the money to put up more public art.”

On March 23, 1868, the first foreign steamship docked at the new immigration pier at Locust Point. A momentous occasion at the time, and historically, the arrival of appropriately named SS Baltimore from Bremen, Germany was greeted with a canon salute as it passed Fort McHenry and a parade down Broadway.

This Saturday, the B&O Railroad Museum and the Baltimore Immigration Museum will be jointly celebrating the occasion. A purchased ticket to the B&O Railroad Museum in Southwest Baltimore includes the unveiling of a new commemorative panel marking the historic occasion, a luncheon, and two speakers—B&O curator Harrison Van Waes and Balitmore Immigration Museum co-founder Nick Fessenden. That event kicks off at 11 a.m. 

The day’s program concludes with an open house at the Baltimore Immigration Museum in Locust Point, which will be open, free of charge, from 2-5 p.m.

The Baltimore Immigration Museum, which opened in 2016, is located in the historic Immigration House at 1308 Beason Street. Built in 1904 in connection with the former immigrant German church next door, the original Immigration House took in “newly arrived European immigrants who needed temporary housing before moving on to their final destinations or finding work and permanent housing in Baltimore,” according to the museum’s website.

The Immigration Museum documents the city’s 19th- and early 20th-century immigration story as well as chronicling the different ethnic groups who began their American journey at the Locust Point immigration piers. The Baltimore Immigration Museum will also be open Sunday from 1-4 p.m.

In our cover story last month, “City of Immigrants,” Baltimore magazine told the story of our immigrants’ historic—and current—struggles and successes.

Until the outbreak of World War I, the regular arrival of Norddeutscher Lloyd ships—loaded with Central and Eastern European Germans, Poles, Russians, Jews, Lithuanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bohemians, Austrians, and Ukrainians—would forever alter the city’s course and character. From the opening of the Locust Point piers until they closed in 1914, some 1.2 million European immigrants entered Baltimore’s Ellis Island, making the city the third busiest port of entry in the U.S. and the busiest below the Mason-Dixon line.

“To understand the development of Baltimore,” local historian Wayne Schaumburg says, “you have to know about those piers and the influx of immigrants there who built the city’s ethnic neighborhoods around the harbor.”

The Akimbo Dance & Movement Art Festival
Sept. 10. Station North Arts District, 1-6 p.m. To celebrate Baltimore’s growing dance community, The Akimbo Dance & Movement Art Festival returns for its fifth year with a free day of performances throughout the vibrant Station North Arts & Entertainment District. Across 18 sites like the Maryland Institute College of Art, Motor House, and the Ynot Lot, more than 150 regional artists will showcase everything from traditional and experimental dance to music, spoken word, installation, and performance art.

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Star-Spangled Banner Weekend
Sept. 9-11. Fort McHenry, 2400 E. Fort Ave. Fri. 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Free-$10. 410-962-4290. One-hundred years ago last month, the National Park Service was born, and nine years after its creation, the NPS named Baltimore’s Fort McHenry one of its first national parks. The site protected the city from British invasion during the War of 1812, now known as Defender’s Day, and thus inspired the national anthem. On Sept. 9-11, commemorate these historic events with reenactments, cannon firings, colonial music, and family activities, including festive fireworks and a patriotic concert by the United States Army Field Band on Saturday, and a special 9/11 memorial ceremony on Sunday.

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Hampdenfest
Sept. 17. The Avenue, West 36th Street. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. 410-662-4444. Grab your friends and toilet bowls—an only-in-Baltimore sentiment if we ever heard one—and head to The Avenue for Hampdenfest. At this free street festival, enjoy local beer, regional food, and live music on one of three stages. Get to know the neighborhood, but don’t miss the crowd favorite toilet bowl race down Chestnut Avenue, or the pie-eating contest with sweets by Dangerously Delicious Pies.

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Baltimore Seafood Festival
Sept. 17. Canton Waterfront Park, 3001 Boston St. 12-7 p.m. $15-99. It’s no secret that Maryland is the seafood capital of the mid-Atlantic, where crab is king and the key to a perfect summer day. It’s only fitting, then, to spend one of the last afternoons of the season at Baltimore’s third annual seafood festival. On the edge of the Canton waterfront, sip on some cold beer as you dig into an endless supply of oysters, crabs, and other under-the-sea essentials, with live music from local bands, cocktails and crafts. With face painting, activities, and games for the kids, you can bring the whole family to toast our Chesapeake Bay heritage and say sayonara to 90-degree days.

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John Waters’s Kiddie Flamingos
Sept. 21-Jan. 22. The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr. Wed.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. 443-573-1700. We’re all familiar with Baltimore’s most notorious (and beloved) auteur, John Waters. The renowned director is a legend thanks to his iconic camp films and, increasingly, his fine art, which has been twice featured at The Baltimore Museum of Art. This month, catch his latest project: a 74-minute, G-rated rendition of Pink Flamingos, with lines read by children in wigs and mock versions of the original costumes. We can’t wait to see the pint-size Divine.

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BSO Pulse: Houndmouth
Sept. 22. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. 8:30 p.m. $35. 410-783-8000. After a successful inaugural season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and WTMD “Pulse” concert series returns this month with Indiana-based indie rockers Houndmouth. Sharing the stage with the BSO, the up-and-coming trio brings its Americana medleys like “Sedona” to this one-of-a-kind collaboration. Be sure to get to the Meyerhoff early for a pre-concert party in the lobby, featuring live local music, happy-hour drinks, local brews, and food specials from area restaurants.

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Baltimore Innovation Week
Sept. 23-Oct. 1. Locations, times, & prices vary. 215-821-8745. While Baltimore’s heyday as a manufacturing mecca might be a memory, it’s safe to say the city is slowly becoming a new industry town of innovation and technology. During the fifth annual Baltimore Innovation Week, get to know the new techies with big-name headliners, curated events, networking opportunities, and a dedicated App Arcade.

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Dirty Talk With Mike Rowe
Sept. 24. Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave. 8 p.m. $25-65. 410-900-1150. Ever wonder what really goes on behind the scenes of reality TV shows? Baltimore’s own Mike Rowe isn’t afraid to tell all, and this month, he returns home for one night to reveal the dirty truth behind his popular Discovery Channel show, Dirty Jobs.

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Baltimore Book Festival
Sept. 23-25. Baltimore Inner Harbor. Fri.-Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. 410-752-8632. The Baltimore Book Festival makes us pretty confident that we are still “the city that reads.” After 21 years, this three-day fete continues to be a book-lover’s paradise, with hundreds of speakers, exhibitors, and booksellers of every genre. Hear live stories by Stoop Storytelling, listen to Baltimore native D. Watkins discuss his new book, and indulge in local food, craft beer, and live music by area bands.

Wally Orlinsky was so brilliant and so colorful, bursting with such passion and imaginative proposals, that you couldn’t help but want to be around the City Council president of the ’70s. “You leave him vibrating,” Ed Rovner, the state’s first secretary of economic and community development, told The Washington Post when Orlinsky made a bid for governor in 1978. “He can generate more ideas than anybody I’ve ever met.”

Rovner said there was no one he’d rather sit next to on a transcontinental flight. The only problem, he noted, was that only about one in 10 of Orlinsky’s ideas were feasible.

His plan to celebrate America’s bicentennial on July 4, 1976, by sending a 35-ton birthday cake into the Baltimore harbor on a barge was not feasible, for example. Not that it stopped Orlinsky. By the time a summer thunderstorm—who could’ve guessed?—washed 3,000 pounds of icing into the harbor before the big occasion, the doomed cake had already picked up the nickname “Wally’s Folly” around town.

Orlinsky’s pitch to the City Council had included selling 153,000 pieces of the cake to confectionary-loving patriots. That was supposed to pay for Baltimore’s massive 200th birthday party, which included fireworks, entertainment, and, for some unfathomable reason, 12 hours of live television coverage from Fort McHenry hosted by Ed McMahon.

But the July Fourth bicentennial enthusiasm never fully materialized. Crowds at Fort McHenry failed to meet expectations—as did turnout for events across the country, which was reeling in every way possible in the 1970s. The Sun reported that 30,000 people—half the projected numbers at best—made their way to the Independence Day anniversary. Maybe it was that the headliners included José Feliciano, Lynn Anderson, Rod McKuen, and Zim Zemarel’s Big Band. Not exactly big “gets.” (The Sun’s next-day story highlighted the smell of marijuana in the air during the all-night Saturday party at Fort McHenry, perhaps a sign of the times or merely an effort at stemming the boredom.)

“Sure, I remember the cake,” DeFilippo says. “Everything went wrong in the ’70s.”

Orlinsky’s cake, a Guinness Book of World Records effort created in the shape of the United States and decorated with 200 candles, fared worse. By midweek, the July weather and Baltimore’s renowned rats nearly finished it off. Seventeen tons got tossed.

As a metaphor for the government ineptitude of the 1970s—Watergate, Vietnam, the oil crisis, Love Canal, school busing, deindustrialization, double-digit inflation, crime, radical politics—Wally’s Folly wrote itself.

“Sure, I remember the cake,” says Frank DeFilippo, press secretary for then Gov. Marvin Mandel. “Everything went wrong in the ’70s.”

True to the period—a dark time in Maryland as well as national politics—DeFilippo’s boss faced federal corruption charges during the great bicentennial year and was eventually found guilty of mail fraud and racketeering.

Naturally, Orlinsky, too, would later do time for accepting a bribe.

There was one huge bright spot on the horizon, however, on July 4, 1976. Eight tall ships from around the world set sail from New York City that day for Baltimore. They’d arrive seven days later and dock at the Inner Harbor and Fells Point for the next week and change the course of the city forever.

In a broad sense, the country had continued to fracture in the decade following the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, when the murders of hopeful young leaders landed like a rock against the nation’s windshield. The United States would experience more than 2,500 domestic bombings in just 18 months in 1971 and 1972, including one at the U.S. Capitol. Much of the bombing was tied to the militant Weather Underground, and some to other groups like the Black Panthers, who were active in Baltimore, where one leader was convicted of killing a city police officer. By the mid-1970s, at least 150 planes had been hijacked in the U.S., many to Cuba.

By the bicentennial, the country was coming apart not just politically and culturally—the controversy-tackling All in the Family was the No. 1 television show from 1971-1976—but economically as well. Cities were going bankrupt. (The infamous New York Daily News headline, “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD,” was published in October 1975 as the Big Apple sought a bailout.) Keep in mind this was also a period when it appeared as if the U.S. might just be losing the Cold War.

In Baltimore, unemployment during the 1970s jumped from 4.6 percent to 10.3 percent and the federal law enforcement agencies began to rate the city the most violent in the country. City residents may recall the deluge of local crises—the plant closings, the corruption, the population and commercial exodus (including our NBA team), and the rise of the drug trade. Also, spiraling homicide totals were unrivaled until this past year.

It’s not as if you could change the date of the country’s founding, however. President Lyndon Johnson had established a national bicentennial commission in 1966 and it was coming, hell or high water.

“It was on the calendar and it was going to fall when it fell—it just didn’t feel quite right when it finally arrived,” says journalist and political historian Jules Witcover, who witnessed the first of two assassination attempts on President Ford in September 1975 and wrote a book about former Maryland governor Spiro Agnew, who was forced to resign the vice presidency in 1973 over bribery charges. “It was just a strange year to be celebrating with the country in so much turmoil. That’s the irony of it—the mood wasn’t celebratory. A few years later, Jimmy Carter gives his ‘malaise’ speech and talks about the crisis of confidence in the country.”

It’s amazing how much we forget about that time. Only two days before an Orlinsky interview promoting the 12-hour televised bicentennialathon at Fort McHenry appeared in the Sunday Sun, a sniper in a West Baltimore row house had shot seven police officers, killing one. Three days before that, there’d been an assassination attempt of then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer inside temporary City Hall headquarters on Calvert Street. Schaefer’s secretary told the deranged killer that the mayor, who was eating lunch behind a locked door, wasn’t in, but Councilman Dominic Leone was shot and killed. Another councilman, witnessing the attack, suffered a heart attack, and a third city councilman and a Schaefer aide were wounded.

All this came on the heels of the murder of Del. James “Turk” Scott Jr. in 1973 in a Bolton Hill parking garage. There were also the tumultuous 1974 municipal strikes that included thousands of city employees—from teachers to sanitation workers to police officers. It’s the ’70s as depicted in films like Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, Network, and Rocky—even in a feel-good movie, the protagonist’s key epiphany is that he can’t possibly win. He can only try to go the distance.

“There’s a fatalism that takes hold in the culture that’s remarkable,” says Jefferson Crowie, a Vanderbilt University social historian and author of Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class. “Even in pop music, it’s there in corny songs like ‘Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.’”

Despite the compelling evidence to the contrary, however, many Baltimoreans were starting to feel hopeful about the future. That mayor who narrowly avoided assassination? He was corny, too. And funny and angry and mad. But not fatalistic. Never. He believed he could get things done that would make a difference in people’s lives, and he convinced the city it was on the verge of a rebirth.

“He was the original ‘do-it-now’ mayor,” says Barry Rascover, a former longtime political reporter and editor at The Sun. “Schaeffer was a mayor, like a Richard Daly in Chicago, who wanted to build things and put his name on it. There was an exuberance in the way he promoted Baltimore to Baltimore, as well as nationally, where it was seen at the forefront of a comeback city movement.”

In fact, while Orlinsky was attempting to pull off his over-the-top spectacle, Schaefer had organized his own team to lead a different project related to the bicentennial. Competing against cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Norfolk, a city delegation traveled to Bermuda on behalf of Baltimore to pitch foreign captains and diplomats. In Operation Sail, as the project became known, Schaefer and his team sensed an opportunity for more than a one-off, made-for-TV event. It was the chance to bring to the city something larger, something emblematic of its actual contribution to American independence—Baltimore’s clipper shipbuilding past—as well as a glorious homage to the sailing culture of the state.

“The main thing about the tall ships, I think, was that it felt organic to the city,” Hillman says.

“The main thing about the tall ships, I think, was that it felt organic to the city,” says Bob Hillman, who Schaefer appointed chairman of the city’s Operation Sail committee. “The tall ships sailing out on the Hudson River on the bicentennial was a nationally televised event and people found out they were coming to Baltimore. The harbor and Fells Point were just packed. There were tens of thousands of people coming every day for a week. A couple hundred thousand on the weekend.”

Programs sold out the first day.

“People arrived from all over—Virginia, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania,” he says. “We hadn’t had that at the harbor ever before. We had no idea that people would come from so far away. I’ve heard that Jim Rouse, who had built Columbia, and just done a project in Boston, told the story that he was one of the people in those crowds. He became interested in developing a project at the Inner Harbor, as did city officials.”

That, of course, became Harborplace.

The Maryland Science Center had been erected, but little else existed other than a promenade and an empty lot at Rash Field, which had hosted the well-attended City Fair since 1973. That annual event brought Baltimoreans to the Inner Harbor once a year, but it didn’t attract tourists. By 1980, however, Harborplace, the Convention Center, and the Hyatt hotel had been built, and the National Aquarium would open a year later. Schaefer’s comic photo-op in the aquarium’s seal pool with a mermaid followed the bicentennial by five years, and Baltimore was suddenly a model for waterfront development.

Today, Baltimore’s tourism industry employs more than 16,000 residents, and in 2014, the city attracted 24.5 million visitors.

The enormous reinvention of the Inner Harbor, while by no means a panacea, also sparked a revitalization in nearby neighborhoods, including Fells Point, Canton, Federal Hill, and Locust Point. It also laid the groundwork for the construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. More recently, mixed-use neighborhoods such as Harbor East and Brewers Hill have sprouted, with locally owned restaurants, national and regional employers, hotels, and luxury condominiums rising on the skyline. The largest arrival, Under Armour, after taking over a Proctor & Gamble factory, now intends to build a brand new minicity out of whole cloth at Port Covington.

Essentially, the case can be made that tall ships did more than save Baltimore’s bicentennial celebration—which was suffering from red, white, and blue fatigue long before Wally’s Folly. They helped create the Inner Harbor and shifted the narrative around Baltimore as a dying industrial city. That was Schaefer’s vision.

It shouldn’t be forgotten, either, that Orlinsky—despite the cake, despite the 1982 conviction after taking a hauling company bribe—was in many ways a positive force for Baltimore. He forged some of the city’s early biracial coalitions and opposed the urban highway—supported by Schaefer—that decimated West Baltimore and would’ve decimated the harbor neighborhoods, too, if it had not been stopped.

A few years after Orlinsky served four and a half months in jail, Schaefer put his old nemesis in charge of a state tree-planting program. With newfound humility, he garnered the nickname “Wally Appleseed.” A few years after that, unable to land another political job, he was selling lemonade at Camden Yards.

On July 4, 1976, Roger Simon, a nationally syndicated columnist, penned a column that appeared in The Sun and has been reprinted every year since in one publication or another.

The title was “America’s glorious failures,” and in the award-winning piece, Simon chronicled his refusal to stand up for the playing of the national anthem during the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. He wrote that he’d learned a lot about America since then, mostly from everyday people he’d met like Miss Sheboygan and Miss Watertown, contestants who felt as though they’d let their towns down after not winning Wisconsin’s state pageant.

Simon called them “true dreamers of the American Dream.” They were individuals who cared about their community and country and had the guts to try and lose.
He would stand for them, he said, and “for all the other glorious failures who have made and sustained this country.”

Include Wally Orlinsky on that list.

This past weekend, more than one million visitors graced the Inner Harbor, Fort McHenry, Pier Six Pavilion, and practically anywhere with a waterfront view for Star-Spangled Spectacular, or the bicentennial of our National Anthem.

Whether it was touring the tall ships docked in our harbor, seeing Living History reenactments at Fort McHenry, watching hundreds of soldiers recreate a marching path, or gazing in awe at the U.S. Navy Blue Angels soaring overhead, there were eye-catching spectacles all around town.

We present a photo gallery of some of the people and places that made this weekend something tourism officials called the biggest event Baltimore has ever seen.

City dwellers often counter the argument for county life and its more plentiful open spaces with some variant of the line, “But the
entire city is my backyard!” While this rebuttal conveniently overlooks certain realities of city life—traffic; crime; noise, light, and waste pollution; having to occasionally, you know, share—there is also a lot of truth to it. Does a suburban backyard have free outdoor concerts, two zoos (yes, two), five golf courses, miles of hiking and biking trails, an ice-skating rink, Chesapeake Bay access, an arboretum, and literally dozens of pools?

Indeed there is much to celebrate in Baltimore’s park system, probably more than you know, and it’s all right outside your door. With summer bearing down on us, here’s our guide to exploring the best of your own backyard—all 4,905 acres of it.

Druid Hill Park

2600 E. Madison Ave.,
druidhillpark.org

Acreage: 745.

Special Features: The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, a disc golf course, and one of the city’s 29 public pools. Druid Hill Lake, aka the Reservoir, and Boat Lake also draw walkers, bikers, and birders to their scenic shores. The 125-year-old Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens is a jewel box of flora with five distinct greenhouses (including orchid and tropical rooms), plus a half-acre garden.

Summer Events: Every Wednesday from June through September, the park hosts an evening farmers’ market. The zoo is open daily from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and offers its much-loved Breakfast with the Animals program on select weekend mornings. The park lives up to its pagan namesake on June 21 with a Summer Solstice Celebration with hayrides, live music, tarot card readings, and storytelling.

Patterson Park

E. Baltimore St. and S. Patterson Park Ave.,
pattersonpark.com

Acreage: 55.

Special Features: The 1891 octagonal pagoda, open for climbing on Sunday afternoons through mid-October, is one of the city’s most photographed landmarks. The Boat Lake is stocked with catchable fish. Though an ice rink in the winter months, the Dominic “Mimi” DiPietro Family Skating Center hosts floor hockey rec leagues all summer. Two adjacent dog parks—one for small pooches, one for large dogs—get lots of use. For a measly $2 admission fee, gain access to the park’s recently renovated swimming pool.

Summer Events: Spy up to 200 species during Patterson Park Audubon Center’s twice-monthly free bird walks. Cast your rod in the Boat Lake June 7 at the kid-friendly Fishing Festival. The ever-popular Friends of Patterson Park Concert Series returns with two to three concerts a month in June, July, and August. And LatinoFest celebrates its 34th year June 21-22.

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park

1901 Ridgetop Rd.,
friendsofgwynnsfallsleakinpark.org

Acreage: 1,216.

Special Features: The 15-mile Gwynns Falls hiking and biking trail runs through the park. The Victorian Italianate manor house of railroad baron Thomas DeKay Winans still stands, as does his carriage house, and an American Gothic-style chapel built for his workers. For kids, a miniature steam-powered railroad with 3,400 feet of track provides free rides every second Sunday through November.Though smaller, the Carrie Murray Nature Center gives Druid Hill’s zoo a run for its money with fauna ranging from raptors to an albino Burmese python named Fluffy. (All animals are rescues or orphans.) A new “Rainforest Room” exhibit housing Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a Blue-fronted Amazon parrot named Cupid, and other exotic critters, opens June 7.

Summer Events: Carrie Murray offers nine weeks of summer camp for kids, plus regular kids’ programs focusing on owls (June 6), bees (June 21 and Aug. 30), and nocturnal insects (July 11 and Aug. 1).

Clifton Park

2801 Harford Rd.,
bmgcgolf.com/-clifton-park

Acreage: 267.

Special Features: The oldest of the city’s five municipal golf courses offers 18 holes for rates starting as low as $10. Elsewhere in the park, Civic Works’ Real Food Farm is making a go of urban agriculture with several hoophouses, an orchard, beehives, an herb garden, and field crops.

Summer Events: The golf course is open every day, weather permitting. Real Food Farm welcomes volunteers from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. every Wednesday and Friday, plus the first and third Saturday of the month from March through November.

Cylburn Arboretum

4915 Green Spring Ave.,
cylburn.org

Acreage: 207.

Special Features: Trees! From Kentucky coffeetrees to redwoods, Cylburn’s got you covered. Over three miles of trails will also take you through several gardens including daylily and rose plots. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future is conducting research in a cutting-edge agriculture practice called aquaponics on the premises. The farming method combines aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant farming) in a waste-free sustainable growing cycle. Regular tours of the project’s greenhouse are starting soon.

Summer Events: Enjoy outdoor yoga (June 7, 14, 21, 28); the Celebration of Art event (June 14-15) with exhibitions, lectures, and children’s activities; and a firefly walk (June 26).

Middle Branch Park

3301 Waterview Ave.,410-396-3838.

Acreage: Six miles of shoreline, marshes, and meadows.

Special Features: One of the city’s best-kept secrets, the park is the launch site for many area collegiate and high school crew teams. The two concrete boat ramps can accommodate anything from kayaks to large boats.The Gwynns Falls Trail runs through the park, and The Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial sits on a rise above the main parking lot.

Summer Events: The recs and parks department hosts periodic “open paddle” sessions, providing all equipment, a tutorial, and a guided tour for a nominal fee.

Mount Pleasant Golf Course

6001 Hillen Rd.,
classic5golf.com/-mount-pleasant; 6101 Hillen Rd., mtpleasanticearena.com

Acreage: approximately 110.

Special Features: In addition to the links, which have been played by the likes of Arnold Palmer, the park is home to the Mount Pleasant Ice Arena, the city’s only year-round skating pavilion.

Summer Events: Public skate times are held every day. Hockey and figure skating classes and clinics are held regularly, as well. Summer skating camps for ages 5 to 18 run from June 23 to July 25.

Canton Waterfront Park

3001 Boston St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/CantonWaterfrontPark.aspx

Acreage: 2.5.

Special Features: A boat ramp and fishing pier provide stellar access to the water.The park is also home to Maryland’s Korean War Memorial.

Summer Events: WTMD’s popular First Thursdays concert series has relocated here from Mt. Vernon due to restoration of the Washington Monument. Upcoming shows will feature national acts such as Los Lonely Boys (June 5), Strand of Oaks (July 3), JD McPherson (Aug. 7), and The Hold Steady (Sept. 4)—all for free!

Roosevelt Park

1221 W. 36th St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/RooseveltPark.aspx

Acreage: 18.72.

Special Features: One of the nicest public aquatic centers in the city can be found here, boasting a large outdoor pool, adjoining splash pad with towering water features, and a renovated pool house. Last month was the official grand opening of the first phase of the Skatepark of Baltimore. The gaping concrete bowl is ready for skateboard use and development of a street plaza landscape is in the offing.

Summer Events: Roosevelt Park and Recreation Center keeps a robust calendar of events, including coed volleyball on Wednesday and Thursday nights, community movie night (July 18), family game night (Aug. 8), and an environmental camp for ages 5 to 12 from June 23 to Aug. 15.

Fort McHenry

2400 E. Fort Ave.,
nps.gov/fomc

Acreage: 42.

Special Features: The city’s only national park is steeped in history. View the fort, barracks, the 1814 Guard House, and those immortalized ramparts.

Summer Events: Twice-monthly bird walks take advantage of the fort’s waterfront setting. As part of the ongoing bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812, the park is hosting Fort! Flag! Fire! Baltimore’s Star-Spangled Summer! with living history performances, cannon firings, fife and drum concerts, and lectures.

Carroll Park

1500 Washington Blvd., friendsofcarrollpark.blogspot.com/

Acreage: 117.

Special Features: Originally part of Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll’s Mount Clare estate and Georgia Plantation, Carroll Park’s history traces back to its pre-revolutionary site for industrial factories.The park is home to one of the two oldest Federal-style mansions still standing in Baltimore, which is open for tours guided by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in traditional period dress.

Summer Events: Carroll is the closest golf course to downtown (about three miles), making it even easier to enjoy a quick round on a summer’s afternoon. (It’s an “executive,” aka nine-hole, course.) Don’t miss September’s The Shindig Festival (tickets on sale now) featuring Jane’s Addiction, Rise Against, Gogol Bordello, and Baltimore’s own J Roddy Walston & The Business, among others.

Cimaglia Park at Fort Holabird

Pine and Oak avenues

Acreage: 40.

Special Features: While the park’s recreational history dates to the seventies, Fort Holabird was constructed by the U.S. Army and used for various purposes from the 1920s to the 1950s. Upgrades to the park completed last November improved the park’s aesthetic appeal with enhancements like pedestrian pathways. Further renovations include two new half-courts for basketball and lighting for the ball fields.

Summer Events: Grow your own fruits and vegetables—from park to table. The Baltimore City Farms program offers rental garden plots for city residents looking to plant their own produce, herbs, and flowers in personal, fenced spaces.

Federal Hill Park

300 Warren Ave., bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/FederalHillPark.aspx

Acreage: 10.

Special Features: Named for The Federalist­—a ship built by 4,000 local Maryland citizens to celebrate the state’s ratification of the constitution, Federal Hill Park boasts cannons and monuments in memory of the Battle of Baltimore, in addition to unrivaled views of the harbor. Also, be on the lookout for new, Under Armour-renovated basketball courts. Little known fact: There is an extensive network of tunnels within the hill, which are rumored to have once functioned as an “underground railroad” of sorts, with escape routes, storage for munitions, and a place to store cold beer from local breweries.

Summer Events: The American Visionary Art Museum will begin its annual “Flicks From the Hill” free outdoor movie series on July 10, and continue screenings every Thursday through August 28. Once named one of Travel + Leisure magazine’s “World’s Best Free Things”, the park’s steep slopes create a natural amphitheater for audiences to enjoy alfresco films.

Forest Park

2900 Hillsdale Rd, bmgcgolf.com/-forest-park

Acreage:140.

Special Features: A classic, 18-hole golf course situated amidst the hilly green landscape with a clubhouse perfect for special event receptions.

Summer Events: June 22 and 23 mark the qualifying rounds of the 2014 STX Baltimore Putting Championship, which features two competitive divisions—adult and junior. The top three qualifiers in each division will play the finals on June 25at Mount Pleasant Golf Course.

Herring Run Park

3800 Bel Air Rd., arcadia-baltimore.org/arcadia_herringrun_c.html

Acreage: 300.

Special Features: Open, flowery fields, a running stream, winding paths, and playing fields. Considered the dog-friendliest park in the city, there is plenty of foliage to explore here with pets, family, and friends. The park is home to the Christopher Columbus monument erected in 1792, as well as bike paths, and softball and soccer fields along the length of the stream.

Summer Events: The park welcomes the first annual Herring Run Around­­­—a 5K race on paved and dirt trails on June 28. Watershed alliance Blue Water Baltimore will host a picnic for volunteers and members following the race.

Latrobe Park

1518 Latrobe Park Terrace, sobosports.com/locs/latrobe.htm

Acreage: 6.

Special Features: Highlights include illuminated tennis courts, two basketball courts, a playground, and the gated Locust Point Dog Park, which features AstroTurf (no muddy paws!) and a waterslide for more adventurous canines.

Summer Events: Construction began on the Under Armour-funded $1.5 million Banner Field project this April, which will enhance the park with a turf field lined for football, soccer, and lacrosse. The field, named for the national anthem, will feature a sound system, scoreboard, running track, lights, and seating for 150 spectators. The Locust Point-based athletic company will also be making improvements to the playground. In summer, the park is frequented by the ASA Softball Leagues for co-ed evening games against local teams split according to skill-level.

Pine Ridge Golf Course

2101 Dulaney Valley Rd., bmgcgolf.com/-pine-ridge

Acreage: 224.

Special Features: Because nothing is ever simple, this county-situated course is actually owned and operated by the city due to its adjacency to Loch Raven Reservoir, which supplies much of Baltimore City’s drinking water. Home to many past PGA and LPGA tournaments, the 18-hole course also boasts a 45-station lighted driving range, which is open during the warmer months.

Summer Events: The Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation and House of Ruth Maryland will host the 4th annual High Heels for Hope Longest Drive Contest on June 7. Proceeds will benefit House of Ruth’s mission to provide victims of partner violence with services to rebuild their lives. The twist? All contest participants must hit their drives while wearing a pair of high-heeled shoes—minimum two inches and no wedges or platforms—which will be donated to House of Ruth at the contest’s conclusion.

Reed Bird Island/Cherry Hill Park

101 Reedbird Ave., issuu.com/baltimorerecnparks/docs/cherry_hill_splash_park_pool_schedu

Special Features: Twin green spaces bifurcated by the Patapsco River as it empties into the Middle Branch, the park was Baltimore’s first waterfront park.Its rolling topography serves as a recreation area with picnic groves, fishing piers, a stage, and a shelter. Winding walking and bike paths along the shoreline lead to nearby Middle Branch Park.

Summer Events: The active public pool is perfect for cooling off post bike ride and offers swimming lessons on Saturday mornings.

Robert E. Lee Park

1000 Lakeside Dr., relpnc.org/

Acreage: 415.

Special Features: Another county-located but city-owned park, this popular bucolic spot just over the city-county line offerswaterfront activities including kayaking and canoeing, hiking trails, and the Paw Point Dog Park, which allows dogs water access, as well. Two pavilions, one overlooking the Lake Roland Dam and one perched hilltop, are ideal for family picnics.

Summer Events: The park, which, although owned by the city, is operated by Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, offers a variety of activities for families including kayaking and fishing lessons, night hikes, and day camps. A full schedule of events can be found here.

Wyman Park

3100 N Charles St., wymanparkdell.org

Acreage: 88.

Special Features: Designed by the Olmstead Brothers, Wyman’s sweeping lawn is home to two monuments erected in honor of the Civil War. The Union Monument Plateau, engulfed by cherry trees, features a vigilant Union soldier flanked by goddesses. At the park’s other end, the Lee-Jackson Monument honors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Summer Events: Enjoy Music in the Park on June 18 and 25 with a free concert and outdoor movie. On July 27 there will be a special performance by jazz, funk, and world-rhythms band, the Swingin’ Swamis.