The Charles Street landmark was the first planned monument to the first President, predating the other Washington Monument in our nation’s capital by several decades. Located in historic Mt. Vernon Square, the surrounding grassy knolls have hosted FlowerMart, the Baltimore Book Festival, and, of course, the monument’s annual holiday lighting.

The 178-foot monument, designed by Robert Mills, was finished in 1829—14 years after construction began. (Mills also designed the obelisk on the Mall in D.C., which opened in 1885.) Col. John Eager Howard, who served under Washington, donated land to the project and $100,000 was raised for the monument’s construction through a Maryland-authorized lottery—although the costs ultimately forced the original design to be scaled back.

Scaffolding currently envelops the monument, closed since 2010. A $5.5-million restoration effort begun this year will fix structural problems discovered during a Mount Vernon Place Conservancy engineering study. Visitors hoping to climb the 228 steps to the top of the monument for one of the best views of the city will have to wait until Independence Day 2015—the bicentennial of the start of construction of the monument and scheduled completion date of the repairs.

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Did you know?

Forest for the Trees

Howard’s Woods

When the monument’s cornerstone was laid on July 5, 1815, Charles Street did not yet reach the monument area, and the surrounding environ was a forest, known as Howard’s Woods.

There remains no more tangible evidence of Baltimore’s transformation from industrial port town to modern city and tourist destination than the Inner Harbor, which welcomed more than 14 million business and leisure travelers to Charm City in 2012. Redevelopment of the Inner Harbor began under former Mayor Theodore McKeldin in the mid-1960s, culminating with the christening of Harborplace in 1980 by then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer.

By the late 1700s, the Maryland colony and Port of Baltimore were national leaders in the shipbuilding industry. The famous Baltimore Clippers, appearing not long after the American Revolutionary War, were built for speed and use in the trading industry—not all of which was legal. And by the mid-19th century, the oyster canning industry—jumpstarted by the owners of the tin-can patent—was spawning a canning boom around the port, particularly in Canton.

In 1976, coinciding with America’s bicentennial, historic tall ships visited the Inner Harbor and the Maryland Science Center opened its doors, bringing millions of tourists to the city. A few years later, Harborplace, considered a model of redevelopment, opened and the Inner Harbor became the hub of the city’s tourism industry. It remains so today—even as the area expands with mixed-use commercial developments in nearby neighborhoods such as Harbor East, Fells Point, and Tide Point.

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Did you know?

Making Connections

Pedestrian Bridge

A pedestrian bridge connecting Federal Hill and Harbor East is just one of the highlights of an ambitious “Inner Harbor 2.0″ redevelopment plan released by city officials last fall.

The Senator, Baltimore’s premier movie palace, opened in 1939, and its landmark status is undeniable. The “walk of fame” outside is topped only by the Art-Deco décor inside. But The Senator is hardly alone as an example of successful theater renovation efforts, and new projects include The Parkway and Centre theaters on North Avenue.

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Hippodrome

Bob Hope and Benny Goodman played the Hippodrome, which opened 100 years ago. Extensive renovations transformed it into a mecca for touring musicals, and it’s now an anchor of the Bromo Tower Arts District.

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Palace Theatre

The original 1910 building, which began as The Empire and is now home to the Everyman Theatre, was designed by local architects Otto Simonson and William H. McElfatrick. During another life as The Palace—a burlesque theater—“there was public uproar over the ‘indecency’ of the performances, and the theater was closed in 1937,” according to the Everyman Theatre’s website.

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Everyman Theatre

The company’s new home on Fayette Street dates back to 1910 and has, over the years, hosted everything from Yiddish theater and movies to boxing and bingo parties.

(Photo courtesy of Everyman Theatre)

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The Royal Theatre

A legendary stop on the black entertainment circuit, the Royal presented a “who’s who” of African-American performers, including Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, and The Supremes before it was demolished in the early-1970s.

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Screened Gems

Globe Poster Co.

For 80 years, these Baltimore-based printers cranked out show posters for performers like James Brown, Otis Redding, and B.B. King before shutting down in 2010. Today, the company’s colorful archives are housed at MICA.

(Photo courtesy of Globe Collection and Press at MICA)

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Burlesque and The Block

A 1942 Billboard article noted that burlesque at the Gayety (three shows daily) was playing to packed houses and women comprised 50 percent of the audience. The theater’s manager claimed the large turnout was due to the fact that “performances here do not shock feminine patrons.” Since then, “The Block” has changed profoundly, seen Blaze Starr come and go, and watched as its burlesque shows gave way to strip clubs. The Gayety is now home to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club.

As you trace the footsteps of Baltimore’s literary luminaries—Poe, Mencken, etc.—on the Maryland Humanities Council’s Mt. Vernon walking tour—you move from brownstone to brownstone. Range farther afield and the city’s diverse architecture becomes apparent, from narrow row houses to Guilford’s stately mansions.

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Penrose Street

The classic photo of women and children scrubbing their marble steps—a trademark of Baltimore architecture made possible by the high-quality white marble quarried in Cockeysville—was shot by renowned Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine. Done properly, the ritual marble stoop cleaning process included scrubbing with a pumice stone and Bon Ami powder.

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Canton Row Homes

In the early 1900s, the neighborhood’s row houses were home to Irish and Eastern Europeans who worked at the port and canneries.

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Guilford

Each home in this old-money neighborhood possesses its own distinct charm.

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Old-School Artforms

In 1913, a Czech immigrant grocer named William Oktavec painted his screen door. Soon, neighbors requested he paint their front window screens, and over time, the folk art became synonymous with Baltimore’s blue-collar, Formstone-sided row houses.

(Photo by Anna Pasqualucci)

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Charles Village

The now-ubiquitous “Painted Ladies” of Charles Village have only been around for 16 years, dating to a neighborhood painting contest inspired by the famous Victorian homes of San Francisco.

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That was then, this is now

Billie Holiday’s Street

At Durham and Pratt streets, there’s a new, four-story mural of Billie Holiday, who grew up on this Upper Fells Point block. Leading to her childhood home down the street is a mosaic of the blues singer in full voice——white plates forming the iconic gardenias she wore in her hair. The work, which portrays waves of sound morphing into bluebirds as the piece moves toward her former front door, is part of a larger effort to memorialize “Lady Day” in her former neighborhood.

(Photo by David Colwell)

Dundalk

In 1916, Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased 1,000 acres to build housing for nearby Sparrows Point workers. With winding, tree-lined streets modeled after the garden-city design of neighborhoods like Roland Park, Dundalk became a haven for blue-collar, middle-class families. It’s also become known for its July Fourth parade and annual Heritage Fair—a three-day Independence Day celebration.

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Towson

Towson, like many of the city’s surrounding communities, blossomed as a true “streetcar suburb.” It’s growth was supported by service from the No. 8 streetcar line, pictured below circa 1950, which shuttled between the Baltimore County seat and Catonsville via the city center. At 16-plus miles, the No. 8 was the longest line in the country and, in November 1963, the final one to cease operation.

Downtown Towson is undergoing another renaissance with a recently renovated and expanded Towson Town Center, plus a new $300 million “transformation” project announced last year by county officials.

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Columbia

Howard County

The brainchild of developer James W. Rouse, Columbia was created upon the ideals of racial, religious, and economic diversity—hard to come by in suburban 1960s America. Rouse’s vision included attracting enough businesses to create an economic base for his new city, and building a mix of detached single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments available at rents and prices to match the income of all local workers. The first residents moved in in 1967, and the planned community, encompassing 10 self-contained villages, hasn’t looked back.

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Bengie’s Drive-In

Opening June 6, 1956, the Middle River theater is entering its 59th season of showing first-run features on its giant screen, purported to be the largest in the U.S.

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That was then, this is now

Gino’s Restaurant

Named after Colts defensive end and restaurant co-founder Gino Marchetti, the first Gino’s opened in Dundalk in 1957. The franchise was bought out in 1982, and its last burger joint closed in 1986. Marchetti and his partners revived the company in 2010, and the Towson location opened in 2011, followed by locations in Glen Burnie, the stadiums, Aberdeen, and Bensalem, PA.

In Baltimore, we’ve witnessed transformations in both our dining culture and drinking scene in recent years. For decades, we remained loyal to our traditional destinations, Marconi’s, Martick’s, Haussner’s, Caesar’s Den, and the Brass Elephant, among others. A blue-collar town, our watering holes were often just that. Today, however, our tastes are more cosmopolitan, reflected by our newer restaurants and popular taverns, often serving locally brewed craft beer.

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Haussner’s Restaurant

For much of its 70 years, diners lined up outside Highlandtown’s Haussner’s—later depicted in a Mad Men episode—for its German food, seafood, desserts, and famous artwork.

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Pimlico Hotel

Under founder Leon Shavitz, the Pimlico Hotel and its fine dining reigned supreme for 40 years as a
gathering spot for politicians, sports figures, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli.

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Sphinx Club

Established in 1946, the Art Deco-fronted club became a top hotspot on renowned Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Marconi’s

Opened in 1920, at continental Marconi’s you dressed for dinner—even the servers wore tuxedos.

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Martick’s

Diners rang a doorbell to enter the dining room, but you couldn’t beat the pâté, roasted duck,
and bouillabaisse.

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Heavy Seas Alehouse

One of Baltimore’s craft-beer havens, the taps here are the brewery’s own, making this Bank Street destination a perfect place to imbibe locally brewed beer. Beer enthusiasts flock for the weekly draft and growler specials, as well as gourmet-quality pub fare.

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Ten Ten

The Fleet Street brick building that housed the Bagby Furniture Co. from 1879-1990 is now home to the intimate brick-walled bistro.

(Photo by Scott Suchman)

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Retro Relic

The Way Back

White Coffee Pot

A popular casual-dining chain from 1932 to 1993, White Coffee Pot had 33 locations all over the state and was best known for its grilled liver and onions, fried chicken, and bread pudding.

(Photo by Spencer Stewart)

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The Owl Bar

Not much of the décor has changed at the historic Belvedere Hotel bar. The food and drink menus have been updated, but the tavern still offers the same charm and conviviality it has had since opening in 1903.

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The Horse You Came In On Saloon

Founded in 1775, the saloon claims to be the U.S.’s oldest continually operating bar and the last place Edgar Allan Poe drank.

(Photo by David Colwell)

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Memories

Louis Barlow, 92

Haussner’s waitress

“I started in 1953, working as a waitress for 43 years until the year before they closed. We wore white uniforms, stockings, and white shoes. Mr. Haussner [the founder] was very fair, but he knew how he wanted things and catered to families. I remember the sculptures, the beautiful paintings covering the walls. I loved my work.”

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The Evolution of Natty Boh

How the cone top became the can we all love to hug today!

1930s-50s: Cone Top

1950: Flat Top

1965: Transitional

2014: Sta-Tab

Baltimore’s public market system is the oldest, still operating public market network in the U.S., predating the Declaration of Independence by more than a dozen years. The markets are a history of the city itself—harkening back to a time when public markets were the major source of food for city families. Historic Lexington Market, pictured above, in West Baltimore claims to be the world’s largest, continually running market, attracting local residents and tourists alike.

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Lexington Market

On land donated by John Eager Howard after he returned from fighting in the Revolutionary War, Lexington Market was an immediate success as local farmers flocked to the site with their produce.

Where’s Waldo?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, visiting Lexington Market, declared Baltimore “the gastronomic capital of the world.”

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Broadway Market

Established in 1786, this was among the first markets as Baltimore’s population boomed. Farmers came by wagon, boat, and ferry to serve immigrants and sailors.

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Hollins Market

Located in an old Lithuanian section of town, the Hollins Market operates in the oldest public market building still in use in Baltimore, dating to 1877.

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Baltimore Fish Market

A $35 million capital campaign by the Children’s Museum resulted in the renovation of the century-old Fish Market in 1998, now home to Port Discovery.

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Locally Sourced

CSA Movement

One interesting recent development is the growth of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement, which enables buyers to pick up their locally grown produce directly from farmers, most of whom meet their customers weekly at area public markets.

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JFK Farmers’ Market

The Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar, the traditional Sunday morning gathering under the Jones Falls Expressway, has already returned for its 37th season. It’s Maryland’s largest producers-only market, offering everything from fruits, vegetables, herbs, and poultry, to bison and baked goods. It’s also great for breakfast: vendors serve locally roasted coffee, omelets, crepes, and burritos.

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Retro Relic

Bee Brand

McCormick Tin

The Bee Brand was the first brand created by McCormick & Co. in 1904 because founder Willoughby McCormick felt the bee represented cleanliness, industriousness, and teamwork. Over time, the McCormick name replaced the Bee Brand as the primary brand.

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Towson Farmers’ Market

35th Anniversary

Held on Thursday afternoons, the Towson Farmers’ Market opens for its 35th season in mid-June and runs to about Thanksgiving, offering seasonal and locally grown fruits and vegetables—and when the weather cooperates—the opportunity to eat lunch outside at the nearby restaurants.

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Memories

Lou Fleming, 55

Lexington Market oyster shucker

“I’ve been shucking oysters here at Faidley’s for 37 years. Got the job by accident. They were serving oysters at a festival run by Johns Hopkins, and they were having problems keeping up with demand, so I offered to help. I was an arabber before that; started when I was 12 at the stables. They’ve treated me well ever since. On a Friday, I shuck about 15 bushels. I wouldn’t say the market, or the food here, has changed very much over time, but the people have. It used to be 90 percent white when I first came here; now it’s 90 percent black customers.”

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Price Hikes

A look back at the cost of living the year the Colts won their first NFL title.

Six-pack, Natty Boh bottles:
1958—99 cents
2014—$5.99

Crabs, one bushel, steamed:
1958—$11
2014—$225

Colts ticket, single game, 50-yard line:
1958—$5

Ravens ticket, single game, 50-yard line:
2014—$145

Orioles ticket, single game, box seat:
1958—$2.75
2014—$56

The Baltimore Sun:
1958—5 cents
2014—$1.00

Train fare, coach, Baltimore to New York
1958—$6.87
2014—$129

Tuition, The Johns Hopkins University, one-year, undergraduate:
1958—$1,000
2014—$45,470

The efficient movement of people, goods, and services is central to the function of any city—forever facing new challenges and demanding new solutions. Baltimore’s been moving forward in recent years in terms of public transportation with efforts including the Charm City Circulator, which continues to add routes and ridership, expanded MARC Train service, and the proposed Red Line project, a 14-mile light rail connecting Woodlawn to Bayview.

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Penn Station

Originally opened in 1911 and named Union Station, serving the Pennsylvania Railroad and Western Maryland Railway, the Charles Street Beaux Arts-style hub was renamed in 1928. Over the last three years, more than $7 million in improvements have been completed at the eighth-busiest station in Amtrak’s national network. More than one million passengers passed through Penn Station in 2012.

What’s in a Name?
There are several “Penn Stations” in the Northeast, all named after the Pennsylvania Railroad Co.

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Streetcars

Last fall marked the 50th anniversary of the end of streetcar service in the city. After 104 years of service, the last two lines to operate, the No. 8 (Towson-Catonsville) and No. 15 (Overlea-Walbrook Junction) both ceased operations in the early Sunday morning hours of Nov. 3, 1963. The last car to run that day is in the Baltimore Streetcar Museum’s collection.

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General motors, 1955

From 1935 to 2005, the Broening Highway GM factory built Chevrolets. Today, a White Marsh plant makes Chevy Spark electric motors.

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By The Numbers

The Light Rail

33 Number of stations

1992 Year it was inaugurated

3 Number of train lines

97 On-time train percentage

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Airport Modernization

In 1950, President Harry Truman dedicated Friendship International Airport, later renamed Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in 1973 after the state of Maryland purchased the airport from Baltimore City for $36 million.

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That was then, this is now

Bicycle Reboot

Streets in Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern cities predate the automobile and were initially paved at the behest of bicyclists. None other than H. L. Mencken called bicycling “a great and urgent matter” at the turn of the 20th century when Baltimore boasted more than 80 bike stores and dozens of bicycle clubs. Today, bicycling as transportation is rebounding, with the Charm City Bikeshare program scheduled to launch this year. There are also several infrastructure projects underway, including a protected Maryland Avenue cycle track that will run
between The Johns Hopkins University and Pratt Street.

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Memories

Carvey Davis, 90

Streetcar Operator

“I was an operator with the transit company in the 1940s and 1950s. It was a nerve-racking job, really, especially the one-man cars when you had to do both jobs—collecting the fares and operating the car. I worked almost all the lines; my favorite was the No. 26, which ran from downtown to Sparrows Point, the last bridge was over Bear Creek.”

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Seaworthy

Water Taxi

Fittingly, the Baltimore Water Taxi’s blue-and-white fleet is the oldest, public water-based service of its kind in the country. An integral part of Inner Harbor transportation, Baltimore Water Taxi is now 39 years old, offering service to neighborhoods such as Fells Point, Canton, Federal Hill, Locust Point, and Fort McHenry. In a tragic accident in 2004 involving Seaport Taxi (no longer in operation), a water taxi capsized, killing five of the 25 passengers.

Football Stadiums

Today, ESPN ranks M&T Bank Stadium, opened in 1996, as the No. 1 NFL stadium for home-field advantage. Still, we sometimes miss watching Lydell Mitchell et al. scamper across the infield dirt of Memorial Stadium (pictured above).

Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street was tagged “the World’s Loudest Outdoor Insane Asylum” when the Colts played and was known for the antics of O’s cheerleader Wild Bill Hagy.

M+T Bank Stadium, 2007 -Courtesy of The Baltimore Ravens/Shawn Hubbard

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Baseball

Oriole Park at Camden Yards takes its name from old Oriole Park, situated on East 29th and Barclay streets.

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That was then, this is now

The Glory Days of The Civic Center

From 1962 until its 1986 name change, the Baltimore Arena was known to us as the Civic Center. The facility hosted a number of teams, including the NBA Bullets of Wes Unseld, Gus Johnson, and Earl “the Pearl” Monroe”; the American Hockey League Baltimore Clippers and Skipjacks; and the indoor-soccer team Baltimore Blast. More than a few bands have played here, too, including the Beatles in 1964.

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Negro League Baseball, 1941

The Baltimore Elite Giants started in Nashville, arriving in 1938 and staying until 1950, winning two Negro National League titles in that time.

The team (pronounced “EE-lite”) played in the now dismantled Bugle Field on Edison Avenue and Federal Street in East Baltimore.

(Photo reprinted with permission of The Baltimore Sun Media Group. All Rights Reserved.)

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Pimlico

Horse Racing

The second oldest racetrack in the country, Pimlico hosted its first races in 1870. Two years before, after a dinner party in Saratoga, NY, Gov. Oden Bowie and prominent racing friends had agreed to hold races featuring horses—then just yearlings—in two years time to commemorate their evening. Bowie pledged to build a model track if the event was held in Baltimore.

Clifton Park

The park itself was once land owned by philanthropist Johns Hopkins, and its 18-hole public golf course, built in 1915, was the first of its kind in Baltimore.

Clifton Golf Course, 2013 -Courtesy of Tom Pierce, Clifton Golf Course

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Pagoda at Patterson Park

Originally intended to be an observation tower for viewing the city, the octagonal, 60-foot pagoda was designed by Charles H. Latrobe and built on Hampstead Hill in 1891.

(Photo courtesy of Deb Felmey)

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Druid Hill Park Pool

The 745-acre park is one of the country’s oldest city’s parks. A group of black tennis players famously protested the park’s segregation and finally, in 1956, all facilities were integrated.

In 1827, William Patterson donated six acres for public recreational use, and Druid Hill Park, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was established as an official city park in 1860.

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Park Legend

The Shepherd

From roughly 1869 until the 1940s, Druid Hill Park employed a shepherd, whose 100-plus sheep were used to keep the grass neatly trimmed.

George Standish McCleary, known as “Mr. Mac,” served as the park’s shepherd from 1906 to 1926.

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That was then, this is now

Home of Duckpin Bowling

The origins of duckpin bowling remain in doubt—some trace it to New England and others here. Either way, a couple of Orioles, John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson, popularized the sport locally. Legendary Baltimore duckpin bowler Elizabeth “Toots” Barger, who started her career at Seidel’s on Belair Road and is considered the greatest female duckpin bowler ever, was the second woman inducted into the Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame in 1961.

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Memories

Corinne Boyd, 96

Druid Hill Park lifeguard

“I was a lifeguard at what was called ‘the colored pool,’ and a champion AAU swimmer. We didn’t have anything to do in the summer, there was segregation then, but we did have the pool. My mother would send lunch over and my father picked us up in the evening. We’d try to convince him to stay and when he did, we’d be there until 8 or 9 p.m. at night”

For more than 300 years, the Port of Baltimore has been the center of industry for the city and state. Linking with the first U.S. commercial railroad, the B&O, Baltimore became a major East Coast shipping and manufacturing center. Attracted by shipbuilding and manufacturing jobs, as well as the railroad, Locust Point became the third largest port of entry for European immigrants.

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Steel Mills at Sparrows Point, 1937

Founded by the Pennsylvania Steel Company in 1889, and later bought by Bethlehem Steel, Sparrows Point was the world’s largest steel mill by the mid-20th century.

Beth Steel
Once home to tens of thousands of workers, Sparrows Point’s massive “L” blast furnace was shut down for good in 2012.

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Domino Sugar

The landmark 1951 sign—and its 650 neon tubes—atop the still-operating 92-year-old Domino Sugar plant make it the second-largest field of neon on the East Coast.

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McCormick Spice

Founded in 1889 by 25-year-old Willoughby McCormick, McCormick & Company, now based in Sparks, is the world’s largest spice maker.

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Harbor Ships

USS Constellation

Sloop-of-War

The first
Constellation, a frigate designed by naval constructors, was built at
the former Sterrett Shipyard in Baltimore, launching in 1797.

USS Torsk

Tench Class submarine

Deployed
to the Pacific and operating out of Pearl Harbor, the Torsk patrolled
off the coast of Japan in 1945. It arrived in Baltimore to serve as a
museum and memorial in 1972.

USCGC Taney

Coast Guard Cutter

For more
than a century, Baltimore’s Hawkins Point has served as the sole
shipbuilding and major repair facility for the U.S. Coast Guard Yard.

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Platt & Co. Oyster

c. 1970s

Photos courtesy of The Baltimore Museum of Industry

c. 2009

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Tide Point

Once a major entry point for immigrants, Tide Point was more recently known as the site of a Procter & Gamble soap factory. It was reinvented again in 2000 and now houses the headquarters of Under Armour.

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That was then, this is now

Linotype Machine

German-born inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler, a watchmaker who moved to Baltimore in the 1870s, was the brains behind the Linotype machine. Sometimes called the second Gutenberg, Mergenthaler devised a machine that could easily and quickly set complete lines of type for use in printing presses, revolutionizing the entire industry.

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Memories

Lawrence Knachel, 70

Bethlehem Steel worker

“I started in an apprentice plumbers program in the shipyard out of high school in 1962. Worked there for 21 years. We made everything for the ships right there—we had a mill that made pipes, a mill that made nails, a mill that made steel plates. The camaraderie was really good. We had 27 softball teams then, and the shipping side played the steel side.”

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Take Cover

Umbrella Capital

One of Baltimore’s nicknames is the “City of Firsts,” and almost 200 years ago, the first U.S. umbrella factory opened here. According to a commonly told story, the first umbrella in America arrived in Charm City in 1772 from India—where they were used to block the sun—ultimately setting Baltimore on course to become the umbrella-manufacturing capital of the world in its garment-district heyday. Later known as the Beehler Umbrella Company, the Beehler Umbrella House was established here in 1828 by German immigrant Francis Beehler.

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This is now

Industrial Revolution

2014

By the 1820s, Baltimore was the third-largest and fastest-growing city in the U.S. MICA, founded in 1826, was first named the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts.

American Brewery

The American Brewery closed in 1973. Nonprofit Humanim restored it into its headquarters in 2005.

Photo by Patrick Ross Photography

Can Company

Founded in 1901, The American Can Company operated tin-can plants in more than a dozen cities, including one here in Canton.

Photo by Patrick Ross Photography

E. J. Codd

Starting in the 1850s, E. J. Codd manufactured boilers at its three-building site, now home to offices and restaurants in modern-day Harbor East.

Photo by David Colwell

Cork & Seal

The century-old King Cork & Seal building on North Haven Street now serves the Emerging Technology Center, a tech incubator for startup-minded entrepreneurs.

Photo by David Colwell

A light snow falls on the railroad tracks in Fells Point as mostly thirtysomething couples pile into a chartered bus for a Saturday tour of Federal Hill and Locust Point. Not a history tour, per se, but a RE/MAX-sponsored homebuyer’s expedition of exposed-brick living rooms, granite-countertop kitchens, ceramic-tile baths, and panoramic views from two-tiered rooftop decks.

“Not sure you’re all going fit into that house,” jokes an older man, stepping onto his marble stoop as the couples traipse into the rehabbed row home next door. Upstairs, M&T Bank Stadium’s purple seats are visible from a brand-new deck. Below, across the alley, an elderly woman in sturdy shoes shakes out a carpet.

The bus feels out of place here, struggling to navigate the narrow streets in “the neighborhood once known as South Baltimore”—as a real-estate broker puts it. There’s also a lot of unappreciated local history passing outside the black-tinted windows—an original painted screen on East Gittings Street, the former Southway Bowling Center duckpin lanes on the corner of West Hamburg Street where Babe Ruth once rolled (now gone condo, of course), the Cross Street Market, the 1890’s brick public school repurposed as the contemporary-art gallery School 33 Art Center.Even Formstone—the ersatz siding John Water’s dubbed the “polyester of brick”—goes unrecognized as a peculiar Charm City legacy. “I guess some of the homes were done in large stone because it was cheaper than brick?” inquires a Capitol Hill lobbyist, looking to take advantage of Baltimore’s relatively inexpensive housing market.

“Actually, that’s a façade,” a real-estate agent explains.

In truth, the tour never quite reaches Locust Point, which as everyone who grew up on the peninsula will tell you, begins at Rallo’s Restaurant on Lawrence Street—even though Rallo’s is gone and it’s Big Matty’s Diner now. It’s unfortunate because if there is one place you’d like to take a busload of soon-to-be Baltimoreans to help them understand everything that underlies this town’s singular culture and eccentricity—it’s Locust Point. The first official port of entry for Maryland; Baltimore was born on these piers.

Indeed, you can make the case that nearly everything we think of as quintessentially Baltimore—Bawlmerese, blue crabs, Old Bay, Edgar Allan Poe, H. L. Mencken, Eubie Blake, Corned Beef Row, The Block, Preakness hats, Camden Yards, John Waters, Natty Boh—came out of a roiling mash-up of Old South heritage, blue-collar jobs, and the immigrants who streamed through what was once the busiest immigration center below the Mason-Dixon line.

“Absolutely, you can trace it all back to the blending of Southern culture and [African-American] migration, Northern industry, and the influx of European immigrants—first mixing at the port and its neighborhoods,” says Mary Rizzo, an American Studies Ph.D. and co-editor of
The Public Historian journal. “Baltimore’s character, it’s uniqueness, the dialect, all of it, is a kind of amalgamation of these very different things coming together—with a little Appalachia thrown in,” adds Rizzo, who has studied the city’s love affair with the working-class “Hon” women of old Baltimore. “It’s all threaded through these neighborhoods.”

And here’s what makes Baltimore unique. There’s gentrification, sure. In Locust Point and other ethnic port neighborhoods, warehouses have been converted into trendy condominiums. But there’s also remnants of old Baltimore everywhere. Not just echoes or artifacts, but the real deal. Next to a $450,000 rehabbed row home or trendy restaurant, there might be a family-owned business that’s been around for a century. That older man stepping onto his marble stoop? He or his wife might have cleaned that very stoop 60 years ago with Bon Ami powder and a scrub brush, as was custom. Of course, lots of cities have old-school neighborhoods, but few have been able to integrate the old and new as seamlessly as Baltimore has around the port.

So, if we were starting a tour, we might do it at 1308 Beason Street, the three-story, brick Immigration House, which is where Locust Point-native Bill Hughes, the 76-year-old son of a longshoreman father and Irish immigrant mother, stands a few weeks later. Built in 1904, next to an even older German church, this is where arrivals to the city stayed awaiting a family from the old country to take them in. Three years after its construction, in the peak year of U.S. immigration, 60 steamers with 66,000 immigrants—Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks (following earlier waves of Germans and Irish) docked at Locust Point. They poured into the shipbuilding, cargo, and railroad industries—B&O Railroad was the first common-carrier railroad company—and massive manufacturing plants, producing everything from sugar and spice to soap at Tide Point. (Yes, named after Procter & Gamble’s detergent factory.)

Hughes, however, is smiling and pointing up to the top of Silo Point, the 24-story luxury apartment tower that was once the world’s largest grain elevator. “We used to play dice up there when we were kids,” he laughs. “We’d wave and yell down to the cops, but they couldn’t come up and get us because it was owned by B&O.” He learned to swim off the pier next to Under Armour’s campus, which took over the Procter & Gamble facility, and recalls buddies swimming to the Broadway Pier in Fells Point on a bet.

Relatives still live in his childhood home on Hull Street, but old Baltimore, inevitably, is receding in Locust Point and the other harbor neighborhoods. “There’s the culture clash, but there’s jobs,” he says, mentioning Under Armour and the port’s rebound in the last decade, adding that the only real complaint he hears is about parking. Overall, he’s happy to see young families again using Latrobe Park, where he once saw Southern High School’s Al Kaline, the future Detroit Tiger Hall of Famer, hit three home runs.

He’s got one more story that’s revealing: “Before my time, Cardinal Gibbons used to row a skiff back and forth between Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Bridgid in Canton every Sunday, doing double duty.”

To his point, though separated by water, the Locust Point-Canton association runs deep. It was at the current home of the Baltimore Museum of Industry on Key Highway where Platt and Company Oyster Packers—patent holders of the tin can—launched the canning boom that filled Canton’s shoreline. In fact, Boston Street, according to 83-year-old Dr. John Charlton, who directs Baltimore Visitor Center tours, was named by Boston Irishmen recruited to the canneries. This was before the Locust Point arrival of Polish immigrants who he says, “didn’t want to live with the Germans” in South Baltimore and ferried to live and work in Canton. (His own German great-grandmother, Charlton volunteers, ran a Fells Point dry goods shop before marrying a Norwegian sea captain who’d wandered into her store.)

“Every city claims to be a city of neighborhoods,” says Rizzo, “but in Baltimore, it’s actually true.” And it’s because of the close-knit, ethnic neighborhoods, in which newcomers felt supported—from Locust Point and South Baltimore, to Canton, Highlandtown, Fells Point, Little Italy, Greektown, the Jewish community around Lloyd Street’s first Maryland synagogue, and enclaves beyond the harbor—that each group thrived. It also explains how Baltimore’s quirky culture developed—and stuck.

“Out of such insular places, come eccentric characters and odd cultural practices, however, it’s more than that,” Rizzo says. “You could pick and choose eccentric characters from any city. The thing that really makes Baltimore unique is its embrace of its weirdness—the darkness of Poe—by those who stayed behind in its neighborhoods. Because not everybody did. In Philadelphia, for instance, with the Founding Fathers, history is very serious business, but in Baltimore’s there’s always this edginess to it.”

The nice coincidence is that Baltimore’s stubborn refusal to let go
of its irascible characters and history—the modern manifestations of
which include HonFest, the Charm City Roller Girls, Mr. Boh, the Stoop
Storytelling Series, and our pro football team’s name—is actually
considered by urban experts crucial to rebuilding a vital city. The
reclaiming of the abandoned warehouses around the harbor and ongoing
mixed-use repurposing? That’s more than mere cost-savings and nostalgia.
It’s showcasing Baltimore’s authentic roots and character.

“Think
about it,” says Rizzo, “Baltimore can’t offer, say, more sunshine or
space than Orlando or Phoenix. What it does have—that those cities
don’t—is this eclectic history and its neighborhoods.” The vestiges of
which, as has been noted, are almost, but not quite, extinct, if you
know where to look.

For example, as in Locust Point, Canton row
houses and churches remain from the turn of the 20th century. So does
the public library—frequented by a young Barbara Mikulski, the daughter
of Polish bakers—which began lending books in 1886. Family-owned A.F.
Bialak & Sons Florist, founded in 1920, also remains, along with
O’Donnell T.V. and Repair, started by a World War II radioman named
Budreski, and Kurek’s Hardware, located in the first floor of an
O’Donnell Street corner row house. And, not far away, saved this winter
by the “new Baltimore” owners of Bad Decisions bar, 94-year-old
Ostrowski’s Famous Polish Sausage is still in business, too.

“My
grandfather started in the hardware business in 1932,” says Bill Kurek,
66, putting his brooms and mops out on the sidewalk on a recent morning.
“I was born upstairs.” Like everyone of his generation, he says, his
first date was at Matthew’s Pizza on Eastern Avenue, the city’s oldest
pizzeria, established in 1943. Movies meant either the
Patterson—renovated and flourishing as home to the Creative Alliance
today—or the Grand, where the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Southeast
Branch sits. “There was a Little Tavern next door to the Grand,” Kurek
says. “You’d get a movie ticket for a quarter and then a burger for 15
cents.”

He also chuckles at an ironic twist of gentrification over
the last 20 years: “When I was growing up, a Highlandtown girl wouldn’t
go out with someone from Canton—Canton was considered the wrong side of
the tracks.” But he says, “You knew everybody and everybody knew you.
You know the tagline for Hamm’s beer?” he continues, pointing to Brewers
Hill, also given a second life as a mixed-use commercial/residential
development. “‘The Land of Sky-Blue Waters.’ Of course, National
Bohemian’s was ‘The Land of Pleasant Living.’” Our joke growing up was,
‘You know what’s in-between? O’Donnell Street.’”

A drive down
Eastern Avenue (atop buried streetcar tracks that ran all the way to the
roller coaster at the Bay Shore amusement park at North Point State
Park) still provides an almost surreal juxtaposition of old and new
Baltimore. First, there’s the Greektown restaurants and bakeries; then
the Highlandtown library bust of Frank Zappa, native son of a Sicilian
immigrant; and the Patterson marquee. Next, historic Patterson Park and
the colossal monument to General Casimir Pulaski—who managed in one
lifetime to fight both the Russian army in Poland and British troops in
the American Revolution.

There’s the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s
golden domes; a row-house taxidermist; Patterson Bowling Center, the
oldest U.S. duckpin lanes; Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle, two years shy of
its centennial and billed as America’s oldest tackle shop; and Krakus
Deli, sausages hanging inside, and advertised in English and Polish on
its website as the best East Coast Polish deli. Billie Holiday’s
childhood home, the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Meyers Maritime Park, as
well as The Horse You Came In On Saloon—said to be the last place Edgar
Allan Poe drank—sit only blocks away.

The toggling between this
history, the new upscale Fells Point and Harbor East redevelopments, and
the latest expressions of Baltimore’s immigrant story—new Latino
restaurants, groceries, and businesses—extends all the way through Fells
Point and Little Italy. Of course, Harbor East, created nearly out of
whole cloth, wasn’t even around when 84-year-old Tom Scilipoti, the son
of Italian immigrants, played sandlot football and little league
baseball in the area.

“We played right there at the end of
President Street,” recalls Scilipotti. “It was an empty lot. There was a
lumber yard nearby [near the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore], and
afterwards we’d grab a couple of long pieces of wood and make a diving
board to jump off into the water.”

Scilipoti followed his father
into the barbering business, installing a classic, red, white, and blue
pole outside his Bank Street row house where he raised three kids with
his wife Concetta—also the daughter of Italian immigrants. Later, he
switched to photography, opening his studio in an Eastern Avenue row
house, shooting, among the portraits and graduations, Mayor Thomas
D’Alesandro Jr.’s inauguration, his daughter Nancy Pelosi’s wedding,
Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford out with the boys in Little Italy, and
President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 helicopter landing in Patterson Park—a
huge event in the Catholic neighborhood. He’s also contributed photos to
the weekly Baltimore Guide for 64 years.

Whether people call it
gentrification or not, it’s an improvement, says Scilipoti, who goes
down to the Broadway Market, established in 1786, for breakfast
everyday. He’s thrilled to see the ongoing commercial, residential, and
public projects around the harbor.

“That area, Harbor East, was
filthy, it was nothing but empty warehouses and trash for years. Fells
Point? Canton? They’re beautiful today. Fells Point was a slum when I
was growing up, you never went down there,” he says. “Canton smelled
like tomatoes.”

When asked if there’s been a loss of community
amongst all the change—or if he has a sentimental feeling for the time
when neighbors regularly scrubbed their marble stoops together—as in the
renowned photo by Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine, the
affable Scilipoti smiles. “Things change,” he says. “That’s just the way
it is.

“And let me tell you, because people forget,” he adds.
“The reason everybody was scrubbing those white marble stoops all the
time was because of the black soot and smoke billowing from the oil
refineries and factories down at the port. I don’t miss that.”

Let’s just say you were to enter a typical Baltimore restaurant circa 1961. Cocktails would be had before dinner: a martini for him, maybe a Tom Collins for her. The first course would come out, a bowl of iceberg lettuce doused in bright-orange French dressing, followed by cream-of-crab soup. Her main course might be crab imperial, drenched in a rich cream sauce laced with Sherry. He would order a steak—well done, of course—with a baked potato topped with sour cream and butter. The accompanying vegetables might come from a can. For dessert? Ice cream sundaes or perhaps a slice of pie.

Oh, the olden days. A lot has changed since then. We’ve become more health conscious, more aware of global cuisine, and there have been several food revolutions along the way. It was the ’90s—and something called New American cuisine—that really changed the way we ate. In truth, that simply meant adding a twist to a conventional dish. For example, it was somewhat radical when chef Cindy Wolf served a grilled chicken breast with pickled peaches and black beans at her restaurant Savannah, which opened in Fells Point in 1995. (Wow. She was certainly ahead of today’s pickling craze.) Over at Spike & Charlie’s, which opened four years earlier in 1991, chef Spike Gjerde dressed up a butterflied lamb chop with cannellini beans and fresh plum tomatoes (no tin-tasting canned ones for him). It was revelatory.

In a recent interview with firstweeat.com, Gjerde recalled making a ratatouille pizza at Spike & Charlie’s: “We cooked each finely diced vegetable individually, crumbled local goat cheese over it, and put it in the wood-burning oven. It was my first stab at something original.”

We take those additions for granted now. But that was before ratatouille was the name of a popular Pixar film. In fact, many Baltimoreans didn’t know what it was. It was quite bold to douse eggplant with balsamic vinegar before grilling as Gjerde did then. Most restaurants today serve this type of cuisine, with more reliance on the freshest and most local ingredients possible. Many grow their own vegetables, whether they’re tomatoes in container pots on outdoor patios or, like the newest juggernaut, Bagby Restaurant Group, from its own Cockeysville farm for its cadre of restaurants, including Fleet Street Kitchen in Harbor East and Cunningham’s in Towson.

Of course, a lot of other culinary influences were taking place in the pivotal ’90s. We traveled more, exposing us to varied cuisines. The Food Network created a big interest in cooking and chefs. More ingredients were available. And, really, our taste buds were becoming more sophisticated, as David Kamp points out in his excellent book, The United States of Arugula. Suddenly, iceberg was the pariah of the lettuce family.

(Ironically, many of those preparations have come back in vogue. A wedge of iceberg with blue-cheese dressing and crumbled bacon is considered charmingly retro.)

When you look back, there were far fewer restaurants in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. And, in true Baltimore fashion, we were loyal to our favorites, tending to latch onto an eating place until the aging owners, beaten down by the 24/7 grind, gave up and retired—Martick’s Restaurant Francais, Caesar’s Den, and Hersh’s Orchard Inn, to name a few.

For various reasons, we’ve lost many icons over the decades, including popular grand dames like Marconi’s, Haussner’s, Danny’s, Connolly’s, Miller Brothers, and Chesapeake Restaurant. Some, like the Chesapeake, have been re-invented into more casual affairs. It’s always nice to see a comeback, as we have for Peerce’s (now The Grille at Peerce’s) in Phoenix, Manor Tavern in Monkton, and the recently opened The Valley Inn in Brooklandville.

We’re still Crabtown, hon—except now we have many other options available. In a 2006 interview with Baltimore magazine, Afghan Qayum Karzai of The Helmand said, “Baltimore is becoming more cosmopolitan in what it accepts, in terms of food and different cuisines from various countries.”

In the same story, Joey Chiu, who operated the long-running and now defunct Bamboo House and, currently, his eponymous Greenspring Inn, concurred. “Now, more people in Baltimore eat out. Besides Chinese food, more and more people like sushi.”

That wasn’t always the case. Chiu recalled that in the late ’80s when he first offered the now ubiquitous fish-rice rolls, “People would say, ‘Ewww’ . . . People have become more educated.”

Now, it’s not unusual to find Asian fusion at many mainstream restaurants or events. For instance, chef Chris Becker, chief operations officer for the Bagby group, makes a great pork-belly steam bun. And Cyrus Keefer of The Fork & Wrench in Canton is known for infusing ingredients like yuzu powder and shochu into his dishes.

These days, most chefs like changing up their cooking style. Recently, Chad Gauss of The Food Market created a Mexican-inspired pop-up with dishes like smoked-trout taquitos, shrimp a la plancha, and rib-eye vieja. With our growing Latino population, it’s easy to find the real deal north of Broadway and Eastern Avenue. But it’s a cuisine that’s finding an inspired niche in Fells Point, including Charlie Gjerde’s new taco joint, Papi’s; Willow (by Stuggy’s owners); and the upcoming Barcocina in the old Shuckers space.

While we have many more diverse ethnic choices than we did when the MTV generation was born—from Lebanese and Persian to Thai and Korean—Italian has always been a mainstay. In fact, if it wasn’t for Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano in Little Italy, actor Chazz Palminteri of The Bronx Tale might not have considered locating his first restaurant in Baltimore. But he connected with Aldo’s Vitale family, and, before you knew it, they were partners in Chazz: A Bronx Original, which opened in Harbor East in 2011. Palmintieri is a frequent visitor at the restaurant.

But it’s safe to say that chefs Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen and Cindy Wolf of Charleston were the true torchbearers. (But even they probably didn’t guess that they both would be 2014 James Beard Award finalists in the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category. The winner will be announced on May 5.)

The chefs’ early efforts certainly paved the gustatory way for creative takes on cuisine in Baltimore by the likes of Ted Stelzenmuller of Jack’s Bistro (chocolate mac and cheese, sous vide), Jason Ambrose of Salt (duck-fat fries, Kobe beef sliders), and Joe Edwardsen of Joe Squared (gourmet coal-fired square pizza).

Baltimore also got a big bump on the national culinary scene when award-winning chef Michael Mina, who runs almost two dozen restaurants around the country, opened Wit & Wisdom: A Tavern by Michael Mina and Pabu at the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore. We’re also expecting actor Woody Harrelson’s recent acquisition of the Inn at the Black Olive with the rooftop Olive Room restaurant to create a stir in the world beyond the Susquehanna.

It’s exciting not because we have stars in our eyes. We’re thrilled because Baltimore deserves recognition as a food town. Spike and Cindy have been admirable ambassadors through their cooking and previous James Beard nominations prior to this year. But we also know it takes a village of chefs to put Baltimore on the national dining map. And we’re definitely on it.

Mellow Yellow

Ted Baker dress ($248) at Trillium. Mint green necklace ($42.50) at South Moon Under.

Tom Ford Grace sunglasses ($475) at Handbags in the City.

French Connection Nella sandal ($119) at Poppy and Stella.

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Sweetheart and Soul

Ella Moss Zan strapless dress honeydew ($245) and bracelet ($18)at Urban Chic.

Urban Expressions mocha jazz clutch ($100) at Treasure House Accessories.

Dolce Vita Hexen sandal ($178) at Poppy and Stella.

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Spotting Whitetails

Tibi dress ($350) at L’Apparenza. Earrings ($39.50) at South Moon Under.

Prada sunglasses ($355) and Kate Spade clutch ($298) at Handbags in the City.

Claudia Ciuti heels ($299) at Matava Shoes.

There are certain spring fashion staples that never go out of style—open-toed shoes, light cotton sweaters, sundresses—but one accessory that trumps them all is the formal sun hat.

And while it gets a slight update each season—maybe a different kind of trim or a new color—this iconic wide-brim hat is eternally synonymous with such traditional warm-weather events as the Triple Crown and May Day.

Giovannio Sin Specta navy and white hat ($169) at Hats in the Belfry.

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Kathy Conrad, retired Baltimore police officer: “Memorial Stadium—when working-class people could afford a baseball or football game.”

Mark Niewiadomski, Hertz Equipment Rental: “The price of crabs is rising as fast as fuel. I miss the old days when I could afford the gas and crabs in a single sitting.”

Pam Ruff, executive director, Maryland Economic Development Association: “I miss the MN sign on the Maryland National Bank building—it used to light up white for snow, red for hot, and blue for cold weather. Also miss the McCormick spice smells when it was downtown.”

LTJG Douglas Piper, U.S. Coast Guard commanding officer: “Lawn chairs saving parking spots during the winter, and summer walks to get snowballs with marshmallow.”

Valerie Kent, marketing manager: “Haussner’s—the art collection, career waitresses, and strawberry pie.”

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›› Do you have a question you want answered? E-mail us at mjess@baltimoremagazine.net and your question may be published in an upcoming issue!