7 minute read
Industrial Icon
from July 2021
A BOON FOR BAY WILDLIFE
As erosion continues to diminish the size of the Chesapeake’s islands, Poplar’s restored habitat is becoming more and more valuable for wildlife. Poplar’s isolation and lack of land predators such as foxes and raccoons makes the island habitat ideal for birds. The upland and wetland habitats created in the cells mimic the natural habitats along the shores of the Chesapeake. Dozens of species of waterfowl, shorebirds, perching birds, and birds of prey use the island as a resting place during migrations up and down the Atlantic Flyway. In the spring, thousands of waterbirds use the new habitat as a nesting grounds to raise their young. Large nesting colonies of glossy ibis, double crested cormorants, and least terns have been recorded on the island. Recently, a pair of northern shovelers was found nesting on the island, making Poplar the only known location where shovelers nest. Diamondback terrapins thrive in the shallow grass beds around the island, and in early June make their way up onto the island to lay their eggs. Terrapin hatchlings from select nesting locations on the island are collected and raised by local students in the Head Start program. There is a small herd of approximately 20 whitetail deer that roams the island. The Maryland Environmental Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitors the wildlife on Poplar Island throughout the year.
AIR B&B
Cormorants and other shorebirds and waterfowl use the island as a home or resting space along the Atlantic Flyway.
FUTURE ISLANDS
Poplar is growing by approximately two million cubic yards a year, and the cells in Phase II of the restoration are expected to reach their capacity for dredged material by 2032. The Army Corps and the Maryland Port Administration are looking south to Dorchester County at two disappearing islands—James and Barren—as the next sites to deposit sediment from the shipping channels leading to the Port of Baltimore and the C&D Canal. Work on the two islands, known as the MidChesapeake Bay Island Ecosystem, is expected to start in 2024 with the construction of the armored shoreline. Once completed, the restoration of James Island is expected to add 2,072 acres to the landmass that currently totals less than five acres. Barren Island, whose landmass currently stands at approximately 100 acres, is expected to gain 72 acres through the restoration.
Susan Walker Millard had a bushel basket of hometown desire for Baltimore’s sweet spot. “Every time we sailed past [the Domino Sugar] sign, I’d tell my friends, ‘You know that dot over the ‘i’ in Domino is six feet tall? I’d love to have it.’”
Not only did Millard not get the desired dot—“I really, really wanted it,” said the enthusiast of all things Baltimore—but Susie’s facts were a bit off.
“They gave it to the Museum of Industry,” said Millard, a Baltimore County resident who once chaperoned her son’s field trip to the massive sugar refinery. “It’s five feet, not six.”
Actually…
“It’s five feet tall, two-and-a-half inches, and it weighs about 190 pounds,” said Claire Mullins, the Baltimore Museum of Industry marketing director. “We’re going to put it near our wall of windows that look out on the harbor and the sugar factory. We cherish it.”
Generations of Baltimoreans— longshoremen, housewives hanging wash, tugboat crews, South Baltimore residents both working-class and gentrified, and folks across the harbor in Fells Point—have long cherished the fabled neon sign.
Rising 16 stories above the harbor on the roof of the nearly century-old refinery, the 120-foot by 70-foot sign flashed to life on April 25, 1951 when engineers turned the switch for the first time.
Bees and wasps were especially fond of the sticky sugar residue that clung to the neon tubing, nectar turned black with soot. Birds long made nests in the letters, finding privacy in the holes rusted through the structure from which they hung.
Since the Truman Administration, the apricot glow (or is it blood orange?) of 12 gigantic letters—don’t forget to dot the “i”—has comforted locals and DOTTING THE I'S
The Baltimore Museum of Industry will display the coveted Domino dot.
entertained folks just passing through.
They spelled “Domino Sugars” but said—loudly—Bawlmer.
“I’ve played music at the Cat’s Eye Pub lots of times,” said old school R&B guitarist David Goodfriend, a Garden State native long in love with Crabtown. “On breaks I’d walk down to the [west] end of Thames Street just to look at the sign. I always wanted to write a song about it.”
And he did, with lyrics that pay homage to a hard town by the sea: “Sweet sign, Domino, harbor light, Patapsco …”
Why all the hubbub about a beacon that has glowed in the city’s psyche for as long as anyone can remember?
Because it’s been dark since March as the structure’s 650 neon tubes are being swapped out for LED lights, a perceived loss that metro residents across all demographics have been mourning as though their greatgrandmother’s engagement ring fell into the murky, upriver waters of the Patapsco.
A three-alarm fire in late April at the plant’s raw sugar storage shed— which, wrote Baltimore Sun reporter Colin Campbell, perfumed the waterfront “with the heavy aromas of crème brûlée”—did not cause such concern.
“I don’t like the idea, some things shouldn’t change,” said Goodfriend. “Neon just looks better to my eye, it’s richer and brighter. I can tell the difference.”
Perhaps.
This July, from a score of angles in and around the Inner Harbor, doubters will see how closely the future has replaced the past. Ceremonial lighting of the new sign is scheduled for the Fourth of July. Because there will be no harbor fireworks this year, the updated
Domino logo will have the harbor stage to itself.
It was from the deck of Phyllis Hamblin Novotny’s family sailboat Serenity that Susan Millard—without fail—expressed her love for “the dot” on nocturnal excursions. Millard’s fantasy was to have it affixed to Serenity in honor of a lifetime friendship with Phyllis, with whom she bonded when they worked as bartenders together long ago.
Like Goodfriend, Novotny fears the new sign will “look different,” not unlike that close-but-not-quite taste of a relative’s casserole who swears they finally cracked Great Aunt Evelyn’s secret. The little difference is all the difference.
On Independence Day, Novotny and her husband John plan to sail from their berth at the Anchorage Marina in Canton to South Baltimore to see for themselves.
Neon is not necessarily richer than LED lighting; it is nostalgia that persuades us to believe it is. When a number of neon tubes blew out over a year ago, as they habitually did, refinery officials made a $2 million decision to switch over.
“We’ve put in a huge amount of time and effort to make sure it’s historically correct—that it will look exactly like the old sign,” said Rich Baker, vice-president of corporate engineering for American Sugar Refining, Inc. of Florida.
The ASR Group is the largest refiner of sugar in the world and owns the Domino Sugar Baltimore Refinery, a 30-acre plant bounded by the harbor and Key Highway and known locally as “the sugar house.”
Some 6.5 million pounds of raw cane sugar is processed there daily. And while the product is globally synonymous with sugar—and often confused with the company that produces it—Domino is merely a brand.
The decision to replace neon with LED was driven by many factors. Two companies in the metro area that “bend neon” tubing were located but future repairs and energy costs were daunting.
Like vinyl LP records, neon isn’t dead but has become something of a novelty, more likely to be found in suburban man caves than outside of a saloon. The craft is now taught more in art schools than apprentice shops as commercial practitioners age out of the game.
SWEET SIGN
The new sign will be the same dimensions as the old, down to the dot over the "i."
