April 2009 Issue

Green Jobs Explained • New Fiction from Stephen Dixon

april 2009 issue no. 58

Plus:

A Guide to Higher Ed for Adults

THE GREEN ISSUE Our guide to sustainable shopping, dining, building, and living in Baltimore

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contents

april 2009 issue no. 58

the green issue 38

keynote: the back-to-the-lander vandana shiva on saving india from western-style industrialization interview by scott carlson

42

a greener shade of blue

blue-collar baltimore gets eco-friendly by greg hanscom

42

48

the baltimore green guide

a tour of the city’s environmental revolution-in-progress

departments

59

this month online at www.urbanitebaltimore.com:

even more green: an eco-minded alternative to the murder map, plus links to earth-centered blogs, websites, and resources photos: more of david harp’s garden scenes q & a: an interview with local writer laura lippman video: watch this month’s recipe, swiss chard frittata, being prepared

on the air:

radio: urbanite on the marc steiner show, weaa 88.9 fm april 7: a conversation about food production and consumption april 21: can baltimore be a leader in the green economy? april 29: profiles of local green business owners

on the cover:

photograph by david harp

9

editor’s note

11

what you’re saying

13

what you’re writing safe: motherhood, sudoku, and security systems

17

corkboard this month: black cowboys, america’s smartest architect, and a swashbuckler’s soiree

19

the goods

25

higher learning: urbanite’s guide to adult learning and continuing education

55

fiction: mr. greene

59

space full bloom

color blind open call

the red (bicycle) army is coming. plus: glitzy goodwill, posh puppy care, and push mowers

by stephen dixon

garden scenes from the season to come

65

eat/drink a new leaf how i learned to hate kale and love it again by tracey middlekauff

69

reviewed: indigma and restaurant sabor

71

wine & spirits: when good wine goes green

73

the feed: this month in eating

75

art/culture middle ground putting a human face on “urban renewal” by david dudley

plus: the latest from laura lippman, passion plays, and lunch-pail party rockers

83

the scene: this month’s cultural calendar

90

eye to eye: urbanite’s creative director, alex castro, on daniel shea w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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For any special occasion Personalized Stationary • Wedding Invitations Save the Dates & More

Save the Date Issue 58: April 2009

Tree free • Energy efficient • Reduces waste

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6:00 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Tickets $50.00

Your mini department store in the heart of Roland Park.

Publisher Tracy Ward Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com

For more information contact: Jean-Marie Holloway 410-323-8564 • jmkholloway@msn.com

Wonderful Eclectic Food • Entertainment

Senior Editor Greg Hanscom Greg@urbanitebaltimore.com Literary Editor Susan McCallum-Smith literaryeditor@urbanitebaltimore.com Proofreader Robin T. Reid Contributing Writers Michael Anft, Scott Carlson, Charles Cohen, Mat Edelson, Clinton Macsherry, Richard O’Mara, Martha Thomas, Sharon Tregaskis, Mary K. Zajac Editorial Intern Andrew Zaleski Design/Production Manager Lisa Van Horn Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com Traffi c Production Coordinator Belle Gossett Belle@urbanitebaltimore.com

,

The only co-ed, independent, college preparatory school, grades Pre-K – 12 in Howard County

Step Up to a higher level of Independent Education!

We are accepting applications for the 2009–2010 academic year for available spaces or for our wait pool.

Please call to request information and to schedule a tour of our beautiful 87-acre campus.

Production Interns Shelby Silvernell, Tasha Treadwell Senior Account Executives Catherine Bowen Catherine@urbanitebaltimore.com Susan R . Levy Susan@urbanitebaltimore.com Lois Windsor Lois@urbanitebaltimore.com Account Executive Rachel Bloom Rachel@urbanitebaltimore.com Advertising Sales Assistant Erin Albright Erin@urbanitebaltimore.com Bookkeeping/Marketing Assistant Iris Goldstein Iris@urbanitebaltimore.com Advertising Interns Nicole Markopoulos, Lauren Schneiderman Founder Laurel Harris Durenberger Advertising/Editorial/Business Offi ces P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 Phone: 410-243-2050; Fax: 410-243-2115 www.urbanitebaltimore.com Editorial inquiries: Send queries to editor@urbanitebaltimore.com (no phone calls, please). The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. Urbanite does not necessarily support the opinions of its authors. To subscribe or obtain assistance with a current subscription, call 410-243-2050. Subscription price: $18 per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission by Urbanite is prohibited. Copyright 2009, Urbanite LLC. All rights reserved.

Urbanite (ISSN 1556-8105) is a free publication distributed widely in the Baltimore metropolitan area. To suggest a drop location for the magazine, please contact us at 410-243-2050.

12793 Folly Quarter Road • Ellicott City, MD 21042 • 410.531.8600 • www.glenelg.org

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urbanite april 09

Postmaster: Send address changes to Urbanite Subscriptions, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211.

Please, anything but green!

After all, this is 2009. Vanity Fair’s first celeb-heavy Green Issue bowed back in 2006. Since then, there have been enough special issues about the joys of that particular leafy hue, via publications from High Times to Autoweek (really!), to devour many a virgin forest. (Most of these special green pubs—including, alas, the one in your hands—are not printed on 100 percent recycled paper, a source of disgruntlement to many.) So widespread and persistent is mainstream chatter about carbon footprints and bioremediation that even a true believer might admit to a passing bout of green fatigue. Last summer, the New York Times coined the term “green noise” to describe the ambient soup of sometimes contradictory planet-saving advice to which the American consumer is now exposed.

Why bother adding to this monochromatic din? And why us? To some degree, every Urbanite tends to greenishness; covering environmental responsibility has been a part of the magazine’s formula from day one. But this spring of 2009 represents a possible watershed moment in American environmentalism, a confluence of political will, economic need, and increasingly inarguable urgency that has gifted local eco-advocates with a rare opportunity to make bold moves. Following through on the Obama administration’s professed commitment to building the so-called “green economy” means that resources will flow to the cities that have their acts together. The big question: Will Baltimore put itself in a position to take advantage of this moment or let it come and go?

If the latter, it won’t be for lack of warm bodies. One of the many chores of Greg Hanscom, Urbanite’s resident Mr. Green and the coordinating editor for this special issue, was to assemble a comprehensive cheat sheet for all the many players in the region’s environmental sector—a document that we came to call the Green Monster. One thing that quickly became clear as Greg labored at the Monster was that the Mid-Atlantic’s massive inventory of green advocacy nonprofits, academic centers, and official city and state agencies do not necessarily have any idea what their like-minded brethren are up to. Result: Massive duplication of effort and overall lack of coordination. One official attributed this green balkanization to the region’s legacy of racial and ethnic division, the less-charming flip side to Charm City’s hyper-local city-of-neighborhoods culture.

Greg also reported on perhaps the most promising antidote to this phenomenon—the rise of “green-collar jobs” (“A Greener Shade of Blue,” p. 42). Rare is the politician who hasn’t at least invoked this term in the last six months, and some advocates wave it around like a magic wand that will wallop both climate catastrophe and the credit collapse in one fantastical swoop. In the short term, green jobs offer somewhat more modest hope for struggling American cities, especially the postindustrial ones such as our own, for whom economic crisis has lasted three or four decades, not three or four months. But in the long term, the green economy might well be a bigger deal—a chance to forge a meaningful alliance between labor and the environmental movement,

photo by Lisa Van Horn

editor’s note

The green team (clockwise from top left): Greg Hanscom, Andrew Zaleski, David Dudley, Michael Hughes, Andrea Appleton, and Marianne K. Amoss (not pictured: Mary K. Zajac)

for one thing. And a few years from now, if everyone involved plays their cards right, the green economy—like so many green endeavors of today—will expand enough to lose its modifier.

But for now, we fearlessly, gleefully, and repeatedly label what’s green and what’s not. The Baltimore Green Guide (p. 48) distills the best and brightest in Baltimore’s burgeoning eco-consumer scene— how to live, eat, shop, bank, build, and get around in an environmentally responsible way. Taking the full measure of this exploding topic could have filled thirty pages, but we didn’t want to kill that many trees, so go online at www.urbanitebaltimore.com for more. Elsewhere in this special issue, we serve up a smorgasbord of salutes to our favorite color. Scott Carlson talks to Vandana Shiva, India’s outspoken opponent of Western-style industrialization (“The Back-to-the-Lander,” p. 38). Tracey Middlekauff chronicles her on-again, off-again love affair with the extra roughage supplied by community-supported agriculture (“A New Leaf,” p. 65). Senior oenophile Clinton Macsherry takes a cautious sip of biodynamic wine (“Red, Wine, and Green,” p. 71). And photographer David Harp, who also supplies this month’s cover image, indulges our winter-weary need for looking at growing stuff (“Full Bloom,” p. 59).

If all this enviro-mania leaves you with a throbbing green hangover, take a look at Higher Learning, our first bi-annual supplement focused on higher education (p. 25), to discover why so many grownups head back to classrooms when the economy tanks. And join us in welcoming short fiction back to the magazine with a new piece by Stephen Dixon that has absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet.

It’s called, inevitably, Mr. Greene (p. 55).

—David Dudley

What do you know?

Coming Next Month: The Invisible City: Looking at Baltimore’s secret side

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what you’re saying Amish culture and the notion that the area is the land of outlet shopping.

My wife and I are big fans of Charm City.

The Charleston is one of our all-time favorite restaurants, and we love the shops of Hampden, where we recently purchased dining room chairs from Paradiso. Rebecca’s article was a great introduction to Lancaster City.

Now I invite your readers to make that short one-hour trip up 83 to really see what Downtown Lancaster has to offer. photo by Chris Rebbert

—Mayor J. Richard Gray, City of Lancaster

Populist Appeal Morning Sunday Hettleman may or may not be correct when she says that “the average person [in Baltimore] is dropping out of high school in ninth grade” (“A Blueprint for Green,” February). But just because green plans appear to appeal to intellectuals on the surface doesn’t mean that those with less education can’t participate. A couple of suggestions: • Put aspects of the program in terms they can understand and emphasize what’s in it for them. Emphasize how reuse and recycling can save these residents money and time.

Stress that they don’t have to change their whole lives around—every little bit helps.

Many of them, by using public transportation, are already helping. Let them know that’s a point for them already on the scoreboard!

• Get the word out at places of worship. Using schools to get the word out sounds effective on the surface, as you get the message to children who, one hopes, will carry green habits around their whole lives. But if Ms. Hettleman is correct, children aren’t spending enough time in schools anyway. As well, communicating aspects of a sustainable program appeals to worshippers’ understanding of saving God’s green planet. And both adults and children can participate.

property tax rate is the root cause of its long, tragic history of disinvestment and decay.

Mr. Duvall demonstrated how an identical $1,600 monthly payment could buy a house worth $200,000 given the city’s 2.268 percent tax rate or a $230,000 house if my tax proposal (a 1 percent rate) was adopted. But he missed the big point: Clearly, the city’s confiscatory rate imposes huge capital losses on property owners, amounting (in his example) to more than 13 percent of the value of their property.

Rational investors long have avoided such expropriation by building homes and businesses in the more lightly taxed suburbs (e.g., Baltimore County’s rate is 1.1 percent). And since the owners of the city’s existing structures, which naturally depreciate over time, suffer repeated capital losses if they improve them, they’ve generally avoided doing so as well—and the quality and quantity of physical capital here has been declining for decades.

City officials rarely admit all this, but they do seem to understand it, for they’ve been awarding special abatements and subsidizing development in order to offset the city’s disadvantageous tax rate on every major urban redevelopment project since the late 1950s. My point is simple: If it’s a good idea to encourage investment for a few favored developers, why isn’t it a great idea to extend such tax breaks to all Baltimoreans?

Bad Trip I liked your concept of nearby getaways in the current issue, but I found Greg Hanscom’s condescending/snarky critique of Deep Creek Lake to be off-putting (“West Side Story,” February). I really don’t think anyone going to Wisp for a ski weekend sees himself as heading off to Vail, as the author implies. It’s a nice little getaway for people who live around here. Yes, Hanscom is a great skier. Yes, everything’s bigger out West. We get it.

And, finally, “a bit of a bog connoisseur”?

Lighten up, man.

—Mariel Steiner, Baltimore Correction A reader informed us that several parts of Geterries Mack’s poem Black Statue of Liberty, which was awarded first place in the Writing Outside the Fence inmate/ex-offender writing contest (March), were lifted from a poem of the same name by Jessica Care Moore.

Alerted to the similarities, contest organizer Lucy Bucknell said she regretted publishing the plagiarized piece, but that one of the participating judges noted that it “doesn’t tarnish the hard work of the other writers and everyone else involved.” We offer our apologies to Urbanite’s readers, and to Ms. Moore.

In the midst of our excitement about this year’s Urbanite Project (March), we printed incorrect website addresses for on our teams’ pages. You can access this year’s project at www.urbaniteproject.com and click on each team’s link to go to their individual pages.

—Stephen Walters, Loyola College in Baltimore I doubt it will take a decade, as suggested in the article.

—Beth Woodell, Baltimore Running the Numbers, Again Peter Duvall’s criticism of my tax plan for Baltimore (“What You’re Saying: Bad Math,” February) rests on an example that actually supports my argument that the city’s high

Lancaster Feels the Love I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Urbanite and Rebecca Messner for her insightful article on Downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania (“Buggytown Revisited,” February). I have always been impressed with Urbanite, and Rebecca really captured the essence of our great city. Too often has the city been overshadowed by the county’s proud history of

We want to hear what you’re saying.

E-mail us at mail@urbanitebaltimore.com or send your letter to Mail, Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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what you’re writing complicated, ominous. On my guard now, I continued walking, surveying every bush, tree, and passing stranger. But I made it home safely, moving quickly through darkened neighborhoods with the fresh scent of spring in the air.

photo by Andrea Fischman

—Owings Mills resident Jeanne Murray Franklin spends her spare time enjoying friends and family, writing short stories, and exploring fine art photography.

As my mother began snoring from across the plains of my king-sized bed, my eyes went from my book to her gray roots, creeping out from her faded drugstore dye job like killer ivy. My husband was out of town, and she was tired from wrangling my toddler son all evening after a long day’s work.

Watching her open-mouthed slumber, I was transported back thirty years to when my younger sister and I slept in the same bed as my mom at the back of a friend’s trailer in southern Illinois. We had left my violent, bipolar, addicted father five hours north in the Chicago suburbs, escaping with our things in black garbage bags. I would celebrate my 7th birthday in Paula’s faded blue trailer, where I watched the crops rotate from corn to cows to wheat to snow.

It was like glorified camping, with the windows cranked open to the cornfield where cows grazed on dead stalks in late fall. My mom’s friend was a college student at Southern Illinois University, a ceramicist who loved health food and the outdoors and two girls in need of refuge. Little did I understand that my mother was 25 in a new town, with two kids and a Chicago accent, no job, no home, no money, and no college degree. I woke up next to my sister and mom in the same bed in that little trailer with the faux wood paneling, turquoise bathtub, and pink kitchen sink, and I never felt safer.

—L.M. Velasco is a former photo editor and current full-time parent. She lives in Roland Park.

It was April 1970. During

my senior year at Forest Park High, I had taken

SAFE

a part-time job as a cashier at G.C. Murphy Co. in Mondawmin Mall. I worked two evenings a week after school, plus Saturdays, for $1.36 an hour. We were paid in cash back then, bills and coins sealed inside tiny brown envelopes. A close friend of mine worked on the first floor, and I worked upstairs on the second. Sometimes, when business was slow, we sent notes back and forth to each other on the up and down escalators in the center of the store.

Most of the time, my father picked me up from work, but sometimes, I had to take the bus home or walk. One such evening, I got off from work around 9 o’clock and didn’t feel like waiting for the bus, so I started walking.

I crossed Gwynns Falls Parkway and walked south, passing the green campus of Douglass High School. Just before I turned down Bentalou Street, I noticed I’d picked up some company—two teenage boys were following me, and I sensed they were up to no good.

What to do, what to do? I thought of the small metal nail file that I kept in my purse and pulled it out, squeezing it tightly in my hand. I reached up, as if to scratch my ear, hoping the streetlight would catch the point of the file and the boys would see it. I made the elaborate ear-scratching gesture several more times as I walked along, my wooden-soled platforms clop-clopping against the sidewalk.

The boys kept their distance for several blocks. Then, just before North Avenue, one of them ran up beside me and yanked hard on my purse. Fortunately, I held on to it; without stopping, the two ran off down the street.

The simplicity of the night had turned

Mathematicians won the war. Mathematicians broke the Japanese codes … and built the A-bomb.

These words open the film A Beautiful Mind, but they’re only partially correct. Mathematicians do much more than solve global crises and develop complex technologies. The true function of a mathematician is to advance the human race by solving problems that plague us every day. Mathematicians sent Apollo 11 to the moon, inspiring every person on the planet Earth. Mathematicians perfected the automobile, the television, the airplane, the computer.

Mathematicians are the ones who protect us from foreign and domestic threats on a daily basis. Mathematicians, in other words, make us safe.

My mother, a mathematician, fully embodies this role of the protector. Since I was young, she emphasized reliance on math when nothing else made sense. “There will always be uncertainty in the world,” she would tell me, “but you can be certain that two plus two will always equal four.” (I later realized this was a reference to her favorite novel, 1984.)

My mother and I have an inside joke called “safety in numbers.” We find solace and comfort in seeking out difficult problems and figuring out different ways to work them. Everyone conjures up a different mental image when they hear the word “safety.” I think about sitting next to my fireplace on a winter’s day, doing sudoku with my mother.

—Bryan Yang is a junior at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia.

In an effort to feel safe when we moved to Baltimore, we had a security system installed: motion and glass-break detection, door and window sensors—the whole nine yards. Billionaire recluse Howard Hughes was more accessible. While sleeping soundly one night, sure nothing could penetrate our little green zone, we were awakened by two intruders who entered our bedroom, flashlights blazing. A shout of “Baltimore Police!” was barely audible over the sound of my heartbeat.

Once assured that all family members were alive and well and that the only intruders were Baltimore’s finest, we pieced together the evening’s events.

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urbanite april 09

Apparently the alarm company will not lock your doors for you. They also provide no contractual guarantee that the wind will not blow them open. The remote alarm will sound as advertised and will wake you up as long as you remember to take it with you to bed.

When you fail to respond because there are several plaster walls between the alarm and you, they will call your home phone and will even try your cell. They will stop short, however, of yelling up at your window or, better yet, throwing a brick through it tied to a note that reads, “Wake up, you idiot!” while you sleep soundly through the various ring tones and vibrations taking place a floor or two below.

The police will eventually be dispatched.

They will enter your home through the windblown door and begin a search.

Perhaps a dog bred to hunt will have the keen hearing necessary to detect the sound of the alarm. Maybe a tracker like a bloodhound will be able to detect the odor of cigarettes and booze (or, in this case, stale coffee and doughnuts) sure to accompany your intruders. I don’t know. I do know that a miniature dachshund will do neither of these things. A miniature dachshund may not even wake up.

She may ask for her breakfast in the morning as if nothing unusual happened at all. But at least she won’t judge you too harshly for believing that you could subcontract your safety. ■

April Showers....

—Airline pilot Mike Jacobson writes fiction and nonfiction in his free time.

“What You’re Writing” is the place for creative nonfiction from our readers. Each month, we pick a topic. Use the topic as a springboard into your own life and send us a true story inspired by that month’s theme. Only nonfiction submissions that include contact information can be considered. We reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know.

Submissions should be typed (and if you cannot type, please print clearly). Only one submission per topic, please.

Send your essay to Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 or e-mail it to WhatYoureWriting@urbanitebaltimore. com. Submissions should be shorter than four hundred words. Because of the number of essays we receive, we cannot respond individually to each writer. Please do not send originals; submissions cannot be returned.

Topic

Deadline

Publication

Getting There Heat Tall Tale

Apr 7, 2009 June 2009 May 6, 2009 July 2009 June 8, 2009 Aug 2009 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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....Bring May Flowers.

Souvenir

By Stephen Temperley Directed by Vivian Matalon The Pearlstone Theater

Apr 24th–May 24th “A towering comic performance! Judy Kaye is sublimely funny.

A beguiling comic jewel with a heart.”

—Variety

Starring the phenomenal original Broadway cast of Judy Kaye and Donald Corren.

Sponsored by

Tickets start at $10 www.centerstage.org 410.332.0033

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corkboard

Joshua’s Journey

through may 17

Learn about life as a young cowboy in the Port Discovery Children’s Museum exhibit Joshua’s Journey: A Black Cowboy Rides the Chisolm Trail .

Through hands-on activities, historic photographs, and artifacts, kids get a sense of life on the ranch through the eyes of Joshua Loper, the 16-yearold subject of a fact-based book by young adult author Walter Dean Myers, part of the Scholastic series My Name is America .

35 Market Pl. General admission $11.75; children younger than 2 free 410-727-8120 www.portdiscovery.org

aia spring Lecture series

april 1, 22, and 30

The Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) ushers in spring with a series of talks by highly regarded architects. Ann Beha, known for integrating contemporary design into historic projects, gives the Preservation Maryland Lecture on April 1. Bing Thom (pictured at left) speaks about creating cultural landmarks on April 22. Closing out the series on April 30 is Joshua Prince-Ramus, described by Esquire as “America’s Smartest New Architect.”

Maryland Institute College of Art, Falvey Hall 1300 W. Mt. Royal Ave. 6 p.m.; reception to follow $15 at the door 410-837-5040www.aiabalt.com/ 0_committees/0_LectureSeries/ LectureSeries.html

project Clean stream

april 4

Last year was Project Clean Stream’s biggest take yet: Three thousand-plus volunteers removed 186,000 pounds of trash—including a toilet, a Mariah Carey poster, and lots of tires—from riverbanks and roadsides in Central Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Help them beat that record by joining up with a local crew at one of more than 115 sites.

To volunteer, e-mail vstinson@ acb-online.org www.acb-online.org/ cleanstream.cfm

Day of rivals

april 11

The first annual Day of Rivals, organized by Baltimore-based Inside Lacrosse magazine, is a one-day extravaganza of facemask smashing, body checking, and cradling. Army takes on Navy first, at 11:30 a.m., followed by Johns Hopkins versus the University of Maryland, College Park, at 2 p.m.

M&T Bank Stadium, 1101 Russell St. $20 for lower deck seats, $30 for club level, $10 per person for groups of ten or more 410-261-RAVE www.dayofrivals.com

privateer Day

april 17–18

Fells Point Privateer Day promises to be an arrr!-filled day of music, storytelling, and food and drink, with a battle at sea and a pub crawl to cap it all off (tickets to the crawl are $3 in advance, $5 at event). Kick things off the night before at the first annual Swashbuckler’s Soiree, held at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum, where you can sample fare from Fells Point restaurants and dance to the Brigands (who plan to “party like it’s 1724”) in black tie or pirate garb ($35 in advance, $40 at the door).

Fells Point Main Street www.fellspointdevelopment.com/ privateerday.html

Johns hopkins University spring Fair

april 24–26

Each year, the Hopkins campus and nearby sections of North Charles Street erupt into the annual Spring Fair, a family-friendly celebration of warm weather with arts and crafts vendors, musicians, children’s activities, a beer garden, and games.

3400 N. Charles St. 410-516-7692 www.jhuspringfair.com

Photo credits from top to bottom: courtesy of Fort Worth Museum of Science and History; photo by Thomas Billingsley; photo courtesy of Fells Point Yacht Club; courtesy of James Schaffer/Inside Lacrosse; photo by Jacquie Greff/Tonal Vision LLC; courtesy of the JHU Spring Fair

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Time to put some Spring in your step.

Shop with style.

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Ruxton’s newest gem, located above Rutland Beard Florist.

The store features fine and fashion jewelry, eyewear and gifts.

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For over 25 year, Baltimore’s specialty boutique for exquisite linens, trousseau items, sleepwear, baby clothes and sweet-smelling gifts. 410-825-1736

The Little Shoebox, an upscale designer shoe boutique is a fusion of style, sophistication, and elegance. Sizes 5-11. 410-825-3191 www.thelittleshoeboxonline.com

Awarded Baltimore’s BEST in Baltimore Magazine. Famous for its 50% off sale every Saturday.

Call us today! 410-321-1737 www.RutlandBeardRuxton.com

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30% Federal Tax Credit now available on all solar systems!

Take Care A clinical nutritionist and licensed esthetician specializing in holistic, organic skin care, Christine Cochrum moved to town last fall from Raleigh, North Carolina, where she’d owned a spa. She combined forces with massage therapist Rachel Costello, the owner of Pure Massage of Baltimore, and as of this month, they’ve formally joined their ventures together under the name Apothecary Wellness (1301C Light St.; 443-540-4022; www.apothecary-wellness.com). Heated stone, deep tissue, and circulatory massages are given in a soothingly darkened room. For skin treatments, such as the men’s organic custom facial and the cucumber parsley oxygen treatment, Cochrum uses only the Hungarian line ilike organic skin care, which contains whole fruit and herb pulps. Members of certain healthcare plans, including Blue Cross/Blue Shield, can get discounts on services.

Puppy Palace

—Marianne K. Amoss

© Eriklam | dreamstime.com

Three years ago, Gina Gargeu and Barry Glazer began transforming an old South Baltimore warehouse into a state-ofthe-art doggy paradise. In December, they opened up as Downtown Dog Resort (200 W. McComas St.; 443-869-4071; www. downtowndogresort.com). The facility can hold ninety dogs at one time and includes such amenities as individual rooms with heated floors and raised bedding for boarding dogs, a gym with a pool and treadmills, and a private outdoor lawn for group play. A special chef is on hand to prepare gourmet dog meals, from salmon to chicken breast, and a groomer provides haircuts, bathing, and brushing. “Doggie Daycare” costs $25 a day; boarding starts at $32 per night, and dogs can be dropped off or picked up seven days a week. The resort also houses a veterinary facility open to the public. Call for information on the full range of services.

—Andrew Zaleski

photo by Tasha Treadwell

Working Wheels Rush is right—socialism is on the march! Exhibit A: Baltimore Bicycle Works (1813 Falls Rd.; 410-605-0705), which opened its doors in December. The shop is structured as a worker-owned collective, so “nobody’s anybody’s boss,” says Josh Keogh, one of the five equal partners in the business. Keogh and his comrades focus on the urban working masses, not the Lycra-clad racers.

Their grittily industrial retail space, located underneath the Howard Street bridge right off the Jones Falls Trail, carries new and used road bikes and hybrids from American brands Jamis, Swobo, and Surly—makers of functional, old-school steel-frame rides—plus gear aimed at commuters, messengers, fixed-gear aficionados, and other cyclists looking for bombproof urban transportation. Bike books, repairs, and custom steel framebuilding, too.

—David Dudley w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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2009 Speaker Series: Greening Your Home April 16, 7p.m.

Sustainable Design in your Garden Zolna Russell, Hord Coplan Macht May 21 Practical Steps for Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Jeff Blankman, Sunnyside Solar Please register by calling 443-738-9200.

Fee: $6.00 per lecture ($10.00 for non-members)

11201 Garrison Forest Road Owings Mills, MD 21117

www.ExploreNature.org

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Brooks Brothers pants paired with a Ralph Lauren sport coat for only $20? Yes—at the new Goodwill Boutique in West Baltimore (1 N. Poppleton St.; 410-244-6210), tucked among the buildings of the University of Maryland BioPark at the corner of West Baltimore and Poppleton streets.

Open since February, the boutique offers a higher-end take on the classic thrift store—scaled down in size and offering name-brand fashion and home décor for the traditional low Goodwill price. You’ll find such labels as Coach, Versace, and Nordstrom scattered throughout the racks and sitting atop handsome Macy’s-esque displays situated on the wood floors.

And in true Goodwill form, the boutique also creates jobs by offering area residents retail management training. “This neighborhood is very underserved,” notes store manager Lynn Carmody. “The community is hungry for this type of resource.” Open Mon–Sat, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., with donation drop-off 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

—A.Z.

photo by Tasha Treadwell

Goodwill Hunting

In the Bag

photo by Shelby Silvernell

If you’re trying to save gas by walking or taking public transit to work, you might be toting what Robert Ginyard would call a less-than-fashionable bag stuffed with your workday supplies. In 1992, Ginyard, then working as a banker, invented the Shusokumb bag (www.shusokumb. com) to help women be more fashion-forward and organized. As its name (a combo of “shoes,” “socks,” and “umbrella”) indicates, the bag has separate slots for work-appropriate shoes, a cell phone, an umbrella, and an iPod, plus a hook for keys and a flat front pocket for reading material. It conveniently unzips to lay flat and comes in black, red, beige, and olive shades. Shusokumbs are only available through the website; a dollar from the sale of each bag ($39.95) goes to the American Heart Association.

—M.K.A.

This is it. This is the year you trade in your lawn tractor for a retro push mower. Here’s why: A push mower doesn’t burn any gas, you get a little exercise wheeling the motorless whirlygig around, and the scissor-cut action is better for your grass than a power mower. Also, it won’t mangle your limbs—lawn mowers send 80,000 people to the hospital each year, according to a 2006 study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. You’ll miss the lazy drone of the two-stroke engine on cool summer mornings, but the conversations with passersby should make up for it. These days, high-end mowers from Brill or Sunlawn can feature a battery-powered reel and fetch up to $400. For classic (and cheaper) people-powered pushers, Mill Valley General Store (2800 Sisson St.; 410-8896842; www.millvalleygeneralstore.com) and Falkenhan’s Hardware (3401 Chestnut Ave.; 410-235-7771) carry Great States mowers. Richard Riha at AA Lawn Mowers Repair Center (formerly Riha Hardware and Pool Co.; 6605 Harford Rd.; 410-254-6782) says he usually has a few used ones in stock—and the older mowers often have better blades.

—Greg Hanscom

© Nejron | dreamstime.com

Slow Mow

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Ellicott City’s newest specialty retail market & cafe with fresh pastries 3744 Old Columbia Pike • 410-465-5595

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Shop the hiStoric StreetS of ellicott city - Something for everyone!

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HIGHER

L E AR NI NG Urbanite’s guide to adult learning and continuing education

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You will learn to s m e l l the difference between fact and fiction, and to form opinions in grounded logic. You will f e e l the challenge of academic rigor, as well as the comfort of belonging to an authentic community where students come first. You will begin to h e a r your inner voice—and trust it. At McDaniel College you will discover your future through numerous research, travel, and internship opportunities. Come s e e for yourself.

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not too cool For scHool

by DEbOrAh rUDACILLE P h O T O g r A P h y b y D Av I D r E h O r

As the economy struggles, higher education can provide a safe haven for adult learners.

When the going gets tough, the tough get a

degree. For the legion of professionals returning to the classroom in this bitter winter of economic discontent, the classroom is the new corner office—both status symbol and refuge.

“School is the only place you can hide at this time that can accommodate your intellectual needs and advance your career,” says 39-year-old Samson Ndanyi. A Kenyan émigré who recently earned a master’s degree in social science from Towson University, Ndanyi hopes to be hitting the books in a doctoral program come fall 2010.

The adult learners swelling enrollment at local colleges and universities seem to have taken to heart Aristotle’s dictum that “the roots of education are bitter but the fruits are sweet.” Maryland has a lower unemployment rate than many states (6.2 percent), and it boasted the nation’s highest median household income in 2007 ($68,080), but even so, from community colleges to graduate schools, admissions counselors are swamped.

Unsurprisingly, health care and education top the list of disciplines being looked at by career-changers. Over the past year, those two sectors grew more than any other part of the economy, adding more than 500,000 jobs nationally; by contrast, construction and manufacturing shed 1.5 million jobs.

Lois Simmons, director of Selective Admissions for the School of Health Professions at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), says that her office has been deluged with phone calls from people looking for a quick fix to their economic woes. Two of the most common questions she hears: “What do you have?” and “How fast can I get it done?”

Like those callers, some mid-career adults are motivated by the need to find more secure—or more lucrative—employment.

Others aren’t interested in changing careers so much as becoming more marketable in their current fields. Some hope to find more fulfilling work. But one quality most seem to share is the tendency to view unwelcome events as opportunities, not catastrophes.

Take David Herzog. At 40, he has spent his professional life in one of the industries hardest hit by the current recession—home construction. At 16, he was carrying wood on construction sites; later, he started a framing

furloughs wisely. The economic theory, case studies, and real-world examples he’s studying at Loyola should make him better prepared than most to navigate the new realities of credit for homebuilders once the economy turns around.

“Chaos,” he notes ruefully, “provides an awful lot of opportunity.”

M

Executive education: Homebuilder David Herzog took shelter from the recession in Loyola College’s Sellinger School of Business, where’s he’s working on a master’s in finance. business and a real estate sales and marketing firm. Then, the crash: Local housing starts plunged from 30,000 in 2006 to 17,000 in 2008 (with 12,000 projected for 2009). Colleagues and coworkers have declared bankruptcy. “I know 50-year-old men who have roommates now,” says Herzog, who had just an earned an executive MBA from Loyola College’s Sellinger School of Business when the recession struck.

He wasn’t interested in changing careers—he loves his work. But he saw a chance to get ahead of the competition when the market rebounds, using a two-pronged strategy.

First, he immediately returned to Loyola for a master’s degree in finance, and second, he started his own home construction business.

It’s a risky gambit on the cusp of what may be Great Depression 2.0, but Herzog’s experience with a downturn in 1991 taught him that “all recessions eventually end” and that recovery benefits those who have used their

ike Smith, 46, can testify to that on a more visceral level. After earning a bachelor’s degree in geography at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Smith spent fifteen years as an aircraft refueler and ten years as a mail carrier in the U.S. Postal Service. He was a good worker—“I was never one to jump from job to job,” Smith says. But something was missing. “I never really knew what I wanted to do,” he says. “I didn’t have any sense of purpose.”

It wasn’t until he was 44—when he became involved in what he calls “a very unhealthy relationship,” followed by a harrowing journey from addiction to sobriety—that he found his calling. Smith is scheduled to earn a certificate in chemical dependency counseling at CCBC this spring and plans to continue taking classes to earn a B.A. and an M.A. while working in the field. “It’s been a blessing in a way,” Smith says of his addiction and recovery.

If it weren’t for the hard times, he jokes, “I might still be a mailman.”

Using personal or social distress as a springboard for career change is not uncommon, says Marilyn Kuzsma, coordinator of the chemical dependency counseling program at CCBC. Like Smith, about 40 percent of the program’s 107 students are in recovery themselves or have known someone who has struggled with addiction. Even those without a personal history of addiction or alcoholism “want to do something meaningful,” she says. Kuzsma says that in her nineteen years teaching at the school, “I’ve never seen such a booming spring semester. All three sections of our introductory classes are fully enrolled.”

The popularity of the counseling program is not an aberration. Admissions counselors are seeing increased interest in service professions across the board, particularly those related to medicine. Economic pragmatism drives much of the trend. Health care jobs are seen as recession-proof, CCBC’s Simmons says—and for the most part, they are. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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Hospitals are open every day, she points out, with three shifts—and starting salaries, sign-on bonuses, and benefits for hospital workers can be tempting. CCBC-trained radiation therapists, for example, typically earn $50,000 per year in their first jobs after completing the two-year program. In recent years, the deal was sweetened by a $3,000 sign-on bonus at many area hospitals. “We routinely graduate students who make more in their first jobs than the faculty here,” Simmons says.

The program, offered at CCBC’s Essex campus, has eliminated the shortage of radiation therapists in the Baltimore area, but the deficit persists elsewhere in the state, she notes. Mammography technicians are still in short supply. Dental hygiene “is really hot too,” Simmons says. “We had doctors’ offices calling us even before we started our program last fall.”

Meanwhile, the Board of Public Works recently approved a plan for Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) to lease space in the BioPark of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) for a new Life Sciences Institute. BCCC plans to move its biotechnology, environmental science, pre-dental, pre-med, and pre-pharmacy programs to the campus. The school also plans to develop certificate programs for laboratory, animal, and cell culture technicians and forensic scientists at the site. BCCC and UMB will collaborate with the Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy High School to support graduating seniors as they earn associate degrees at BCCC, followed by bachelor’s degrees at UMB—training 200 workers annually to staff the city’s burgeoning biotech industry.

Nursing remains a popular option for both recent high school graduates and adult career-changers. The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, for example, saw an 11 percent increase in applications in 2007 from students who have already earned a baccalaureate degree in some other field. Most require a couple of semesters of science coursework in order to apply to the accelerated program at Hopkins. But once accepted, they are in and out in thirteen months—attractive for those who need to get back to work quickly, such as 26-year-old Julia Stephan.

Stephan worked as an event planner after graduating from college but got bored after a few years. “I wanted something that would challenge me,” she says. Nursing won out over teaching and public relations after she shadowed a couple of nurses in a neonatal intensive care unit and fell in love with the job. She took the basic science credits she needed to apply to nursing school while working full-time at her old job. Midway through the thirteen-month program, Steph-

an says that she is more certain than ever that she made the right choice. “Everyone is now saying, ‘Bravo, good choice,’” she laughs, given the field’s reputation for security even in tough economic times.

Nursing students about to graduate from local programs say that jobs are still available, though the big sign-on bonuses Baltimore hospitals paid in the past—$5,000 to $7,000—have shrunk to $2,500 or flat-out disappeared. Daisy Lopez is scheduled to graduate from CCBC’s nursing program in May. “It’s definitely harder to find that first

“I’ve never seen such a booming spring semester,” says Marilyn Kuzsma of the Community College of Baltimore County. job,” she says. The jobs available for new nurses tend to be on medical-surgical floors, where the hours are long and the work is hard and heavy. Lopez has a job lined up at St. Joseph Hospital’s cardiovascular unit, her first choice. But she already works at St. Joseph’s as a nursing assistant. “I have my foot in the door,” she says. Though new nurses still earn $25 an hour, the shift differentials and overtime that once boosted weekly paychecks are also being phased out. “Now it’s just straight pay,” Lopez says. Even so, few nurses fear unemployment.

Crystal Dixon, 38, and Chris Barnes, 39, first-year students in the doctoral program in pharmacy at UMB, also don’t fret about their job prospects. The aging of the population, together with the possibility that 48 million uninsured Americans will eventually be enrolled in some kind of national health insurance plan, virtually ensures a stable future for pharmacists, they say.

And that’s a good thing, because right now they are working harder than they have ever worked in their lives. Dixon, who has two children, 11 and 6, says, “Plenty of time we’re in the library ’til 9, 10, or 11 at night. During finals ’til midnight.”

Dixon came to pharmacy school by a roundabout route that included stints studying engineering at Howard University, a decade in the banking industry—and a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. Swallowing eleven pills a day to manage her illness, she started poring over the product labels and wondering, “What is this stuff I’m shoving down my throat?” She decided to become a community pharmacist.

Her friend and study partner Chris Barnes likewise turned to pharmacy after personal exposure to serious illness. A former graphic designer, Barnes says his colleagues “used to joke around that we weren’t curing cancer. But then my mom contracted cancer in 1999, and I decided that I should pursue something more substantive than corporate communications.”

At first, he considered getting a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics or chemistry, but then he realized that a doctoral degree in pharmacy provided the opportunity to start working immediately after graduation, rather than “being a student researcher until 50.” He plans to combine research with clinical practice when he finishes the program in 2012.

The fact that he is securely in school during an economic downturn is icing on the cake. “I’ll get to sit this one out,” Barnes says—unlike the ’91 recession, when his newly minted mass communications degree led to a stint delivering pizza.

Like the health professions, teaching is an in-

creasingly attractive option for people looking to combine job security with personal enrichment and community service. That’s especially true for those interested in the perpetually understaffed STEM disciplines—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

UMBC is just concluding a grant-funded initiative with the National Science Foundation and Baltimore County public schools to train teachers for high-need schools in Baltimore County. “All fifty-six students in that program have been offered jobs,” says Tracy Irish, who helped direct the program, “and most of them were career-changers—a mechanical engineer, a physician, and a cancer researcher among them.”

Though that program is no longer accepting applicants, the Sherman Teacher Education Scholars program at UMBC still offers substantial aid—in the form of both financial and academic support—to those interested in teaching in STEM fields. The

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program is merit-based, so Sherman Scholars tend to be “some of UMBC’s brightest students,” says Rehana Shafi, assistant director of the program.

Ex-Marine Chris Buckler, 28, is finishing his teacher training this spring while interning at Woodlawn Middle School in Baltimore County. He is grateful that he came to teaching after life experiences taught him the virtues of perseverance and flexibility. Six days after graduating from high school in 1999, Buckler started boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina. He ultimately decided that military life was not for him, but five years in the Marines “gave me discipline and focus,” he says. “If I had gone to college right away, I might very well have flopped.”

After leaving the Marines, he enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at UMBC. But he reconsidered after a less-thanstellar performance in Math 225—differential equations. “I thought long and hard about whether or not I was headed in the right direction,” Buckler says. Recalling his enjoyment of previous teaching experiences and knowing “that there was a certain future in teaching math,” he decided to change majors to engineering education.

Strangely enough, “I took Math 225 the next semester with a different professor and earned an A,” he says—a sign to him that “the situation was set up that way for a reason,” to facilitate his switch to a career better suited to his interests and gifts.

Crystal Dixon, a first-year student at the University of Maryland’s School of Pharmacy, says she’s never worked harder. But she’s not worrying about her job prospects.

Interning at Woodlawn Middle in his final semester, Buckler now enjoys the autonomy of teaching (compared to the rigidity of military life) and the challenge of motivating apathetic students who have “tons and tons of potential.” His task is finding “the magic

key to unlock those kids and release some of that potential. These kids are smart and they need good educators that can engage them.”

Buckler admits bluntly that job security was a factor in his decision to teach, but more importantly, “I’m in it for helping the kids.”

Samson Ndanyi is in it for a kid too—his 18-month-old daughter. Ndanyi left Kenya after years of harassment for his political activities, including several months in detainment.

After arriving in the United States in 2001, he began his educational odyssey at CCBC before transferring to Towson, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electronic media and film production in 2006, followed by a master’s degree in social science in 2008.

He is currently applying to doctoral programs in African history in preparation for a career as an academic and hopes to use the social science and filmmaking skills he has acquired over the past eight years to produce documentaries about Africa.

Like many adults returning to school these days, he is seeking greater security, not just for himself but for his daughter. “By becoming a professor, I’ll have secured the future of my little girl,” he says. “She’s the one who is keeping me in school longer. I had to do it for her.” ■ —Freelance writer Deborah Rudacille earned a master of arts degree in the Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars program at age 40.

Pay Pals So you’ve been laid off and want to go back to school to retrain for a new, better job. Paying for it may be easier than you think.

Despite the tightening of credit markets over the past six months, grants and loans for students are still available. Virginia Zawodny, campus coordinator of financial aid at CCBC Essex, says that “federal student loan programs are still strong.” About half of Essex students fully finance their education through Stafford loans, she says, with the federal government as lender. Those who need to fund living expenses as well as tuition must apply for private loans.

The Federal Pell Grant program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate students and to some post-baccalaureate programs, such as those leading to teacher certification. Students in certain programs

are eligible for grants from the state of Maryland if they are training in an area that has been identified as a “workforce shortage” area.

The award is $2,000 per year for community college students and $4,000 per year for those attending a four-year school full-time. Parttime students are also eligible and receive half the full-time awards, which are automatically renewed so long as the student continues to meet eligibility requirements and maintains satisfactory academic progress.

Community college education remains a bargain—around $4,500 in tuition and fees for a two-year program. The cost of attending a four-year college is substantially higher— full-time students at Towson University will pay $3,808 in-state tuition per semester in fall 2009, a cost projected to rise to $4,114 per semester by fall 2011.

Meanwhile, the sticker price for a master of arts degree in teaching at UMBC is about $18,906 at $528 per credit hour for the 36credit program. About 50 percent of UMBC’s the students receive some form of financial aid, however. Sherman Scholars receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per year.

TEACH grants from the U.S. Department of Education of up to $4,000 per year for two years are also available for students willing to teach high-needs disciplines in low-income schools anywhere in the country for four years.

Tuition for the accelerated baccalaureate program at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing is $57,683. The average loan indebtedness of baccalaureate graduates at the school over the past three years has been $52,000.

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GET SMART

A Higher and Continuing Education Resource Guide COMMUNITY COLLEGES Baltimore City Community College BCCC has locations in northwest Baltimore, the Inner Harbor, Reisterstown Plaza, and more than eighty other offcampus learning sites. The BCCC Business and Continuing Education Center, headquartered off Lombard Street, offers hundreds of training courses in health care, telecommunications, information technology, Web development, hospitality, and professional certification and licensure. Adult education, GED, and English as a Second Language courses are also available.

“A person can start with us no matter where they are in the academic continuum,”saysBCCCPresidentCarolane Williams. “We’re very much the place for those that aren’t ready to kick back in their rocking chair and call it a day.”

BCCC Business and Continuing Education Center 410-986-3200 www.bccc.edu Carroll Community College CCC offers credit degree programs and continuing education (noncredit programs) for professionals in real estate, social work, and child care as well as “skills refresher” classes in IT software applications, technical writing, customer service, and languages, among others. For career-changers, programs in nursing, trade apprenticeships, and IT certifications are possibilities. Interested in a healthier lifestyle or learning something new? Try classes in yoga, tai chi, home improvement, photography, drawing, painting, and philosophy. “Learning is fluid and flexible because the college serves students interested in both credit and noncredit classes,” says Karen Merkle, vice president of continuing education and training. “Students enjoy the best of both the academic and continuing education worlds.”

Continuing Education Office 410-386-8100 www.carrollcc.edu Community College of Baltimore County CCBC boasts 70,000-plus students at

three main campuses in Catonsville, Dundalk, and Essex, plus two college extension centers in Owings Mills and Hunt Valley. With more than 100 different associate degree options and 200 different certification programs, choices vary from a full 3-credit course to one 3-hour workshop and are held throughout the week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. as well as on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Working with more than a hundred companies annually, CCBC’s Division of Continuing Education and Economic Development provides customized employee development training in more than a dozen different areas: justice and homeland security, information technology, workplace literacy, transportation and logistics, construction and building maintenance, workplace enrichment, food safety training, and many more.

“Quality instruction and quality curriculum is in everything that we do,” says CCBC president Sandra Kurtinitis.

“We sell no secondhand goods.”

Division of Continuing Education and Economic Development 443-840-4700 www.ccbcmd.edu Harford Community College Harford Community College in Bel Air opened the doors to its new Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) building in January. Continuing Education & Training includes computer certifications, business and industry training, children and youth programs, adult literacy/ GED, and health care and human services, among others. “We provide an unbelievable amount of free support services, including counseling support, to those that need assistance including course tutoring, support for people with disabilities, and veteran services,” says Deborah Cruise, vice president of student development and institutional effectiveness.

Continuing Education & Training 443-412-2376 www.harford.edu Howard Community College Down the street from the Mall in Columbia sits Howard Community College, offering more than 130 degree and certification programs in seven major divisions: arts and humanities, business and computer systems, English/world languages, health sciences, mathematics, science and technology, andsocialsciences/teachereducation.

The top five occupational programs:

business management, radiologic technology, information technology, hospitality/culinary management, and licensed practical nursing—a program that HCC President Kathleen Hetherington says is growing rapidly.

“If there is a demand in a particular area or program, community colleges can ramp programs up quickly to meet workforce needs,” she says. “We are always looking for opportunities.”

Division of Continuing Education & Workforce Development 410-772-4823 www.coned.howardcc.edu PRIVATE AND PUBLIC FOUR-YEAR INSTITUTIONS Baltimore Hebrew University People of all denominations are welcome to learn Hebrew or earn early childhood certification or a master’s in Jewish studies, Jewish education, or Jewish communal service. The accredited Baltimore Hebrew University is a constituent of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and holds an academic collection of Judaica that numbers more than 75,000. “It’s amazing what’s here—it’s diverse, exciting. We even have our own version of Indiana Jones—an archaeologist that specializes in biblical tales,” says Nancy Ginsberg, director of lifelong learning.

Leonard & Helen R. Stulman School of Continuing Education 410-578-6900 www.bhu.edu Bowie State University Working adults can choose from nineteen master’s degree programs, two doctoral programs, and nine advanced certificate programs, including a mission controller certification program in which students train at the university’s Satellite Operations Center, a NASA partner. Non-degree students can take undergraduate and graduate courses. “Many classes, particularly graduate courses, are taught after 4:45 p.m.,” says Roosevelt Newson, provost and vice president of academic programs. “Some of our programs, such as human resource development and master of public administration, are seeing an upswing in enrollment because of the educational needs of this region.”

301-860-4000 www.bowiestate.edu

Capitol College This Laurel institution is the only independent college in Maryland dedicated to engineering, computer science, information technology, and business.

Capitol offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, professional development courses, and certification programs, all accredited regionally.

The college’s Critical Infrastructures and Cyber Protection Center (CICPC) prepares security professionals to apply for certifications in such areas as the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), using an “Interactive Live Online” method that allows students to hear live lectures while viewing PowerPoint presentations. “You can take the class anywhere, but if you have to miss a class, the sessions are recorded so you can go back and listen to the recording,” says Helen Barker, dean of business and information management. www.capitol-college.edu College of Notre Dame of Maryland A women’s college since 1873, Notre Dame also includes a coed Weekend College, where students can choose from ten majors, seven minors, and four certificate programs; and parttime graduate programs in such fields as nursing, contemporary communication, nonprofit management, liberal studies, and teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).

There’s also the coed Accelerated College, a fast-track program awarding undergraduate degrees in nursing (RN to BSN), business, and liberal studies in elementary education in as few as two and a half years. “Tough economic times often lead individuals to retool themselves for better positions or increase their job security,” says Heidi Lippmeier Fletcher, vice president for enrollment management.

1-800-435-0200 www.ndm.edu Columbia Union College Columbia Union College is a small, private Christian institution located in Takoma Park. MBA, BA, BM, BS, AA, AAS, and AS degree programs are available; some students can opt for an external degree program that allows them to take courses online or in person and through credit-byexamination and professional portfolio assessment. Continuing Education noncredit courses are for adults 25 and older who are not working toward a degree and those younger than 25

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liberal arts

Join our community of

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Great Thinkers The Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) Program at Johns Hopkins University thrives on the curiosity, passion, and diversity of its students and faculty. Students can explore mythology, art, literature, politics, sustainability, film, music, and much more.

Our program offers a flexible, part-time format with courses in the evenings and on Saturdays. Take advantage of rolling admissions and apply online anytime.

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who have a bachelor’s degree. “Both the undergraduate and graduate programs are accelerated and offered in the evening. Most of the programs can be completed in less than two years,” says Joy Daquil-Casey, director of the MBA program in the School of Graduate and Professional Studies.

301-891-4000 www.cuc.edu Coppin State University Coppin State, a historically black school in West Baltimore, offers twenty-four undergraduate majors, nine graduate majors, and three graduate certificate programs. Master’s degree programs include adult and general education, alcohol and substance abuse counseling, correctional education, criminal justice, rehabilitation counseling, special education, and teaching. “We offer face-to-face, hybrid, and online courses; day, evening and weekend classes; and on-campus and off-campus classes,” says Sadie R. Gregory, provost and vice president of academic affairs. “Access and affordability are essential for us.”

410-951-3600 www.coppin.edu Goucher College This private, coeducational liberal arts and sciences college in Towson offers thirty-one bachelor’s degree programs through Goucher II, a unique program geared specifically toward adult undergraduates. Post-baccalaureate and graduate programs include master of education, master of arts in teaching, one-year post-baccalaureate premedical program, master of arts in historic preservation, master of fine arts in creative nonfiction, master of arts in arts administration, and professional certificate program in historic education.

410-337-6100 www.goucher.edu The Johns Hopkins University Pick a career and JHU most likely has training for it. At locations in Baltimore, D.C., Laurel, Columbia, Montgomery County, and more, JHU students can enroll in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Carey Business School, School of Education, School of Nursing, Peabody Institute, and Bloomberg School of Public

Health for undergraduate, graduate, part-time degree, non-degree, summer, and distance education programs. “Programs are relatively small compared to others, and past graduation we like to keep up with our graduates—you are not a number here,” says Frank Masci, interim chair of the Department of Teacher Training at the School of Education.

410-516-8000 www.jhu.edu Loyola College in Maryland This historically Jesuit institution offers for-credit undergraduate degrees in thirty-six academic fields and graduate programs in nine areas of study in the arts and sciences and in business and management. Besides its Charles Street location, Loyola also includes a Clinical Center in Belvedere Square and two graduate centers in Timonium and Columbia. “When looking at an unprecedented era, where the future is uncertain, education has always proven to be the best bet for an economically sound and successful career,” says Ann Attanasio, director of graduate business programs.

410-617-2000 www.loyola.edu Maryland Institute College of Art The oldest fully accredited and degreegranting college of art in the country, MICA offers nearly twenty continuing studies credit and noncredit courses for adults, including drawing, jewelry, Web design, photography, ceramics, illustration, sculpture, and museum workshops. Those interested in turning a hobby into a business can pursue a certificate in creative entrepreneurship or receive training in programs such as Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Also available are a dual BFA/ MA and master of arts and master of fine arts degrees; post-baccalaureate certificates in fine arts; and community-based programs. “MICA is a community of artists. Here you are not just going to a classroom, because there are exhibitions all around you,” says Peter Dubeau, associate dean of continuing studies.

410-225-2219 www.mica.edu McDaniel College McDaniel College in Westminster offers seventeen graduate programs focused on education and human ser-

vices, including BEST (initial teacher certification), gerontology, and school library media. Courses can be taken through a network of satellite sites around Maryland, including Arundel Mills. “Business and government continue to demand high-quality professional development standards from workers, and we continue to hone our programs to meet those standards,” says Larry Hoffman, director of graduate marketing and admissions. “And our partners in K–12 education, business, and government have come to depend on graduate and professional studies at McDaniel to be a resource for their organization[s] and workers.”

410-857-2000 www.mcdaniel.edu Morgan State University Northeast Baltimore’s Morgan State offers approximately sixty undergraduate, twenty-six graduate, and thirteen doctoral programs in fields such as engineering,business,teachereducation, architecture,AfricanAmericanstudies, museum studies and restoration, transportation, and social work. The Center for Continuing and Professional Studieshousescertificate,accelerated,and other special programs for working adults, including the Weekend University, in which classes are offered on Friday evenings and Saturdays.

“Morgan also has a number of unique graduate programs that are only found here,” says Maurice Taylor, vice president for university operations. “Some graduate programs admit students as a cohort and the students move as a class through the program. Adults find the cohort model particularly appealing because it provides a system of support and camaraderie as they pursue their studies.”

443-885-3155 www.morgan.edu Sojourner-Douglass College Known as the only private, predominantly African American four-year degree-granting college in Maryland, Sojourner-Douglass offers a long list of undergraduate and graduate degree programs for continuing and professional studies in health care. Students can study at six locations in Maryland, as well as the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. “We believe that adults bring a wealth of information to the classroom by virtue of the fact that they’ve been in the workforce,” says President Charles Simmons. “They have a differ-

ent frame of reference when it comes to academic concepts and constructs.”

410-276-4101 www.sdc.edu St. John’s College If you want to bone up on your Great Books, here’s the place. St. John’s in Annapolis is known for its discussioncentered degree program focused on the Western canon. The master’s in liberal arts program is the only continuing education program available at this location (the school has a Santa Fe, New Mexico, campus), but students can apply for a dual degree and simultaneously earn a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.

410-626-2542 www.stjohnscollege.edu/GI Stevenson University The School of Business and the School of Graduate & Professional Studies became the former Villa Julie College’s first two schools in 2008. Now Stevenson offers graduate programs in advanced information technologies, businessandtechnologymanagement, forensic science, and the increasingly popular forensic studies program (online and onsite). Students can study at the Greenspring or Owings Mills campus (where they can work out at Caves Sports and Wellness, the Baltimore Ravens’ former training facility). “We offer programs in unique and high-demand areas,” says Joyce Becker, dean of the School of Graduate & Professional Studies. “The forensic studies program is drawing students from all over the nation.”

1-877-468-6852 www.vjc.edu/admissions/graduate.asp Towson University The second-largest public university in Maryland, Towson offers sixty-two undergraduate majors, thirty-nine master’s programs, and four doctoral programs. In addition, there are nondegree programs; extended education programs including online courses, training, and certification; and enrichment opportunities for children and retirees. Towson’s highly ranked Osher Lifelong Learning Institute offers more than forty four- and eight-week courses in fine arts, music, literature, history, and the social and natural sciences. “There are no grades or homework; people take classes because

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they wish to continue learning,” says Jacqueline Gratz, director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

410-704-2000 www.towson.edu University of Baltimore UB offers seventeen undergraduate, twenty-five graduate, and three law degree programs. Joint degrees are available in fields such as criminal justice, negotiations and conflict management, public administration, business, nursing, and pharmacy.

Among the university’s three schools is the School of Law, the sixth-largest public law school in the nation. “A lot of people don’t know about the UB law school. It’s a really solid program, and the enrollment has been dramatically increasing,” says Heather Pheifer, associate professor and director of the criminal justice master’s program.

410-837-4200 www.ubalt.edu University of Maryland Each of the University of Maryland system’s five institutions has distinguished itself through hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education opportunities. Here in Baltimore, UMB boasts six schools— Law, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work, and Dental, which is headquartered in a $142 million building that opened in 2006. Just outside the Beltway, UMBC’s Training Center offers programs for professionals in biotech, financial planning, leadership development, and more. University College in Prince George’s County is one of the largest distance-learning institutions in the nation. Most students are working adults.

University of Maryland, Baltimore 410-706-3100 www.umaryland.edu University of Maryland, Baltimore County 410-455-1000 www.umbc.edu University of Maryland, University College 800-888-UMUC www.umuc.edu TRADE & SPECIALTY SCHOOLS All-State Career School All-State students can earn their

Commercial Driver License (CDL) to drive Class A and B tractor trailers, as well as receive training in heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR). The career services office primes students for employment by providing resume-writing, interviewing, and job search techniques.

1-800-TRAIN18 www.allstatecareer.edu/admissions. html American Beauty Academy The American Beauty Academy has full- and part-time programs in cosmetology—1,500 hours of hair design, skin care, and makeup instruction in a salon environment—and nail technology—250 hours of learning to do manicures, nail art, wraps, tips, and more. Two Maryland locations, Baltimore and Wheaton.

410-444-3100 www.americanbeautyacademy.org Baltimore International College Blocks from the Inner Harbor, BIC offers undergraduate and graduate culinary arts and hotel restaurant and catering management programs. The school’s campus in Ireland provides students with the opportunity to study 50 miles west of Dublin.

Kaplan University & Tesst College of Technology Kaplan’s online classroom offers more than a hundred online degrees, as well as certificate programs in business administration, education, Internet and website development, legal studies, nutritionscience,andpsychology.Tesst College of Technology, a subsidiary of Kaplan Inc., offers health care, computer, legal studies, and professional programs in Towson and Hyattsville.

“Kaplan University students are able to customize their educational experience to fit their career aspirations using tools like Kaplan MyPath, a set of online diagnostic tools that help identify academic and career aptitudes,” says Provost David Clinefelter.

1-866-527-5268 www.kaplan.edu Lincoln Technical Institute With roots as a post-WWII purveyor of job skills, Lincoln Tech is for those interested in the automotive, health sciences, business, IT, culinary arts, spa, and cosmetology fields. You can also learn skilled trades such as electrical engineering, HVAC, drafting, and electronic systems.

410-290-7100 www.lincolnedu.com

Broadcasting Institute of Maryland Students at Northeast Baltimore’s Broadcasting Institute of Maryland (BIM) can earn a diploma in on-air or behind-the-scenes broadcasting in fewer than six months. Concentrations include television/radio news, copy writing, anchoring, hosting a talk show, camera operating, and directing.

Half of BIM’s student body are college grads and career-changers.

Maryland Bartending Academy Go to school in a state-of-the-art bar/classroom equipped with cash registers, soda dispensers, cocktail accoutrements, and more, all to give students the sense of working at a real bar. A free introductory class is offered with no obligation to register.

“It’s only a two-week course, and students get job assistance as soon as they graduate,” says Director Sandra Dodson. “Bartending is one of the few professions that you are paid to have a social life.”

410-254-2770 www.bim.org

410-787-0020 www.marylandbartending.com

Empire Beauty School Empire is a national chain with an Owings Mills branch. After about fourteen months, graduates can open a salon; become a makeup artist, hair stylist, barber, or nail technician; and work in a spa or on movie sets or even a cruise ship. “The career of a stylist/ cosmetologist is recession-resistant,” promises Belinda Pierce, executive director of the Owings Mills location.

Tai Sophia Institute Graduate degree programs in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and applied healing arts, as well as non-degree community and continuing education programs and clinical services, are provided at Tai Sophia. Complete with meditation and herb gardens, the institute boasts partnerships with such institutions as the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Morgan State University School of Public Health, and Kennedy Krieger Institute.

410-752-4710 ext. 120 www.bic.edu

www.empire.edu

“We have the power to influence our wellness, and our mind and body [are] interconnected,” says Judith Broida, vice president for academic affairs. “A lot of what we do is understand health and take ownership of our health.”

Graduate Programs: 800-735-2968 ext. 6647 Community and Continuing Education Programs: 800-735-2968 ext. 6611 www.tai.edu University of Phoenix With more than two hundred campuses, the University of Phoenix mega-school specializes in adult ed, offering both online and in-person degree, certificate, continuing teacher education, and professional development programs, as well as individual courses, in fields including business and management, communications, criminal justice and security, education, general studies, nursing and health care, human services, psychology, and technology. Four campuses locally, in Timonium, Columbia, Greenbelt, and Rockville. www.phoenix.edu Walden University Strictly online, Walden University offers degrees and certificate programs in fields such as education and leadership, management and technology, health sciences, and social and behavioral sciences. It’s part of Laureate International Universities, a network of more than forty-two accredited online and campus-based universities in twenty countries. “Students learn in a global classroom setting while remaining at home and keeping their work and family lives,” says Wanda Gravett, associate dean of the School of Management. “And since faculty can teach anywhere, students also acquire a tremendous variety of views and real-world experiences they can apply in their work.”

1-866-492-5336 www.walden.edu —Carrie Oleynik is a freelance writer in Baltimore.

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keynote

The Back-to-the-Lander Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva on how economic salvation may be as close as the dirt under our feet I nte r v ie w b y sc ott ca r lson p h oto g r ap h b y ma r s h all cla r k e

V

andana Shiva, India’s leading environmental activist, says that the industrialized West is literally consuming the developing world. We eat cinnamon that comes out of Thailand, bananas from Central America.

To feed our ever-growing appetites, we push industrial agriculture methods on once-traditional agrarian societies, and now we want these faraway lands to produce a different kind of food: biofuel, to feed the West’s automobiles. At some point, Shiva argues, we’re going to have to choose between sacred cow and sacred car.

Shiva founded an organization called Navdanya to promote research in organic agriculture and saving heirloom seeds. In her 2008 book Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis, she argues that the rebirth of sustainable, traditional agriculture offers the best way forward, in both India and in the West.

“There is a myth that there are agricultural societies, and then there are industrial societies and service societies, as if when you become an industrial or service society you don’t need food,” she says. “As we hit climate chaos, as we hit peak oil, assuming that you can get your food from far away and use fossil-fuel-intensive systems to produce food is totally not sustainable. Bringing food security close to home will have to be the project of the future.”

Q

But if you have to feed more than a billion people, as farmers in India do, isn’t it impractical to hang on to traditional farming methods?

A

Soil Not Oil seems to be about the tension between traditional agriculture and industrial agriculture. How is this playing out in India?

Here, they want to connect all of India with superhighways, and 90 percent of the roads haven’t been built. They won’t be built because of the financial collapse. So this huge dream of a totally motorized world and tractorized agriculture is already failing in front of our eyes. It failed in Cuba under very tragic circumstances—under [the U.S.-imposed] trade embargo. But they rebuilt their agriculture [based on] principles that ancient cultures practiced. Now I don’t call that being locked into tradition. It’s highly innovative.

I see fossil-fuel-free farming as a future of agriculture—not because of nostalgia, not because of romanticism, but because of a very hard-nosed realism. If your fertilizer prices have tripled in the past year, there is no way to carry on depending on chemical fertilizers. If your phosphate requirements in chemical agriculture are going to run out in the next twenty years, you’d better get ecological, organic sources. To depend on an agriculture that requires oil inputs at every step would be developing a system at this point that has no future.

A

Q

Q

It is playing out in a very tragic way. An imposed, fossil-fueldriven industrial agriculture, which has been globalized through the World Trade Organization rules, has pushed hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers to suicide.

The suicides as an epidemic started in 1998. That is the year that the new seeds were brought into India in a large scale—the genetically engineered seeds. That is the year that the World Trade Organization was used by the United States to remove import restrictions. The combination of high-cost, nonrenewable seeds [that produce sterile fruit]—under the monopoly control of one company, Monsanto—and the falling price of cotton with the subsidies that the United States

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gives its cotton growers is really the squeeze that forced Indian cotton farmers into debt. And that unpayable debt is what has pushed farmers to suicide.

urbanite april 09

Beyond the farm, how has the push for an industrialized culture affected the developing world?

A

Third-world cultures are very culturally diverse, and India is really the home of diversity. It is our strength, as long as there is peace, justice, and sustainability. But when the stresses of the globalized war economy start to impinge on a diverse culture, we see more of the Mumbai kind of phenomenon. [The terrorist attacks in] Mumbai ended up being world news, but there have been a hundred Mumbais in the past decade in India. They didn’t become big news because they

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weren’t at hotels where Westerners stay; they were on trains and buses where ordinary Indians travel.

Just like a field cracks up when it is dry, our societies are cracking up because they are being dried up economically. I can see that if we don’t have a major shift toward equality and justice, we will not be able to hold our societies together. This cracking up shows up as ethnic conflicts or regional conflicts, but at the root of it are two issues everywhere: access to resources and access to livelihood. As that access shrinks because of a globalized economy and a limitless appetite for growth, people start looking at their neighbors as a problem.

sounds paradoxical, but it is true. If you continue to eat amaranth, you will grow amaranth. If you eat two hundred kinds of rice, you will grow two hundred kinds of rice. So eating is literally shaping the landscape and ecology of our planet.

Q A

I wouldn’t say “get back to.” I would say “go forward to.” Going forward to a soil-based society means building economies of place, and economies of place means recognizing the ecological limits of the place where you are. It means grounded economies. The financial collapse is going to compel us to look for livelihoods beyond the false speculations and the credit spending, where you spend more than you earn.

I feel that the combination of climate change, peak oil, and the financial collapse provides an opportunity for us to build economies of place that will shift not just from oil to soil, but it will shift from financial capital to people as the real wealth—people as both the generators of wealth as well as wealth of communities. If we can get there, we will have a future. If we can’t get there, we will see more and more conflicts emerge around the world in conditions of new scarcity. ■

Tell me about your agricultural organization, Navdanya.

“Navdanya” means both “a new gift” as well as “nine seeds.” I started it in 1987 when I first realized what the agenda of the chemical and agribusiness companies was, in terms of controlling the seed through genetic engineering and patenting. Their vision was one of dictatorship over life, not just dictatorship over people or one country.

I wanted seeds and life forms to evolve freely and not be forced into genetic engineering or into patenting. The original idea was to create seed banks that farmers could access, get seeds from, and continue to grow crops in diversity. Of course, this led very quickly to an organic movement.

The fascinating thing about saving seeds and biodiversity that I have learned is that you conserve biodiversity by eating it. Now that

Q

Practically speaking, how do you get back to a soil-based, rather than oil-based, society, culture, and economy?

A

—Scott Carlson writes about sustainability and architecture for The Chronicle of Higher Education. His interview with “energy descent” expert Rob Hopkins appeared in the September 2008 Urbanite.

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w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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Bill Harmon, a field technician for Urban Green Environmental, uses a photoionization detector, or “PID,” to check for leaks from underground oil and gas tanks. “Most of my past jobs I’ve made better money,” he says.

“But I’m interested in the environmental field, and a couple of years at this, and I feel like I can get pretty good money.”

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urbanite april 09

A GREENER SHADE of Blue Can green jobs bring pride and purpose back to blue-collar Baltimore?

B Y

G R EG

P H O T O G R A P H S

H A N SC OM B Y

J I M

B U R G E R

Bill Harmon is a solidly built 55-year-old

with freckled, calloused hands. Those hands have been his living ever since he graduated from high school in 1972.

“I’m blue collar,” Harmon says. “I’m the guy in the ditch laying cable.”

Harmon grew up in Pikesville. His father worked for the fire department. His mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer. Harmon did eventually get a college degree, but he stuck to manual labor. He worked on a golf course maintenance crew, inspected telephone poles, laid sewer pipe, and installed railroad signals. “I like working outside,” he says.

“And there was always work in construction.”

Then two years ago he picked up a drug habit, and to kick it, he had to stop working. He lost his apartment. It was winter and he found himself sleeping in the waiting room at the Johns Hopkins Hospital emergency room, searching for a treatment program that would keep him for more than a couple of days. He eventually found one, but then he couldn’t find work. He applied for jobs on construction sites and at McDonald’s but never heard back. “I had pretty much lost everything,” he says. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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Danielle Brice uses high expansion foam to seal up leaky houses for the Civic Works Energy Efficiency Experts (3E) Team. “I like getting dirty, and most of all, I like to help people,” she says.

Donald Cooper, 3E Team installer, uses a blower door to check houses for air leaks. “I grew up in the heart of the city with all the drama, jails, shootings, and gangs. I’m shooting past that,” he says.

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Harmon’s story is a familiar one in a city where more than 23,000 adults—roughly one in twelve—are out of work. But for now, at least, there’s a happy ending.

Harmon was living in a drug treatment house when someone handed him a flyer for the B’more Green job training program run by the nonprofit Civic Works. The seven-week program trains under- and unemployed individuals, many of them recovering addicts and people returning from incarceration, to clean up industrial “brownfield” sites. Harmon was accepted into the program and later hired as a field technician by a small company called Urban Green Environmental.

Harmon’s new job looks a lot like his old ones: dirty, dangerous, and back-breaking. He has spent much of the past six months working on a former industrial site in South Baltimore that is being prepared for development. Last fall, Harmon walked the site with a dust monitor, checking to be sure workers weren’t kicking up too much of the soil, which contained arsenic and metals. This winter, he returned to inspect the “cap” of clean soil they had laid over the site.

Wielding a digging bar and an auger, he scratched about sixty holes through 2 to 3 feet of fresh dirt until he hit the buried fabric that sealed in the contaminated earth beneath. “One day it was so cold, I couldn’t even break the ground,” he says. “Then everything warmed up, and it was all mud.”

Harmon isn’t complaining—far from it. He’s thrilled: “I got a car. I got a little apartment. I got money in my pocket. I’m clean and sober, and I’m really happy,” he says. He’s making $15.72 an hour plus health benefits. He has made more—the railroad job paid $20 an hour—but he feels as if he has opportunities for growth. And his new job brings something that laying electrical cable or sewer pipe never did: a sense of purpose. “I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist,” Harmon says. “Back in the ’70s. I wanted to have a little farm, use solar power. I tried to recycle. But it just didn’t seem like the country was into it.” He lost hope. He figured he would never get a chance to do good for the environment. “Now I am,” he says.

Harmon has landed a ground-level position in the so-called “green economy,” which aims to recalibrate the nation for warmer and leaner times. Even if you have no idea what the term means, you’ve probably heard it bandied about by politicians and pundits over the last year: The green economy’s many champions imagine a new Manhattan Project that will cure our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels and replace them with wind, solar, geothermal, and wave energy. They want to transform an aging electrical grid to a more efficient, powerful “smart grid,” tighten down houses and buildings so they squander less heat and electricity, and capture and recycle all manner of waste, from building materials to storm water. In short, they want to save the planet—and fix the ailing American economy at the same time.

Advocates of the green economy are also pushing for a wartime mobilization of workers that could stop the freefall of the American manufacturing sector and create millions of “green-collar jobs.” These aren’t high-tech positions, designing solar arrays or engineering hydrogen fuel cell cars: “Let’s be clear, the main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun,” writes environmental advocate Van Jones (an Urbanite guest editor in April 2007) in his recent book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. “Think of Joe Sixpack with a hard hat and lunch bucket, sleeves rolled up, going off to fix America. Think of Rosie the Riveter, manufacturing parts for hybrid buses or wind turbines.”

It’s a heroic vision, and for now, at least, it is winning support from working people who have traditionally considered environmen-

talism a movement of job-killing, owl-coddling elitists. But we’ve seen similar efforts before, back in the 1970s under Jimmy Carter, and that didn’t last. The question this time: Are Baltimore’s greencollar workers on the cutting edge of the next big thing, or are they being set up for yet another fall?

One year ago, the champions of the green economy were voices crying in the wilderness. Today, they’ve been invited inside. Van Jones is now a special advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is also a green jobs advocate.

In his first speech to Congress, President Barack Obama called on lawmakers to set a cap on carbon emissions, making renewable energy more cost-competitive. He laid out his plans to invest $15 billion a year to develop wind and solar power, more efficient cars and trucks, biofuels, and so-called “clean coal.” The stimulus bill he’d signed just a week before serves up more than $62 billion for green initiatives and $20 billion in green tax incentives. Included in the package is $7.5 billion for renewable energy and power line construction, almost $10 billion for energy-efficient retrofits of low-income housing, and more than $8 billion for transit capital assistance programs. Another $500 million will train people for green work. The administration says the stimulus will double the nation’s supply of renewable energy in three years and save or create 3.5 million jobs.

Around the country, there is a mad rush to rake in some of this windfall. Maryland’s General Assembly is considering bills that would require welfare-to-work programs to train people to build and retrofit energy-efficient buildings, manufacture renewableenergy and clean-car technology, produce biofuels, deconstruct and recycle buildings, restore streams, capture storm water, and install green roofs, among other things. Here in Baltimore, taskforces are looking at the potential for jobs in deconstruction, weatherization, and urban agriculture. Keith Losoya, the former director of the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance who sits on the city Sustainability Commission, says a green jobs summit is in the works for later this year. There’s even talk of giving students in Baltimore City schools opportunities to train for green jobs.

It’s easy to see the attraction. Hard-luck industrial towns from Fargo, North Dakota, to Philadelphia have cashed in as the rising cost of fossil fuels led to a surge in alternative energy development.

In Toledo, Ohio, a glass factory has retooled to manufacture solar panels. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, former steelworkers build wind turbines in a moribund US Steel plant. “We are de-rusting the Rust Belt,” a company representative recently told CNN. “We are creating good manufacturing jobs showing that in America, we can make things again. And we are rolling back climate change—so it is a three for one.”

The problem is, the math doesn’t quite work yet. No one suggests that these jobs will fully replace the manufacturing work already lost, much less keep pace with the hemorrhaging of existing jobs. The credit crunch has put the kibosh on clean energy projects across the country. The New York Times reported in February that, after a banner year in 2008, wind and solar manufacturers were laying off workers. The stimulus will help, experts say, but it will take time. And while the stimulus pours billions into energy-efficiency measures, some question whether the market will support the industry once the government money is gone. Homeowners and businesses may save money over the long haul by sealing up leaky

Think of Joe Sixpack with a hard hat and lunch bucket, sleeves rolled up, going off to fix America.

Think of Rosie the Riveter, manufacturing parts for hybrid buses or wind turbines.

—Van Jones

3E Team installer Terry Benjamin uses a low-expansion foam gun to patch small holes in walls. Before he landed this job, “it was day by day, trying to make it.” Now, he says, “I feel like I’m doing this work for a reason.”

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Billions have been spent in Baltimore, supposedly to help us, and still it looks like a bomb went off. The money went to consultants who live in Baltimore County. The money never made it down to the people.

—Morning Sunday Hettleman

David Poke Jr., a deconstruction worker for Second Chance Inc., uses tools like this sawzall to dismantle houses and salvage the parts. “I’m keeping things out of the landfill. I’m recycling,” he says.

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urbanite april 09

windows and installing more efficient heating and air-conditioning systems, but with the economy in shambles, they may be less able to make that upfront investment.

In Baltimore, Losoya says that the city can provide an extra push for green initiatives. For example, the city is considering requiring demolition contractors who would normally level derelict buildings with wrecking balls to instead hire trained deconstruction crews that can carefully preserve and recycle building materials and keep demolition waste out of the landfills. The city could also offer incentives for homeowners to weatherize houses, Losoya says, and ultimately mandate that every house in the city have an energyefficiency upgrade.

Richard Clinch, director of economic research at the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute, says green jobs are indeed coming, but he adds some cautionary notes. For one, many of them won’t be new jobs. “Most of the green jobs will simply be the greening of existing jobs, rather than creating some new class of green worker,” says Clinch, who co-authored a study on Baltimore’s potential for green jobs last fall for the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

“A construction worker who used to build McMansions in Carroll County can weatherize homes.”

Clinch says there are opportunities to resurrect Baltimore’s former industrial might for green manufacturing work. For example, Baltimore Marine Industries—the old Bethlehem Steel ship-repair facility in Sparrows Point—could retool to manufacture wind turbines. But Baltimore lags behind many of its post-industrial brethren on this front, Clinch says, and while Gov. Martin O’Malley supports a proposal to put up windmills in the waters off Ocean City, a wind farm proposed for Western Maryland has struggled to get off the ground.

Baltimore has plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the great green hopes—and few are more outspokenly so than Morning Sunday Hettleman, president of the Maryland Environmental Justice Coalition. Hettleman argues that efforts to clean up the environment and rebuild the inner city since the 1970s have often left working people, and people of color, out in the cold. “Billions have been spent in Baltimore, supposedly to help us, and still it looks like a bomb went off. Where did the money go?” she asks. “The money went to consultants who live in Baltimore County. The money never made it down to the people.”

Sitting in her drafty home in Waverly—weatherized, badly, by a city work crew, she notes—Hettleman and Dale Hargrave, a local contractor, make their prediction for the green economy, using history as their guide. “If you come back here in five years and ask, ‘Where did the green jobs go?’” Hettleman says. “Well, they went down I-95. They went down I-83. They went down I-695.

“Millions [of dollars] in green jobs are going to come through,” Hettleman begins, and Hargrave finishes her thought: “and the city is going to look the same.”

Mary L. Washington, with the nonprofit Parks & People Foundation, understands the suspicion. Washington oversees the Urban Resources Initiative, which includes the BRANCHES program, a partnership with the city Recreation and Parks Department that trains middle- and high school-age students in community forestry and parks restoration and maintenance. She recalls an encounter she had a few years back with a single mother named Monica, who had sat through every job-training program she could find. “She learned to drive a truck. She learned to drive a taxi. She learned to weld,” Washington says. She couldn’t find more than a temporary job.

Still, Washington is optimistic, in part because of the new administration in the White House and the historic election that put it there. “We’re talking about a group of people who’ve voted for the first time—and they voted for someone who won,” she says. Now, Washington argues, President Obama and the other champions of the green economy must deliver, and not just job training, but careers: “We have a lot of convincing to do.”

Even those who are training green workers have their doubts.

John Mello, who manages the B’more Green program at Civic Works, says his organization has an impressive record of placing its graduates in jobs. But for a new team of energy efficiency experts (the 3E Team) trained in air-sealing leaky houses, Civic Works had to “create a market,” he says, working with institutions and a local business that does home energy audits. “We hope that once these people are done here, the private sector is willing to pay a living wage,” Mello says.

Despite the somewhat shaky start, the green-collar economy seems to be setting root in Baltimore, and for at least the next four years, we can count on the federal government to tend it.

A green-jobs makeover may not restart Baltimore’s acres of idled factories or magically turn the clock back to Baltimore’s pre-blight glory days, but it does promise incremental growth at a time when many other sectors are withering. But can it last?

If there’s an answer to this question in these early days, it is to be found in an industrial stretch of South Baltimore. There, in the shadow of the Ravens football stadium, is a salvage yard called Second Chance Inc. Its warehouses are lined with doors, cabinets, sinks, and architectural details hauled out of demolished houses in and around the city. The company’s employees are experts at dismantling entire buildings and salvaging every last nail and board, which are resold. What started just five years ago with 12,000 square feet of dilapidated warehouse now fills 150,000 square feet. Thanks to an in-house job training program, three employees have multiplied to forty-three.

Second Chance owes its success to its innovative business model. It’s a nonprofit, so most of the materials that come through are donated; in lieu of payment, donors receive tax benefits roughly equal to 40 percent of their donation’s value. Second Chance asks donors to make a cash donation amounting to some part of that tax benefit, then sells the salvaged materials. Combined, sales and donations cover the business’ $3 million annual budget.

Second Chance founder and president Mark Foster says the business has plans to open branches in Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit, among others. Here in Baltimore, it has blueprints for a “green village” that will serve as a retail center for Second Chance’s salvaged materials and antiques, plus anything else one might need to rehab, or build, an eco-friendly house. And the company is planning to expand its job training program to include geothermal and solar energy installations, green and cool roofs, and home energy audits. “We’re building an industry,” Foster says.

To Second Chance’s workers, the future looks bright. Sitting in one of the warehouses on a winter afternoon, three of them tell the stories of how they came to be there.

Durrell Majette was laid off from his job as a sewing machine mechanic at London Fog. He had worked for the company for twenty years, but corporate higher-ups sent the work overseas.

Second Chance deconstruction worker Victor Sanchez uses this “monkey bar” to pry trim from around windows and wood flooring off joists. “When we’re done [with a house], there’s nothing but a flat place,” he says.

Second Chance supervisor Durrell Majette says these bolt cutters work well for wires and copper pipe, too. “The only thing that goes to the dump is stuff we’ve broken up,” he says. “Joists, slate roofs, stair rails—we take almost everything.”

continued on page 85 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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the Baltimore Green Guide WRITTEN BY MARIANNE K. AMOSS, ANDREA APPLETON, D A V I D D U D L E Y, G R E G H A N S C O M , M I C H A E L H U G H E S , MARY K. ZAJAC, AND ANDREW ZALESKI PHOTOGRAPHY BY MITRO HOOD

Top-Down Solutions Michael Furbish’s house is made of straw. Straw bales, that is—prized for their insulating properties. But Furbish isn’t your typical eco-construction enthusiast. His background is in commercial real estate, developing office buildings and warehouses. In the early 2000s, however, he recognized the business potential of green building and jumped on it. Today, Furbish runs a sustainable building company with ten full-time employees and clients around the Mid-Atlantic.

When the Furbish Company started in 2003, it was a one-man show.

Nevertheless, Furbish plunged into outsized green ventures, including a proposed twenty five-home straw-bale subdivision in Virginia. But his early projects foundered; lenders weren’t willing to shell out for something that hadn’t been market-tested. Furbish changed tactics, installing environmentally friendly building components such as solar panels and green roofs rather than approaching projects as the developer.

It was the demand for green roofs—those aerial gardens that alleviate stormwater runoff and keep buildings cool—that launched the business. The company, headquartered in a solar-heated industrial warehouse in Brooklyn, now installs everything from biofilters—living air filtration systems composed of tropical houseplants—to vegetated retaining walls.

Despite his own commitment to sustainability, Furbish recognizes that his customers are more focused on the bottom line. “It’s unlikely that somebody in a commercial environment will choose a living roof if it’s not cost-justified,” he says. But Furbish points out that since commercial operations are legally obligated to manage their stormwater runoff, living roofs lower municipal offset fees and can even eliminate the need to build retention ponds.

So far, Furbish’s no-nonsense, cost-benefit approach is working. In the last five years, the company has laid down 350,000 square feet of vegetation—the equivalent of six football fields—with projects ranging from the expansive rooftops of Baltimore’s new Hilton to the tiny vaulted roof of a boatyard restroom on the Patapsco River. Furbish is looking to expand the company’s reach into the rest of the country, and he hasn’t ruled out taking on new kinds of green technology. “We want to be pushing toward innovation and remain open-minded,” he says. “At the same time, we have to stay in business. It’s a balancing act.”

—Andrea Appleton No nonsense: Michael Furbish says green features such as vegetated “living” roofs often make good business sense.

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urbanite april 09

We scoured the streets, shook the trees, and quizzed the greenest people in town in the pursuit of environmentally minded businesses, goods, and services. There’s much more to say—Baltimore is getting greener every day—but this guide offers a selective overview of a revolution-in-progress.

Did we miss something? You bet. Let us know: Send suggestions for more resources to editor@urbanitebaltimore.com and bookmark the Guide online to check back throughout the year.

home Architecture

Green energy

Rare is the architectural firm that doesn’t offer sustainable/energy-efficient design these days, but we’ll point you to a few trailblazers. Architect Tom Liebel of Marks, Thomas has led the charge in integrating sustainable design into adaptive reuse of historic buildings (1414 Key Hwy.; 410-539-4300; www. marks-thomas.com). Peter Doo founded the Baltimore regional chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2004 and now offers consulting services for those trying to navigate the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification maze (Peter C. Doo/Architects: 531 Piccadilly Rd., Towson; 443-463-5859). Steve Ziger and Jamie Snead have five LEED-accredited architects that design everything from high-end residential to institutional buildings (Ziger/Snead: 1006 Morton St.; 410-576-9131; www.zigersnead.com). If you’re looking to “greenhab” a rowhouse, talk to Gabriel Kroiz (Kroiz Architecture: 2226 Fleet St.; 410-522-6669; www.kroizarch.com) or Julie Gabrielli, who wrote a green rowhouse remodeling guide that is available on the state Department of Natural Resources website (Gabrielli Design Studio: 2002 Clipper Park Rd.; 410-530-0389; www. gabriellidesignstudio.com).

For those interested in cutting their ties with the grid, a host of companies have services to offer. Chesapeake Solar in Jessup offers solar consultation, as well as solar hot water and photovoltaic systems (7761 Waterloo Rd.; 443-733-1221; www.chesapeakesolar. net). Greenspring Energy in Towson installs solar electric and hot water systems, as well as energysaving lighting and water heaters; it also offers home energy audits (8830 Orchard Tree Ln.; 443-322-7000; www.greenspringenergy.com). TerraLogos Green Home Services does energy audits as well, and provides customers with a list of qualified contractors who can do the follow-up work (1101 E. 33rd St.; 443-451-7130; www.terralogos.com). The 3E (energy efficiency experts) Team with the nonprofit Civic Works offers home air-sealing, as well as reflective, air conditioning-cutting “cool roofs” (2701 St. Lo Dr.; 410-366-8533; www.civicworks.com). Rebuilding Together Baltimore, the local branch of the national rehab nonprofit Rebuilding Together, has launched a free online energy-efficiency training program aimed at low-income homeowners (www.rtbaltimore.org).

And Baltimore Gas and Electric will help save some energy (and money) with its PeakRewards program, installing programmable thermostats and energysaving switches for your AC (1-800-309-PEAK; www. bgesmartenergy.com/peakrewards).

Building Here are a few outfits that wield green hammers.

Baltimore Green Construction (814 W. 36th St.; 410-889-3193; www.baltimoregreenconstruction.com) and Green Building Alternatives (410-528-8899; www.gbalternatives.com) do eco-friendly rehabbing as well as new construction. Seawall Development specializes in socially and environmentally conscious adaptive reuse (2601 N. Howard St.; 443-602-7516).

Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse is selling LEEDcertified “parkhomes” at the Overlook at Clipper Mill starting around $500,000 (3429 Woodberry Ave.; 410243-1292; www.clippermillhomes.com). (Disclosure: SBER founding partner Bill Struever is an Urbanite investor.) Southway Builders, one of the city’s larger general contracting firms, has combined sustainability and affordability with its green rowhouses in Brooklyn, which go for around $150,000 (1318 E. Fort Ave.; 410332-4134; www.southwaybuilders.com).

Inside Wondering how to redo the floors and counters without killing the rainforest or poisoning the air? JG Architectural Supply in Linthicum offers green-certified and low-VOC flooring, as well as eco-friendly adhesives (513 Progress Dr.; 410-609-6137; www.jgarchitectural. com). Alterego’s showroom is full of sustainably produced cabinetry, countertops, and flooring, as well as Earth-friendly cleaning products (640 Frederick Rd.; 443-498-0144; www.alter-e.com). Both the Loading Dock (2 N. Kresson St.; 410-558-3625; www.loading dock.org) and the Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity ReStore (505 Kane St.; 410-633-0506; www. baltimorerestore.org) offer all things salvaged, from cabinets and kitchen appliances to paint and plumbing supplies. Second Chance, in South Baltimore, has warehouses full of this stuff, plus a collection of antique furniture and trimmings (1645 Warner St.; 410-3851101; www.secondchanceinc.org). And for an artistic

selection of salvaged mantelpieces, banisters, and vintage lighting, check out nearby Housewerks, located in a historic BGE valve house (1415 Bayard St.; 410-685-8047; www.housewerksalvage.com).

Outside Ah, and what to do with that grass-infested quarteracre? Landscape architect Kirsten Coffin of Garden Architecture will take you through her own native plant demonstration garden, rain gardens, and xeric, no-mow lawn before retrofitting your yard (6425 Catalpa Rd.; 410-593-9989). Sharon Cohen of Native Design in Monkton will turn your yard into a native wildflower meadow (410-357-5352). Zolna Russell with Hord Coplan Macht specializes in native and organic landscape and garden design (750 E. Pratt St.; 410-451-2379; www.hcm2.com). Natural Concerns, a landscaping firm based in Sparks, offers design and installation of gardens that provide habitat for butterflies and birds—and require no chemicals to maintain (53 Loveton Cir.; 410-472-6860; www. naturalconcerns.com). Sacred garden specialist Mare Cromwell runs a small organic garden care company (410-448-3679; www.sacreddogllc.com).

For the do-it-yourselfers, the Mill Valley General Store in Remington offers a range of gardening supplies, seeds, and tools, plus plants and local produce (2800 Sisson St.; 410-889-6842; www.mill-valley.net).

True plant connoisseurs will like Green Fields for its variety of landscaping supplies and starts, plus the great selection of organic seeds (5424 Falls Rd.; 410323-3444; www.greenfieldsnursery.com).

Recycling In addition to the curbside single-steam recycling, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works collects household hazardous waste, electronic recycling, and used motor oil at drop-off locations around town (410-396-8450; www.baltimorecity.gov/ government/dpw/recycle/). IKEA in White Marsh collects used compact fluorescent light bulbs and batteries (8352 Honeygo Blvd.). You can take your food waste to the Whole Foods store in Harbor East for composting (1000 Lancaster St.). And scrap yards around the city will pay you for leftover aluminum and copper. The nonprofit Maryland Recycles keeps a full list of recycling and salvage facilities online (www. mdrecycles.org).

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FooD Sweet Sustainability

The real thing: Frantz Walker and his family have built their honey business by spurning mass production and processing.

Open a jar of Really Raw Honey and you’re greeted with a layer of waxy comb, pollen, and an occasional piece of something vaguely bee-like. Many people swear by the medicinal qualities of this stuff, but it’s ultimately the honey—viscous, opaque, varying in color, and remarkably complex in flavor—that turns a curious purchaser into a fanatic.

Owner Frantz Walker was born into bees: The company started in his parents’ apartment in Brooklyn, New York. “My mother was into natural foods, and a beekeeper gave us some honey—just dipped straight out of the hive,” he says. “My family loved it, and when our friends started asking for it, we started selling to them. I remember sitting on the living room floor and scooping it into jars as a kid.”

The Walkers moved to Baltimore, and before long their honey was selling in health food stores here and in Philadelphia. In the 1990s, the family moved the business into a warehouse in Canton’s Broom Factory.

But they remained adamant about purity. “It has always been unheated, unfiltered, and totally unprocessed,” Walker says. “It’s rich in enzymes, pollen, and propolis”—the sticky resin bees collect from sap and flower buds.

When the increasing use of pesticides and antibiotics in apiculture made meeting demand difficult, Walker offered to pay beekeepers a premium to shun chemicals and promised to pay for any hives they lost, no questions asked. “I consider it ‘fair trade’ in the U.S.—our beekeepers are making a good living,” Walker says.

Walker works only with small-scale beekeepers who have opted not to join the lucrative parade to California, where many outfits truck their hives to farms and orchards each year to pollinate crops. “It turns out that keeping the bees in a natural state and letting them forage for their own nectar is the best thing for them,” he says.

“It’s funny, but keeping things simple is difficult—and expensive,” Walker says. “But it also winds up creating the best-tasting product.”

—Michael Hughes

Groceries The arrival of Whole Foods (1001 Fleet St., Harbor East; and 1330 Smith Ave., Mount Washington) and West Coast cult favorite Trader Joe’s (1 E. Joppa Rd., Towson; and 1809 Reisterstown Rd., Pikesville) have made it easier to pick up organic edibles. On the other end of the size spectrum sit the classic granola-slinging health food stores such as OK Natural Food Store (11 W. Preston St.; 410-837-3911) and the Charles Village food co-op The Village (2429 St. Paul St.; 410-2353255). And don’t forget the city’s original local-food outlets: All of Baltimore’s great public markets, from the downtown Lexington Market (400 W. Lexington St.; www.lexingtonmarket.com) to the five neighborhood markets run by the Baltimore Public Market Corp. (www.bpmarkets.com) are mass-transit accessible, and many vendors are local growers and producers.

Farm fresh To get closer to the farm, buy into community-supported agriculture. (See “A New Leaf” on page 65 of this issue.) Find a CSA at Local Harvest (www.localharvest. org). The biggest producers-only farmers’ market in the state is the Baltimore Farmers’ Market, held

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underneath the Jones Falls Expressway at Holliday and Saratoga streets on Sunday mornings from May to December. Uptown, the 32nd Street Farmers’ Market is open Saturday mornings all year (E. 32nd and Barclay streets; www.32ndstreetmarket.org). Whole Foods sponsors a Saturday morning FRESHFOOD Market in Harbor East (1000 Lancaster St.) starting in June and a Wednesday afternoon market at the store’s Mount Washington location. The Highlandtown Farmers’ Market, also on Saturday mornings, runs July to October (Bank and Conkling streets). Try the Park Heights Community Farmers’ Market at Pimlico Race Course (5201 Park Heights Ave.) on Wednesday afternoons from June through November, or the Village of Cross Keys Farmers’ Market (5100 Falls Rd.) midday Tuesdays, June through October. The Maryland Department of Agriculture’s website lists every farmers’ market in the state (www.mda.state.md.us/ md_products/farmers_market_dir.php).

Eating out Many restaurants make noise about locally sourced eats, but here are a few standouts: Chef Spike Gjerde’s upscale/rustic Woodberry Kitchen sets the standard for sustainable eating (2010 Clipper Park Rd.; 410-464-8000;

www.woodberrykitchen.com). Watertable applies a similar formula to more contemporary Inner Harbor hotel dining (202 E. Pratt St.; 410-685-8439; www.water tablerestaurant.com), while Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art reflects chef John Shields’ affection for traditional Chesapeake Bay cuisine (10 Art Museum Dr.; 410-889-3399; www.gertrudesbaltimore.com).

Midtown Belgian beerhall The Brewer’s Art (1106 N. Charles St.; 410-547-6925; www.thebrewersart.com) and French-influenced Chameleon Café in northeast Baltimore (4341 Harford Rd.; 410-254-2376; www. thechameleoncafe.com) are also heavily invested in seasonal local ingredients. Hampden’s Dogwood Restaurant adds nonprofit job training for ex-addicts and ex-offenders to its do-gooder dossier (911 W. 36th St.; 410-889-0952; www.dogwoodbaltimore.com). The Atwater’s soup-and-sandwich shops in Belvedere Market and Bare Hills, and at Kenilworth in Towson, are scrupulous users of local produce, often organic (www. atwaters.biz). Vegetarian and/or vegan? Get thee to the Yabba Pot in Charles Village (2431 St. Paul St.; 410662-8638; www.theyabbapotcafe.com). VegBaltimore (www.vegbaltimore.com) maintains a comprehensive database of local vegetarian-friendly eateries.

t r a n s p o r tat i o n Green Machines Luis MacDonald is a big, jovial guy with a warm handshake and an easy laugh. He’s the kind of man you’d buy a car from, which is good because that’s his job. His company, Autoflex, sells and leases “zero-emissions” electric vehicles. You’ve seen them around: They’re the bubble-topped buggies used by the cops in the Inner Harbor and by campus security and maintenance at Hopkins, Loyola, and MICA. And without MacDonald, they probably wouldn’t be here.

MacDonald got his start in auto sales working for a friend who owned a Chevy dealership, which led to a career managing corporate vehicle fleets. When the federal government started using alternative fuel vehicles—and hiring more minority contractors (MacDonald is Peruvian American)—he found a niche. Between 2000 and 2002, he supplied the U.S. Postal Service with a fleet of 500 electric mail trucks in California.

When he brought electric vehicles to Maryland in 2001 and learned that he couldn’t register them in the state, he lobbied to pass a bill legalizing the use of low-speed electric vehicles on streets where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or lower. The law passed in 2006.

Today, MacDonald and his son Daniel sell and lease two- to sixpassenger electric vehicles manufactured by Global Electric Motorcars, a subsidiary of Chrysler. The GEM cars run on a 72-volt battery system and can hit 25 miles per hour, with a range of about 35 miles per charge. The business, which operates under the “Clean Cities” banner, is based in a former broom factory in Pigtown, and sells mainly to schools and government agencies. MacDonald plans to put solar panels on the roof and turn the business into a full-blown dealership.

Sitting in his office looking out on his future showroom, MacDonald produces a copy of the documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car? “Who killed the electric car?” he asks, waving the DVD case. “Nobody killed the electric car. It’s right here. It still has a future.”

Super-charged: Luis MacDonald says his low-speed electric vehicles are perfect for zipping around the city.

—Greg Hanscom Mass transit Baltimore’s public transit system is the object of much grousing, but many buses are now equipped with bike racks, and the “trip planner,” a new Google-powered feature on the Maryland Transit Administration homepage (www.mtamaryland.com), makes point-topoint journeys on bus, Metro, and Light Rail easier.

Just type in your starting point and destination, and the computer kicks out an itinerary for you. For a free map of the city’s transit system, drop by the Transit Center at 6 St. Paul Street or call 410-539-5000.

Pedal power Light Street Cycles in Federal Hill sells Strida folding bikes that are easy to carry on the bus or train and stash in the corner of your office (1015 Light St.; 410-685-2234; www.lightcycles.com). For the serious cyclist, there’s Mount Washington Bikes, a.k.a. Joe’s Bike Shop (5813 Falls Rd.; 410-323-2788; www. mtwashingtonbikes.com); for the commuter, try Baltimore Bicycle Works (1813 Falls Rd.; 410-605-0705; www.baltimorebicycleworks.com) or the Velocipede Bike Project, a nonprofit in Station North where volunteers fix up old bikes for sale and donation (4 W. Lan-

vale St.; www.velocipedebikeproject.org). The city’s 2006 Bicycle Master Plan lays out a (still-unfinished) network of bike lanes and paths and can be found online or at all Enoch Pratt libraries (www.ci.baltimore. md.us/government/planning/bikeplan.php).

Car sharing Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College have teamed up with the national service Zipcar to provide car-sharing programs around their campuses (www. zipcar.com). Cars are parked in designated locations for members to use when they like. Just return the car when you’re finished. You pay by the hour or the day. A nascent nonprofit called Baltimore Carshare, hatched by the city Parking Authority, was apparently bombed on the runway this winter, but officials say a citywide car-sharing programis only a matter of time.

Stay tuned.

Brooklyn will also sell you biodiesel in bulk if you call at least forty-eight hours in advance (28 B Thomas Ave.; 410-636-9000; www.tayloroilco.com). And for those who don’t have kids to drag along, the newly opened Green Rider in Fells Point sells the supersvelte line of Motorino electric scooters, with cargo trailers for the groceries. Down the road, the company plans to add electric bicycles, conversion kits, and electric motorcycles (723 S. Broadway; 410-522-5857; www.greenriderusa.com).

Web extra: For a guide to green websites and blogs; a handy scorecard for the region’s environmental nonprofits, ecoadvocacy organizations, and nature education facilities; and a look into the making of Baltimore’s “Green Map,” go to www. urbanitebaltimore.com.

Petrol-free If you want to kick the fossil-fuel habit, join the Baltimore Biodiesel Co-op, which sells plant-based fuel at the Mill Valley General Store in Remington (2800 Sisson St.; www.baltimorebiodiesel.org). Taylor Oil Co. in

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LiVinG Clean and Green

Neat freaks: Ecolistic Cleaning “specialists” such as (left to right) Jane Vincent, Gavin Tucker, Lizz Mazer, and Kasey Simcoe use bagless vaccuums and nontoxic cleansers.

Beauty You can be nice to yourself and the planet, too. The Avenue in Hampden is home to ReNew Organic Day Spa (843 W. 36th St.; 410-400-2745; www.renew organicdayspa.com) and Sprout: An Organic Salon (925 W. 36th St.; 410-235-2269; www.sproutsalon. com), both of which utilize eco-friendly products and boast interiors constructed with natural building materials. Eastbank Hair in Mount Washington (5726 Falls Rd.; 410-435-4414; www.eastbankhair. com) and Alpha Studio in Fells Point (817 S. Bond St.; 410-327-1300; www.alphastudiobaltimore.com) use only naturally derived, plant-based Aveda products, and you get 20 percent off all Aveda products at Eastbank if you walk, bike, or use public transit to get there. And if you’re in the market for locally made, earth-friendly skin and beauty products, check out Biggs and Featherbelle (www.biggsandfeather. com), Shelissa’s Lip Balm Company (www.shelissa. com), Mundo Botanica (www.mundobotanica.com), and Kaylala (www.kaylala.com).

Clothing, new For eco-friendly apparel, shop Baltimore-based

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Courtney Kellogg hadn’t planned to start a cleaning company. She enjoyed running a successful holistic daycare from her Annapolis home, but with the birth of her third child in 2003, Kellogg decided she needed a change. “I was with children all day and all night,” she explains. Then a neighbor hired her to clean his house. She asked if she could use her own homemade, non-toxic cleaning products. “I don’t care what you use,” he told her, “as long as it’s clean.”

It was. That job led to an ad on Craigslist, and Ecolistic Cleaning was born. Kellogg is now a single mother of four living in Lewes, Delaware, with a business that boasts more than a hundred clients around Baltimore and Annapolis, and in Sussex County, Delaware.

The idea is as basic as it is radical: cleaning up shouldn’t pollute. Ecolistic’s employees use unbleached paper towels, recycled biodegradable trash bags, and Dyson bagless vacuums, as well as only non-toxic cleansers made from ingredients like sea salt, vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils.

The company’s minimum cleaning fee is $125 and can range up to $225, depending on the size of the house. Ecolistic’s staff includes part-time musicians and artists. They bring all-natural treats for clients’ dogs and leave the company’s signature lavender-peppermint room spray lingering in carpeted rooms, plus two organic chocolates—a riff on hotel turndown service. Clients, in turn, have been known to present cleaning crews with pies, cakes, and homemade sandwiches, according to Baltimore manager Jane Vincent.

Ecolistic employees are paid between $12 and $15.25 an hour and go through rigorous training to teach them the art of cleaning green. “I feel like with each new employee, they’re getting an education,” Kellogg says, “and that gets passed on.”

—Mary K. Zajac

ecosumo.com’s inventory of women’s tops and coats and men’s sweaters and T-shirts made from organic cotton and bamboo; Simple shoes, constructed with unbleached hemp, recycled car tires, and silk; and sleek handbags with former lives as truck inner tubes. For the outdoorsy set, both Hudson Trail Outfitters in Towson (424 York Rd.; 410-583-0494; www. hudsontrail.com) and REI in Timonium (63 W. Aylesbury Rd.; 410-252-5920) carry a selection of organic cotton, hemp, and bamboo clothing by brands such as Patagonia, prAna, Green Label, Royal Robbins, and Quicksilver. Dress your kids up in tough, organic, Baltimore-made duds from Uglyfish Organics (www. uglyfishorganics.com). And for the really wee tykes, Soft and Cozy Baby in Pikesville sells cloth diapers, diaper covers, and fabric baby slings by appointment (3400 Hatton Rd.; 410-446-4525; www.softandcozy baby.com).

Clothing, used Sometimes the greenest clothes have already been worn. Value Village’s most-loved location is at 800 W. North Ave.; others include 5013 York Rd. in Govans and 3424 Eastern Ave. in Highlandtown. Village

Thrift in Middle River (10 Stemmers Run Rd.) gives weekly discounts on high-end labels. The Clothing Warehouse recently expanded its vintage empire with a Baltimore franchise (1211 S. Charles St.; 410244-6554). The Fashion Attic sells—and buys— gently used women’s fashions from brands such as Banana Republic, Urban Outfitters, and Betsey Johnson (1926 Fleet St., Suite A; 410-276-0817; www. thefashionattic.com). A group of Federal Hill moms started the children’s consignment shop Ladybugs and Fireflies (1049 S. Charles St.; 410-244-0472; www.ladybugsandfireflies.com). The Baltimore Free Store sets up shop at various locales around the city (www.freestorebaltimore.org). Baltimore also has a chapter of the national Freecycle.com network, a Craigslist-esque enterprise that connects people with free stuff (www.freecycle.org).

Crafting The members of the Charm City Craft Mafia (www. charmcitycraftmafia.blogspot.com) and the Baltimore Etsy Street Team (www.baltimorecraft.com) make all manner of locally sourced art and crafts, often with eco-friendly materials. Jennifer Strunge

Household Eco-chic home décor has come a long way since the Chia Pet. Bluehouse, the luxe eco-friendly home shop and café, closed its doors in Harbor East, but the business lives on at the Shops at Kenilworth in Towson and online (872 Kenilworth Dr.; 410-337-8700; www.bluehouselife.com). Mount Washington-based Working Wonders specializes in home furnishings made from recycled, organic, and sustainable materials (1416 Clarkview Rd., Ste. 100; 866-569-0339; www.workingwondersus.com).

Hampden’s Red Tree carries fun, funky furniture and home accessories—and gets some of its electricity from the wind (921 W. 36th St.; 410-366-3456; www. redtreebaltimore.com). Earth Alley is filled with home and gift items that little resemble from whence they came, such as garden sculptures from old oil drums and bowls made from telephone wires (3602 Elm Ave., 410-366-2110; www.earthalley.com).

Investing Want to put your money where your mouth is?

Stephen Siegel with Responsible Planning and Investing offers a range of green investing services, from investment management to by-the-hour consultation (3314 Shelburne Rd.; 410-764-6476; www.first affirmative.com). Richard Torgerson with Progressive Asset Management has special expertise in shareholder activism (410-751-7054; www.progressiveasset.com). For folks who have lots to invest (think $1 million and up), John Campagna of Benchmark Asset Managers can help make sure your bucks support companies and initiatives that are a positive force for the environment (2002 Clipper Park Rd.; 410-878-7084; benchmarkam.com). Both Campagna and Dara Hewat of Sustainable Land Investments in Owings Mills (10055 Red Run Blvd.; 443-471-2700; www.sli-usa.com) are working to leverage investment dollars with “ecosystem service credits” to protect large tracts of land. Calvert, based in Bethesda, offers the nation’s largest selection of sustainable and socially responsible mutual funds, as well as financial advice and services (4550 Montgomery Ave.; 1-800368-2746; www.calvertgroup.com). ■

photo by Douglas Ritzler

creates her stuffed Cotton Monsters out of recycled clothes. Shannon Delanoy of Sweet Pepita builds children’s apparel from old T-shirts. Phuong Pham of Phampersand Press relies mostly on recycled and found materials and organic pigments to create books and paper. Red Prairie Press’s Rachel Bone sources organic cotton for some of her children’s apparel. Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press looks to recycled maps and atlases for her line of books. Heather von Marko of HVM Designs crochets wearable art from bamboo and soy fibers. And Carly Goss of Carlybird hand-weaves scarves and other textiles with bamboo and Tencel threads.

Chalk one up: Kids get the ya-yas out with sidewalk chalk and nature activities at the annual EcoFestival in Druid Hill Park.

Good, Green Fun Going green isn’t all work and self-denial—there’s fun to be had, too. The mother of all local green parties is Baltimore Green Week, which kicks off April 18 with the annual EcoFestival in Druid Hill Park, and includes tours of city recycling facilities and a new LEED certified office building, plus a sustainable art opening and happy hour (www.baltimoregreenweek. org). Baltimore Green Works, the nonprofit that puts on Green Week, now sponsors the EcoBall and the Sustainable Speakers Series, which debuts May 15 with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (www. baltimoregreenworks.com). The Baltimore Bioneers festival, held each fall, features three days of speakers, panel presentations, and discussions of cutting-edge, cross-discipline ecological thinking—some of them in the flesh, others beamed live from the Bioneers mothership in San Francisco (www.cultivatingchange.org). And don’t miss the spectacle of “the Jones Falls Expressway—minus 40,000 cars” during the Rally for the River held every other September (the next one is in 2010). Kids can watch frog races and skateboard competitions; people of all ages bike, dog-walk, and stroll with impunity; and vendors hawk all manner of green goods. There’s even kayaking and canoeing on the Jones Falls itself, which winds under its namesake concrete artery (Jones Falls Watershed Association: 410-3663036; www.jonesfalls.org).

Looking for a grittier, street-smart celebration? Check out Urban Earth Day in October, focusing on environmental health, justice, and education in the inner city. This year’s event in Waverly will feature pollution-monitor training as well as craft booths, music, recycling bins, tree seedlings, and free T-shirts and meals for kids (e-mail earthseed@gmail.com). On Rebuilding Day, which falls on April 26 this year, volunteer workers will descend on the communities of Turner Station and Park Circle to repair and rehab homes, do energy efficiency training, and undertake green projects (Rebuilding Together Baltimore: 1014 W. 36th St.; 410-889-2710; www.rebuildingtogether baltimore.org). Environmental Justice Partnership board member Glenn Ross will take you for a Toxic Tour featuring leaky sewer pipes, industrial waste dumps, and cemeteries where the bodies were embalmed with arsenic—and a few sites where the nasties have been cleaned up. He charges a “flexible fee” and asks sponsors to provide transportation and a driver. Elementary school groups are free (443-449-5749; glenn6032@comcast.net).

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fiction

Mr. Greene B y S tep h en D i x on

I

paintin g b y patc h some r v ille

t was a beautiful day, clear and dry, the orchards soaked by the earlymorning downpour and smelling of fallen fruit and fresh buds. Life fantastic, I thought, when something hard was shoved into my back and a voice said don’t turn around.

“Don’t turn what?” I said, turning around and seeing a man holding a handgun.

“Didn’t I say not to?” and he split my head open with the gun butt, and while I lay on the ground howling for help but not sure if my words were coming out, and trying to divert the stream of blood running into my nose and mouth, he shot me twice in the stomach and once in the head.

I woke up. Usually when I have dreams like this I’m somehow able to startle myself out of sleep before the bullets come, though not before I’m clubbed. But this morning I was awakened by the sounds of a sanitation truck being fed garbage. My wife stirred on her side of the bed and asked what time it was, though she knew as well as I that the city sanitation truck made a punctual seven o’clock visit to our apartment building every weekday.

“Seven,” I said, and she said “Oh,” and shut her eyes for another ten minutes. Then we got up, washed and dressed, and started preparing breakfast.

“I had an incredibly creepy dream this morning,” I said at the table as she set before me my Wednesday breakfast of poached eggs on buttered toast and half a tomato. “A man hit me so hard that it feels as if my head still aches.”

“Sounds like the dream you had two nights ago, or was it three?”

“Three. But this time I was shot. Twice in the stomach and once in the head.”

“Ug,” she said, “I’m glad I sleep peacefully,” and wrapped my lunch sandwich in aluminum foil and stuck it in a paper bag with an apple and lots of vegetables. “You’ll be late.”

I kissed her on the lips goodbye. “Be careful,” she said. “And please don’t run for the local again. I don’t want you getting another heart seizure, as this place gets very lonely without you.”

I was sort of hustling like a marathon walker to the subway entrance when a man said “Like to win a free ticket abroad just by answering a few questions, sir?” I stopped and this well-dressed young man approached me carrying a briefcase. “I’m with the Trans-Siberian Travel Service,” he said, “and we’re conducting a very essential poll.”

I told him I was in a hurry to get to work, but remembering my wife’s advice on the subject and curious about the free trip abroad, I told him I could spare only a minute. “Wonderful,” he said, and reached into his briefcase for what he said was his short question-and-answer sheet concerning potential intercontinental travelers and transoceanic flights and pulled out a very rusty Luger.

“In broad daylight?” I said, and he said nobody was around but if someone did come by before I stopped stalling and handed over my wallet, he’d be forced to shoot me. “You can’t do that; this is supposed to be a civilized society. Hasn’t there been enough violence in the world already?” Just then a woman turned the corner and headed our way. I w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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fiction quickly reached for my billfold to give the man, but he said “Too late.”

He pulled the trigger; the bullet grazed my arm. I begged him not to shoot again, but a bullet tore through my throat. The man ran off. I was on the ground, dying, no doubt. A few people kneeled and stood above me, first asking me and then one another what they could do to help.

Then two hands stroked my head and the voice belonging to them said that someone had gone to call for an ambulance. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll come out of this alive. I’ve witnessed three street shootings this year and the victim has always lived,” and I passed out.

The radio alarm buzzed. It was 7:30—fifteen minutes later than I usually got up. “Jan,” I said, “it’s 7:30. You set the alarm for too late again. Get up; I’ve barely a half hour to get out of the house.”

“I think you were the one who set it,” she said, turning over and shutting her eyes.

I touched her back; she felt so soft and warm. I snuggled into her from behind and fondled her backside. “You feel so soft and warm,” I said.

“Can I sleep another five minutes?”

“You can if you let me lie close to you like this. In fact, sleep for another hour. I’ll make sure Frilly’s all right and get out of the house by myself.”

“You’re a love,” she said, and made a kissing sound. I lay close to her for a few minutes. Then I got up, checked our baby and saw she was safe and asleep, made two poached eggs on buttered toast—a dish Jan always complained was too much trouble making for breakfast—and after sticking a container of yogurt and dietetic cookies into my attaché case for lunch and again peeking into the baby’s room to see that she was all right, I left the house.

I started down our quiet suburban street to Charlie Ravage’s house at the corner, as this was his day to drive us to town. “Say, Mr. Greene,” a man said, signaling to me from the passenger seat of an expensive new car, “do you remember me? I used to be your next-door neighbor in Lumpertville—old fat man Sachs.” I walked to his car and told him his name was as unfamiliar as his face, but maybe he’d gotten a little thinner since the time I was supposed to have known him.

“I’ve actually gained twenty pounds.’’ He opened the door and pointed at me what looked like a sawed-off shotgun and invited me to step inside the car for a business conference. “No fuss,” he said, “and you’ll be able to leave with your good health intact.”

“How’d you know my name and where I used to live?” I said, sitting beside him when he moved over.

“Oh, Mr. Greene, I’ve watched you numerous times coming out of your garish pink house, all fresh with your darling wife’s adoring smells still on you and with your low-caloric breakfast in your gut. I know all your history and comfortable habits, especially the precise time you leave for work every day. Eight-fifteen, am I right?” and I nodded and asked what he had in mind doing with me. “You’re the vice-president of the town’s most prominent bank, aren’t you?” and then described the relatively simple bankrobbing plan he’d devised. He would drive me to town, I’d get the bank guard to open the front door, he’d follow me in, disarm the guard, I’d open the bank’s safe and in a matter of minutes and before the bank officially opened, he’d be gone with about fifty thousand dollars in untraceable cash. “Not bad for a half-morning’s work, wouldn’t you say?”

We drove to town. I was let in the bank, George the guard was disarmed, bound and gagged. I opened the safe, the man took all the paper cash in it and then bound and gagged me. I could have set off one of the many hidden alarms before I was tied up, but the chance of saving the bank thousands of insured dollars and getting a bonus if not a promotion wasn’t worth the risk of being shot. Just as the thief was about to leave through the only side door, George freed himself and ducked behind the tellers’ counter. The alarm went off, the entire bank lit up, and customers waiting outside for the bank to open began banging on the windows and door. The man tried the side door, but because

of the alarm all the exits were automatically locked from the outside.

He shot out a window and was about to leap through the opening when a police car pulled up in front. He reloaded the gun, said “This is what you get for hiring loyal but dumb bank guards,” and while I pleaded for him not to shoot by shaking my head from side to side, he pulled the trigger and in an instant it seemed I’d lost my chest. Someone ungagged and untied me. Through darkening eyes I watched the man gassed out of the president’s office and taken away; then I was lifted onto a gurney and slid into an ambulance. I was given blood, and just before an oxygen mask was put over my face I asked the doctor if she thought I would live.

“No question about it,” she said, but by the tone of her voice and the look of the attendant next to her, I knew I’d never reach the hospital alive.

“Dad,” someone said—my son or daughter. “Dad, get up.” It was Ford, my 6-year-old son, who since his mother died four months ago when some madman seated behind her in a movie theater shot her, woke me up every morning. “It’s past eight, Dad, and you’re going to miss your first class.”

“Eight? Why didn’t you wake me sooner?’’

“My alarm didn’t go off. You set it wrong again last night. But Frilly’s already making your breakfast.”

Frilly, my 10-year-old daughter and a lookalike for her beautiful mom, kissed me when I came into the kitchen. My regular workday breakfast was on the table. Two five-minute eggs, just as I liked them, not boiled for five minutes but spooned into the saucepan and covered after the gas under the boiling water had been turned off, and corn muffins that Frilly had made the previous night. “Get your math homework done?” I said, and she said, “Math’s a snap. I can whip through it in the short ride to school.”

The school bus honked twice, and the kids kissed me goodbye.

I walked them to the bus, told them I hoped they’d have a gloriously happy day at school and that tonight we were going to dine out fancy for a change and later catch the concert at Civic Aud. “Morning, Mr. Greene,” the driver said, and I said “Morning, Will; great day out,” and waved at my children waving at me ’til the bus was out of sight. I got my briefcase, which Frilly had laid out for me with my lecture notes and a bag lunch inside, and rode to campus on my bike.

The air was chillier than I was dressed for and I was sorry I hadn’t taken a sweater, which I usually throw over my shoulders with the sleeves tied at my chest.

“Cooler today,’’ Sam Rainbow said, cycling past me from the opposite direction and wearing a sheepherder’s coat.

“Hiya, Professor Greene,” one of my former grad students said, a pretty, intelligent young woman in a short skirt and high boots. She had such gorgeous legs. I stopped, said “How are you, Roz? Magnificent morning, isn’t it? Listen, if you’re not in a hurry, how about a quick coffee with me in the campus lounge?” and she’d just said she’d love to when I heard a barrage of gunshots and she flopped to the ground.

“Oh, no,” I said, “not again,” as people were dropping all around me, some hit by bullets, others dodging behind bushes, cars, and trees.

Roz had been shot in the head, part of her brains on my sleeve. There was nothing I could do for her, and I was still out in the open. I ran for a car parked about thirty feet away, but the sniper in one of the top floor windows of the Arts and Sciences building cut me down with a bullet in the foot, and while I was crawling the last few feet to the car, another bullet in my back. I regained consciousness after the shooting had ended. “We got him,” a man told me. “Some overpressured poly sci student who went nuts. Don’t know how many got hit, but that dead bastard sure’ll serve a good lesson for anyone else thinking of using a repeater against innocent people like that. And don’t fret about yourself, Professor. Doctors here say you’ll be up and walking again in continued on page 86 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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The Best of Historically Hip Federal Hill Save gas and the environment - shop in the city’s most popular neighborhood!

Babe. (a boutique)

Ladybugs & Fireflies

Contemporary women’s clothing, denim, and accessories for the city-chic. A wallet-friendly boutique with a fabulous assortment. New deliveries daily!

A Neighborhood Kids’ Store. Featuring unique baby gifts and clever items for kids of all ages.

1049 S. Charles St. • 410.244.0472• ladybugsandfireflies.com

910 S. Charles St. • 410.244.5114 • babeaboutique.com

Bottom Drawer

“THE” place to shop for all your lingerie needs. Private room available for bridal showers, bachelorette and lingerie parties. Call today!

1003 S. Charles St. • 410.783.8998

City Pets

Your neighborhood, family owned veterinary care is in a great new location. Remember: You’ll feel better here.

1212 S. Charles St. • 410.752.7122 • citypetsvet.com

Phina’s For The Home

Where city life begins. Bedding to inspire comfort.

Bath essentials to inspire calm. Gifts to inspire a smile. for the home

919 S. Charles St. • 410.685.0911 • phinas.com

Ryleigh’s Oyster

Baltimore’s best selection of Oysters and Chesapeake region fare. Don’t miss Oyster Hours! 3-7pm daily $1 oysters, $4 dollar glasses of wine, $3 drafts and $5 small plates!

36 E. Cross Street. • 410.539.2093• ryleighs.com

Corks Restaurant

SoBotanical

1026 S. Charles St. • 410.752.3810 • corksrestaurant.com

1130 S. Charles St. • 410.234.0333 • sobotanical.com

WHAT’S NEW AT CORKS?…..EVERYTHING. New Interior...New Menu...New Hours

Taverna Corvino

Just Landed! A new hip Italian Taverna in the heart of Federal Hill. Featuring Executive Chef Christopher Paternotte.

Kitchen open daily from 11am - 11pm Bar open 11am - 2am.

1117S. Charles St. • 410.727.1212• tavernacorvino.com

Baltimore’s premiere Aromatherapy and Natural Body Shop specializing in essential oils, custom blends and unique gifts.

The Hill

...the newest neighborhood dining experience...coming soon...

1015 S. Charles St.

Federal Hill Kitchen, Bath & Closet

Whimsy Boutique/Reason For Men

917 S. Charles St. • 410.783.1992

1033 S. Charles St. • 410.234.0204 • whimsyreason.com

Designers of elegant kitchens and baths, featuring Lancaster Maid and Prestige cabinetry, Custom closets, numerous counter, sink, and hardware selections.

Funky Beehive: Home Accessories & Fun Gifts

Fun affordable gift boutique. Awesome unique selection!

Come see what everyone is talking about!

906 S. Charles St. • 410.685.4483 • funkybeehive.com

SPRING IS HERE! Whimsy has a great new selection of sundresses, tops, and jewelry. Guys, Reason has all new tees and shorts for the warmer weather.

“Best of Baltimore New Shopping Destination” Baltimore Magazine 2008

“Best Great American Main Street” National Trust for Historic Preservation

Special Events:

❆

One-Hour Free Parking - West Street Garage

April 26 - Annual Spring Block Party 11am -7pm • Street festival with music, arts & crafts, vendors and food.

May 2 - Spring Fever Sidewalk Sale 11am - 6pm • Special discounts, restaurant specials and strolling musicians.

Country charm: Amy Frantz and Mike Blair have decorated their yard in historic Dickeyville with plants and varieties that were available when their clapboard farmhouse was first raised, around 1850. The stonewalled cellar of the red springhouse stays cool year-round and probably served as a storage spot for root vegetables.

space

Full bloom

ready for summer yet? Get an early eyeful of some of the season’s best gardens P h O T O g r A P h y b y D Av I D h A r P

You may be still shaking off the winter gray, but summer is never far away in Baltimore. In the heat of mid-July 2008, we sent photographer David Harp afield on a mission to capture the season’s green scenes, in urban backyards, county estates, and the places in between. Here’s what he and his camera found.

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Old world: Melanie Alfano wanted her brick-patio Bolton Hill backyard to look like “a space that could have been there when the house was built.” Vintage garden furniture and a working city streetlight salvaged from Mount Vernon share space with the herb beds that Alfano’s husband Luigi Lavagnino—a native of Genoa—cultivates each summer for homemade pesto.

Left: This Ruxton garden boasts an archway of Passiflora caerulea, or Waterloo Blue Passion Flower, an annual vine that graces the garden with an occasional tart yet edible passionfruit.

Middle: Greg Baronoski waited fifteen years to build his “dream garden” behind the Bolton Hill townhouse he shares with his partner, Luca Gama. The finished space, with a fieldstone patio and raised beds full of native violets and ferns, can accommodate up to forty cocktail party guests.

Right: Professional landscaper Chris Pitarra replaced his sloping front lawn on busy York Road in Towson with a field of Maryland’s state flower, black-eyed Susans.

Come winter, he leaves the seed heads up for the birds to snack on; whatever seeds they miss replenish next year’s crop.

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Lotus position: Jenny Holton’s stone house in northern Baltimore County came with a pair of earthbottomed ponds in the front yard. She turned one of them into a watery playground for Nelumbo nucifera, the Indian lotus. “It spread like gangbusters,” she says. The dramatic perennial creates a dense mat of 2-foot-wide leaves and sends up several foothigh stems capped by huge pink-petalled blooms every summer. “They’re quite a presence,” Holton says. “It’s the one ‘wow’ in my garden.”

Web extra: View more garden scenes at www.urbanitebaltimore.com. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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g reen Raising the Bar for Responsible Investment ecolistic Cleaning

Benchmark Asset Managers & Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors invite Maryland-based Foundations and Endowments to join us May 21st for:

The realistic choice for non-toxic, eco-friendly house & office cleaning! Specialty service with attention to detail.

Licensed, bonded & insured. Naturally ~ since 2003.

Serving all of Baltimore City & County 888-4-ECOLISTIC (432-6547) www.ecolisticcleaning.com

Potomac Pain Center, Chiropractic & Physical Therapy uses a comprehensive approach to treat neuromusculoskelatal injuries to the back, neck and extremity joints.

9309 Belair Road, Nottingham, MD 21236 410-256-8511 www.potomacpain-center.com

Mission Related Investing: How to increase Financial, Social and Environmental Impact through investing.

See contact info below to get more details.

Offering great deals and interesting finds for people needing inexpensive building materials and want to keep materials out of the landfill. Reduce, Reuse, Rebuild!

2 N. Kresson St., Baltimore, MD 21224 410-558-DOCK (3625) www.loadingdock.org

Take your next vacation a bit closer to home…

Discover the joys of local wine with the Frederick Wine Trail – an easy hour’s drive from Baltimore!

Benchmark helps foundations, endowments, religious orders and high net-worth investors with Socially Responsible (SRI) portfolio management encompassing all asset classes.

Benchmark Asset Managers John Campagna 2002 Clipper Park Rd., 4th Flr. Baltimore, MD 21211 (410) 878-7084 campagna@benchmarkam.com

www.frederickwinetrail.com

Home Energy Inspections and Improvements 2008 Contractor of the Year, Maryland Home Performance with Energy Star 1101 E. 33rd St., Ste B301, Baltimore, MD 21218 443-451-7130 www.TerraLogosGHS.com GHS@TerraLogos.com

Built green to operate green—so you can stay green.

LEED® certified, 100% renewable energy, Energy Star appliances, green roof, eco-landscaping. Opening late spring 2009!

101 President Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 410-837-9900 www.greenfairfieldinn.com

Native Plant Sale

April 19, April 25 & May 10 Help us and your garden grow green.

Also by appointment.

Geothermal power is a clean and renewable source of energy that reduces dependency on fossil fuels and foreign energy sources. Receive a 30% Federal tax credit on a new installation.

6131 Hillen Rd., Baltimore, MD 21239 410-254-1577 x 104 www.herringrun.org $10 off most trees!

1701-A Whiteford Rd., Darlington, MD 21034 410-836-1706 www.groundloop.com

The Baltimore Green Home Tour Presented by City Life Realty.

Wise counsel, thoughtful strategies and investments for positive impact.

Your only chance to tour a wide range of environmentally friendly homes! Learn what’s on the market now, and how you can turn your dream home into a healthier, more sustainable place to live.

Saturday, April 18th

Buses Leave at 12:00 & 2:30 from EcoFestival

Tickets are Free, but Space is Limited!

www.benchmarkam.com

Register at www.BaltimoreGreenHomeTour.com or 410.889.3191

Jon Wald 410.512.4838

p l ac e TYPE A

4.18.09 EcoFest kicks off Baltimore Green Week 2009 at Druid Hill Park! Featuring over 200 sustainable vendors, exhibitors and educators, free yoga, bike rides around the reservoir, music, and more at Druid Hill Park. 11-5 p.m.

CLEANING

100 W. University Parkway 410-235-5777 www.one-world-cafe.com

“Give yourself a rest and leave your house a mess.”

Detailed cleaning using only non toxic/eco friendly products. Pre/post parties, move in/out, laundry, and dishes. Call for free in home customized cleaning estimate.

www.TypeAcleaning.com

GreeN ANd NATurAl liviNG exPo

Sat., Sept. 19, 2009 10am-5pm Crowne Plaza Hotel, Timonium MD. Adults $7.00 Children/Seniors $5.00

This one day expo showcases over 40 companies with eco-friendly and natural products and services as well as seminars to create a more eco friendly lifestyle for you.

Exhibit Space is available call 443-379-0003 or visit our website www.greennaturalexpo.com

Parks & People is a non-profit organization that creates and supports educational, recreational and environmental programs and partnerships that unite the citizens and open spaces of Baltimore.

Stieff Silver Building, 800 Wyman Park Drive, Suite 010 Baltimore, MD 21211 www.parksandpeople.org

4.20.09 City Day Tour Recycling Center TBA

410-592-2597 • 410-913-5724

One-stop Green Shopping in Howard County Located off Rt. 32 at Rt. 108 in Clarksville, MD 5805 Clarksville Square Drive, Clarksville, MD 21029 443.535.9321 16800 Georgia Ave, Olney MD 20832 301-774-1344

GONE GREEN. First in our area!

Enviro Friendly $25 wash & wax auto detailing services.

Drop your car off for the services of your choice and we will call you when it is ready.

1325 Eastern Avenue, Fells Point 410-276-1845 www.nextlevelhandcarwaash.com

An environmentally conscious, family- friendly wellness studio in Northeast Baltimore. Our classes, healing modalities, and events cater to the need of the whole community.

From Farm to Table.Woodberry Kitchen features the seasonal best from local growers with an emphasis on natural meats and sustainable agriculture. Our goal is to nourish and delight our guests with cooking grounded in traditions and ingredients of the Chesapeake region.

4711 Harford Road, 2nd Floor 410-254-2786 www.greatsoulwellness.com

2010 Clipper Park Road, Baltimore, MD 21211 Phone: 410.464.8000 www.woodberrykitchen.com

BaltiMore Green Week 2009

Our food is simply, honest & healthy and is purpose w/infinite care and love. In our dedication to promoting a healthy life on a green planet. We proudly serve organic , local and chemical-free fruits, vegetables and grains, whenever available.

Feel good about yourself when you eat at one world cafe.

Sustainability Fair War Memorial Plaza, TBA 4.21.09 Climate Change Day Scientists and Politicians discuss the effects of global warming on the Chesapeake Bay Goucher College, Kelly Lecture Hall 6:30 p.m.

Tree Planting with TreeBaltimore, Druid Hill Park 4.22.09 Sustainable Food Day Food Labeling on the Farm TBD Vegetarianism w/ cooking demo Baltimore International College Auditorium, 6 p.m.

Happy Hour at Lemon Grass 8 p.m.

4.23.09 Green Jobs & Green Building Tour Baltimore’s Green Buildings Montgomery Park Departure, TBD Discussion on the importance of Green Jobs, Morgan State University Student Center, 3-5 p.m.

Baltimore Design Center and Morgan State University hold a neighborhood design discussion, 6-9 p.m., location TBD 4.24.09 Sustainable Art Opening & Happy Hour Towson Arts Collective, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

4.25.09 Religion & the Environment Religious organizations promote the environment and social justice Cathedral of the Incarnation, 10 a.m.

SUSTAINABLE SPEAKER SERIES BEGINS May 16th!

Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food comes to Baltimore!

For more information visit our website.

Sponsored by Baltimore Green Works and the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

For more information and event listings visit us at w w w . u r b a n i t e www.baltimoregreenworks.com. baltimore.com april 09

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In some places, the drinks stir you.

10 EXOTIC BOTANICALS FROM AROUND THE WORLD GIVE BOMBAY SAPPHIRE A REFINED, BALANCED TASTE.

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thespiritofexploration.com

BOMBAY SAPPHIRE IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK. ©2009 IMPORTED BY THE BOMBAY SPIRITS COMPANY U.S.A., MIAMI, FL. GIN - 47% ALC. BY VOL.

One&Only Palmilla, Mexico

Bombay Sapphire. Explore Responsibly.

67 Recipe

Swiss Chard Frittata

eat/dr ink

69 Reviewed

Restaurant Sabor and Indigma

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Wine & Spirits

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The Feed

The tribal love-rock beverage

This month in eating

A New Leaf Serious about eating local?

Better learn to love kale.

B y t r ace y middle k au f f p h oto g r ap h y b y la k a y e m b a h

I

t’s early July, and we can’t take it anymore. We’ve tried our best, but it’s just not working out. We must never, ever see anything green again.

My husband and I signed up for a summer’s worth of produce from One Straw Farm, an organic grower in White Hall.

For more than a month our fridge had been stocked with weekly installments of fresh Swiss chard, dinosaur kale, curly kale, romaine, cabbage, green leaf lettuce, and red leaf lettuce, punctuated with an occasional bunch of beets (yum), strawberries (wow!), or radishes (yuck).

And we ate every bit of it. We put it in soups, casseroles, and salads. We ate it sautéed, smothered, simmered, stuffed, baked, and broiled. But we longed for variety. For novelty. “Enough!” we said. No more greens.

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Now featuring a casual fare menu from $6-$18. flatbread pizza | angus beef hamburger steak frites | red kuri & chestnut risotto Mediterranean lamb burger | more!

Brunch Sundays (11am -4pm) Lunch Tuesday-Friday Dinner 7 days a week

Irish Pub

& Restaurant

Voted “Best Restaurant” 2006, 2007, 2008 - Baltimore Magazine.

921 East Fort Ave., Baltimore, MD 21230 at the Foundry on Fort Phone: 410.244.6166 | www.the-wine-market.com

Where can you pick up Urbanite for free?

Wegman’s in Hunt Valley

Mars at Padonia Village

122 Shawan Rd. Hunt Valley, MD 21030

15 E. Padonia Rd. Lutherville, MD 21093

Safeway in Howard County

Safeway in Canton

10000 Baltimore National Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21043

Here at Lucy’s Irish Pub, we have taken steps to reduce our Environmental Footprint on Mother Nature. We have begun replacing our harsh chemicals with Earth friendly versions made from natural elements like soy, we use compostable plastics made from corn and our cooking oils are recycled for bio-fuel production.

2610 Boston St. Baltimore, MD 21224

Visit www.urbanitebaltimore.com for a complete list of locations

Introductory 1-Hour Massage Session

10

*$

Lucy’s is Green…and Not Just Because We’re Irish!

With Your Support We can Continue our Efforts and make the World a Little ‘Greener’ for Tomorrows Irish Pubs!

Off Introductory Rate

Sunday Brunch 11 am - 2 pm

offer expires 4/30/09

$16.95 includes a delightful buffet and bottomless mimosas, bellinis and bloody marys

architecture

urban design

landscape

interiors

committed to building and rebuilding landmark projects in the city of baltimore

BEST ATTACHED COMMUNITY OF THE YEAR - 2009 National Association of Homebuilders

21 N. Eutaw St. Baltimore MD, 21201 410.837.2100 www.lucysirishrestaurant.com Opposite the main entrance of the Hippodrome Theatre

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The reality is, if you really want to do something good for yourself and the Earth by eating locally and seasonally—and joining a CSA is the perfect place to start—you have to take the good with the bad. That means if a late-spring downpour crusts over the soil and the arugula can’t break through … well, no arugula for you. You won’t get to eat heirloom tomato sandwiches in June, but boy, will you eat some beauties in August. Exorcising the spoiled consumer within also means being creative when faced with heaps of kohlrabi or fennel. But keep an open mind, and you may be surprised at how rewarding it can be.

After our aborted attempt at eating crap, we attacked our ration of greens with an improved attitude. As the weeks went by and yellow squash, basil, and zucchini gave way to broccoli, cauliflower, and hard squashes, we realized how connected to the seasons we felt. We took pride in concocting what we called “CSA-heavy” meals, using as many ingredients from the farm as possible. This led to some successes (African mixed greens stew, spaghetti squash gratin) and a few misses (the abominable black radish chips).

In late October, I journeyed up to One Straw Farm to get a closer look at farm life.

When I arrived at the white farmhouse, Joan Norman was on hand to show me around. I tasted fresh peppers—the juiciest I’ve ever had—and picked berries off the vine from the greenhouse. I was put to work picking and bundling mustard greens in the field.

As I looked around at the acres of greens, it suddenly hit home that this, right here, was where my food had been coming from for the last five months. Before joining the CSA, I, like most people, didn’t really think about how food got into the grocery store and onto my plate. It just kind of magically showed up.

Now my food had personality, a backstory. It got to my plate thanks to a lot of hard work, and, as corny as it sounds, love. And I couldn’t imagine disrespecting the food— much less the people who grew, picked, packed, and delivered it—by wasting it or throwing it in the garbage.

The season ended in November, and over the winter we continued to buy locally whenever possible. But it’s just not the same. We miss our weekly allotment of vegetables from the farm. I know that this spring I’ll get sick of kale again and whine when things don’t go my way—it’s just my nature. Nonetheless, I can’t wait for June to roll around: Bring on the greens. ■ —Tracey Middlekauff wrote about sampling a variety of group exercise classes in the October 2008 issue.

eat/drink reCiPe

So we did what any childish adults would do. We rebelled. We went to the grocery store and piled our cart with every disgusting thing that came in a box or a bag: egg rolls, jalapeño poppers, cheese enchiladas, stuffed shells, bean burritos. Nothing green—everything was a glorious shade of beige. And thus began a doomed orgy of microwave dinners.

Our foray into the world of communitysupported agriculture (CSA) had started with the most earnest of intentions. While working on writing an (ill-fated) eco-guidebook, I had caught the green fever. We replaced all our light bulbs, bought shade-grown coffee, timed our showers so as not to waste water. I fretted over my carbon footprint.

Next step was to join a CSA. The concept is simple: Before the growing season (sometimes during, for a reduced rate), you buy a share of the expected harvest from a local farmer. In 1990, there were just fifty CSAs in the United States; today, there are more than 2,000. We chose One Straw Farm, Maryland’s largest and oldest organic farm, run by Joan and Drew Norman. For $485, we’d receive eight items a week, June through November.

We were so proud of ourselves. We’d be supporting local farmers! Saving the world! We could actually walk to our weekly pick-up site and carry our produce home in bags made from recycled plastic bottles—the very picture of eco-virtue. Eat it, Ed Begley Jr.!

That first week, we weren’t daunted by all those greens. But then came week two … and three … and four. You know the rest. What was going on? I checked the harvest chart on the farm’s website. Where were our zucchini?

Our cucumbers? I wanted my snap peas. According to Joan’s farm diary, the profusion of greens had something to do with rain, or cold, or groundhogs. Also, it turns out that One Straw Farm is in the Hereford Zone, which can get colder than York, Pennsylvania. Whatever! I’m not the farmer, I figured—can’t you just grow what I want?

Flash forward to our mushy microwave feasts. Given all our grousing, you’d think we would have enjoyed this junk-food detour, but instead we just felt sick, bloated, and cranky. We realized that even though we had gotten bored with the same vegetables week after week, all those green-tastic meals were healthy, nutritious, and pretty darn yummy.

What was wrong with us? Couldn’t we be satisfied with anything? We were acting greedy, spoiled, selfish, and conveniencecrazed. In other words, we were being typical American consumers.

After all, we Americans are used to getting what we want whenever we want it.

Strawberries in December? Corn on the cob in February? No problem—just fly it in from Argentina. I want a blueberry, and I want it now. And if we don’t like it, we toss it away.

One federal study claims that each American throws out a pound of edible food each day.

Swiss Chard Frittata Each Sunday, we used all our leftover vegetables from the week in a frittata. This easy Swiss chard one turned out to be our hands-down favorite, and it goes wonderfully with whole grain toast, (vegetarian) bacon, and a mimosa. And the leftovers make a great lunch the next day.

1 bunch Swiss chard (about 10 leaves, stalks discarded) cleaned, dried, and roughly chopped ½ medium or 1 small yellow onion, chopped 3–4 cloves garlic (or to taste), minced 8–10 oz. cubed pepperjack cheese 6–8 eggs (cage free, of course) whipped with 1 tbs milk or half-and-half 2–3 glugs of extra-virgin olive oil Salt and pepper to taste Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a 12-inch ovenproof skillet, slightly brown the onions in olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 or 2 minutes. Add the chard and sauté until wilted, about 5 minutes.

Distribute the ingredients evenly over the pan and then pour the eggs over top.

Gently lift chard with a spatula to allow some of the egg to flow evenly underneath; after this, DO NOT TOUCH. You don’t want scrambled eggs.

When the edges of the frittata begin to cook—after about 2 minutes—gently add half of the cheese, distributing it evenly. In about a minute, place the pan in the oven. After about 5 minutes the eggs will begin to set; add the rest of the cheese.

Cook for another 5 minutes or until the eggs reach desired firmness. Let rest for a few minutes before serving.

—T.M.

To join a CSA for the 2009 season or find more CSA farms in your area, go to www. localharvest.org.

Web extra: See this recipe being prepared at www.urbanitebaltimore.com. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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an old fashioned neighborhood grocery store, organic farmers market, gourmet specialty shop, European bakery, & supermarket all rolled in one. We are Whole Foods Market™ the leading natural foods grocer in the country & we are right in your neighborhood! harbor east 1001 fleet st.

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photo by La Kaye Mbah

Restaurant Sabor

Taste maker: Sabor chef/owner Roddy Domacassé

Lutherville isn’t the last place in the world one would expect Puerto Rican food, but it’s probably on the short list. Nevertheless, here’s Restaurant Sabor, freshly opened in the Land Rover-intensive shopping center off Padonia Road that houses the upscale Graul’s Market. Sabor marks the ownership debut of chef Rodolfo “Roddy” Domacassé, a native of Puerto Rico and a veteran of several area kitchens known more for classical French fare; he cooked at the now-closed Brasserie Tatin, as well as Linwood’s and Rudy’s 2900.

He seems to sense that the burghers of Baltimore County have only a limited interest in his home island’s cuisine, and Sabor, despite the Spanish moniker and a handful of Latinspiced touches on the menu, is really a comfy and conservative Continental-style operation, complete with calf ’s liver and duck confit, carefully constructed cream sauces, and a peaceful dining room that locals have already adopted as an aprés-field-hockey-practice clubhouse.

Domacassé’s roots show up in a Friday special of roast pork, a Sunday special of “Puerto Rican lasagna” (with queso blanco and plantains), and in such appetizers as pork “pansita,” a plush arrangement of pork belly slices with fried plantain chips and

wine-braised cabbage. A house salad also gets a crispy smattering of plantain fragments.

But other dishes taste like they could have been on the plate at Brasserie Tatin—not necessarily a bad thing. A rockfish special, draped with wintry bacon-flecked beurre blanc and sided with Brussels sprouts and potatoes Lyonnaise, is impressively fresh, if a bit overwrought. More refined are seared scallops paired with truffle-scented risotto and velvety nantua sauce, an elaborate brandiedlobster-butter concoction that doesn’t turn up on many menus this millennium.

If all these luxo ingredients seem a little pre-recessionary, note that Sabor keeps the price point under control. It’s BYOB, for one thing (there’s a $5 corkage fee and a liquor store next door). And some of its greatest pleasures are notably affordable. Gossamer-thin house-fried potato chips dosed with earthy truffle salt appear as an addictive amusebouche, and Sabor serves French fries that put the corner bar to shame—slim, skin-on, and so puffingly light that they all but levitate from plate to mouth. (Dinner daily, lunch Wed–Fri, brunch Sat and Sun. 12240 Tullamore Rd.; 410628-7227; www.restaurantsabor.com.)

reviewed

eat/drink

—David Dudley

While the enigmatic name doesn’t reveal much about what’s in store, the pomegranatehued dining room might be a helpful metaphor. Once you’ve made it through a foyer that could just as easily lead to a suite of dentists’ offices, you’ll settle into a banquette surrounded by golden dancing stags, shimmering draperies, and candlelight glinting off mirrors. The décor remains much as it did when owner Tony Chemmanoor opened the first incarnation of Saffron in this Mount Vernon space. (An interim version of Saffron was overseen by celebrated though mercurial chef Edward Kim.) And that initial concept— an upscale Indian-styled mash-up with local flavors—still works.

The menu features an array of seemingly standard Indian dishes—including fiery masala and garlicky vindaloo, cubes of lamb and chewy naan bejeweled by ingredients you won’t find at the neighborhood carry-out.

Fresh pea soup is bright green and creamy, laced with ginger and fried shallots, and crab soup has a Thai twist of coconut, curry, and chiles. Malabar fish curry uses salmon filets in the spicy South Indian-inspired broth.

You’ll find a masala made with grilled portabella, fried pakora made with avocado, and an open-faced samosa that upends the typical deep-fried pastry—potato chunks sweetened with mango, topped with fried spinach as delicate as tissue paper.

The romantic dining room, piping in jazzy lounge music, is unfortunately and undeservedly under-populated, considering the tantalizing menu and thoughtful wine list (half-price on Wednesdays). For locals who don’t hail from South Asia, the notion of Indian food may be limited to the menus jammed in the mail slot. But Indigma takes the whole thing up a notch, with its creative fusion menu that includes flavors comforting to more mainstream Western palates. If you’re in doubt, try the galub jamun dessert, which offers a New England twist on the traditional deep-fried ball of cake; here, the usual rosewater-flavored syrup is swapped for the maple kind. (Dinner Tues–Sun, lunch Tues–Fri, brunch Sat and Sun. 802 N. Charles St.; 410605-1212; www.indigmarestaurant.com.)

—Martha Thomas

photo by La Kaye Mbah

Indigma

Opening act: Indigma kicks classic Indian fare up a notch, as in this bhara puri appetizer.

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reasons to try us out

1 Contemporary, Luxurious Atmosphere 2 New American Cuisine with French Flair 3 Five Spiced Beef Short Ribs 4 Open for Lunch 5 Fricassee of Escargot 6 Renowned Chefs 7 Prixe Fixe Daily $30 8 Handmade Eclair & Truffles 9 Downtown Location 10 Free Valet Parking Friday & Saturday

Lunch Tuesday - Friday 1 1:30 am - 2:00 pm Dinner Tuesday - Saturday 5:00 pm - close Happy Hour Tuesday - Friday 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm 10 South Calvert Street Baltimore Maryland 21202 urbanite_1_09

Art on Purpose is presenting 9 exhibitions in 2009 featuring art by Denise Tassin alongside works by hundreds of students from 13 Baltimore area colleges and universities. Join us in exploring the innate creativity that comes with being human! Opening in April: University of MD Baltimore County

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1/26/09

www.brasserie10south.com 410.528.8994 12:54 PM

Page 1

Red, White, and Green What happens when wine goes organic? By Clinton Macsherry

F

orty years ago next month, the Fifth Dimension’s hit single “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” began its ascent to the top of the charts. A revival of the 1967 musical Hair, from which the song was taken, opened last month on Broadway (and a local production debuts at MICA’s BBOX performance space this month). If you’re into convergences, harmonic or otherwise, this may tell you something. To me, it suggests just how old the New Age phenomenon has grown.

“New Age” ostensibly refers to the ongoing transition from the astrological Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. (Buckle up, by the way, because 2011 and 2012 should be key years in the dawning.) But the term—popularized in the 1970s as a sort of gauzily spiritual counterculture movement—has always been somewhat of a misnomer, since so many of the motley threads it weaves together date back to ancient practices and belief systems.

The study of astrology, for example, goes all the way to the Babylonians of the second millennium B.C. Astrology was (ahem) eclipsed by astronomy following the Scientific Revolution, but it enjoyed a renaissance in the 20th century, and early New-Agers took it pretty seriously. Before the original Hair hit the stage, its producers consulted a “company astrologer” on casting decisions.

Stargazing denizens of the wine world have embraced the New Age through biodynamic viticulture, which layers celestial guidance and Earth Mother mysticism onto the precepts that underpin organic farming. First propounded in the 1920s by the Austrian philosopher and New Age icon Rudolf Steiner, biodynamics conceives of farms and vineyards as discrete, self-sustaining organisms with direct relationships to the cosmos.

Key steps in planting, nourishing, and harvesting these individual ecosystems must be aligned with cycles of the moon.

The soil is considered a living entity to which only organic elements should be added; chemical fertilizers and pesticides are deemed both biologically and spiritually deficient.

Biodynamic farmers must master the preparation and application of

nine homeopathic treatments for their land, including one that calls for burying manurefilled cattle horns during the fall equinox.

It’s easy to get sidetracked by the mystical (or kooky, depending on your perspective) aspects of biodynamics and overlook what even skeptics acknowledge as strengths of the approach. If nothing else, biodynamics demands a pretty rigorous effort on the part of the farmer to establish and maintain a close connection to the land. An international certifying body has trademarked the term “biodynamic,” and to make the grade, a property must be free of nonorganic substances for at least three years and farmed under biodynamic principles for two. Biodiversity is encouraged, not suppressed as it is in conventional viticulture, because birds, “beneficial” insects, and certain cover crops are integral to non-chemical pest management. McNab Ranch, for example, a certified biodynamic farm in California’s Mendocino County, deploys free-range chickens to devour cutworms, a common vineyard pest. In the process, the chickens help fertilize the soil naturally. Biodynamics in many ways rebels against industrial, drive-by farming and virtually mandates the painstaking care associated with artisanal production.

Wines made from biodynamically or organically grown grapes don’t necessarily come cheap. (Organic farming largely overlaps biodynamic practice, minus the cattle horn stuff.) But with options on the upswing—about thirty-five certified biodynamic and more than 150 certified organic vineyards and wineries in the United States alone, with more on the way—there are some happy exceptions. Bonterra Vineyards Viognier 2006 ($16), made from a combination of biodynamic and organic grapes, shows an ultraclear pale gold. Its white flower and grapefruit rind scent carries notes of spice, musk, and matchstick. Medium- to full-bodied with a clean, fleshy mouthfeel, it handsomely balances flavors of apricot, melon, peach, and pink grapefruit with honey tones, soft-hipped acidity, and a hint of mineral on the long finish.

I can’t say I discern any specific traits the grape-growing regimen may have imparted, but I love this Viognier’s outgoing nature.

That figures: I’m a Leo. ■

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wine & SPiritS

eat/drink

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BUYING into

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Girl Scouts of Central Maryland presents the annual...

Distinguished Women’s Award Reception April 30, 2009, 5:30 – 8 p.m. at the Baltimore Country Club at Roland Park

Join us as we honor five amazing Maryland women:

Laura B. Black Entrepreneur & Community Leader

Carmen Oritz Larsen CEO & Founder, AQUAS, Inc.

Call 410.358.9711 for tickets

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Sharon R. Pinder

Paula R. Singer

President & CEO, President & CEO, The Pinder Group, LLC Laureate Online

Education

Jenny J. Trostel Vice President, Anderson of Hunt Valley

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the feed

eat/drink

This Month in Eating Compiled by Martha Thomas Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Festival This boozy roadshow’s annual Maryland stop features unlimited samplings of sixty varieties of beer and forty bourbons, plus barbecue-eating, cigar-smoking, and a chance to win your weight in beer. If it sounds like too much testosterone, ladies note: There’s a contest for Ms. Bar-B-Cutie. $30–$40 in advance, $35 onsite, $20 designated driver; kids younger than 12 free. Noon­–6 p.m.

April 4 Timonium Fairgrounds 2200 York Rd. www.beerandbourbon.com

Peep Show What began as a tongue-in-cheek spin-off of an annual Washington Post competition for art made with squishy marshmallow chicks has grown to include more than a hundred exhibitors. Last year’s projects included an Egyptian pyramid alongside the Nile constructed by students at the North Carroll Community School and a “Peep-cock” mosaic in the shape of a peacock. Carroll County Arts Council Executive Director Sandy Oxx says that Peep construction often doesn’t require any glue: “The sugary marshmallow is a perfect adhesive.” Open to the public 10 a.m.–6 p.m. daily. Free.

April 17–24 Carroll Arts Center 91 W. Main St., Westminster 410-848-7272 www.carrollcountyartscouncil.org

Green Drinks for the Chesapeake Bay Green Drinks Annapolis is one of 430 chapters of an international organization of eco-minded folks who meet over drinks once a month. The group celebrates Earth Day by joining up with other Chesapeake Bay-area Green Drinks groups in an attempt to break an attendance record of 1,800 set in Australia in 2008—and to raise awareness of Bay restoration and protectection efforts. At various locations; the Annapolis group meets at the Severn Inn, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Free; cash bar.

April 22 Severn Inn, Annapolis 1993 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. www.annapolisgreen.com

Highlandtown Wine Festival Every year, Highlandtown’s winemakers eagerly enter their homemade vino in the annual competition—one bottle for the judges and a gallon for what organizers describe as “not a subdued crowd.” There’s also a bocce competition, food from Di Pasquale’s and Delio, and music by the Cold-Cold Heartbreakers, led by Rodney Henry of Dangerously Delicious Pies. $25, $20 in advance; free for kids younger than 21. 1 p.m.–6 p.m.

April 26 Our Lady of Pompei Church Convent Garden 3600 Claremont St. www.highlandtown.com

Fresh Thoughts Seafood Dining Series Organizers of this three-part series hope to educate seafood consumers about sustainability, thus helping to save our finned (and segmented) friends. This month’s installment, the second in the series, features a presentation and locally farmed shrimp from Marvesta Shrimp in Hurlock, Maryland, grilled onsite by the Classic Catering People. 6:30 p.m.–9 p.m. $65 members, $75 nonmembers.

April 29 National Aquarium in Baltimore 501 E. Pratt St. Call 410-576-3869 for reservations www.aqua.org

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APRIL 14 - 26 Hippodrome Theatre

BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com • 410.547.SEAT • Hippodrome Theatre Box Office (Mon-Sat 10a-5p) Groups (10+) call 866.577.7469 • To learn more visit myspace.com/BaltimoreHippodrome

Due to the nature of live entertainment; times, dates, prices and performers are subject to change without notice. All patrons, regardless of age, must have a ticket. No refunds or exchanges. Tickets subject to service charges and handling fees.

art/culture middle Ground

A last, lingering look at a neighborhood unmade

Villains or heroes? If you talk about the redevelopment juggernaut that is East Baltimore Development Inc. (EBDI), you’d better choose a side.

The nonprofit partnership, founded in 2003, is either boldly re-inventing the desperately blighted East Side with a massive $1.8 billion facelift or cavalierly bulldozing the historic fabric of a low-income community in the name of business-friendly poor-people removal.

It’s the latter perspective that dominates Middle East Baltimore Stories, a photography/oral history project created by the community arts nonprofit Art on Purpose in partnership with SMEAC, the Save Middle East Action Committee. SMEAC has led the battle to hold EBDI accountable to promises that the “New East Side” adjoining Johns Hopkins’ medical campus will include displaced residents who used to live in the old one.

Art on Purpose Program Director Beth Barbush taped more than thirty audio interviews with residents and others impacted by the EBDI project, then photographed them in their homes or on the razed sites of the former residences. The resulting document, released this month both

BY DAVID DUDLEY

PHOTOGRAPH BY BETH BARBUSH

77 THEATER

81 BOOK

79 MUSIC

83 THE SCENE

Martha Thomas on Smolder and Souvenir

Rob Goszkowski on the Grilled Lincolns

Susan McCallum-Smith on Life Sentences

This month’s cultural highlights

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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urbanite april 09

WYNDHURST STATION IN

ROLAND PARK

Wyndhurst Avenue between Roland Avenue & Charles Street Free Parking

Owned and Managed By

—David Dudley is Urbanite’s editor-in-chief.

The East Side Stories exhibit at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum (830 E. Pratt St.) also includes photographs by Ellis Marsalis III, Ken Royster, and Michela Caudill; it runs April 25–July 26. The book Middle East Baltimore Stories is available at the museum gift shop and by calling SMEAC at 410-522-3360.

art/culture

photo by Kevin Sprague, courtesy of Berkshire Theatre Festival

in book form and in the exhibition East Side Stories: Portraits of a Baltimore Neighborhood, Then and Now at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, doesn’t pretend to be a work of balanced journalism; SMEAC is a full partner in the project, so pro-EBDI voices are notably absent.

But even as a kind of community agitprop, it is a powerful work, anchored by Barbush’s soulful black-and-white images of a neighborhood fighting, and losing, its war on progress.

“Our goal was to really get at what people experienced,” Barbush says.

It’s also a useful primer on the deeper background of the current controversy. In interviews, longtime residents movingly recall Middle East’s vanished heyday. Middle-class African American homeowners who arrived on the heels of the fleeing German and Eastern Europeans built a tightly stitched urban village in the East Baltimore of the 1950s and 1960s, and those memories persisted after the neighborhood fell into ruin. One can also see the seeds of EBDI’s culture clash with the community. Long before the project was on the drawing board, the predominantly black residents who lived in the encroaching shadow of Johns Hopkins (a partner in EBDI, along with the Casey Foundation, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and others) viewed the medical goliath with unease and suspicion. When the bulldozers came—and questions from residents about everything from construction dust to whether they would ever be allowed to come home were left unanswered—it was all too easy for the situation to get ugly.

Barbush doesn’t delve too deeply into the tangled politics still playing out among the many stakeholders in Middle East or explore the promise that the unfinished project holds.

But she does capture something equally important: the human face of what we used to call urban renewal. As history so often reminds us, well-intentioned efforts to uplift troubled communities carry unintended consequences, and advocates of development projects would benefit from seeing and hearing these accounts of lives upended in the name of revitalization. “How do you make progress without screwing over the little guy?” one resident asks. Just because there’s no readily apparent answer doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think long and hard about the question. ■

Songbird: The real-life tale of the off-key but determined singer Florence Foster Jenkins (played by Judy Kaye, with Donald Corren as her longtime accompanist, Cosme McMoon) comes to Center Stage in Souvenir.

t h e at e r

Love in Vain

Smolder at the Strand Theater Company, April 9–26 Souvenir at Center Stage, April 24–May 24

Local playwright Julie Lewis’ Smolder, the Strand Theater Company’s new production, is a jaded look at unrequited love.

After Sylvia, an over-confident and cutthroat music publicist, is badly scarred in a fire, she becomes reclusive and agoraphobic. She increasingly depends on her building superintendent, Reno, who has long worshiped her. Slowly the tables turn, and as Sylvia’s adoration for Reno grows, she begins to repel him.

Meantime, Sylvia’s formerly timid assistant takes on her employer’s abrasive edge, and Sylvia’s boyfriend tries to visit her, proclaiming his love in spite of her disfigurement. The story is told in simultaneous past and present, with two actors playing each character.

“If there’s a theme in the play,” says Lewis, an assistant professor of theater at the Community College of Baltimore County’s Essex campus, “it’s unrequited love. Does it have any substance at all?

If one person obsesses over another, can the relationship have any truth?” There is no moment when Sylvia and Reno love each other equally, although at one point, the Reno of the past and the Sylvia of the present utter similar declarations of devotion.

Delusional passion is also a theme of Souvenir at Center Stage. The two-person musical is about diva Florence Foster Jenkins’ unrequited love for music—or, depending on how you look at it, for herself. Foster was a real-life socialite in the 18th and 19th centuries who financed her own singing career, although by all accounts, her voice was excruciating. As one critic said, Jenkins “wanted to sing in the worst way. And boy, did she ever.”

Her audiences were so amused that they encouraged her to keep it up.

The story is told as a flashback from the point of view of Jenkins’ long-suffering accompanist, Cosme McMoon. The Center Stage production is a transplant of the 2005 Broadway original, with Judy Kaye as Florence and Donald Corren as McMoon.

—Martha Thomas For tickets to Smolder, call 443-8744917 or go to www.strandtheater company.org.

For tickets to Souvenir, call 410-3320033 or go to www.centerstage.org. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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I used to flash gang signs at the bowling alley.

Just ask Dave, pop music can make you do things you wouldn’t normally do. If you or someone you know has a pop addiction, there is hope. WTMD 89.7. STOP THE POP INSANITY.

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LIstener supporteD raDIo from towson unIversIty

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photo by Danny Murray

bleed: 9.25"w x 11.375"h colors: 4CP

Mashup: The G-Linx (from left to right: Jeremy Ragsdale, Mike Bakke, Riddie Becker, Andy Hall, and Rob Dubois) mingle funk, blues, and hip-hop.

MUSiC

Kings of the Road

The Grilled Lincolns at the 8X10, April 18

Far from Baltimore’s celebrated noise-rock scene roam lunch-pail party rockers like the Grilled Lincolns, indie outsiders who gig hard, put on a good show, and never take themselves too seriously. The five-member band blend funk and blues and toss it in the ring with pop, hip-hop, and a bit of comedy. The result entertains crowds to the tune of nearly 200 gigs per year.

Like any road act worth its wheels, the “G-Linx” will go anywhere for a show—in the fall, they played for troops at Thule Air Base in Greenland as part of an Armed Forces Entertainment tour; this spring, they’re headed to military bases in the South Pacific. Closer to home, the band anchors the sixth MammoJam Music Festival, a fundraiser for breast cancer research, at the 8X10 in Federal Hill on April 18. The Lincolns have long been a fixture at the annual benefit shows, filling the closing spot on the bill at five of the last six MammoJams. For lead singer/guitarist Riddie Becker, who lost his mother to breast cancer when he was young, this is more than just another gig. MammoJam organizer Bill Romani, a friend of Becker’s, was inspired to launch the charity concert series after seeing the turnout for the first G-Linx show in Baltimore in 2003.

Born in a dingy Salisbury University basement in 2000, the band possesses something of a split personality. They’re known both for jokey, rap-funk workouts about onthe-road-hijinks and weekend debauchery (among them “Hit It From the Side,” an overthe-top R&B homage to an underrated sexual position) and for earnest, soul-baring rockers like “Green Light.” Holding the mix together is some serious musicianship, honed by relentless gigging. The current lineup includes Towson University music professor and Berk-

art/culture lee grad Jeremy Ragsdale on keyboards, with rapper and percussionist Andy Hall (stage name Big S.L.O.P.), drummer Rob “Raw B” Dubois, and bassist Mike “Tron” Bakke.

Their first two albums, 2005’s Raised by Wolves and 2007’s The Roaring 20’s, swerved between purposeful pop and get-drunk hiphop. This winter, the band holed up in the studio for a third, the first with Hall and Ragsdale as full-time members. With Ragsdale’s technical prowess and soulful, jazz-trained voice and Hall’s lyrical acrobatics blended with the band’s willingness to try anything, one thing seems likely: that heads listening will alternately nod to the beat and shake with amused disbelief.

—Rob Goszkowski The Grilled Lincolns will perform with Trombone Shorty, Nelly’s Echo, and Janine Wilson at the sixth annual MammoJam Music Festival at the 8X10 (10 E. Cross St.). $40 in advance, $50 at door.

Go to www.mammojammusicfestival.org for more info. Urbanite is a sponsor of this event.

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art/culture

BOOk

Urban Myths

Life Sentences by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins, 2009)

“Why do you get to write the story?” a reader asks a memoirist at a book signing during the opening scene of Life Sentences, Laura Lippman’s terrific new novel. The lack of italics highlights Lippman’s craft, because the reader could be querying the author’s right to be the bearer of news (why do you get to write the story?), or her right to spill the beans (why do you get to write the story?), or even the veracity of the story itself, because truth in memoir often conforms to the author’s perception of self, regardless of the facts.

The author in question is the manipulative and confessional Cassandra Fallows. Attractive, 50ish, and with two divorces behind her, Cassandra has returned to her hometown of Baltimore because “she had run out of life.” Having already plundered her parents’ past and her own to provide juicy fodder for her earlier books, she casts around for new material and discovers that one of her fourthgrade school friends had been arrested more than twenty years before, following the disappearance of her child. Questioning failed to reveal the whereabouts of the boy, because Calliope Jenkins had taken the Fifth. Calliope served seven silent years in prison, then dropped out of sight.

As the characters’ names indicate, Life Sentences rewards a re-acquaintance with Greek mythology. Cassandra, intrigued by the narrative potential of this apparent transformation of “Quiet Callie to a modern-day Medea,” traces other friends, many of whom are less than thrilled to see her. Despite the

intervening decades, these women are still shackled by the hierarchical relationships formed back in the playground, where “Tisha looked to Donna, Fatima and Cassandra looked to Tisha, and sad little Callie followed at Fatima’s heels …” Cassandra was the only white girl in this clique, the repercussions of which she is often naively unaware.

One of the joys of reading Lippman is you never sense her limbering up. Like What the Dead Know (2007), her most accomplished novel to date, Life Sentences unfolds swiftly and dishes double delight for local readers because its Baltimore setting is so familiar and deftly drawn. It’s also refreshing to read a nuanced depiction of the black middle class. Lippman weaves her themes— race, power, the mysterious nature of self— into the mystery like a wily Penelope, keeping the reader entranced but at bay. Some of her stitches are small, the characters numerous and similarly named, and not every part of her intricate design is explicitly revealed in the final tapestry.

Lippman has fun writing about a writer, a writer obliged to feign enthusiastic encouragement with every fan who confesses to be

working on a novel. She skewers the tendency of some memoirs to buckle under blinkered self-absorption and bestows on Cassandra that creepy habit (oops, I recognize it) of perching slit-eyed amongst friends and family like a vulture primed for fresh literary pickings, happy to toy with any old entrails, any old “memory to poke and prod.” Lippman grants her a talent for grudges, too; it is “a useful quality for the memoirist,” the ability to recall “every slight, no matter how small.”

Like those careless, vindictive Greek gods who once seduced mortals and played roulette with their offspring, powerful forces align to tip Calliope’s fate toward tragedy.

Cassandra and Calliope mirror their namesakes and complement each other; one is prophetic and mouthy, whose words came in “like a full set of teeth,” while the other is as beautiful as a muse but “not much good at telling things.” They gyre closer through the novel, possible adversaries or possible allies, learning to hone their voices, each reclaiming the right to tell her own story, even if it may not be entirely, verifiably true.

—Susan McCallum-Smith

a C O n v e r S at i O n w i t h L a U r a L i P P M a n In late February, Susan McCallum-Smith, Urbanite’s literary editor, chatted with Lippman about the story behind her latest book.

Q: The inspiration for Life Sentences was an incident in Baltimore’s past.

Are you ferreting around through old police records?

A: A lot of it is from memory. In this case, I was here working and living in Baltimore when Jackie Bouknight [the inspiration for the character of Calliope Jenkins] was asked repeatedly where her son was, and she refused to tell anyone and invoked the Constitutional protection against self-incrimination [the Fifth Amendment]. And I was here when she was finally released. I ran into one of my old colleagues from the Baltimore Sun. She had just had an encounter with Jackie Bouknight in the courthouse, and it had left her with chills. And I started thinking about that case again. It’s a fascinating case.

Q: It certainly is.

A: And not well known.

Q: Your spine was tingling with trying to imagine why a woman would do such a thing?

A: What could the circumstances be? What would be an interesting story to tell? And as soon as I decide I’m going to answer one of these real-life mysteries—what happened to the missing child, what happened to the missing Lyon sisters [the inspiration for What the Dead Know]—I always try to tell readers at that moment that I’ve broken with real life.

Now I’m off on my own. I’m not pretending to provide you with answers that fit the real-life model. I’m doing the work of fiction, and fiction has shape, fiction has answers, fiction has form. I’m really, actually, uninterested in the real-life story.

Web extra: To read the rest of the interview, go to www.urbanitebaltimore.com.

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Discover The Irish Shrine & Railroad Workers Museum Maryland’s only memorial to Irish immigration honors the tens of thousands who relocated to Baltimore to escape the Great Famine of the mid-1800s.

The Irish Shrine consists of two historically restored alley houses built in 1848 to provide homes for workers of the B & O Railroad. One house is furnished as a period museum, reflecting the lives of the Irish-immigrant family who lived there in the 1860s. The other offers changing exhibits, a film, photos and writings about the Irish immigrant experience, and a memorial garden.

Houses are open Saturdays from 11am to 2pm and admission is free.

Take a free Irish heritage walking tour for a fascinating glimpse of Irish life in southwest Baltimore in the 1840’s. Tour the Irish Shrine, St. Peter the Apostle Church, Hollins Street Market, a local Irish pub and St. Peter’s Cemetery.

Register by emailing tours@irishshrine.org or call 410-669-8154.

Visit our website for tour dates and times.

918 - 920 Lemmon Street (one block from the B &O Railroad Museum) • www.irishshrine.org 82

A project of the Railroad Historical District Corporation. Made possible through generous support from the Maryland Historic Trust, u r b a n i the t e Municipal a p r i l 0 9Arts Society and the Maryland Historical Society. A Baltimore City Historic District ~ Eligible for National Register of Historic Places

THE SCENE: APRIL INDIE MUSIC

THEATER

Two-fer

Enter Hippies

Get out your dancin’ sneakers: Remix duo Simian Mobile Disco play Sonar on April 25 to herald long-running dance party Tax-Lo’s 7th anniversary. D.C. native Ian Svenonius (formerly of Nation of Ulysses and The Make-up, among others) and his new band, Chain and the Gang, celebrate the release of their first album, Down with Liberty ... Up with Chains!, at the Talking Head Club (now part of Sonar) on April 28.

(407 E. Saratoga St.; 410-783-7888; www. sonarbaltimore.com) CLASSICAL MUSIC

Sure Handed

Renowned pianist, conductor, and Baltimorean Leon Fleisher conducts the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor. Fleisher was the subject of the Oscar-nominated 2006 documentary Two Hands, about his eventual victory over focal dystonia, a neurological condition that caused the fingers on his right hand to curl into a fist. April 16. (1 E. Mt. Vernon Pl.; 410659-8100 ext. 2; www.peabody.jhu.edu)

Rock and Ravel

Pop meets classical in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony With a Twist series finale, Romeo and Radiohead.

Pianist Christopher O’Riley plays selections from classical works such as Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, plus his transcriptions for piano of songs by English rockers Radiohead. O’Riley has also transcribed music by Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, and Nirvana. April 24 at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane in Bethesda, and April 25 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral Street. (410-783-8000; www. bsomusic.org)

The pioneering “tribal love-rock musical” Hair celebrated forty years of letting the sun shine in last year. Maryland Institute College of Art students, faculty, and staff mark the play’s Broadway revival by making it their inaugural musical production in the new BBOX performance space, in the Gateway Building. April 14–19. (1601 Mt. Royal Ave.; 410-225-2350; www.mica.edu)

For Art’s Sake

Forteez Bluntz Chickenhedz ’N’ Uva Necessateez, by Maryland playwright Bashi Rose, is about two homeless African American poets, a father and son, struggling to be productive artists and save a female member of their family from becoming a “chickenhead,” or a woman who lacks direction and self-esteem. Baltimore hip-hop artist Labtekwon opens. April 2 and 3 at the Creative Alliance. (3134 Eastern Ave.; 410-276-1651; www.creativealliance.org)

One-Man Will

Performance Workshop Theatre, a local theater arts training school and company, performs Ages of Man, a one-man show of sonnets and monologues performed by trained Shakespearean Marc Horwitz, named best actor by City Paper in 2008.

Based on the bard’s famed “Ages of Man” monologue from As You Like It (“All the world’s a stage ...”), the piece earned author and British actor Sir John Gielgud a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy. April 3–5 and 10–11.

(28 E. Ostend St.; 410-659-7830; www.performanceworkshoptheatre.org) DANCE

Animal Action

D.C.-based professional company CityDance prowls and prances across the stage of the Meyerhoff in Jungle Books, their original, kid-friendly adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s

art/culture classic. (The BSO will not perform.) April 25. (1212 Cathedral St.; 410-783-8000; www. bsomusic.org) VISUAL ART

Persian Posters

Nahid Tootoonchi, assistant professor in Towson University’s department of art and design, has curated an exhibit of contemporary Iranian poster art called Beneath the Surface. It demonstrates how Iranian artists are beginning to bridge the gap between the country’s conservative past and more global present. Through April 18. (Towson University Center for the Arts gallery, 8000 York Rd.; www.towson.edu/centerforthearts) FILM

Life on the Set

Get a sneak peek into the craft of filmmaking when Johns Hopkins University film and media instructors John Mann, Matt Porterfield, Doug Sadler, and Karen Yasinsky screen and discuss their work at Hopkins. April 16; reception follows screening. (3400 N. Charles St.; 410-516-5048; web.jhu.edu/film_media) FESTIVAL

Leading Edge

The sixth annual Transmodern Festival floods parts of the H&H building, the Lexington Market area, and the Seton Hill neighborhood with experimental and avant-garde performances, music, art, video, theater, and more. Highlights of the critically acclaimed event include a human-scale foosball game and the release of pop/electronica musician Dan Deacon’s new album. April 2–5. (www. transmodernfestival.org)

Sign of the Season

The North Avenue arts district erupts into the Station North Spring Music Festival on April 25, featuring free performances by twenty local and regional musicians, plus a

Glitterama burlesque show and a fashion show (admission fees for shows). Area venues such as Joe Squared Pizza, the Windup Space, and the Zodiac will open their doors for food, beer, and dancing. (http://station northspringfestival.blogspot.com) LITERARY

The Write Stuff

The sixth annual CityLit Festival is a writer and reader’s paradise, bringing national and local authors to the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library for panel discussions, readings, and a marketplace of ’zines and books. Sponsored by literary nonprofit CityLit Project, the one-day event culminates in readings from 2008 National Book Awardwinning poet Mark Doty and 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz. April 18. Urbanite is a sponsor of this event. (400 Cathedral St.; www.citylitfestival.org)

Book Club Rx

On April 28, Urbanite’s literary editor, Susan McCallum-Smith, gives a crash course in spicing up book clubs and holding meaningful discussions about books, as part of Roland Park Country School’s continuingeducation program, Kaleidoscope. While there, pick up a copy of McCallum-Smith’s new book of short stories, Slipping the Moorings. (5204 Roland Ave.; 410-323-5500 ext. 3045; www.rpcs.org/kaleidoscope/) BENEFIT

The Big Draw

Lotta Art is the annual juried show and fundraiser for School 33, a nonprofit arts education center in Federal Hill. All ticketholders partake in a lottery-style drawing that nets them a work of art by one of the more than 125 participating artists. $175 per person; event takes place at Silo Point, 1700 Beason St., in Locust Point. April 25; exhibition preview April 11–25. (410-396-4641; www.school33.org)

Custer’s Last Stand gets a big treatment—11.5 feet by 18 feet, to be exact—in an exhibit of local painter and MICA instructor Raoul Middleman’s work at C. Grimaldis Gallery. Aptly named Custer’s Last Stand & Other Painterly Obsessions, the show includes that giant 1967 painting of the Battle of Little Bighorn (see detail at left), as well as self-portraits, erotic drawings, and landscape paintings. Through April 11. (523 N. Charles St.; 410.539.1080; www. cgrimaldisgallery.com) Compiled by Marianne K. Amoss w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a p r i l 0 9

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A Greener Shade of Blue continued from page 47 Victor Sanchez, an immigrant from Juarez, Mexico, supported his growing family working construction by day and cleaning houses by night. He was working himself to the bone. “I couldn’t take it,” he says.

David Poke Jr. was working in a shoe store out of high school, but he had higher aspirations: A sharp, detail-oriented kid with a flashy grill of gold teeth, he wanted to be a building inspector, but he didn’t have the training to get started.

Majette, Sanchez, and Poke now work together on one of Second Chance’s deconstruction crews, making between $12 and $20 an hour. “The first time I walked into this warehouse, I said, ‘All this old shit in here, this ain’t me,’” says Majette, sitting amid an eclectic collection of old hearths, furniture, doorknobs, and claw-foot tub feet. “But after a couple of months, I began to see the value. Now when I drive down the street, I look at all the old buildings. I’m looking at them, thinking how to take them apart. ‘Can I save anything?’”

The green part of the work? They’re all right with it. “You’re making things grow again,” Majette says. “You’re giving it another life.”

Second Chance, it seems, is making good on Van Jones’ admonition that “the green economy must do more than reclaim thrownaway stuff. It must also reclaim thrown-away lives and thrown-away places.”

Before the workers pick up their belongings and head home for the night, David Poke tells the story of painstakingly dismantling a mahogany-paneled room in a house in Ellicott City. There was $35,000 in wood in that room, he says, and they got 95 percent of it out, undamaged. The wood is now for sale in a nearby warehouse.

A picture of Poke grinning a gold-toothed smile hangs on the wall next to it. ■

Now when I drive down the street, I look at all the old buildings. I’m looking at them, thinking how to take them apart. “Can I save anything?”

—Durrell Majette

—Greg Hanscom is Urbanite’s senior editor.

Delvin Holland, 3E project leader, demonstrates an air leakage detector, or “smoke pen.” “We’re trying to open eyes,” he says. “We all got to do our part [to protect the environment], and it starts with each person in their home.”

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Mr. Greene continued from page 57 a matter of weeks,” which, when I began heaving blood and feeling as sick as I ever felt in my life, I knew was a lie. “Have somebody pick my kids up at school,’’ I said, and he said “Sure, sir, anything you wish.”

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Daddy, happy birthday to you.”

That was what I woke up to this morning after all those disturbing dreams. My wife and two kids singing the happy birthday ditty on my 40th. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you one and all for reminding me what I most didn’t want to be reminded of. And now, if you can bear with more of my impoliteness, I have to hurry and get dressed.”

I took off my pajamas and grabbed my underpants. “Aren’t you going to shower first?” Ford said, and I said “Why? Do I smell so bad that you don’t think I can wait ’til I get home tonight?”

“It’s not that. We’re all meeting you at your studio later where Grandpa’s coming to treat us to dinner and a show.”

“Has that been agreed to by your mother?”

Jan said, “On your birthday, Saul, you know your father always takes charge.”

“Agreed, then,” and I got in the shower. My family undressed and got in with me, and though it was crowded and we each did our share of horsing around under the spray, we did manage to get our bodies soaped, and Frilly even got in a shampoo.

We sat at the kitchen table for breakfast. Frilly lit candles, and when I said “At breakfast?” she said “It’s a special occasion, did you forget?” and handed me a box wrapped with the front page of today’s newspaper and decorated with quarter moons and tentacled suns and stars. Inside were two nylon brushes, a number 14 and a 17, which I needed badly. I hadn’t sold a painting in months and I was again starting to put the touch on my closest friends. Ford gave me a pound tube of Mars black and Jan presented me with twenty-five yards of the best unprimed duck canvas. “You’re all saints,” I said, “and I worship you as others might worship the great god Moolah, but now I gotta get going and live up to your faith in me.”

They walked me outside. I unchained my motor scooter from the building’s fence, hugged my family, and headed for my studio, which was in a municipal-run building of artists’ lofts in the poorest section of town.

Once there, I promptly began the completion of a huge painting I was calling The Birth of the Earth, and was working feverishly, laying on heavy long strokes of the Mars black with my new 17 brush, when one of the other artists in the building knocked on my door and said I was wanted on the pay phone downstairs.

It was Jan, saying don’t worry, everything will be all right, I should prepare myself for some pretty rough though not totally catastrophic news—while I was practically screaming for her to come out with it already—but a boy had entered my father’s junior high school classroom without a late pass, and when my father told him to go to the guidance office to get one, the boy shot him in the hip. “But Dad’s okay,” she said.

“He’s going to live; be thankful for that,” but my knees wobbled and I fell back against the wall and slid down to the floor. She said, when I told her where I was sitting, to stop acting like a wimp and meet her at the hospital right away.

I went outside and signaled for a cab. One stopped, and I ran to it, but a man beat me to the door. I told him that not only had I hailed the cab first but that it was possibly a dying father I was going to see, and he took out a handgun from a concealed shoulder holster. I feinted left, sprinted right, but the man shot me in the leg, and after I bounced off a car fender to the street, he stared straight down at my face and cursed me before putting a bullet into my head.

“Saul, Saul, what are you still lying there for? You have to get up,’’ my wife said, leaning over me and looking distressed. Had I really survived? I thought. Was I in a hospital or still on the street? “And what about Dad?” I said.

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urbanite april 09

“What about him? Because if you aren’t out of bed and dressed in half an hour, we’ll miss the 11:13 to Morganburg Lake, and the next train doesn’t leave ’til three.”

I got up, began dressing, told Jane about these scary repetitive dreams I had overnight, and she said the rich food she made for dinner last night must have affected me. “My stomach didn’t feel too good either when I woke up,’’ she said. I asked if the kids were all right and she said, “Sure, why shouldn’t they be?” I didn’t want to alarm her with the very real fear the dreams had left in me, so I said, “Because of the food. How are they feeling?”

“Those two? They’ve stomachs like a shark’s. That’s because theirs haven’t been tampered with years of cocktails and cognacs.”

We all sat down for breakfast. Frilly already had her swimsuit on under her sundress, and Ford, while eating, was stuffing his schoolbag with books, sports equipment, and little action figures. Then we cabbed to the station and boarded the train.

I was looking out the train window at the fields and farms we passed and feeling a lot more peaceful than I had this morning, when a woman shrieked at the front of the car. Another woman screamed, a man yelled, “Turn the damn thing up.” A radio was made louder and a newscaster, trying to hold back his sobs, said, “There’s no uncertainty about it now: Senator Booker Maulson, without question the nation’s leading spokesman for the underprivileged and poor and its most ardent activist for world peace, was shot in the back of the head while making an Independence Day speech to a picnicking crowd of thousands.”

“God help us,” Jan said and started crying. Frilly broke down also, and Ford pulled my arm and asked why everyone was so excited.

I went to the front of the car where most of the passengers had gathered around the radio. The newscaster said Maulson was killed instantly and his murderer beaten to death before police could pry him away from the outraged mob. Many of the people in the car were now weeping uncontrollably. The woman beside me said she was sure Maulson’s murder was part of a worldwide conspiracy: “People just don’t want peace, that’s all.” Two men who seemed to be traveling together told her Maulson had got what he’d been asking for, with all his peace marches and speeches against big business and the military and war.

The man holding the radio said these men were talking cruelly and stupidly, and out of respect for Senator Maulson, his grieving family, and the millions of people around the world who will mourn his death, they should shut their mouths. The men said they didn’t have to, this was still a democratic country where freedom of speech was accepted as nearly a sacrament, and this man was an ignorant liberal patsy who maybe ought to be shot in the head himself. The man handed the radio to his son and jumped at the two men. He knocked one of them to the floor and kicked him in the face and was beating up the other one with his fists when the man on the floor shot him in the back.

I pulled the emergency cord. The train stopped and I led my family to the rear of the car, where I forced open the door and we jumped out. We’d follow the tracks to the last station we passed, about six miles away, and from there take a train back to the city. Then, Jan and I would decide on doing one or two things: buying a used car and finding a quiet, remote part of the country to live and work in, or using all our savings to fly across the ocean and settle in a much safer and saner land.

We’d walked a few miles when Jane said we should stop: she and the kids were exhausted. We rested on a shady hill near the tracks. I felt tired and tried to fight off sleep because of the dreams I might have, but I soon dozed off.

Someone was shooting BB holes through the windows of our new house. “Come on out or we’re going to come in and drag you out,” a boy yelled through a bullhorn.

The telephone rang. The woman who answered my hello said, “They’ve just killed your son at school, and because he’s your son, we’re all glad.”

Our neighbor, Mrs. Fleishman, yelled from her window across the narrow airshaft. “Two Army men smashed down our door and shot Mr. Fleishman and then threw him down the stairwell. Help me, call the police.”

I called the police. The officer said Mr. Fleishman deserved to be killed and so did I. “Without doubt, Mr. Greene, your family’s next.

None of you people can think you’re safe anymore,” and when I asked for his badge number, he said “Shove It Up, Nine One One.” Mrs. Fleishman screamed for me again from her window.

“They’re coming to get me now, Mr. Greene. Hurry, call the police.”

My wife came into the bedroom. “Three state troopers are at the door. Should I let them in?”

“Of course, let them in. What did we do that we have to be afraid of?” Right after she left the room, I shouted, “No, no, Jan, I was wrong.”

Frilly was being dragged out of the apartment when I ran into the living room. I started after her down the stairs, heard a gun discharge, and covered my eyes. Jan demanded I go to the window to see what had happened. Frilly had been shot by a firing squad as she stood against our building’s courtyard wall.

“Six soldiers and Marines are at the door,” Jan said. “They say if I don’t let them in they’ll shoot the doorknob off.”

“Where’s my gun,” I said, “where’s that damn gun?” Jan said I didn’t have a gun. “You’ve always been firmly against even holding a gun. You don’t even know how to load or shoot a gun,” and I said “I’ve got one, all right,” and searched frantically through our dresser and pulled out Ford’s cap pistol and aimed it at the front door and pressed the trigger, and real bullets came out, I had firing power in my hand, I kept shooting at the men Jan had said were behind the door and yelling “You’re all dead, you bastards; I’m getting back at every last one of you; you’re all getting exactly what you deserve,” and the door crashed

to the floor, the men fell in after it, about ten of them and half of them dressed like soldiers and state troopers and police, and all dead, I had killed them all.

“They’re dragging Frilly away again,” Jan said.

“Ford, where’s Ford?”

“They’re dragging Ford away also. Stop them, Saul. Do something before I go crazy right here.”

“They’re killing my dog,” Mrs. Fleishman screamed. “Help me, Mr. Greene. They’re murdering my dear Dovetail with bullets.”

“Dad,” Frilly said, “you’re sweating something awful. Mom’s awake and says we should get a move on.”

Police cars and ambulances with their sirens going were speeding on the country road paralleling the tracks, no doubt heading to the train we’d been on. I asked Jan how she was and she said “Still sad and frightened but not so tired anymore. I slept also and also had bad dreams.”

I told her I’d carry her to the station on my shoulders if she wasn’t so tall and big-boned, and she laughed, said she could make it on her own, that maybe we should have stayed to help that poor wounded man and his son, that she supposed we shouldn’t feel too guilty, as there must be several other people on the train, including a doctor and nurse or two, who could do a much better job than us. Then the four of us resumed our walk to the station, calmer now, on probably the worst day of our lives. ■ —Stephen Dixon has published twenty-seven books of fiction—fourteen novels and thirteen collections of short stories. His next, a three-volume story collection called What Is All This?, is forthcoming from Fantagraphics Books. He retired from teaching at Johns Hopkins University in June 2007 and lives in Towson.

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MHIC No. 39601

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eye to ey e

Daniel Shea, whose work we feature this month, left Baltimore recently— not surreptitiously, in the middle of the night, but leave he did. Went to Chicago. Our loss. But he couldn’t leave without taking some parting shots.

Interestingly, the series of which this diptych is a part is called Untitled (Baltimore). There is a clue in this title to a universality in these works. As Shea has stated, “Demystifying a place is easier than implied. Despite what one might have heard, Baltimore is like many other places.” That sense projects our view of these works beyond our immediate city and opens us to a broader interpretation. But these images are still strong statements about the city he once called home. He states, “My Baltimore series doesn’t represent a value judgement, rather, a fascination with its cold reality.”

For those of us who have lived here, we sense the “Baltimore” in the images—the hard and the soft, the resilient and the yielding. Shea says, “Somehow the [diptych] attempts to display a congruity that represents both the perplexed and often passive relationship people have with this city.”

—Alex Castro

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urbanite april 09

Daniel Shea Untitled (Baltimore) Diptych 2008 Archival digital C-print each 30 x 30 inches

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