August 2006 Issue by Urbanite LLC

august

B A LT I M O R E ’ S

C U R I O U S

2006

F O R

issue no. 26

Eco-Chic: The green movement gets hip • My So-Called (Virtual) Life: Confessions of a MySpace Addict The Labyrinth is Back: Les Harris’ new museum • End of an Era: Why the Amish are leaving Amish Country

Urba Urbanite nite

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MILLRACE CONDOS New 1-2 bedroom condominiums in historic Clipper Mill Easy Commuting and light rail connection at your doorstep Adjacent to the hiking-biking trails of the wooded Jones Falls Valley Spectacular community pool in the center of a lively neighborhood Now selling — Priced from the $300’s For more Information: 410-243-1292 or www.ClipperMillLiving.com

VILLAGE LOFTS New loft-style, 1-2 bedroom condominiums in Charles Village Smart city living with extraordinary amenities Spacious gourmet kitchens and private balconies Where modern conveniences meet vintage neighborhood charm Now selling — Priced from the $300’s For more Information: 410-243-0324 or www.village-lofts.com

FRANKFORD ESTATES Stylish new East Baltimore town homes, duplexes and single-family homes Urban energy with tree-lined tranquility Numerous floor plans and models to suit your lifestyle Beautifully landscaped neighborhood with pool and clubhouse Phase III closeout —Priced from the $300’s - only 12 left For more information: 410-325-8838

VILLAGE WEST Premier 1, 2 and 3 bedroom condominiums in Charles Village All of the finest qualities and innovations in urban architecture Neighborhood on the cutting edge of art, music and higher learning The fusion of function and fun Preview sales begin 2006—Priced from the $400’s For more Information: 410-243-0324

1209 NORTH CHARLES Contemporary new 1-2 bedroom condominiums This is life, artfully done At the gateway to Mt. Vernon in the heart of culture and entertainment The synergy of style and sophistication A celebrated landmark building with new architecture and amenities Now Selling— Priced from the $300’s For more information: 410-685-0142 or www.twelve09living.com

THE VUE HARBOR EAST

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Ahh, the peace and quiet of city life.

The Assembly Apartments at Clipper Mill are between Hampden & Woodberry, right next to the park. You’re also close to fun shops & restaurants, your favorite hangouts, Light Rail & I-83. Walk inside and you’d never know this place used to make large machinery (“Assembly,” get it?). Picture 2-story lofts with arched windows and lots of natural light. There’s even a pool that flows through stone ruins. And yes, a stream

actually runs through the basement.

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Directions: From I-695, Baltimore Beltway, take exit 25 to Charles Street. Follow Charles Street south and turn left onto Bellona Avenue (Route 134),to the Sales Center at the corner of Bellona Avenue and Rodgers Forge Road.

Developer: Rodgers Forge Apartments Realty Company, a MD LP

Prices deemed accurate at time of printing and are subject to change without notice. *Closing cost contribution is subject to purchaser using seller’s Preferred Lender and Title Company.

urbanite august 06

contents

21 what you’re writing 23 corkboard 25 have you heard … edited by marianne amoss

29 food: the family vine anne haddad

33 baltimore observed: scooter city jason tinney

39 encounter: south baltimore hit and run bonnie j. crockett

42 space: les’ labyrinth meghana kulkarni

46 the art of placemaking: a conversation with fred kent elizabeth a. evitts

48 sentiment and the soil melissa faye hess

56 scents of place mark chalkley

61 true tales of myspace marianne amoss

63 sustainable city: hip to be green

nicky penttila

67 out there: random recipes dave copeland

69 in review 73 what i’m reading susan mccallum-smith

81 resources 86 eye to eye

cover note: Photo by John Davis from his series Route 404. Davis used medium-format film to shoot images on or near Route 404, a state highway that connects areas west of the Chesapeake Bay with Delaware beaches. He has traveled the road frequently during his thirteen years in Baltimore to visit his grandparents on the Delaware shore. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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MODEL

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www.CamdenCrossing.com • Starting in the mid - $400s. Sales center open 11-6 daily. For more information call 410-837-3711.

You’ll know it when you see it. MHBR No. 3435 Sales By Builder’s 1st Choice®, Seller’s Agent

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09.16.06

James W. Rouse Day. Get Involved.

At SBER, we believe in taking responsibility for the community at large. Through our commitment and passion, we have, on countless occasions, inspired others to share in that responsibility. By encouraging volunteerism. By believing in neighborhoods. By working closely with our strategic partners to take existing programs and raise their profiles and impact. In these ways, as well as in many others, we constantly work to make a difference. On September 16th, help us make a difference in Baltimore. Volunteer for a day of community service. Transform Baltimore. Transform your world.

“Whatever excuses others may have had for conditions in their cities– we have none.” JAMES W. ROUSE

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Page 1 Urbanite Issue 26 August 2006 Publisher Tracy Ward Durkin Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com

Buy a home for $1,500? Youcan with M&T.

General Manager Jean Meconi Jean@urbanitebaltimore.com Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth A. Evitts Elizabeth@urbanitebaltimore.com Guest Editor Stephen A. Goldsmith Executive Editor Heather Harris Heather@urbanitebaltimore.com Assistant Editor Marianne Amoss Marianne@urbanitebaltimore.com Copy Editor Angela Davids/Alter Communications Contributing Editors William J. Evitts Joan Jacobson Susan McCallum-Smith Art Director Alex Castro Production Manager Lisa Macfarlane Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com Traffic/Production Coordinator Bellee Gossett Bellee@urbanitebaltimore.com

BUY A HOME F O R $ 1 ,5 0 0 D O W N WITH M&T’S GET S TA R T E D M O R T G AG E .

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Advertising/Editorial/Business Offices P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 Phone: 410-243-2050; Fax: 410-243-2115 www.urbanitebaltimore.com Editorial Inquiries: Send queries to the editor-in-chief (no phone calls, please) including SASE. 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 2006, by Urbanite LLC. All Rights Reserved.

www.mandtmortgage.com The example above is based on a ﬁxed interest rate of 5.875% with an APR of 6.38% and 360 monthly principal and interest payments of $860.69. Example assumes a 97% loan-to-value ratio and a $145,500 mortgage amount. Remaining downpayment amount, closing costs and pre-paid items (excluding any interim interest if applicable) may be funded by a gift, grant, subsidy or an M&T unsecured loan. Example for illustrative purposes only. Posted rate effective 4/12/06 for low/moderate income areas only. Rates in other areas may be higher. Please call for current rates. Certain restrictions apply. Maximum income by household size, 80% of area median income unless property is located in a low/moderate income census tract, then no income limit applies. Available in select counties. ©2006 M&T Mortgage Corporation.

urbanite august 06

Urbanite (ISSN 1556-8105) is a free publication distributed widely in the Baltimore metropolitan area. If you know of a location that urbanites frequent and would recommend placing the magazine there, please contact us at 410-243-2050.

editor’s note

quotes

landscape shapes culture.

—Excerpted from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

—Terry Tempest Williams, American author, naturalist, and environmental activist

photo by Sam Holden

we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the ﬁrst time.

or the better part of a decade, I was something of a nomad. After leaving Baltimore for college, I resided in six (or seven?) cities, stayed briefly in several others, and moved at least once a year. I’ll never forget the look on my accountant’s face as I handed over W-2s from three states. I thought I just had a severe case of wanderlust, an insatiable desire to pick up and go. I even worked as a caterer for rock bands so that I could live on a tour bus and travel. I passed through U.S. cities from Lewiston to Los Angeles. There was something magical about pulling into a new town, stepping off the bus, and taking a deep breath. I always wondered if this would be a place that resonated, a place that felt—for lack of a better word—right. I was surprised often. I really liked Peoria, of all places, with its dingy but delicious Indian restaurants and the simple beauty of the meandering Illinois River. I loved Minneapolis for its fish fries, freezing weather, and the maze of pedestrian tunnels that saved me from the aforementioned cold. Humid Tampa had lively Ybor City, with flamenco and paella; Madison, Wisconsin, had a small, scholarly coffee shop with shelves of local literature. There was a tiny store on an even tinier street in New Haven where I found a glass ring made by a local artist. And then there were the iconic places: the fish markets in Seattle and San Francisco, the architecture throughout Chicago, the blues bars in Memphis, the mountains cradling Vancouver. Looking back, I realize the point of my travel was not mere movement, but the search for perfect places—places that felt at once foreign and familiar, comfortable and inspiring. So what makes a place resonate? What makes it feel right? It depends on whom you ask. I recently took another trip (only this time from my desk), hunting for the definition of “place.” I discovered all kinds of people analyzing the art and science behind placemaking. Academics, anthropologists, sociologists, human geographers, philosophers, urban planners, tourism officials—all have their definitions of what makes for a good place. Setha Low, an environmental psychologist at City University of New York, studies the anthropology of space and place. She believes that any true definition of “place” must be rooted in a physical and tangible location. But others examine virtual places, like the Internet. Steve Graham in the UK founded the journal The Cybercities Reader to explore the impact that virtual worlds and technology play on our real-world places. In the end, most agree on one thing: There is a clear distinction between space and place. “Place is about community and identity, it’s about people’s perceptions of who they are and where they live,” Graham says. “Space has a profit motive. A large part of conflicts in cities is the contest between those seeking place and those seeking to develop space.” Finally, I chatted with this month’s guest editor, Utah-based artist and urban planner Stephen A. Goldsmith. He may have put it best when he said, “When I describe to people what I do, I tell them that I am a homemaker. Placemaking is really about homemaking.” Which explains why, at the moment, my perfect place is not somewhere off in the remote distance. For now, it appears, I have found home. My accountant will be very happy. —Elizabeth A. Evitts

you can fall in love at ﬁrst sight with a place as with a person. —Alec Waugh, British novelist

The twentieth century was about getting around. The twenty-ﬁrst century will be about staying in a place worth staying in. —James Howard Kunstler, American author and social critic

some places speak distinctly. certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwrecks. —Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer

placemaking, and a good English garden, depend entirely on principle and have very little to do with fashion. —Lancelot “Capability” Brown, British landscape designer

how hard it is to escape from places. however carefully one goes they hold you—you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences—like rags and shreds of your very life. —Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand-born author

when we build our landscape around places to go, we lose places to be. —Rick Cole, urban redevelopment expert and city manager of Ventura, California

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contributors

behind this issue

photo by Angela Bain

courtesy of La Kaye Mbah

photo by Angela Bain

Melissa Faye Hess From 2003 to 2004, Melissa Faye Hess worked with a team of architectural historians documenting several rural historic districts in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania’s Amish Country; she wrote the feature article “Sentiment and the Soil” based on that experience. Hess earned a master of arts in public history with a concentration in historic preservation from the University of South Carolina. Since 2004, she has worked as an architectural historian for the Maryland State Highway Administration. Hess lives in Roland Park.

Meghana Kulkarni One of this summer’s editorial interns, Meghana Kulkarni is originally from India and grew up in Texas. She earned a bachelor of arts in government from The University of Texas at Austin and in May earned a master of arts in magazine journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Before working at Urbanite, Kulkarni worked as an intern at Language Studies International in Spain and as an intern/ contributing editor for H Texas magazine in Houston. She is a foodie who enjoys all kinds of cuisine, “especially the kind with a kick—Indian, Thai, good barbeque, Vietnamese,” she says. Kulkarni wrote about the Amaranthine Museum’s new location for this month’s Space department and the recent Baltimore branding campaign for Update.

La Kaye Mbah Virginia native La Kaye Mbah is a Baltimore-based photographer focusing on portraiture. “Photography gives me the opportunity to capture memories, set a mood, and create beauty,” she says. “When I was 18, my best friend taught me how to use my first real camera, a Canon A-1, and I have been passionate about it ever since.” Mbah earned a bachelor of arts in mass media arts from Hampton University in Virginia and is currently working toward a master of arts in publications design at the University of Baltimore. She photographed some of the people, places, and things profiled in the Have You Heard department.

Jason Okutake Urbanite’s new part-time designer Jason Okutake hails from California. He has many varied interests, ranging from photography to sound engineering, to playing and making guitars. While living in San Francisco, Okutake founded Silentdnb, a promotion company that hosts a popular drum-andbass event in the Bay Area; he worked as a DJ and producer under the name Mr. Moonlight. Okutake earned a bachelor of arts degree in ethnomusicology from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently studying photography and working toward a masters degree in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art. He plays classical and Spanish guitar and studied under distinguished guitarist Lawrence Ferrara. Okutake lives in Baltimore with his wife and dog.

Artist and urban advocate Stephen A. Goldsmith is the director of The Enterprise Foundation’s Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship, which partners young, talented architects with low-income communities in need of their skills. In 1980, he founded the not-for-profit corporation Artspace, which provides affordable housing and workspaces for diverse communities. In his twenty years as Artspace president, he spearheaded projects like the transformation of historic warehouses in Salt Lake City into living, studio, and commercial spaces; galleries; offices; and community gardens. Goldsmith went on to become a Loeb Fellow with Harvard University and a director for the Salt Lake City Planning Division in Utah, where he advocated and fostered walkable, mixed-use communities. In 2005, Goldsmith cofounded The Center for the Living City at Purchase College with New York author and urban expert (and Urbanite contributor) Roberta Brandes Gratz.

photo by Ron Shiffman

photo by Angela Bain

with guest editor stephen a. goldsmith

There are places I remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone and some remain.

o begins the Beatles song “In My Life,” reminding us that places are the changing landscapes in our lives; they are the theater and music that accompany us wherever we are. Places contain our memories and give depth and richness to our lives. But it’s the people, as the song says, the friends and lovers, that give those places their meaning. The meaning we derive from our places is utterly personal, and it exists in time and space. Everything changes, moment to moment. One person’s old warehouse becomes another’s new home (as the song says, “I’ll never lose affection for people and things that went before”). Places are the backdrop for events that will forever color our experiences; we are moved somehow, somewhere, and our lives are transformed even if only briefly. So much about our experience of place is affected by our attentiveness. We notice the way a familiar landscape is affected by morning light, or how a room is altered by a story told there or a piece of art hung on the wall. These places have their moments, and we interpret and absorb them in a thousand ways. Our changing places sometimes change us (some forever, not for better, as the song says). Places exist at every scale. They range from those we visit in our minds, to what we see from the window of an airplane, with the curve of the horizon reminding us that our orbiting planet is our home, and home to our homes. In many respects, we are simply homemakers. The way we care for our places, the ways in which we choose to shape them and preserve them and adorn them, are actually just extensions of holistic acts of domesticity. Homemaking, like placemaking, is an endless series of actions and adjustments. Anticipating needs, we stock our refrigerators and pantries to make sure we’ll have nourishment in our future. Similarly, our stewardship of the larger places we inhabit requires that we anticipate needs, too. Just like homemakers, we must attend to our streets and fields and wild places so they will continue to nourish us. As the song sings to us, some places are gone and some remain, and how we choose to participate in our changing places affects our future. As you travel through this issue of Urbanite, I hope you will stop and think about those memorable places—past, present, and future.

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urbanite august 06

what you’re saying

june 2006

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’ve stopped ha ving fun

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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. Submissions should include your name, address, and daytime phone number; they may be edited for length and clarity.

be ac h

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issue no. 24

urb an pla yg rou nd : s e e i n g t h e city as one pa rk

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Herman Says Relax I really enjoyed your June “Can’t Relax?” issue, especially your cover photo of someone relaxing his or her feet on a windowsill against a pretty sky. In August 2004, a friend and I happened to shoot a nice “relax” photo from the observation deck of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. Pleasantly surprised by the outcome, we vowed to take similar shots on our future travels, and we now have a small collection. [Some of Herman’s photos are shown above.] —Herman M. Heyn lives in Waverly. Known as Baltimore’s Street Corner Astronomer, he invites the public to view the night skies through his telescope at Harborplace and in Fells Point.

Giving Thanks for Father Lawrence I have had a law office within a few blocks of Charles and Lexington since 1981. The homeless have always been among us there, although they have been periodically driven out or underground by the police at the behest of local businesses, politicians, or bureaucrats backed up by the courts. Coincidentally, I first heard Father Richard Lawrence preach twenty-five years ago at my oldest child’s baptism at St. Vincent’s, just two or three months before I opened my office a few blocks west. He is a great preacher and a good man who has done more for our city than anyone will ever know. That he is a Catholic priest says much for the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

5/12/06 2:07:29 PM

But your article “Creating a Home When You’re Homeless” (June) portrays Father Lawrence in the role he most prizes: practicing Christian. —Harold Burns is a lawyer. He lives in Lutherville on the banks of Dipping Pond Run.

Playtime All the Time I had just been writing “Playing in Baltimore” in the subject line of outgoing e-mails, when the clicking sound of the mail slot lured me to the front door. The mail lady had left June’s issue of Urbanite, with the words “Urban Playground” on the front cover. Were you looking over my shoulder? I go out to play in Baltimore all the time. By myself or with someone, it doesn’t matter; Baltimore is the attraction. I may go out with an idea, planning to check out a house, a pier, or a neighborhood, but always, I end up somewhere I hadn’t planned. It’s the getting out and discovering that intrigues me. And once I’m out of the car, I’ll talk to anyone. In Locust Point I’ll walk alongside a slowly moving train so I can talk to the engineer. I’ll talk to a chef on a cigarette break outside a restaurant and he’ll tell me about the cooking business. A general contractor at a construction site will answer my questions about his work. If I like the look of a building under construction, I’ll call the architect and ask for a private tour, as I did with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. When I heard that the grain elevator in Locust Point was slated to become condos, I wanted to go to

the top. And when they presented me with a release to sign, that’s okay. I’m a city girl; when will I get another chance to go up inside a grain elevator? On a cold, clear winter day, when I can see the railroad tracks directly below, and the outer harbor from the top of a Locust Point grain elevator, now that is fun! Down in Locust Point, I was inside the Domino Sugars plant and looked out to see two stowaways being led off by the Feds. These two men had hidden inside a sugar ship that was being unloaded. I interviewed an older gentleman who grew up in Locust Point, and he told me, “I got all my whippings in the summer. It was after I went swimming off the pier at Fort McHenry.” Sitting inside the German immigrant church, I listened for an hour to his stories. In Little Italy, I saw a woman in a cotton housedress, a lit cigarette dangling from her lips, sweeping her pavement and cursing the leaves as they fell from the tree onto her sidewalk. Fun! All these experiences are such great fun that I can’t figure out why everyone doesn’t do what I do. I find that the skill of having fun is something I take with me on vacation, so there’s not a strict line between work and play. After a lifetime of hard work, responsible work, and lots of it, I’ve finally found a career that is nearly all fun. I recommend it to anyone. —Zippy Larson leads tours of the city and works as a real estate agent.

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what you’re saying The Not-So-Great Outdoors? On a beautiful, sunny Saturday, Urbanite Editor-inChief Elizabeth A. Evitts wonders why Druid Hill Park is vacant (“Recreation Rebound,” June). Among the things I do in “retirement” is work at a canoe and kayak outfitter on the Eastern Shore’s most beautiful river. I’ve watched our patronage steadily decline and the age of our guests increase. For every beginning paddler whom I meet under the age of 25, I meet five older than 50. I’ve concluded that a growing number of people simply do not want to be outdoors. My evidence, besides our falling clientele? There is the television advertisement for an air conditioner manufacturer: Picture a suburban garage, its driveway littered with basketballs around a hoop. Sporadically a window above the garage flies open, a ball shoots forth, nothing but net, and the window slams shut. One Saturday morning I was at a state forest near the canoe shop. The river wound quietly around the camp store, long-legged herons waded at its edges. The bulb had not risen to eighty degrees

and the wind was gentle and cooling. The waterfront was empty, but the camp store was mobbed with campers gathered around televisions and watching cartoons. We still get Boy Scouts paddling with us, but the troop that once sent twenty-five boys now brings seventeen. When I question the Scoutmasters, their responses are usually the same: “Ron, for an event indoors we get plenty of boys, but fewer and fewer want to do anything outdoors.” I could go on. Seen the ad for the minivan wandering through perhaps the high desert in New Mexico, the kids quietly in the back watching not the spectacular scenery, but DVDs? The parents smile. At least the kids are behaving. Sure, this sounds like a platitudinous Luddite bemoaning the lack of energy and ambition in the younger generation. In part I guess it is, but I believe that it has much wider implications that are as easily observed as a park’s depopulation. The disconnect between the natural world and the human world has reached a critical point. How does the environmental community make a case for reversing

our declining water quality in a society whose idea of communing with nature is looking through the glass doors of a beachfront condominium (or at the park across a city street)? Is it healthy that a growing number of 14-year-old boys, so overweight and weak that they cannot paddle a canoe, feel no shame about their performance, but rather are proud of it? Advocates for open-space funding can come only from open-space users. I’m afraid that the answer is not more parks, but a greater appreciation for the outdoors. Hope it happens. I love my job. —Ron Pilling lives in Bishopville.

Correction We misspelled photographer Paul Burk’s name in the July issue, and from now on we Urbanite staffers will refer to him as “Paul Burk No E.” Nothing more, nothing less.

update In May, the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA) introduced a new tagline for the city: “Baltimore—Get In On It.” Are you in on it yet? In the September 2005 issue of Urbanite in the article “Branding Baltimore,” Margot Amelia, the vice president of marketing for BACVA, articulated the problem the group was trying to address when she said, “Baltimore didn’t have a particularly wellclarified position in the minds of our target market.” In that same article, Gary Vikan, BACVA board member, chair of the brand repositioning task force, and director of the Walters Art Museum, expressed his desire for a campaign that answered the question, “What do we have that they don’t?” It’s curious, then, (and we’re not the first to make this observation) that the images chosen and clustered together next to the tagline include a teacup, a fork, a guitar, a star, a shopping bag, and an ice cream cone. Seems like we answered the question, “What do we have that everyone else has too?” Even the color scheme of blue, green, and red wasn’t original. Landor Associates, the company commissioned to design the brand platform and visual identity, used the same color combination in a similar branding campaign for Cincinnati, Ohio, that was launched in March 2005. Local rumblings may not be robbing the architects of this campaign of any sleep because, frankly, it’s not for us. The promotion is an effort to attract

tourism and conventions. In their quest to bring out-of-towners to Baltimore, Landor and BACVA researched the advertisements coming out of cities like Las Vegas. It’s hard to imagine how Vegas—a young city that deals in excess and has a distinct, citywide identity—could influence a campaign to draw people to Baltimore—a place with many distinct, unique neighborhoods and a past steeped in American history—unless the researchers took this one tip from Sin City: Sell your most distinctive, recognizable trait—good, bad, or ugly. It’s not a new concept—this idea of playing to your authentic strength, whatever it may be. In Texas, Austin residents did it with their grassroots “Keep Austin Weird” declaration, which has functioned as the unofficial tagline for the city and a reminder to support local business. And while that campaign has caused its own local brouhaha (there’s even a campaign to “Make Austin Normal”), it’s embraced by many in the city and intriguing to those of us who haven’t been there yet. One more lesson can be learned from Austin: City Hall and Madison Avenue aren’t the only ones who can brand a city. Citizens can brand a city. So, until the next official campaign comes along, it just may be up to Baltimoreans to tell America about Baltimore. —Meghana Kulkarni

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what you’re writing

humility Hills Like White Elephants by I. Javier Ameijeiras

“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 have the right to edit 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. Due to libel and invasion of privacy issues, we reserve the right to print the piece under your initials. 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, Maryland 21211 or to WhatYoure Writing@urbanitebaltimore.com. Please keep submissions under four hundred words; longer submissions may not be read due to time constraints. The themes printed below are for the “What You’re Writing” department only and are not the themes for future issues of the magazine itself.

You know how

people say Mozart and Picasso and Virginia Woolf arrived precocious, right out of the womb? I guess they were destined to be great—some combo of genetics and talent and fortunate astrological signs. At age 11, I was writing novellas that involved the hero of a popular ’60s TV show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and me, the Man’s niece. I had been recruited by U.N.C.L.E. to handle dangerous missions around the world. I’d get summoned to my locker at my middle school, which turned into a tunnel that led to New York and U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Living in France at age 25, I was reading the work of authors like Irwin Shaw and Sidney Sheldon. I thought I might find my way into print by writing in their style, so I started my first novel. I cut somewhat rectangular shapes out of packing paper from boxes of china. Then I needed a subject, and what else should I write about but a very depressed American girl who finds herself waking up in the south of France with nowhere to go in life? The heroine can’t remember much about how she got there—or why— or about her apparently wild days in America. To illustrate the artistry of my prose, let me quote now from that novel, The Last of the Breed: “He had a way of talking himself under your clothes until you felt as though he were caressing your na-

Topic

Deadline

Duplicity Grace

Aug 28, 2006 Sept 25, 2006

ked skin … his voice was sensual and erotic and at the same time casual.” Or this: “Jade ran like her horse, her heart held high with blind strength and pride. She was uncrackable, unlovable, uncaring. And he had loved her too much.” That sort of pulp went on for about 150 pages. I had no idea that things like Wite-Out and penciledin corrections were not to be used on manuscripts sent to agents and editors. But what I did know was that you needed someone in the publishing industry to read your manuscript, and then “magic” would happen, and you’d be signing books and talking about movie deals. By then I’d moved back to America, and I knew that Larry McMurtry, the guy who had written The Last Picture Show, had a bookstore in town. He became my first step to a Pulitzer when I approached him in his store. “Hi,” I said, thrusting the manuscript at him. “I’ve written this novel and was wondering if you might read it and tell me what you think about it?” When I called the next week, Larry cleared his throat. “Listen, I didn’t know what to think about your book’s publishability, so I’m sending it to my editor at Simon & Schuster, Michael Korda. He can tell you—”

Publication Nov 2006 Dec 2006

I began at once to imagine who would play me—er, the protagonist—in the movie version. And who might play the sexy French rider? How would I spend my new fortune? Should I move to L.A.? On September 28, 1977, I received back my one copy of the book with a letter from Michael Korda, editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster: “I have to say that I can’t honestly see this as a novel for us. It’s not so much the subject (which is a little esoteric, but basically okay), or the writing (which is fine), but the lack of any real, solid story. A great deal is said in the book, but not too much happens. I don’t think it could sell as a book. With best wishes …” I cringe as I remember the shameless behavior I exhibited while trying to become famous. Just recently I wrote apology—and thank you—notes to both Larry McMurtry and Michael Korda. Their restrained and kindly response to my work was what led me to continue pursuing the dream of writing. Should I ever meet an editor again, I will know how to behave. ■ —Turner Houston long ago abandoned her search for fame. She lives outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her sculptor husband and three dogs. She has always hoped that her writing would be published before her obituary. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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have you heard . . .

design by Maya Drozdz; composite image courtesy of BOPA

Cooperman, Michael De Feo, and Bruce Willen. Originally posted to accompany Artscape in July, the installations will still be visible on buses and street signs until the end of this month. For more information and images of the designs, go to www.artscape.org. —Marianne Amoss

’Zine … Twenty-somethings these days are navigating the world in new ways, gravitating away from steady career paths and postponing (or completely avoiding) marriage—much unlike prior generations. Here to accompany you on this strange new path is the ’zine Before the Mortgage, filled with nonfiction essays, funny lists, and photos. Reading the ’zine is like reading a letter from a good friend: It is funny and heartfelt, and it rings true at every turn. Editors Christina Amini and Rachel Hutton launched the ’zine in 2001 while struggling with leaving their first 9-to-5 jobs. This April, an anthology of the

Deli and Restaurant … “The closer to you the product is grown, the better it’s going to taste,” says Galen Sampson, co-owner of the newly launched Dogwood Sustainable Foods. Under the Dogwood umbrella, Galen and his wife, Bridget, operate three different outlets for delicious, sustainable cuisine with a local and seasonal focus: Dogwood Deli, which opened in July, offers a smoothie and juice bar, artisanal sandwiches (made with Stone Mill Bakery bread), locally made ice cream, and “gourmet to go” meals that can be preordered; Asta, a restaurant attached to the deli, is

set to open in the fall; and Dogwood Gourmet is the catering arm. Bridget and Galen, the executive chef at the Harbor Court Hotel for nine years, dreamed of opening a place where their passions for food and sustainable living could be combined. The name of the business is a tribute to the first tree the couple planted together. Dogwood Deli is open daily 7:30 a.m.–8:30 p.m. 911 West 36th Street; 410-889-0952; www.dogwoodfoods.com.

same name was published, with excerpts from the ’zine as well as new content from literary figures like Open City magazine cofounder Thomas Beller, author and public radio personality Sarah Vowell, and Found magazine cocreator Davy Rothbart. From now on, the ’zine will be published exclusively on the website. Go to www.beforethemortgage.com. The anthology is available at most Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores and from the website. —M. A.

photo by Angela Bain

Public Art … This summer, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) launched a project that puts a fresh spin on public art in the city. Called Test Patterns, the endeavor places original art on everyday surfaces like street signs, bus shelters, buses, billboards, and garbage trucks. The designs were chosen through a juried process and were created by designers from Baltimore and beyond, including Shaun Flynn, Laura

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Restaurant … After years working in some of the city’s best kitchens (like Taste, Soigne, and The Atlantic), accomplished chef Jason Ambrose has transformed a small corner bar into a savvy bistro called Salt: A New American Tavern. The name of the restaurant is both an homage—to Ambrose’s grandfather, who used to salt honeydew melon—and a commentary on the idea that the ability to balance acids and salts is the mark of a good chef. Salt, which opened this summer, offers New American cuisine—favorites with a twist, like french fries fried in duck fat and

natural goods, including body products, tea, coffee, bulk herbs and beans, spices, wheat- and dairy-free food, locally produced eggs and milk, sushi products, dog food, light bulbs, and sunblock. Open Mon–Fri 9 a.m.–8 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun 11 a.m.–5 p.m. (after Labor Day, the store closes at 6:30 p.m. during the week). 11944 Ocean Gateway (Route 50); 410213-9818; www.oceancityorganics.com. —M. A.

Newsstand … Baltimore finally has a real newsstand! Harbor News, which opened on May 8, has already become a hotspot for the city, which until now lacked a comprehensive news center. Harbor News carries three thousand foreign and domestic newspapers and magazines, and owner Christina Cieri can special-order periodicals requested by customers. “I’m into getting what you want,” she says. Cieri, an Anne Arundel County native who worked in New York for several years as a producer for commercials and radio, opened the newsstand in Baltimore so that

a foie gras-topped burger that comes with truffle aioli and red onion marmalade. And a dinner at Salt won’t break the bank: Entrées range in price from $17 to $27 and wines by the glass cost between $6 and $8.50 (bottles range from $22 to $68). Be sure to try the delightful mini gelato cones for dessert. Dining room open Mon–Thurs 5 p.m.–10 p.m., Fri and Sat 5 p.m.–11 p.m., closed Sun. 2127 East Pratt Street; 410-276-5480; www.salttavern.com.

she could work at something she loves while providing the city with a service it needs. The store carries standards like The New York Times and Glamour, plus international publications like Chinese newspaper World Journal, French paper Le Figaro, the Japanese edition of home decor magazine Elle Deco, and Italian architecture magazine Interni. Open Mon–Fri 7 a.m.–9 p.m., Sat and Sun 9 a.m.–9 p.m. 1010 Aliceanna Street; 410-244-5140; www.harbor-news.com. —M. A.

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Fresh Fruit … Nothing beats fresh watermelon, strawberries, and peaches when you’re on vacation—especially when they’re organic and you can pick them up on your way to the beach. Ocean City Organics, located on Route 50 two-and-a-half miles from the drawbridge leading into Ocean City, offers a full range of organic and natural grocery items. Christina Wade, who shares ownership with manager Robert “Skip” Moore, opened the store as an extension of a food co-op she founded. In addition to the produce, Ocean City Organics carries many other organic and

photo by David Wade

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food

by anne haddad

photography by gail burton

The Family Vine A tradition of harvesting grape leaves yields delicious results

Above: Tsambika Philippou displays a plate of dolmades made with leaves harvested from her Greektown garden.

Americans trace lineage on family trees. For Greeks, it is the grapevine. The base is gnarly, twisted, and gray—the ya-ya, or grandmother, of the tender but tenacious tendrils that attach to anything within reach. The grapevine is a symbol of Dionysus, and a living legacy passed from one generation to the next. In small backyards throughout Greektown, the grapevine is a source of family history, as well as food. When Tsambika Philippou and her husband, Cosmos, bought their house on Ponca Street in 1986, they received a cutting from the grapevine in her parents’ backyard a few houses away. “My mother planted one after they bought their house, and she planted mine, too,” says Philippou, who immigrated from the Greek island of Rhodes when she was 15. “It’s something that keeps going through the family, from the grandparents to the parents and to us.” Philippou’s mother, Phaedra Hatzigeorgiou, died three years ago. But the vine she planted outside her Greektown home continues to thrive in

Philippou’s backyard, producing sweet grapes in late summer and savory leaves in the spring for making dolmades, one of the most recognizable of Greek and Middle Eastern dishes. In Greece, there would be more grapes—enough to make wine. In a Baltimore rowhouse garden, the fruit harvest isn’t large enough, Philippou says. Still, she has an abundance of leaves. Every May, the best and most tender grape leaves are pinched off and frozen in batches to provide a year’s worth of dolmades. The tradition of cooking with grape leaves is not unique to the Greeks. My Lebanese family rolls grape leaves and cooks them the same way, but they are flavored differently, and called warak areesh, or warak einab. Armenians, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Turks, and other Middle Eastern cultures each make their own version of the grape leaf stuffed with rice. The dish is believed to have spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, but it took on a distinctive mark wherever it planted roots. Greeks serve it with w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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lemon-egg sauce. Lebanese serve it with lemon juice or yogurt. I first went to East Baltimore’s Greektown for the ethnic markets that sell the same foods I grew up on and continue to cook. I made regular trips to the neighborhood for about five years before I happened to drive down an alley to drop off food for a party at a friend’s home on Macon Street. I remember it in slow motion, driving through a blur of bountiful roses and lush grape arbors. I have since explored the small alleys behind the alphabetically ordered streets—Macon, Newkirk, Oldham, Ponca, Quail, Rappolla and so on—that intersect Eastern Avenue and Fleet Street. While the backyard gardens hardly look like a sun-baked Greek hillside, they remind you of one. The gardens of the immigrants evoke the old country, even when they’re planted in the new one. Anastasia Sarioglou’s rowhouse garden between Oldham and Newkirk streets, for example, is a little piece of native Greece. In a space smaller than most parking pads, this retired seamstress maintains pink and red roses, a fig tree, and a peach tree. Anchoring this tidy garden in one corner is a grapevine, its trunk emerging from

growing or gathering If you want to make dolmades at home, you can harvest fresh leaves from your own grape arbor or from wild vines that grow in and around the city.

the ground, textured with deep vertical grooves. It looks so dry and ancient that you can’t believe it’s nurturing the canopy of leaves that usually shade the entire backyard. The vine in Sarioglou’s yard looks a lot like

I remember it in slow motion, driving through a blur of bountiful roses and lush grape arbors. the one my grandfather planted, which still grows behind the home where my aunt lives in Michigan City, Indiana. When I was growing up, my grandparents’ vine grew along the garage, and when the garage had to be torn down, the grapevine was cut down, too. But it grew back. This year, it was better than ever— more than sixty years since it was planted. While our grapevine was recovering from the garage demolition, it took only a short drive

grow When buying a grape plant to grow for the leaves, choose a variety that does not have a lot of white fuzz on the underside of the leaf. White grape varieties usually do well, but Concord grape leaves do not—too much fuzz. Make sure the plant has a strong trellis on which to spread. Don’t expect much the first year, but by the second year, it will have climbed high and spread wide. Steve Dietrich, owner of Produce Planet in Belvedere Square (410-464-2364), sells grape plants and can offer advice on the best times for planting.

to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, or even to an overgrown patch in the city, to find wild grape leaves. During May, it wasn’t unusual for my parents to keep a few paper bags in the trunk of the car, just in case. If they happened to pass a place where they saw a good growth of grape leaves, we pulled over, and everyone had to get out and pick—just the most tender leaves, and none that already had been nibbled by beetles. Without my own grapevine, for now, I am on the lookout whenever I walk past wild, overgrown pockets in and around Baltimore. And once in a while I drive past the house we sold eight years ago and look with longing at the backyard where my children were once babies. We are no longer there, but the grapevine I planted is still bursting with tender shoots and leaves. ■ There’s more on the Web. Find recipes for grape leaves at www.urbanitebaltimore.com.

gather Believe it or not, the leaves of wild grapevines that grow over much of North America do nicely, and once you know how to spot them, they are easy to find. Leakin Park and Cromwell Valley Park have them. Remember to pinch off just the most tender leaves, and none that have been chewed by beetles. —A.H.

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Connect with your inner artist keep ahead of your ever-changing world

At MICA, one of the country’s leading colleges of art and design, the Division of Continuing Studies offers a wide array of courses, workshops, and certificate programs that nurture creativity and encourage personal exploration. Fine arts programs inspire adults to develop their artistic abilities and bring fresh ideas to life, from painting and drawing to jewelry-making and ceramics. Professional development programs keep design professionals at the forefront of industry trends in graphic design, illustration, new media, and more. The Certificate in Creative Entrepreneurship, partnering with University of Baltimore, provides business tools for arts-based entrepreneurs. Contemplate…Create!, a collaboration with The Walters Art Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art, offers access to the experts with guided museum tours and studio time with MICA instructors.

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baltimore observed

by jason tinney

photography by sam holden

Scooter City The buzz about vintage bikes in Baltimore

Baltimore isn’t exactly Rome, but in this city there is no shortage of affection for vintage Italian-made scooters. Riders perched securely on these shiny little bikes, cruising along city streets, are a common sight; scooters are often parked in clusters around restaurants, bars, and houses in neighborhoods like Little Italy, Federal Hill, and Hampden. Veritable herds of them descended on the city this past May, as Baltimore hosted the secondannual Charm City Scooter Rally (the rally’s logo featured Baltimore’s beloved Mr. Boh atop a red Vespa). This year, the rally drew more than a hundred scooterists from as far away as North Carolina, New York, and Illinois. In my quest to find out more about Baltimore’s scooter culture, I call on Geoff Danek, owner of the popular Hampden Mexican restaurant and bar Holy Frijoles, and one of Baltimore’s scooter enthusiasts. Finding him is surprisingly easy, in a Hampden kind of way: As I make my way down a bumpy alley, I see an older gentleman in a white T-shirt standing in his concrete backyard. A real-live duck sits at his feet,

taking in the late afternoon. The man asks, “You looking for Geoff?” as if he knew exactly why I was in his alley, and points me in the right direction. Danek became interested in scooters ten years ago when he was starting his business. Looking for a way to get around, he says, he purchased a 1979 Vespa P 125. Now, his fascination with scooters has grown. Inside his two garages are several motorcycles and scooters in various states of repair; tools and parts are scattered on the floor. Danek pulls off a tarp to reveal his other baby—a vintage 1969 Lambretta scooter. Both the Lambretta, developed by Ferdinando Innocenti, and the Vespa (Italian for wasp), developed by Enrico Piaggio, originated in the late ’40s as an inexpensive means of transportation in postWorld War II Italy. Although there are similar scooters on the market, Vespa and Lambretta are among the more popular with enthusiasts. His interest in scootering is part aesthetic and part pleasure. “I think the design of the scooter is brilliant,” he says, pointing out the open frame body of his Lambretta. This design allows the rider to sit on the scooter as opposed to straddling it, as is the case with motorcycle riding. “They’re really fun to ride,” he says—and they’re fast. “There are guys who will get these bikes up to eighty-five or ninety miles per hour, no problem,” Danek says. His own Lambretta, which has a manual

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More than a hundred scooterists descended upon Baltimore this May for the Charm City Scooter Rally, a two-day event that included rides through the city and special events like the Hampden Breakfast Block Party.

transmission with a hand clutch like a motorcycle (some of the newer scooters, referred to as “twist-ngo’s,” have automatic transmissions), can get up to about sixty-five miles per hour. Although Danek is clearly well versed in the ways of vintage scooters, he is modest about his expertise and doesn’t engage in the more social aspects of scooter riding. To get a taste of group scooter dynamics, I seek out Mike Heytens, an architect and avid scooterist and mechanic who hails from Ellicott City. He is one of the founders of a group of scooterists called the Big Bacon Breakfast Scooter Club. The club’s yahoo.com page gives a clue to its members’ personalities: “This is a club for owners of classic scooters who appreciate wrenching, riding, and the occasional beer or pork product.” When I arrive in Ellicott City on a cloudy Saturday afternoon just before noon, Heytens is out giving a test run to one of the scooters he has recently “wrenched,” (meaning “worked on”): a Vespa P 200. The eclectic group gathered in Heytens’ yard includes lawyers, artists, graphic designers, and computer specialists. Six vintage scooters are parked in the driveway. I’m offered coffee and invited to join them in their breakfast ritual, which includes egg casseroles that Mike has made—one with meat, one vegetarian. Aside from being a wiz with tools and a skillet, Heytens also has the distinction of being the winner of the first-ever scooter Cannonball Run, a coastto-coast twelve-day scooter race that covers more than three thousand miles. The first race, which took place in 2004, started in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and ended in Santa Monica, California. To complete the first Cannonball Run, which

Heytens helped to organize, riders had to travel three hundred to five hundred miles a day. The race route followed state highways—scooter friendly and scenic—and participants had to battle all kinds of weather and road conditions, maxing out their small bikes at knuckle-rattling speeds of sixty-five miles per hour. Heytens whips into the driveway on the bike he had been working on. In response to inquiries about how the bike is running, Heytens responds with one word: “Fast.” He pulls off his helmet and unzips his leather jacket (all the scooterists I spoke with preach the gospel of safety and protective clothing for riding). All of this talking about scooters has made me curious about what riding one really feels like. Since I don’t have a motorcycle license (motor bikes, such as scooters, with engines larger than 50 ccs require that riders possess motorcycle licenses and tags for the vehicle), my only option is to be a passenger. In scooter slang, the terms for riding on the back of one are “riding bitch” (also popular among motorcyclists) and “riding cupcake.” Scott Baxter, a rider from Hampden, informs me that “passenger” is acceptable as well. Libby Francis, who has been riding since 1983, volunteers to give me a lift. She is riding a 2005 Vespa PX 150, based on the same model that Vespa has been manufacturing since 1978. Francis is wearing a shiny black riding jacket, black pants with multicolored pinstripes, black leather boots—with balls of fire around the toes—and a white helmet adorned with beaded green and pink flowers. What Francis likes best about being a scooterist

“They’re really fun to ride,” Danek says—and they’re fast. “There are guys who will get these bikes up to eighty-five or ninety miles per hour, no problem.”

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Shining in the morning sun, scooters of varying makes and colors line up along a Hampden street.

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is the camaraderie—“knowing that no matter where you go in this country, definitely throughout Europe as well, there are various pockets where you will find scooterists. You know instantly that you have something in common.” She adds with a laugh, “I suppose it’s not unlike being a Freemason, except the means to entry are very simple. Buy a scooter and ride it.” It sounds simple enough. I’m given a helmet, encouragement, and instructions from Francis. “Hold on to me. Don’t lean on me. Sit up straight.” With that, we’re off. What started off as putter from the 150 cc engine has turned into a thunderous buzz—like a lawnmower that’s been tricked out by Jesse James. As Francis navigates curves and soars down straightaways, the cool wind whips up and whistles as the overcast sky rolls along above us. Francis shifts and gives her scooter gas, and my palms sweat; I hold on to her hips, praying that this ride does not end with either of us chewing on a mouthful of gravel. But as we pick up speed I begin to relax, confident in my driver’s ability. We take curves, our bodies leaning left and then right, and it feels as if we are gliding over the road. That thunderous buzz fades to a hum and the trees and houses becomes crystal in their clarity. A smile appears on my face, the kind of smile that you have no control over once you’ve been strapped into an amusement park ride. I think I’m starting to get it. By the end of the fifteen-minute ride, I’m already thinking of schemes to get one of these, concocting plans of writing it off as a business expense. According to Ginger Knight, assistant manager at Vespa Washington in D.C., new Vespas start at around $3,200 and go up to about $6,000; used scooters in good condition can cost between $1,500 and $7,000. The next biannual Cannonball Run takes place this September, daring riders to travel 3,293 miles from Pacific City, Oregon, to Orange, New Jersey. In 2004, twelve people participated in the race; this year, there are already thirty signed up. Am I one of them? No, but don’t count me out just yet. ■

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urbanite august 06

encounter

by bonnie j. crockett

photography by nancy froehlich

South Baltimore Hit and Run Or how I learned to stop worrying and love street parking

Above: The eyes and ears of a neighborhood: South Baltimore’s “little old ladies” react to a fender bender.

Some days are just quintessential South Baltimore. Take yesterday, for example. Looking back on it now, I can see how timing was everything. As usual, I was running late. Backpack on my shoulder, dog in tow, I circled the block for a quick dog walk before heading to the office for a meeting. When I came back around to my car, I found a small crowd of little old ladies surrounding it. My neighbors. Miss Mary, who lives next door, saw me coming and hurried to meet me, asking, “Is that your car, hon?” My heart just sank. She’d seen it all. It had just happened, not five minutes before I came around the corner. My car had been in a hit and run. The pickup truck that hit it was still there, smashed into my bumper. The driver had run off on foot. As Miss Mary told it, a “fat blond girl” came out of the neighbor’s house two doors down, hopped into the parked truck, turned it on, and plowed straight ahead into the back of my car. “It was really loud,” Miss Mary said. Then the girl jumped out of the truck and ran off down the street, around the corner and out of sight. “That’s my grandson’s girlfriend,” one of the other little old ladies said. “I told her not to come around here no more. But she came in here screaming she had to get that truck back to her uncle. And my grandson’s on the toilet, passed out, so I gave her the keys. I don’t think she can drive a stick shift.”

She told me the girlfriend’s name and said, “I’m not paying for that. She did it.” It didn’t look like there was any significant damage, but Miss Mary kept saying over and over again how loud the crash had been, so I started to worry that there was more damage than I could see. I couldn’t exactly trade insurance information with the blonde on the lam, and the truck had Florida tags, so I called 911. I wanted a police report for my insurance company. When the policeman arrived, he took one look at the smashed-together vehicles and said, “We don’t write police reports unless there’s been an injury.” By now there were at least six little old ladies on the sidewalk, and none of them liked that answer, so he said, “Well, it is a hit and run …” And he started interviewing witnesses to determine who hit my car. When he narrowed it down to the girlfriend of the grandson who was passed out on the toilet, the grandmother told him she’d never seen the truck before, even though she just told me she gave the girlfriend the keys. So the officer said he wanted to talk to the grandson. Now, I have to tell you, this is a little house in South Baltimore with three generations of this charming family and their various and sundry girlfriends and boyfriends living there. When the officer came back out, he said to me, “Nineteen years on the w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

urbanite august 06

force and I’ve never seen anything like it.” He told me that there is a toilet in the kitchen. No walls, no door. Just a toilet. And the grandson was sitting on it, pants down around his ankles, head between his knees, out cold. The officer woke him up. “He and I were having a conversation just like you and me. All the while him sitting on the crapper.” At that point, the grandson came running out of the house, barefoot, zipping up his jeans, saying, “I’ll take care of everything, Miss Bonnie.” He’s in his early twenties. He likes me because he likes my dog and because one day I asked him to help me close the hood of my car when the latch wasn’t working. “I’ll get you a paint job to cover the scratches. I can even paint it myself—my buddy’s got a garage. And I can straighten your frame if it’s bent because I know about cars.” Yikes! The officer asked him, “Were you in the car when this happened?” The grandson said, “No, officer. I was on the toilet.” He looked at me for confirmation. “Well, I didn’t see it happen,” I said. “But Miss Mary only saw the girl, and the consensus does seem to be that he was on the toilet at the time.” Finally, the officer suggested I drive the car around to see if there was any damage. If so, I could call him back, and he would file the hit-and-run report. He really wanted to avoid the hassle. I said

okay, but I told him it still bothered me that the car had out-of-state tags and no one knew who owned it. The officer agreed to run the plates, and he got back into his patrol car. While he was running the plates, the grandson, who was still chattering on about how he was going to fix everything, climbed into the front of the truck

She came in here screaming she had to get that truck back to her uncle. And my grandson’s on the toilet, passed out, so I gave her the keys. I don’t think she can drive a stick shift. and took the CD player out of the dashboard, saying, “This is mine. I put this in here. I’m taking this.” (He didn’t know whose truck it was, but the CD player

was his, and he certainly had a hunch that the truck wasn’t going to be there for long.) The grandson was out of the truck, CD player in hand, when the officer got out of the patrol car. He took one look at the kid, said, “What the hell are you doing?” and made him put it back. All the way back, in the dashboard. Then the officer looked at me and said, “We’re taking this all the way. A to Z.” The Florida tags, as it happened, were not registered. So the truck could have been stolen. An hour later, a tow truck took it to the impound lot. Unfortunately for the girlfriend, she had until four o’clock to turn herself in for the hit and run, or the officer would issue a warrant for her arrest. If she had stayed, I probably would have taken her name and number, found the damage negligible, and done nothing. Chalked it up to city living. But she ran away, so I wanted a police report, just in case. I sort of feel bad for stirring up trouble. But who knew? Anyway, I have owned this car for six months, and it’s been broken into in New York and Baltimore, and now this. Now I know why the previous owner traded it in after only a year. It’s jinxed. Miss Mary wants me to drive it to Our Lady of Good Counsel and have it blessed with holy water. A South Baltimore-style solution to the problem if ever I heard one. ■

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photo by Paul Burk

space

by meghana kulkarni

es’ Labyrinth

The infamous Amaranthine Museum reopens in Woodberry

Above: In the Amaranthine Museum, Les Harris’ paintings cover almost every inch of wall space.

urbanite august 06

Les Harris stands amid the unfinished walls of his museum, eyeing a painting and the drywall behind it, stained from a leak in the roof. Earlier, he had covered the work in plastic for fear that a slow drizzle from the roof would damage his masterpiece. Yet even behind the opaque plastic sheath, Les’ signature use of luminous color refuses to be muffled, and bits of blue and violet seep through. He decides it’s safe. The plastic comes off and it is as if someone turned on a light behind the canvas: The painting, a large image of one of the rose windows of Notre Dame, looks as though sunlight is beaming through from the other side. For twenty-five years, the work of Baltimore painter, sculptor, and framer Charles Leslie “Les” Harris hung on the first floor of the Poole and Hunt Building, a brick structure a few hundred yards from the train tracks in Woodberry. Originally called The Studio Gallery and then the Amaranthine Museum, the two-thousand-square-foot space evolved over that quarter decade into an intricate man-made labyrinth of art. In the dramatically lit space, visitors had to wind through a maze of meticulously placed walls covered floor-to-ceiling in Harris’ unique and vibrant paintings. (Les’ daughter, Laurel, is the founder of Urbanite.)

When redevelopment began at the Clipper Mill complex in 2005, the Amaranthine Museum had to relocate, and there was some concern that the whole of the collection in its labyrinthine layout could never be replicated. This month, however, the Amaranthine Museum opens its doors again to a new generation of gallery-goers. Les, now 83, and his wife, Sally, moved the gallery about a block from the original, into the Foundry Building, a space once used to cast iron and steel. The exterior brick is rough-looking and multicolored, reflecting the building’s age and serving as a reminder of the fire that ripped through this complex in 1995. Initially, Les was very upset about the change. He and Sally considered transplanting the walls from their previous location, but instead decided to recreate the maze. “The [original] setting was so tight that you had to weave through it, but everybody loved it as an installation,” Sally says. “We thought we would be there forever. [Les] was depressed all year that we were moving into this ‘barn,’ until we started to build the walls.” The new space, which is about the same size as the original museum, was soon transformed from a large empty room into a close replica of the former

2 1.

Lesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; labyrinth opens with work inspired by the modern era, like an installation featuring Tinkertoys and grids.

The art is arranged chronologically according to the time period that inďŹ&#x201A;uenced it. Each canvas is inspired by famous works and presented in a collage format.

3. Renaissance-style images are prominent in this enclave.

4. Completing the maze

are Egyptian- and Romaninspired pieces.

photos by Jason Okutake

4 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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Top right: Ottobeuren—Les’ masterpiece— hangs alone.

photo by Paul Burk

Top left: Les explains his philosophy to the writer: “Art is spiritual. It is to make visible the invisible.”

space. As they walk through the new museum, visitors are guided through the maze carefully, so that they view Les’ art in a specific order. The works are arranged chronologically, based on the elements that appear in Les’ paintings; it’s like a walk back through time, art history-style. The tour begins with paintings in the contemporary style, followed by works heavily influenced by twentieth-century artists. Around the next corner are paintings inspired by the Renaissance. Finally, there is art referencing astrology and ancient Egypt. Dotting the space are three-dimensional pieces, like the cylinders painted with images taken from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and works of El Greco, and mixed-media pieces that hang from the ceiling. There’s no telling what’s around the corner, and in what way it will be presented. One of those surprises is Les’ self-described masterpiece, a work called Ottobeuren. While many of the other works are grouped together, sharing wall space, this work hangs alone on an expanse of white. It is a collage-like painting, depicting several layered scenes from the interior and exterior of the immense priory in Germany, from which the painting takes its title. The painting includes such unexpected elements as a baby doll, gold leaf on plaster, and a thick wooden frame created by Les. Jay Fisher, the deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Baltimore Museum of Art, recently visited the Amaranthine Museum and said, “I saw so many things I could never have seen in the old installation.” Like its namesake, the amaranth flower, the Amaranthine Museum captures the beautiful and unfading culmination of a life’s creative work. n The grand opening of the new Amaranthine Museum will be in September. Until then, visitors can view the gallery on Thursdays between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. or by appointment (call 410-523-2574). For more information, go to www.aneventhorizon.com w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

A &

Q The Art of Placemaking ELIZABETH

A .

E V ITT S

photo by Kathleen Ziegenfuss

A CONVERSATION WITH FRED KENT

When Fred Kent founded the Project for Public Spaces in 1975 in New York City, he had no idea that his small start-up would evolve into an organizing tool for cities and citizens in twenty-six countries around the world. Today, PPS is a sought-after agency with a full-time staff of twenty-five supporting the creation and maintenance of multifaceted, engaging places. Fred Kent spoke with Urbanite from his office in New York about what it means to create a great place and why the concept of placemaking has gone international.

You have said on behalf of the Project for Public Spaces, “When you focus on place, you do everything differently.” What does that mean?

Successful placemaking shifts the responsibility from the professional to the citizen—to the user of that place—and he or she becomes the defining force within it. That’s a fundamental change. It’s about people saying, “I can make my park a better place.” You realize that the government isn’t structured to deliver the kind of places people want to be in. They are not cross-disciplinary; they are more focused on one particular discipline.

So there’s no cross-pollination of ideas. Everyone works in individual silos and can’t see the forest for the trees.

want to be. They want to be able to cross the street, they want to be able to shop, they want to be able to gather. They have values. It’s just that they are never asked. They’re never given that responsibility.

Baltimore, like many American cities, is seeing a lot of new development. I think some citizens look around and see the cranes and the condos going up, and they’re not sure what to do about it. They feel impotent to impact change.

When you say you’re going to live in an urban area, you’re not coming to live in isolation. You’re coming to live in part of a community. A lot of the development that’s going on is not about creating a sense of place, it’s about building these buildings. So we have a lot of misguided development that is not delivering what people want.

urbanite august 06

photo courtesy of The Roslyn Institue

A. Right. Whereas the community is looking at it holistically, as a place they

Q. Essentially you’re talking about the difference between space

and place.

Yes. The typical qualities of a design do not necessarily mean that you’re creating a place. A place is something that has far more dimension to it. It’s a much more subtle and complex set of issues that need to be looked at to create a real sense of place.

Q. In your organization’s publication Making Places you once named Fells Point one of the twenty best North American neighborhoods. What makes for a great neighborhood?

A. What we’re hearing more and more is the need for authenticity. The

real thing. People want places where they’re comfortable, where they feel like they can connect with other people. Those are precious communities and we don’t have enough, even though everyone wants them.

It’s a real irony. We all want that connection, yet we don’t seem to be able to foster it in our built environments.

A. We have obstacles. We have design professionals who think they have

to create their own image of a place instead of realizing the community is more important than they are; we have traffic engineers who have a onedimensional, narrow approach. If you ask anyone in a community, “What’s one of the main issues?” They’re going to say traffic. Speed of traffic, noise of traffic, inability to walk, the isolation that occurs from it, the tendency to support large-scale malls rather than local commercial businesses. We see it all over the place.

Q. What’s with this escalating international interest in placemaking? A. There’s a convergence going on. A lot of people are beginning to come

around and realize, “Boy, if we have a good place, we have fewer health issues. We have fewer obesity issues; we have fewer crowd issues.” The benefits are amazing. In truth, this is about democracy. This is about citizen engagement. It’s about community health in terms of physical mobility, but it’s also about disease, it’s about isolation, it’s about making connections, it’s about community, it’s about environment. It is about place and where you live and work. These are not little issues.

In your thirty-plus years of doing this, is there a city or a place that has really turned around?

We’ve looked back at New York City and we had a major impact on Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, to name a few. To me, what’s happened to New York is that it has been defined by places and destinations. Redefined, I believe. There are twenty destinations within Central Park that are unique, active places. It’s a systemic change. And then you realize who did this: These places were developed by people—really passionate people. It wasn’t about city government. It was about having people with passionate forces in those areas.

Your organization partners with residents through programs like your Great Cities Initiative. What lessons do you bring to communities to help them galvanize their own passionate citizenry?

Absolutely. We have this phrase: “You cannot know what you end up with.” It means that you’re open for change, you’re open for flexibility, you’re open for spontaneity. It opens up all kinds of doors that are generally shut when you’re dealing with a professional that needs to simply finish that project and then move on to something else.

We’ve created this extremely festive approach, which we call the Place Performance Game. We ask people to go out to the places that are important to them in their community. It might be just one park, it might be ten places all around the city, and they evaluate them and come back and talk about what improvements could be made. It creates this brainstorming activity among people who normally don’t know each other. You see this fundamental shift in people when they realize that they have to be the masters of their own destiny. PPS, which knows as much as anyone does about public spaces, has found that without equivocation, the people in a community are far better than we are at figuring out what to do with their space. We can never, ever do better than a community.

Q. When you open the doors to community dialogue it can get messy. A. So that’s why you partner and share with the living community. And

Q. Did you have any idea that your nonprofit would take off like this? A. I had no idea what I was going to end up doing, but somehow I was

So when you start to look at the real functions and needs of a community, then the best kind of a plan can be very different from what is being realized by developers?

then they’ll take responsibility. I’ve never seen a city government alone doing it. If a city government is a partner with a community that plays a role in placemaking, you can get fabulous results. But if the city government is defined by discipline, and imposes that discipline on that community, you will get very, very meager results. It will never become place to people then.

confident it was something important. And now, I’m totally humbled by the amazing idea that this is, and how transformative it can be to communities all over the world.

As a journalist who writes about design and development, architecture and culture, and sustainability, I’m seeing all of these different groups start to have the same conversations and begin to recognize that they are all really talking about the same thing: Creating a healthy, happy place.

A. We did a book called How to Turn a Place Around. It’s been translated

You’re right. What if we built our cities around happiness? What an amazing idea!

You have a publication that talks about how communities can learn to make better places.

into Japanese and Czech, and we just learned today that it’s going to be translated into Danish. This idea of placemaking is really becoming universal. We get about three thousand people who come to our website everyday and about one-third of those are from outside of the United States.

Q. So this isn’t a uniquely American issue? A. Today and yesterday, I spent most of my day working on Dubai, Hong

Q. Wouldn’t that be something? A. There won’t be a lot of people that resist that. Imagine saying, “No, we

don’t want anyone to be happy about community.” That wouldn’t go over too well. We need excellence. We need places that allow people to develop to their fullest potential. That’s what’s behind all of this. Being comfortable, happy, and feeling good about yourself. n

Kong, and a city in Israel on the waterfront.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

SENTIMENT AND In late August the corn is so high you can barely see the meet-

Development is coming to Amish Country. A local architectural historian wonders: If the people go, does the place remain?

urbanite august 06

inghouse until you are right on it. In the open space around the stone building, beside the humble graveyard, men and women in separate groups talk in Pennsylvania Dutch, a German dialect that few outside of their community understand. It is not Sunday, but they are dressed neatly in the distinctive clothing that indicates to a familiar observer whether they are Amish or are from one of several Old Order Mennonite communities. A mixed gathering of these different religious sects at a Mennonite meetinghouse is somewhat rare; even rarer are the times when members of the Amish community, who worship in their homes, participate in a function inside a church building. This night is special, for it is an annual assembly of those who wish to sing the oldest songs from their common roots in sixteenth-century Europe. There is no clock or bell, but the crowd knows it is time to begin. They make their way inside the unassuming structure devoid of decoration. Rows of backless benches center around a long wooden table. Talk settles down to a low hum. Several middle-aged men pass out the thick leather-bound hymnals, light a few gas lamps, and make sure everyone has a seat. With no formal introduction, one of the men at the central table sings out one, maybe two notes, and instantly the room is flooded with sound. They know this first one by heart. Every voice sings unabashedly, full of fervor. No one keeps time; there are no instruments. As the songs continue, the slow, swelling sounds transport the uninitiated listener to another land, another time. The sun sets and the voices sing on, the sound pouring out the open window, making its way across the fields and down into the darkening valley, as it has in this quiet corner of Pennsylvania for three centuries.

THE SOIL By Melissa Faye Hess Photography by Denny Lynch

The adjacent watersheds of the Conestoga Creek and the Mill Creek rest on a limestone bedrock that stretches across central Pennsylvania. It is a rolling landscape of rich soils, well irrigated by numerous tributaries and springsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;some of the most productive farmland on the East Coast. At night, much of this place remains a dark patch in the midst of the glowing megalopolis of the northeastern United States. Viewed from a ridge, low-twinkling clusters spread evenly across black fields, marking the farmsteads of families who use gas lighting rather than electricity. The Amish settled in this area approximately 270 years ago, after fleeing from the Alsace and Palatinate regions of central Europe, where they had been persecuted for their particular religious beliefs in the violent fallout of the Protestant Reformation. They found peace, freedom, and plenty of fertile land in William Pennâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s diverse and tolerant colony. Today, the Mill Creek Valley remains the heart of the oldest and largest settlement of Amish. To the north, the Conestoga Valley shelters an even older settlement of Anabaptists: Beginning in 1717, Mennonites began filling the Conestoga, and today groups of Old Order Mennonites, collectively the most conservative branches of what is now a worldwide religion, dominate this lush and slightly less-crowded valley. The contiguous network of family-owned-and-operated Amish and Mennonite farms has been divided over the generations to the point that many farms are now at the smallest size at which they can be profitable. It is a mosaic of well-tended fields, ancient stone barns, solid masonry farmhouses, frame outbuildings, and massive metal silos; a gigantic

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

going dutch Understanding Amish Country Anabaptism—A sixteenth-century offshoot of the Protestant Reformation. Persecuted for their beliefs, including the re-baptism of adults, the group spread from southern Germany and Switzerland into northern Germany, Holland, and North America. Anabaptist groups include the Mennonite Church, Old Order Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Brethren, Hutterites, and others.

earthwork that blends man-made and natural elements, a cultural landscape that draws the curiosity of the world. My own Mennonite family traces its roots in Lancaster County back to the early eighteenth century. As members of mainstream Mennonite congregations, the majority of my relatives are no longer “plain,” in that they do not live an overtly traditional lifestyle, but they still hold to the tenets of the faith. My childhood in an old farmhouse surrounded by development, located about a mile from the Mill Creek Valley, wasn’t much different from that of my non-Mennonite peers. After college in the Midwest, I pursued a career in historic preservation, never suspecting that my first job as an architectural historian fresh out of graduate school would bring me back home. What I found upon my return is that a new landscape threatens to eclipse the rural community that the Amish and Mennonite cultures have created over three hundred years. The farm fields—which have produced an abundance of corn, tobacco, soybeans, vegetables, and feed for livestock—now sprout bumper crops of McMansion-choked cul-de-sac developments, retirement mega-villages, gated condo communities, and other near-instantaneous neighborhoods. This “Amish Country” that draws visitors from around the globe may perish in this century.

Amish—Following Swiss leader Jacob Amman, they

As early as the 1850s, magazines like The Atlantic Monthly were tout-

split from the Mennonites in 1693. Amish eschew telephones, television, and electricity, use horse-and-buggy transportation, and worship in their homes because the “church” is the community of believers, not a building.

ing the simple wonders of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. In 1938, National Geographic dubbed it the “land of milk and honey,” and by 2001, 8.3 million visitors were traveling through the pristine Pennsylvania countryside making tourism, with more than 29,000 employees, the second largest business in Lancaster. The multitude of marketing brochures promise visitors a nostalgic journey to the past. The industry thrives on what outsiders want to believe about the “plain” people—that they are living in another world and time. Tourists thrill at a horse-and-buggy sighting. Minivans slow to soak in the view, their occupants doing their best to follow what they learned at the Pennsylvania Dutch Country Welcome Center on Route 30: Don’t be too brazen with the picture-taking. Along with the tasty jellies, jams, and pies, visitors want to consume the very goodness of the plain people as they imagine it. They marvel at their meticulous handicrafts, their antiquated transportation, their peculiar clothing and head coverings, and the lush, orderly open spaces of their farms. Even

Mennonites—Named for Menno Simons, a sixteenth-century Dutch Anabaptist leader. Today, approximately two hundred Mennonite groups worship in sixty-five countries around the world. The majority of North American Mennonites have assimilated into mainstream society. The Old Order Mennonites are often mistaken for Amish because of their appearance, but unlike the Amish they worship in meetinghouses and use electricity and phones. Some groups travel by horse and buggy; others allow cars. Plain—A term to describe those Anabaptist groups that practice separation from the outside world; often refers to their simple dress. Old Order—Anabaptist communities that have resisted acculturation and most forms of modernization.

Pennsylvania Dutch (or Pennsylvania German)—A German dialect spoken by many Old Order Amish and Mennonites.

English—A term used by Amish to denote a nonAmish person; someone from the outside.

Nonresistance—The Mennonite Confession of Faith calls members to live the Sermon on the Mount, absorbing malice and leaving vengeance up to God. The concept goes beyond pacifism in war to include complete rejection of all violence and conflict, even litigation. Nonconformity—A pattern of living based on the biblical teaching, “Be not conformed to the world.” Though the strict community dress code would appear to be conformity, it is actually a rejection of the larger society’s trend of dressing for individual expression. —M. F. H. In a ﬁeld near a farmhouse lie the remains of families that settled here hundreds of years ago.

urbanite august 06

It is a mosaic of well-tended fields, ancient stone barns, solid masonry farmhouses, frame outbuildings, and massive metal silos; a gigantic earthwork that blends man-made and natural elements, a cultural landscape that draws the curiosity of the world. The small stone structure in the foreground dates back to the early 1700s and is still used by Mennonite farmers today.

more so, they are drawn by what they believe is not here: soulless shopping complexes, mind-numbing traffic, the din of cell phones, the hectic pace of modern life. They hope to connect with a better and more wholesome past. The tourists, however, soon tire of the pastoral scene and move on in search of other entertainment. A burgeoning commercial strip east of Lancaster City pushes farmland back every year to make room for the very modernity that the tourists came to escape: factory outlets, chain restaurants, amusement complexes—a little Vegas in Amish Country. You can hit the Polo outlet designed to look like a barn and go eat at a farm-housey Bob Evans. Increasingly, some tourists are deciding to buy not just the quilts and quaintness of Lancaster County, but the land itself. Consumption is Lancaster County’s true product, and it is this consumption that threatens to end Amish Country as we know it. Development is not only destroying highly productive farmland and forcing out a traditional culture, it is also creating a new landscape that brings with it a gnawing need for new infrastructure, including roads, utilities, shopping, and services. In contrast to the original landscape, which was shaped over time by the forces of a spiritually bound community and

focused on the relationship between man and nature, the new landscape favors the individual. New development is merely a more permanent form of consumption. When people go seeking the country life in droves, they can destroy the very elements they sought. Paradoxically, people who move into new communities in Amish Country sometimes become very vocal opponents of further development of this landscape. Everyone wants his or her little piece of blight to be an isolated piece of blight. In 2004, in the wake of this mounting development, I returned to Lancaster to join a team of architectural historians documenting the two rural historic districts in these valleys, covering close to 48,000 acres. My firm’s work involved visits to several hundred historic farmsteads, the majority of which are owned by either Amish or Old Order Mennonites. I drove north each day from my apartment in Baltimore to document some of the oldest farmsteads and cemeteries in the valleys. Our team fell into a rhythm of photographing buildings, sketching site plans, jotting notes on architectural features, and talking to owners about the history of their properties. Soon my dreams were filled with the various placements of tobacco barns, corncribs, bake ovens, summer kitchens, privies, farmhous-

To care about a place means to care about the people with whom you share that place. When we make places that don’t foster our ties to each other, we are building places that may never be worth saving. A new housing development encroaches on farmland. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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es, and “bank” barns (so called because they are often set into a slope of hill). While patterns emerged, each farm offered something unique. In the aggregate, the integrity of the landscape was stunning, but it was clearly threatened by the intense development in and around the historic communities. A pasture we photographed one week showed the signs of coming development the next. I met with the farmers, the Amish and Mennonite families who have tilled this land for generations, and talked with them about their land and their community’s history. I visited farmsteads built by some of the pioneers to the valley. One day, I traveled a long gravel lane that led to a cluster of buildings set on a low ridge. To the right of the lane was a wide farmhouse with green shuttered windows and a porch running the full length of the facade. To the left of the lane rose a massive post-and-beam constructed Pennsylvania bank barn, a tobacco barn with adjustable vertical slats used for curing, and several makeshift greenhouses. The style of the buggy and the clothes hanging on the laundry line indicated that this family belonged to the Groffdale Conference of Mennonites, often called “Team Mennonites” because they, like the Amish, use horse and buggy for travel. A boy of about 8 or 9 approached. His younger sisters, wearing perfect long braids and calico dresses, hung back bashfully. Their homemade clothes styled after the traditional dress of their parents, their reserved manner, and the air of responsibility that comes with having chores every day made them seem like little adults, but their healthy red cheeks and shiny eyes (that never watch television) reflected an innocence rarely seen in American children. The boy led me to the lower stable level of the barn, where his father was pitching hay. The farmer listened patiently as I launched into a lengthy explanation of the purpose of my visit and my interest in the history of his farm. He simplified things for me: “You want to know what makes this place special.” We walked out of the barn and over to a one-room wide, two-story limestone building, no bigger than a tool shed. The small structure is believed to be one of the oldest dwellings in the valley, perhaps dating to the

1720s. In a field nearby, a small cemetery contains the remains of the family that built this home. Direct lineal descendants still live here and on the surrounding farmstead. The farmer knows it’s special and understands my fascination, but as most farmers, he’s practical; for him, the building is still functional storage space. Nearby, I sat down with another Amish farmer in his modest kitchen. He poured me a cup of strong coffee and our conversation turned to the history of his land and the surrounding area. His hands around his cup were massive, something he shares with other farmers who work without the aid of modern machinery. I could not guess his age because of the health and strength that radiated from every part of him. We walked to his barn where a colossal hand-hewn beam ran unbroken across the entire interior length of the structure. His ancestors knew by looking at the size of the trees what fertile soil they had found. The beam represents a communal effort of labor; the barn was built with countless future generations in mind. Barn raisings continue to this day, although there are no new beams of this magnitude. The sense of mutual care and cooperation of his community are what matter most. He could not stress enough the value of a good neighbor, be they Amish, Mennonite, or English (as the Amish call everyone who is not plain). These men and their families understand the importance of the past, feel keenly the pressure of the moment, and wonder about the future of this distinctive place. Many members of the Amish and Mennonite communities accept the changes. They’ve started cottage industries and other businesses that take advantage of the endless flow of people to their homeland. More and more young men are entering the building trades, as farming is just not an option. Others of the plain people refuse to adapt. They choose to leave their ancestral homelands. There are patterns: Old Order Mennonites are more apt to move than Amish; younger people who want to pursue farming rather than pick up a trade are more apt to move; families that are more conservative are also likely to leave because of greater

In the aggregate, the integrity of the landscape was stunning, but it was clearly threatened by the intense development in and around the historic communities. A pasture we photographed one week showed the signs of coming development the next.

Land is cleared to make way for Lancaster County’s newest commodity: housing. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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The view from a Mennonite meetinghouse

discomfort with the changes in Lancaster County. “We all want to move,” a young Amish woman told me. When I asked why, she said that it was too crowded and too noisy. How can people leave a place they have inhabited for three hundred years? When I asked about the migration, I heard several responses. For some, it was simple arithmetic. The escalating sale price of an acre of soil in Lancaster can purchase several acres in the Midwest, providing a farming life for multiple generations. Perhaps an even more thought-provoking answer to the question is that they are choosing a way of life over a physical place. A retired Mennonite farmer told me, emphatically, “We will live our history.” This challenges, even stuns, a sentimental preservationist who by inclination and training reveres historic settings. How can they leave? But what right would we have to ask them not to go? As a preservationist, I was easily swept up in gloom and woe over these changes. Looking back now, I see that my response wasn’t that far away from those time-traveling tourists I found so silly. My sadness was just nostalgia in disguise. Unable to accept change in a culture and a place that was not even fully my own, I fell into an emotional funk. A Mennonite preacher and a well-known historian of the Lancaster County Mennonites ultimately pulled me out of that funk. When I was at my most blue, he startled me by saying, “We have to get past sentimentality.” And that’s when it hit me. I realized that as I sat and talked with Amish and Mennonites facing wrenching changes in their homeland, I encountered very little sentimentality. Whether they plan to adapt or to leave, what they all value more than the land of their ancestors are their living ties to one another. Though there is little sentimentality, there is pain and anger in the staying and in the going. A segment of this community strongly wants to see their homeland preserved and works steadily and quietly to that end. It can be difficult for outsiders to understand why Old Order communities are not more vocal, but their faith calls them to peace and nonresistance. Change, ultimately, loses much of its sting among a people tuned to acceptance and guided by faith. Those who choose to leave are not unattached to their homeland. They would stay if they could. I learned the phrase die heimat. I was told that it does not translate well into English, but essentially it means, “It gives a feeling of home,” or “It homes me.” One man described it as that

feeling when you enter a place and your knees melt. The phrase speaks to places that resonate in your soul. But without the community, the land itself is pointless. When the believers go, buildings and memories may remain but the place will be gone. That pioneer dwelling will lose its function, becoming a monument, a relic, sitting, perhaps, among a cluster of condos. The piecemeal development of the Mill Creek and Conestoga valleys is creating permanent alterations to provide quick construction for transient populations. The communalism that treasured the land will succumb to the individualized commercialism that now consumes it. What the believers’ way of life can teach us is that to care about a place means to care about the people with whom you share that place. When we make places that don’t foster our ties to each other, we are building places that may never be worth saving. The opening song in the hymnal used today by mainstream Mennonites is titled, “What Is This Place?” The words are just a few decades old, but the music was written in Holland in 1626. The gist of the song is that place is ephemeral, but the bonds of the congregation are eternal. The message of the song is more powerful than centuries. Change is always coming. All things must pass and this landscape will one day not exist, but the community will survive, because community is eternal. Of the infinite responses to change, the Old Order Mennonite and Amish community chooses itself. What is this place where we are meeting? / Only a house, the earth its floor, / walls and a roof sheltering people, / windows for light, an open door. / Yet it becomes a body that lives when we are gathered here / and know our God is near. Words from afar, stars that are falling, /sparks that are sown in us like seed / names for our God, dreams, signs, and wonders / sent from the past are what we need. / We in this place remember and speak again what we have heard, / God’s free redeeming word. And we accept bread at his table, / broken and shared, a living sign. / Here in this world, dying and living, / we are each other’s bread and wine. / This is the place where we can receive what we need to increase: / God’s justice and God’s peace. n w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

urbanite august 06

Scents of Place

An olfactory tour of Baltimore

by mark chalkley

illustration by cornel rubino

Baltimore

is often said to have, in contrast to some other American cities, a “strong sense of place.” But how do we arrive at that? Though it may be considered a spiritual notion, the sense of place is rooted in physical perceptions. We are all familiar with classic Baltimore sights (the Bromo-Seltzer Tower, white marble steps), sounds (the jingling of arabbers’ horse bells, the local nasal twang that turns Highlandtown into “Hollandtown”), and tastes (crabs and beer). Even the tactile sensation of Baltimore’s sticky, humid summers has become a journalistic standby. But not to neglect the fifth sense, it is also true that Baltimore can be described by its characteristic smells. Of course, the idea of a city being known by olfactory effusions may be a turnoff to some. We now live in a country where advertisers aggressively promote products to “knock out” or even “kill” odors, even the “food odors” in your kitchen—as if they had no business being there. With our vast arsenal of air fresheners, deodorants, absorbent kitty litter and such, today’s Americans seem bent on controlling natural smells in the same obsessive way our Victorian ancestors anxiously papered over human sexuality. Breathing in the damp-earthscented air of Hampden after a heavy rain, I can only think of this as an unhealthy kind of denial. I remember another city, where I lived for a time in the 1990s, that was openly and, I thought, unashamedly defined by its smells. Life in Seoul, South Korea, was framed by five olfactory themes. The sharp medicinal smell of ginseng root emanated from every corner pharmacy, heralding the importance of herbal medicine in that culture. Often around the corner, the heavy scent of dried cuttlefish, the favorite snack of Seoulite moviegoers, wafted from theaters showing the latest American films. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, what I considered the cloying scent of traditional garlic soup would always be seeping out of some housewife’s kitchen. Much less common but more agreeable to my Western nose was the nutty aroma of roasting sesame from the occasional roasting shop. The pungent odor of kimchi, that spicy cabbage dish so dear to Korean palates, hung in the background almost everywhere. Call those five smells the Korean quintet: It was nearly impossible to breathe in Seoul without getting a whiff of one of them. Baltimore may not possess such a clear olfactory signature, but there are certain reliable aromas that form, or have formed, part of the fabric of life in this city. For many years the fragrance of mingled spices from McCormick enlivened the atmosphere around the dirty old wharves of the Inner Harbor, a sort of whiff of hope amid the putrid smells of the rotting, rat-infested docks.

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Not long after Harborplace was built, that evocative allspice-and-cinnamon aroma was exiled to a suburban industrial park in Hunt Valley, where it lingers over the light-rail tracks, with scarcely a pedestrian to appreciate it. It is, I think, a much-missed redolence of Baltimore’s past. Other likeable odors linger on. I recall an October night in 1984 when I, a newcomer to this city, went to look at an apartment on Aliceanna Street. The converted barbershop with its odd collection of mismatched furniture and tan paneling seemed gloomy. But then, as I closed the front door behind me, a breeze blew, carrying the rich smell of raisin bread from the H & S Bakery less than a mile away. I took the apartment after all. You won’t find a place like that for sixty dollars a week today, but when a west wind blows in Fells Point, you can still enjoy the bread-scented breeze. If you try to think of a classic Baltimore smell, the paprikasharpened scent of Old Bay may leap to mind, though it tends to be confined to kitchens and restaurants. It is certainly part of life here in the summer, the scent clinging to clothes for hours after a crab feast and hanging in houses from Dundalk to Curtis Bay. The scent of peanuts roasting at Lexington Market is as much of a landmark for our noses as the market is for our eyes: We know where we are when we smell it. Similarly, the candy-like fragrance of the Beverage Capital Corp. soft drink plant on 30th Street in Waverly is a smell that marks a very distinct area. Not all of Baltimore’s characteristic smells have to do with food and merriment, and some are far from cheerful. Too many stairwells and “vacant” properties in our city, not to mention bedrooms of peopled houses, still reek with the vile stench of crack cocaine, a bizarre smell that language can hardly describe. Crack’s unnatural redolence suggests chemical, metallic, and vegetable origins all at once. Dirty gym socks being toasted on a rusty cookie sheet might approximate that nastiness; but maybe it’s best to say that it is a smell only an addict could like. It is another odor we would be better off never having to recognize. Some scents may lack respectability but are still an undeniable part of life here. I am thinking especially of the strange peanut-buttery smell that comes from the ailanthus tree, alias “ghetto palm,” that grows anywhere and everywhere in Baltimore. Whenever the stems or fronds are cut or bruised, we are greeted with an incongruous odor that is not quite Jiff or Peter Pan, but close enough to make you wonder how it came from a green, growing thing. The ghetto palm’s scent is the essence of the insistent life force that brings forth flourishing forests from vacant lots, crumbling buildings, and abandoned train tracks. Twentieth-century Baltimore never lacked for odors and aromas, from the factories with their smells of industrial processes to the breweries, fish markets, bakeries, and fruit stands that fed and comforted the workforce. Post-industrial Baltimore threatens at times to become an olfactory desert, as the odor-free sensibility seeks to repress the fifth sense in daily life. But in this humid climate where growth and decay compete on a daily basis, Baltimore will always smell like

something.

■

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True Tales of MySpace Why sex, lies, and staged photos make for the perfect online place

B y

M a r i a n n e

A m o s s

I need to get something off my chest: I like MySpace. I know you’re all snickering, especially those of you who have heard me complaining about how lame the site is, but it’s true. I use it a lot. I check it about ten times a day at my desk (only during my lunch break, I swear …). I put new photos of myself and funny images up all the time. I check my friends’ pages to see what’s new. I leave them comments. I read bulletins. … I like it. I really like it. When I signed up for MySpace a few years ago, I was no stranger to social networking sites. I kept a LiveJournal for a couple of years in college, from the time I was eighteen until I was twenty. LiveJournal was the first website of its kind that I’d heard of; it functioned just like a blog, or a diary that is in the public domain. I posted journal entries, responded to comments made by people who read what I wrote, and reacted to other people’s journals. I started making online friends. And even though some of the basic programming language needed to really customize my LiveJournal page eluded me, I was able to make it look the way I wanted it to: The background was pink; my user icon was this cool image of a girl surrounded by multi-colored pills that I ripped off a Chuck Palahniuk website; a purple kitten face scowled, smiled, or bopped up and down, depending on my mood; and I created a “friends” page that linked me to recent entries from all the people I wanted to be connected to. My LiveJournal page was the first thing I really owned—the first thing that belonged to me and no one else. The irony was that none of my real friends or family knew about my virtual community. I wrote about things that I didn’t want anyone in my real life to know about. And for a time that worked. It had none of that messiness or consequence that real-world relationships can have. I didn’t reveal anything too personal, like my address, but there was a lot of ranting and unformed thought, which I felt uncomfortable about expressing in person. I shared my thoughts and feelings in a way that I could control, and it didn’t affect my real life too much. I thought of LiveJournal as a blank slate, a place where I could reinvent myself; mistakes and misspeaking didn’t matter. After a time, it was like I was living in parallel worlds, and the LiveJournal world felt as tangible as the real one. What began as an isolated project on the Internet didn’t stay that way. The temptation to meet the people I was reading about and communicating with via instant messaging or comments was too strong, and I ended up talking to some of them on the phone. A weird thing happened when those cyber-relationships crossed the line into real life: None of the people I’d met online, whose friendship and support and jokes I’d been grateful for and energized by, turned out to be the same in real life. Instead of being smart and funny and understanding, they were pedantic, self-absorbed, and not nearly as interesting as they’d seemed. Then my real life crashed into my virtual one. The safe spot I thought I had carved out finally lost all its attraction when an ex-boyfriend started continued on page 75 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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photo by JMC Photography, courtesy of the National Building Museum

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Hip to be Green Can the sustainability movement survive its own success?

Above: The Glidehouse represents a new wave in massproduced, sustainable living. A replica of the home can be viewed at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

News that Time, Vanity Fair, and even fashionista favorite Elle magazine have declared green-friendly living the new hot thing is cause for celebration— and maybe a little caution. While the likes of George Clooney and Julia Roberts could well lead the masses to fuel-efficient homes and eco-conscious diaper services, does anyone remember what causes they supported last year? Could sustainability, too, cool off? More importantly, can the “sustainable industry,” the companies that make, say, the bamboo flooring that everyone seems to want right now, keep up with demand without compromising their principles? Is a bamboo floor really a “plus” in the ecofriendly column when, while it’s easily grown (good: renewable), it must be transported thousands of miles to reach Baltimore homes (bad: burning fossil fuels)? Likewise, is the hot hybrid Lexus really green if it gets just twenty-five miles per gallon? After decades on the fringes, green living is heading toward the mainstream, or at least the monied mainstream. Our mass eco-consciousness is rising. And our mass “buyer beware” filter should be riding shotgun. “Green” doesn’t necessarily mean sustainable, just as “all-natural” doesn’t always mean healthy. And “organic,” the benchmark designation for responsible farming, has a notoriously malleable definition. Products that are considered green be-

cause they are made of quick-growing wood are not sustainable if they are produced by growers who plant and clear-cut whole forests over and over on the same land to keep up with the demand. (Crop rotation helps to improve the condition of the soil and reduce pests.) And when big stores such as WalMart and Whole Foods stock organic tomatoes yearround, they’re certainly not buying them locally (an important aspect of sustainable organic farming); they’re flying and trucking them in from mega-farms located all over the globe. The deeper truth is that changing stores won’t guarantee sustainability; changing habits will. Historically, the “sustainable life” has been a difficult sell not only because consumer-friendly green products were expensive and rare, but also because it meant, as it still means today, that people might have to adjust some of their hopes and dreams and expectations. It is a lot harder than just “shopping where Julia shops” or “driving what George drives.” It is a matter of consuming less, not just differently. The sustainable lifestyle will never make a VH1 Fabulous Life of… segment because it is the antithesis of excess; it’s simple, local, and seasonal. Instead of tomatoes year-round, it’s tomatoes in the mid to late summer, when they’re ripe and so much more delicious than the tomatoes we eat in the winter that they seem like a different fruit altogether. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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Seeing ever more green products on the shelves and hearing the words green, sustainable, recycle, and re-use in the mainstream press and everyday conversation are huge steps forward, no doubt. And there is, indeed, an explosion in sustainable building and design. But it’s not on the consumer side. It’s business where the hearts—or at least minds—have changed. More builders of big buildings are reaching for higher energy and ecological standards, and they are driving the market for supplies that will help them do it. What moved these big guys? Economies of scale—especially in costly heating and cooling— tax incentives, and, in part, a change in marketing. “People look at energy, but I think that a green building as a statement of quality is a new concept,” that is helping businesses and their builders adopt more ecologically sound practices, says David Pratt, president of the Baltimore regional chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. “I think once you take out the reason for doing it is ‘because it’s the right thing’ and replace that with ‘you’re doing it because you want higher-quality buildings, both from a performance perspective but also from a health perspective,’ then it starts to make more sense.” Such high-performing buildings are often leased faster, for longer periods, and in some cases at higher market rates, he says. Nearly ninety projects in Maryland have applied for or received the green-standard Leadership in

Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, according to Pratt. Nationwide, five or six buildings are registering each day for the certification process, which was created in 2000. And now it’s not just the federal or state buildings, many of which are required to meet these standards, but higher-profile private projects that are going green. In addition to two Social Security Administration buildings in

The deeper truth is that changing stores won’t guarantee sustainability; changing habits will. It is a matter of consuming less, not just differently. Woodlawn and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation headquarters in Annapolis, the Stewart’s Building in downtown Baltimore is among those complete and LEED certified. Bank of America is one of several financial businesses that are designing or building LEED-certifiable headquarters. “And banks don’t do things that don’t make economic sense,” Pratt says.

But there have been growing pains here, too. For example, building owners get LEED points for installing bike racks to tempt people to cycle to work, no matter whether their building sits on a city block or trapped in between two highways. And sometimes suppliers who fall behind on increasingly popular products make do just like big farmers who struggle to meet the demand for free-range organic livestock: by copying the unsustainable practices they were supposed to have supplanted. Oriented strand board, which is created by pressing soft, knotty wood (wood that traditionally has little commercial value) into panels that can take the place of plywood, has become very popular. “They started planting monoculture forests of poplar trees and other cheap, fast-growing wood and fertilizing and pesticiding to get it to grow quickly, and then clear-cutting it before a diverse ecosystem could evolve and chipping it up to make OSB,” says Baltimore architect Julie Gabrielli. “But what are people going to do? Not buy OSB? It’s better than some of the alternatives.” Standards can help people make smarter choices, and there are a growing number of good ones to choose from. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifies well-made wood products; Greenguard, Green Label Plus, and Green Seal verify that interior products such as paint, insulation, carpets, and flooring don’t emit an excess of potentially harmful continued on page 77

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Random Recipes A collective uses chance to make edible art in Boston

Above: Celery, green onions, carrots, and Swiss chard were donated to international collective Spurse for use in The Public Table project.

The student emerged from a medical center on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. He looked like an MIT student: He was wearing glasses, his hair was disheveled, and his shirt was half tucked in. He did not flinch when an attractive 22-year-old woman approached him and began asking a series of questions. A minute later the woman, Monique Milleson, knew that the man did not currently own a bike, but when he was a child he had a blue bicycle with a set of flat handlebars. Milleson, an artist, and her accomplice, J. Walker Tufts IV, were one step closer to Friday night’s dinner. The student never questioned who Milleson was or why she asked such an odd string of questions. Instead, as Milleson turned to walk away, the student shouted, “Hey! Wait! Do you guys know where the ID office is?” “We’ve found that in places with colleges, people don’t usually ask what you’re doing,” Tufts, 28, said. “Students tend to be so used to it—the poking and prodding and answering—that they don’t really question it.” So the student would never know he was part of The Public Table, a project by the international collective Spurse, which in May completed a threecity run with its final stop in Cambridge. Using the answers of the student and people like him—this

particular student was selected on one of Tufts and Milleson’s “gleaning walks” because he was wearing a blue shirt—the group went on to create a meal using the answers to their questions and an algorithm. It works like this: An algorithm-dictated walk generates answers to a set of questions that determine the next meal to be served. The algorithm determines the number of dishes, their size, the number and type of ingredients (from a pantry made up of food donated by local restaurants and grocery stores), the proportions of ingredients, and the methods in which they are to be cooked. Those ingredients may or may not go together in a traditional culinary sense. The upside is that the hodgepodge of people who attended the dinners on Thursday and Friday nights during the show’s Cambridge run ate for free. The downside is what they were served may have been quite good or it may have been barely edible. “About 98% of the people who showed up have been sort of thrilled with the whole idea,” Tufts said of the people who ate the meals he and other Spurse collaborators prepared. “Some people—maybe four in total—have just not been into it.” As a public art project, The Public Table redefined the term “public.” Rather than building a sculpture in a park or affixing a mural to the side of continued on page 79 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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in review

EXHIBIT Inside/Out: Sculpture at Evergreen Through September 24

NONFICTION Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore’s Plug Uglies, 1854–1860 Tracy Matthew Melton The Maryland Historical Society, 2005

When I entered the gate of Evergreen House, the industrial architecture and urban noise of Baltimore dropped away, and I was surrounded by nature. I stood beneath a Kool-Aid-blue sky and felt stunned by the soaring trees, the almost endless stretch of grass, and even the air, which seemed textured like the wispy edible wrappers in Japanese rice candy. It was a sunny early-summer day, and I wandered into the twenty-six-acre estate as a pilgrim on a strange search for beauty. I approached a niche in the garden wall where colorful, decaying flowers hung upside down in bouquets—an installation by Suzanne Bocanegra called After Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Bouquet, 1607. Jars of glitter were set beneath the flowers in this dark, tight space, creating a sense of fetishistic ritual, and I felt as though I had intruded on a silent homage to Brueghel and the paintings he made of rare flowers. Inside/Out: Sculpture at Evergreen consists of nine other outdoor sculptural installations that explore the uneasy relationship between art and nature. Evergreen House is a 149-year-old Italianate mansion containing one of Baltimore’s oldest and best art collections. Donated to Johns Hopkins University by John W. Garrett as a sanctuary for “lovers of music, art, and beautiful things,” it fulfills that role through both its collection and its surroundings. I consulted my map and moved along the bank of a muddy stream until I arrived at Babble, Pummel,

“There’s no secret to making history come alive,” said Pulitzer-winning historian David McCullough in a National Book Award acceptance speech. “Barbara Tuchman said it perfectly: ‘Tell stories.’” In his new history of Baltimore’s nineteenthcentury street gangs, Tracy Matthew Melton tells great stories. The Henry Gambrill of his title is a sharp-dressing young tough from the milieu that created the Plug Uglies, Rip-Raps, Regulators, Blood Tubs, Calithumpians, and dozens of other neighborhood “associations” that terrorized the city. The hanging of this Plug Ugly stalwart in 1859 was a key moment in the various gangs’ decline. Between the opening story—the shooting death of policeman Benjamin Benton—and the deathbed confession at the book’s end, Melton spins tales of urban violence and corruption that would be fantastic if they were not impeccably researched, meticulously told, and true. (Melton’s skillful storytelling was recently honored by ForeWord, an international magazine that promotes independent publishers; Hanging Henry Gambrill received an honorable mention in their annual competition.) Begun as loose neighborhood social groups, Baltimore’s gangs became “more elaborate and durable organizations” by the 1840s and ’50s. They were affiliated with the volunteer fire companies and served as shock troops for political parties, especially for the American (“Know Nothing”) Party whose nativist platform inflamed the same ethnic and religious identities that shaped neighborhoods. At the height of their power, the savagery of the Plug Uglies was widespread; the gang perpetrated mayhem from

and Pride, Matthew Geller’s glass-sheltered swinging benches. Here I sat and swung while a jet of water shot up from the stream like a broken lawn sprinkler, arced down, and drummed against the glass roof above me. The visual effect was less a cozy rainfall than a vicious confrontation with the stream. The sound of water hitting glass underscored the less obvious but no less important messages of this outdoor exhibit: Be wary of nature; appreciate the architecture of sunlight and the unexpected charm of tree-shadows; do not look to the Evergreen art collection alone for “beautiful things,” but also at the estate surrounding it. These are the lessons I took home from Inside/ Out in a kind of visual doggie bag I found myself opening days later to snack on. But while the exhibition succeeds in citing the rich and historical interior of Evergreen as a footnote to its exterior, it succeeds to a greater extent as a function of summer. I got lost while negotiating this immense outdoor site, and each new sculpture I found surprised me as much by its intimacy with a world lit by the elusive, fragrant haze of summer as by its aesthetic. As I connected the dots along the map, the image I formed was a memory of that season. —Justin Gershwin

Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., and became a national synonym for thuggery. Melton writes a dizzying and detailed account of city streets so awash in assault and homicide that election results were fabulous fictions, voting could be a death-defying act, and the gangs overshadowed the political parties who depended upon them. (In the state and federal elections of 1856 alone, more than a dozen people died; scores were maimed and injured.) The ferocity of these men is astonishing, from alcohol-fueled spontaneous truculence to mass attacks worthy of a military campaign. Melton gives these monsters life, personality, and substance. Just when the exhaustive account of shattered bone and mangled flesh threatens to overwhelm, Melton shifts into a captivating whodunit account of Gambrill’s arrest, trial, and hanging, and relates the courage of reformers who took on the gangs and their government cronies. Melton’s mission is to narrate. Absent are statistics on immigration that fueled nativist fears, or on Baltimore’s explosive growth in the pre-Civil War generation. That omission detracts not a bit from the clarity and impact of this vivid portrait of an American city at a crucial moment of transformation. Its politics were raw and corrupt, its civic services and justice system underdeveloped and unprofessional. Out of the resulting carnage came reforms that “altered municipal government in Baltimore and established its basic structure for most of the next century.” —William J. Evitts

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Mark the 40th anniversary of the Orioles’ first modern-era World Series championship with sports broadcaster Roy Firestone, manager Hank Bauer, and a reunion of players from the team. Corporate sponsorships available. Gala benefits the non-profit Babe Ruth Museum. Tickets prices are tax deductible. For more information, call the Museum at 410-727-1539 x3013.

in review

NONFICTION Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos that Reshaped America Peter Charles Hoffer PublicAffairs, 2006

FICTION Goodbye Lemon Adam Davies Riverhead Trade, 2006

A major fire leaves an indelible mark on a city. Add up our nation’s urban fires, writes Peter Charles Hoffer, distinguished research professor of history at the University of Georgia, and you get repercussions that carry lessons to the present day. In Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos that Reshaped America, Hoffer tells this story through seven American cities and the fires that devastated and, at times, reinvented them. Hoffer presents Baltimore’s Great Fire of 1904 as an example of an urban fire that led to new, smarter development. The conflagration wiped out downtown from roughly Fayette Street to the water. Hoffer writes, “Because the widening of streets and the restoration of the waterfront was limited to the fire zone, the recovery effort turned the Inner Harbor into a distinct and coherent place.” The Inner Harbor faltered again in the decades following the 1950s as businesses and residents moved to the suburbs. Still, Hoffer sees the legacy of the Great Fire as instrumental in allowing developers like James Rouse to build projects such as the Harborplace pavilions—projects that would have been difficult if the layout of downtown had not been radically altered in 1904. In a chapter on the collapse of the Twin Towers, Hoffer asks readers to lay aside for a moment the fact that the blaze was the result of a terrorist attack. Instead, he asks readers to consider fire safety in skyscrapers. Hoffer uses the Twin Towers as a case

study of how shortcuts in building skyscrapers can be disastrous. The buildings’ original design plan included wider staircases that were scattered rather than grouped together, which would have facilitated evacuation. The same design features that allowed for height also allowed for the instability that caused the floors to collapse one on top of another when exposed to high temperatures. In the end, Seven Fires is perhaps less the story of urban fires that reshaped America than the story of our resistance to changing business as usual. Optimism and faith in technology allowed the rapid rise of American cities. However, these qualities that have led the nation to face adversity with the promise to build bigger have not always led us to build better. As Hoffer points out, of the developers vying to rebuild at the World Trade Center site, “no one in the competition puffed their design as the most fireproof.” Though Hoffer does not say so, his argument is one that has obvious implications outside of fires. Technology in cities must be weighed carefully against the disasters they are meant to withstand. Faith in levee systems ultimately failed New Orleans. Let’s hope that the lessons of flooding, like the lessons of fire, will allow us to meet the next catastrophe wiser and more prepared.

The dysfunctional family trope has always loomed large in the American psyche. In literature, the conceit presents numerous opportunities for tension, conflict, and resolution, as well as a microcosm of the world at large. Philip Roth’s neurotically challenged, erotically charged eponymous hero of Portnoy’s Complaint, for example, shocked readers not only with his brazen tales of deflowered livers and shiksa obsessions but also by a (admittedly hyperbolic) nightmarish portrait of the ur-Jewish mother from hell. Today’s talk/reality show confessionals present similar glimpses of families in lurid states of disrepair. One could argue the country is a collective voyeur, peeping into sick and broken homes that perhaps hold up a stark mirror to our own domestic illness. In the novel Goodbye Lemon, Adam Davies offers up a lushly written variation on the theme that explores the story of a supremely failed family, the Tennants, through the eyes of its youngest son, Jackson. The story opens as Jackson, a composition instructor at a backwater Georgia college with a litany of ghosts haunting his past, heads to Baltimore after his father suffers a stroke. Before becoming sick, the father is, according to Jackson, a ruthless, unloving tyrant, a man whose service in the Marines informs his every interaction with his sons. The novel follows the Tennants’ fall from grace, which began when the middle son, Dexter, drowned in a lake when Jackson was five. This tragedy precipitates a spiral of guilt that affects each family member differently and creates a dark gulf between parent and child, brother and brother. Adair, the mother, adopts an almost Stepfordian demeanor, becoming stiff and porcelain and consumed with appearances both physical and social; this behavior translates into a cold affect to-

wards her surviving sons. Oldest brother Pressman retreats behind a haze of booze and cynical bravado, living a subterranean existence in his parents’ basement into his late thirties. What helps turn Goodbye Lemon into something more than just a novel about a pathetic family is the intriguingly unreliable narrative voice of Jackson. While Davies doesn’t quite have the deft touch of Tim O’Brien (who can utilize the unreliable narrative voice to subtly manipulate his audience into venturing down otherwise unimagined roads), he still succeeds in planting seeds of doubt in the reader that poke and prod, making the reader uncomfortable yet all the more curious about Jackson’s elusive memories. The novel’s measured pacing showcases Davies’ skillful storytelling. At several points early in the story, Jackson alludes to various troubles in the Tennant family (his traumatic departure from grad school, for example) but it’s not until we’re well into the plot and subplots—and familiar with all the major players in the novel—that Davies divulges the answers. The revelations are gradual, measured disclosures, demonstrating an adroit sense of timing. Goodbye Lemon occasionally falters, particularly in its tendency to saturate chapters with cliffhanger-like pronouncements; this tactic grows stale quickly. Davies also has a penchant for showing off his creative vocabulary (“my brother prestidigitates a flask,” “my cell phone emits a polyhymnal jingle”); more often than not, these attempts merely clog the flow of his sentences. These, however, are minor snags in a novel that nimbly examines the tragic and redemptive aspects of family secrets.

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—Michael Paulson w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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what i’m reading

e-reading Crime and Punishment confirmed my suspicion that great literature, like youth, is wasted on the young. I first read Dostoevsky’s 1866 ode to an axe murderer when I was an undergrad; its length combined with its intensely Russian sensibility made my eyeballs roll back in my head. Recently, I picked it up again in conjunction with John Updike’s latest novel, Terrorist, and concluded that Crime and Punishment is a shocking masterpiece; as the first author to explore the use of psychoanalysis to solve crime, Dostoevsky, like filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock one hundred years later, places his audience inside the head of the criminal, forcing us to identify with him and making us complicit in his actions. The student Raskolnikov commits murder to prove a political and metaphysical point, after which, insane with guilt, he is guided toward confession and redemption by Sonia, the literary archetype of the hooker with a heart of gold. An extraordinary man has a right, Raskolnikov believes, “to permit his conscience to step over certain obstacles ...” But he discovers, as does Updike’s Ahmad Mulloy Ashmawy, the protagonist of Terrorist, that a conscience can be a pesky affliction, and one not so easily dispensed with, when planning a heinous crime. It’s not that Ahmad believes himself to be extraordinary; on the contrary, he believes he is a mere foot soldier in a holy jihad, and that his life will have meaning only at the moment of its sacrifice. A New Jersey teenager manipulated by his mosque’s radical imam, Ahmad tries to reconcile his materialistic American upbringing with his

by susan mccallum-smith

religious beliefs, with potentially heartbreaking consequences. Updike had no intention of writing a rollicking thriller; his subject matter carries inherent tension and disturbing associations for the reader (who can’t avoid thoughts of 9/11), yet his studious exploration of the difficulties of interpreting religious texts like the Bible and the Koran inevitably affects his novel’s pacing. Don’t read it at bedtime—you’ll perpetually play the same sentences over and over in your head like a needle stuck on a record. Admittedly, some of the sentences are rather good, but Dostoevsky trounces Updike in the suspense department. Nevertheless, it’s rewarding when artists like Updike and Dostoevsky are gutsy enough to tackle controversial material and portray unsympathetic characters. And how much fun a fearless writer can be! If the Bard had written fiction rather than plays, would his books resemble Iris Murdoch’s 1978 The Sea, the Sea? Murdoch sprinkles casual allusions through her text not only to Greek and Celtic mythology but to the Bard himself. Like him, she seemed determined to keep her audience on the edge of their seats. Her novel is a performance and her character-actors don’t daydream, they do. And being fatally flawed, they can’t do other than they are. In The Sea, the Sea, they steal, lie, kidnap, love, threaten, throw stones, shove people over cliffs, and sleep around with whichever gender is available. Plotted with the speed and intricacy of Elizabethan comedy (multiple scenes, class satire, and Brits behaving badly), Murdoch’s work is, nevertheless, tragic. The main character, Charles, suffers from an insatiable egoism

rendering him incapable of taking a single genuine action or expressing a single genuine emotion; “I felt triumphant and delighted,” he says when hearing of someone else’s misfortune, “but I looked grim.” To Charles, life really is a stage. It’s a tribute to Murdoch’s empathetic writing that I’m quite fond of this despicable old sod by the end. I’m less fond of (but just as captivated by) Max, the unreliable narrator of John Banville’s similarly titled 2005 novel, The Sea. Banville uses the sea, as does Murdoch, as a metaphor for the dark depths of the human soul. This “vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam” swallows the innocent and guilty alike. Interfering little social climber Max spies on a mute prankster, Myles, who “said nothing but was never silent,” and his nymph-like sister, Chloe, who are locked in a sexually charged power game with their governess. Banville’s novel subtly references Henry James’ 1898 ghost story The Turn of the Screw, a creepy romp I highly recommend to any Jamesian virgins out there as a gentle introduction to his somewhat intimidating, convoluted style. Dostoevsky, Updike, Murdoch, and Banville illustrate that to be an artist is to possess a determination to extract meaning from human misbehavior and despicable events, to ghoulishly mine material from the direst circumstances in order to educate and (let’s be honest) entertain and titillate the reader. What a wicked, wicked (and wonderful) way to earn a living. ■ —Susan McCallum-Smith is Urbanite’s literary editor.

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True Tales of MySpace continued from page 61

posting (sometimes nice, sometimes horrible) things about me on his LiveJournal—the one I had helped him set up. He was using my real name, which meant anyone could, through a simple Google search, read every word. (Don’t even think about doing it now.) I was furious. I learned then that the Internet is not a place you can get lost in. The events that take place there don’t exist there in isolation. Using the Web is nothing like visiting Las Vegas: What happens on the Internet does not stay on the Internet. As much as I wanted to create a new place that was untouched by my real life, I couldn’t. It’s impossible. And yet, here I am a few years later, a self-professed MySpace lover. In spite of my embarrassment over my use of the site (though, in reality, most everyone who uses MySpace loves to mock it), I thoroughly enjoy it. This might seem strange—if I was so upset by my experience with LiveJournal, why, at the age of 23, would I join another social networking site and put myself out there again? Truth is, MySpace serves a very different function. I intentionally kept my LiveJournal life separate from my real life. I communicated only with strangers, and I learned from that experience that Internet friends don’t make good real friends. But I now use MySpace primarily to keep in touch with my real friends, and I’ve learned that those real-life friends make great Internet friends. MySpace lets me create my ideal place. It’s like decorating a new apartment: I put all my favorite books on the bookshelves, line up my records,

With MySpace, I feel like I’m always in this warm happy spot; in some ways, it’s my favorite place to be. stack my DVDs next to the TV, and put photos and art around. Then I invite my friends over to see what I’ve done with the place, and they compliment me on my good taste. With MySpace, I feel like I’m always in this warm happy spot; in some ways, it’s my favorite place to be. Because of the way MySpace works—because it’s designed for people to show themselves off to others—as I create this ideal space, I am simultaneously creating my ideal picture of myself. I am putting the best “me” out there into cyberspace. Anyone that looks at my page will get that version— a stark contrast to the very honest portrait I painted on LiveJournal. Everyone who uses MySpace implicitly understands this. Although I don’t contact people I don’t know, I do a lot of browsing through other people’s profiles, and I know that this is why we all post sexy photos of ourselves with our new kittens; or perched atop the hoods of our new cars; or out with our best friends, laughing over drinks, our hair falling gently over our foreheads … We all understand that we’re lying a little. We are the most glamorous, attractive, intelligent, hip, desirable version of ourselves on MySpace, and this rarely stands up to reality. We curate other people’s experience of us. This kind of image manipulation isn’t possible in real life. So we never talk about our MySpace profiles to each other in public. This is not to say that my time on the site has been without incident; the cyberworld will always bump up against the real world in an uncomfortable way. I’ve read saccharin messages posted by ex-boyfriends to their new girlfriends’ profiles. I’ve found out things about acquaintances of mine that make social interaction awkward (some people do put personal information on their profiles). But I’m going to continue using MySpace. Maybe the next time I see someone in a bar that I recognize from the site, I’ll walk up to her and ask about her new kitten, and that time she was at the bar with all her friends, and how she gets her hair to do that nice flippy thing … right? Nah. ■ w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

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A musical play that’s a nostalgic look at the famed Royal Theater. If you were there, you’ll relive every minute of it. If you’ve only heard about it ...you’ll see what you missed. Dr. Nathan Carter Scholarship Benefit Concert Concert in tribute to the late, Sat., Sept. 23 great Dr. Nathan Carter—Director 6:00 PM of the Morgan State University Choir from 1970 to 2004 and chair of the MSU Fine Arts Department This concert features The Heritage Signature Chorale, Stanley Thurston, Conductor. Proceeds to benefit the Nathan Carter Scholarship Fund

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The More House 4 Less Maryland Mortgage Program is administered by the Community Development Administration (CDA) of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

RobeRt L. ehRLich, JR. Governor EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY

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Hip to be Green continued from page 65 chemicals. EnergyGuide.com recommendations and Energy Star labels and ratings may have even more influence as power bills continue to rise. And while much of this green construction supply chain hasn’t trickled into the consumer market yet (consumers shop mainly through their contractors or builders), some of the wood offered at Home Depot now is FSCcertified, and that trend is likely to continue. The building-supply chain is one of the sponsors of The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design, which is installed in a corner of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., until next June. The exhibit’s chief draw is a walk-through replica of Glidehouse, a modernist factory-built home made of sustainable and energy-efficient materials. There are many wooden and recycled objects in conventional shapes and settings to touch and sit on. Laminated tags on nearly every surface give “go green” tips that people can actually put into

practice. It’s also instructive to feel how small an eco-friendly house actually is: no bigger than a city rowhouse. The presentation is familiar, like those at a standard home show. And that’s the point: Sustainability and efficiency are growing into standard considerations, joining functionality and cost. A well-known Iroquois proverb is roughly translated: In every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. This proverb captures the essence of truly sustainable living and the daunting task of thinking about how the transportation we use, the food we eat, and the homes we live in will affect our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s great-grandchildren. It is with this sense of purpose that the sustainability movement will survive its own celebrity and continue to model a healthy way of living today that will allow our descendants to inherit a healthy planet tomorrow. ■

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traffic, and even skirted a construction site where they interrupted the workdays of not one, but two laborers. “Perfect!” Milleson said after interviewing a foreman with the prescribed Day-Glo orange sweatshirt. “That guy had a mint-green Schwinn when he was a kid.” For the duration of the four-week Cambridge run, Spurse borrowed a gallery in Cambridge’s Kendall Square and converted it into a makeshift restaurant. The kitchen had three electric hot plates, a toaster oven, a microwave, and a dorm-size fridge, as well as a wide range of ingredients stacked haphazardly on a counter. One full black-painted wall had been dedicated to the cooking algorithm, which had been painstakingly written on the wall in silver magic marker. Tufts said a longer run, like the ones the project had in New Haven, Connecticut, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, would have been ideal for generating buzz in Cambridge. But delays in leasing space had delayed the opening. And any run much longer than six weeks starts attracting unwanted, as well as wanted, attention; on their last day in New Haven

Random Recipes continued from page 67

The algorithm made them do it: Spurse serves up baguettes dipped in a beet-juice sauce and stuffed with seasoned vegetablees.

a building, the public becomes not the art but the artist. Answers provided by the public set parameters for the Spurse collaborators’ creativity. Put another way, the collection, preparation, and consumption of food becomes the common interest that draws people, much like a park or busy street draws people for more traditional public art projects. On this particular day, the gleaning-walk algorithm’s first instruction was to find a bike rack. Milleson took notes on five bikes locked up in front of the gallery. Each bike’s handlebar style dictated a different direction to walk and its color told Milleson and Tufts how long they needed to walk in that direction. A purple bike with flat handlebars meant they would walk seven minutes toward the southwest and, while walking, look for someone wearing an item of purple clothing to be the subject

of their next impromptu interview (which would also have a bicycle theme). While the algorithm was randomly generated beforehand, Tufts and Milleson were married to its directions once they stepped out of the gallery. Why? The algorithm took subjectivity out of the walks. Tufts cited the example given by one of the other twelve collaborators working on the project, who said if he didn’t have an algorithm to follow, he knew his walk would end up at the nearest bookstore. The algorithm forced the questioners into corners of Cambridge they might have otherwise avoided. Once they had set off on their bicycle-themed tour, Milleson and Tufts’ walk was only slightly delayed when a locked wheelchair elevator blocked their path. Otherwise, they hopped fences, dodged

As a public art project, The Public Table redeﬁned the term “public.” Rather than building a sculpture in a park or afﬁxing a mural to the side of a building, the public becomes not the art but the artist. a health inspector visited the project to see if they were licensed to serve food and investigate unfounded, inaccurate, and anonymous complaints that they had been Dumpster diving for ingredients. As the project concluded, it seemed clear that cooking by algorithm would not be the next Food Network hit. Tufts’ favorite dish was a spring roll stuffed with oatmeal, powdered milk, dried mangoes, and roasted marshmallows. “That was good,” he said. “That is something I’d eat again.” The worst concoction? A dime-sized dish that contained black molasses, garlic, and hot sauce. The algorithm insisted that the hot sauce be cooked down, increasing its potency. “It was bad news,” Tufts said. “It was sort of like putting out a cigarette on your tongue.” ■

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Located In Historic Federal Hill 46 East Cross St. Baltimore, MD 21230 410-625-2424

A Unique Boutique Filled to the Brim with Beautiful Handcrafted Jewelry VOTED BALTIMORE’S BEST “FUNKY JEWELRY”

Integrity, Experience, Professionalism. A Winning Combination.

urbanite august 06

Start with us today. www.KathyMerz.com Long & Foster Real Estate 1210 Light Street Baltimore MD 21230 Ofﬁce: 410-727-4644

•Specializing in Bridal Party Jewelry & Tiaras •Featuring an extensive line of VOTIVO candles, soaps & other amazing personal & home items • ARTWORK by Local Artists: Crystal Moll Prints Kelly Ames Hand Painted Glassware, Jennifer Hubbard Portraits

resources

You can find wild grape leaves growing in Robert E. Lee Park in Mount Washington, as well as Leakin Park in West Baltimore and Cromwell Valley Park in Baltimore County. Our writer recommends the stuffed grape leaves from Mylos (4619 Eastern Avenue; 410-342-7753), The Black Olive (814 South Bond Street; 410-276-7141), and Samos (600 Oldham Street; 410-675-5292). For the Lebanese version, she recommends the Cedar Deli & Grocery in Towson (246 East Burke Avenue; 410-823-3326).

73 What I’m Reading 63 Hip to be Green The Ecological Footprint Quiz at www.myfoot print.org gives you an estimate of your ecological footprint—how many acres of earth you require to maintain your lifestyle. Green Remodeling: Changing the World One Room at a Time (New Society Publishers, 2004), by David Johnston and Kim Master, offers theory, practical tips, and even some psychological advice about what to do when your

coming next month:

Our literary editor included the following books in this month’s column: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866, reprint by Penguin Classics, 2002); Terrorist by John Updike (Knopf, 2006); The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (1978, reprint by Penguin Classics, 2001); The Sea by John Banville (Knopf, 2005); and The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories by Henry James (1898, reprint by Oxford World’s Classics, 1998).

photo by Denny Lynch

29 The Family Vine

remodel goes astray. (Johnston developed the first green remodeling program in the United States and is creating a national green certification program for the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.) The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), by Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne, offers detail about the designs and buildings highlighted in the National Building Museum exhibit referenced in the article (Stang and Hawthorne are consulting curators for the exhibit, which runs until June 2007). The museum’s website (www.nbm.org) contains a wealth of information on the show and includes basic green-living and energy-saving tips. The GreenHomeGuide website is a community-based resource clearinghouse that includes tips, case studies, expert interviews, and regional directories of products and services; visit www.greenhomeguide.com.

To read about the changes occurring in Amish Country, see page 48.

Guest Editor Stephanie Coontz: Gues

Deconstructing “family” in a modern age 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 u g u s t 0 6

Canton waterfront

1400 Lancaster, Penthouse 1002

Amazing home on the end of the North Shore Pier has it all! Incredible water view from every room, Gourmet kitchen w/ Viking, custom baths w/ granite, vessel sink & TV’s, multiple balconies, gated 2-car parking, surround wiring, 2 way FP in Master & master bath, 3rd level terrace & walk in closets. This is the ultimate city home w/great water views, parking & security! Visit baltimoreshowcase.com for virtual tour.

Make this luxury penthouse with beautiful water view in Inner Harbor East your city getaway! 1800+ sqft, 2BR, 2.5BA, Master bath with marble tile and vanity, walk in closets, 2 balconies, floor to ceiling windows, tile floors, custom kitchen with granite countertops & stainless steel appliances, fireplace, 2 secure parking spaces & 24hour security. Visit baltimoreshowcase.com for virtual tour.

704 Milton

Enjoy great water views from this 6th floor luxury condo. Within walking distance to Little Italy, Fells Point & Inner Harbor. 2BR, 2.5BA condo with airy bamboo floors, fireplace, elegant baths, contemporary kitchen, 2 car garage parking & 24 hour security. Visit baltimoreshowcase.com for virtual tour.

This home Features high-end appliances, sought-after location, smart design & fine finishes. Luxury living at its best! 3500sqft+, heavy duty elevator, 2 Mstrs, 10ft ceil, 2 car garage, tray ceilings, attention to detail, cntrl vac, premium intercom, high-end baths, wood floors & large decks. Buyer pays transfers, 5 year tax credit! 4 units available - Visit baltimoreshowcase.com for virtual tour.

Canton

808 Glover Street Exquisite & grand 3 level Canton oasis ready for you to make home! Enter to a sunken Living room w/ built-ins, rich moldings, wainscoting & a designer’s touch! The gourmet kitchen is entertainers dream w/ glazed cabinets, stainless, granite & a dumbwaiter w/ service to the 3rd level wet bar, entertainment area. Enjoy the 2 tier decks w/ private hot-tub & great city views. Visit baltimoreshoecase.com for virtual tour.

Canton waterfront 2327 Boston Street #16

urbanite august 06

Canton

Inner Harbor East 1400 Lancaster, Unit 601

Inner Harbor East

2327 Boston Street #16

Canton Waterside 916 Baylis Street

Newly renovated 3 story TH in Canton. Two level deck w/great water & city view! Unique sunken kitchen w/ granite/stainless/designer cabinets, HW through-out, 3.5 baths, beautiful finish work, 3rd level master suite w/ separate Jacuzzi tub overlooking skyline! Walk to restaurants, waterfront, Dog Park & shops. Visit baltimoreshowcase.com for virtual tour.

Canton Cove Waterfront 2901 Boston Street, Unit 316

Zen-like Canton waterfront residence with a panorama that will not fail to impress. Distinctive by design 18ft walls of glass & 2 expansive balconies provide an awe-inspiring residence perfect for your exciting lifestyle. Enjoy your privacy w/24hr front desk/security. Storage unit & 2 private parking spaces included (1 garage space). Additional storage & studio unit available.

sweet summer

Sometimes you have to look ahead in order to live for the now.

Bright future. Bright idea. Luxury townhomes in the city.

Stop by Ixia and try one of our delectable desserts. 518 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Phone: 410.727.1800 www.ixia-online.com Kevin Miller, Executive Chef Rated EXTRAORDINARY by Zagat 2006

Priced from the low $500s

Visit us in Locust Point at 1902 E. Fort Ave. Baltimore, MD 21230 410-244-0185 Open from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm daily or at www.pulte.com/mchenrypointe

MHBR#516

Photo: maxglanville.com w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

urbanite marketplace

Complete Internet Solutions for Home or Business Dialup • DSL • Web Hosting Co-location • Voice/Data T-1's Quantum Internet Services, Inc.

2975B Manchester Rd., Manchester, MD 21102

1-888- 889-inet www.qis.net

Buy premium quality seafood DIRECT FROM THE MANUFACTURER!

• Crab Meat • Fish & Shrimp • Crab Cakes • Seafood Soups • Seafood Entrees & Appetizers ... and MORE! Open Monday - Friday 11am – 6pm, Saturday 11am – 4pm Phillips HQ – Locust Point 1215 E. Fort Avenue (443) 263 – 1314

NEOPOL Baltimore’s ONLY smokery, specializing in smoked seafood and meats, savory cheese pies, gourmet foods, smoked seasoning salts and chef’s supplies.

stimulate your mind soothe your spirit find Jews of diverse background Join us for Services in the Park, Friday, July 14 & August 11. 2501 Eutaw Place in Historic Reservoir Hill email: office1@bethambaltimore.org phone 410-523-2446

Belvedere Square Marketplace, 529 E. Belvedere Square

bethambaltimore.org

410-433-7700

Avanti Tours, Inc Presents:

Walbrook Mill & Lumber Baltimore City’s most complete building material source. Supplying Baltimore’s builders & remodelers since 1918. Historic millwork, lumber, doors, windows, hardware we have it all. Special orders gladly accepted. Free delivery. WE KNOW RENOVATION. Walbrook Mill & Lumber Co 2636 W. North Ave 410 462-2200 www.walbrooklumber.com

CUSTOM BUILDERS Since 1976

Residential Commercial Design - Build Construction Management Systems Built Specialists

410-559-0000 1 6 0 5 U n i o n Av e n u e , B a l t i m o r e , M D 2 1 2 11

info@ashleyhomes.com w w w. a s h l e y h o m e s . c o m

Sicily 2006 September 5 to 15 Sicily shares the culture of mainland Italy, but, centuries of Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Arab, and Norman domination have made it truly unique. The tour includes four star hotels: breakfast, lunch, and dinner with wine; guides; land transportation; and museum fees.

For more information: 410-374-6268 jackandmary1@comcast.net

Specializing in Container Gardens & Urban Landscaping Commercial & Residential Design - Installation - Maintenance www.baltimoregarden.com 4007 Falls Road Baltimore, MD 21211 410-366-9001

breathe books

Small business support

Baltimore’s only new age store with gifts, music, books, and more for the body, mind and spirit. See our events at www.breathebooks.com Susan Weis, proprietress 810 W. 36th Street 410-235-READ (7323) store hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Sunday 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.

urbanite august 06

Computer Harbor Small Business and Home User support center

Networking Point of Sale Customer Management Small Business Accounting Repair Data Recovery Virus Removal Training and Web Pages 1123 Light Street Historic Federal Hill Baltimore, MD 21230 (410) 576-1118 g.obrien@computerharbor.com

Lisa Ciofani

Please Say You Saw It In The Real Estate Book - Vol. 16, No. 1 - Page 25

MADE IN METAL

ABR, GRI

410-960-4555 Kerry Dunnington

Private Home Caterer Menu and Recipe Developer Traveling Culinary Demonstrationist RENOVATED HOME - W/CANTON TOUCHES!! HARDWOOD FLRS/MARBLE & CERAMIC IN BATHS/GRANITE COUNTERS/ FRONT PORTCH/NEW WINDOWS/ AC/ FINISHED BSMNT W/WALKOUT STAIR!! DON’T MISS THIS HOME!!

WONDERFUL END OF GROUP W/LARGE BACK LOT & PARKING FOR 3 CARS!! READY FOR YOU TO CALL HOME!

Food Columnist

PROPERTY IS A SHELL... ASK ABOUT THE RENOVATION LOAN!

Author of This Book Cooks

www.thisbookcooks.com 410-243-3508 napsack8@cs.com BEAUTIFUL REHAB!! 2bd/2bth on a great street!! Exposed brick/ Hardwood floors/Detailed lighting & trim/ Deck—Steps from Patterson Park & Canton

TRADITIONAL BRICK FRONT HOME IN CANTON/STEPS FROM THE SQUARE & PATTERSON PARK—MANY DETAILS/ CALL LISA FOR A SHOWING APPT...

75-76

In the Heart of Canton! LOOKING OUT FOR YOU!

NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY! CALL ME FOR A FREE BUYER’S CONSULTATION!

Lisa F. Ciofani, ABR, GRI 410-675-7653 cell 410-960-4555 2212 Boston Street Baltimore, MD 21231

“Don’t end your day in a house end it in a home”

construction to enhance the value and beauty of your home... • Renovations & Additions • New Construction • Architecture

Lisa A. London, AIA 410.580.1608

MHIC No. 124131

MIM

M.I.M. studios Bench time and private rooms for rent in a fully-equipped metalworking studio.

gallery M.I.M. Presents: Unique and affordable fine art with a focus on handcrafted jewelry. Classes forming for jewelry, crafts & fine arts.

3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 130 Baltimore, MD 21211 (410) 662-6623 www.madeinmetal.net

CHARMING HOME AT PATTERSON PARK!! MANY UPDATES/ HARDWOOD FLOORS W/OPEN FLOOR PLAN!!

Visit my Website: www.homesdatabase.com/honlisac Register with me to view some of Baltimore’s Best Properties!

410-6

Jewelers’ Tools & Supplies where art, metal and more come together!

MHBR No. 5145

www.edifice.net

Feed Your Heart Women’s Growth Center is a small, non-profit collective of therapists. We offer individual, couples, family, and group therapy for women and men, empowerment workshops and professional development. Women’s Growth Center Since 1973 5209 York Road #B12 410-532-2GROW (2476) By Appointment Only

Live

next to the

Mayor

and walk to the

Inner Harbor.

contemporary loft condominiums, a residence unique in creativity, spaciousness and value Units available starting from the $300’s to the $600’s. One and two bedroom units, 2 penthouse units with rooftop decks.

1st Time Buyer Imperfect Credit Good Credit Karen D. Dapp, Mortgage Banker

Atlantic Home Equity 170 Lakefront Drive Hunt Valley, MD 21030 office 888.683.7001 cell 443.604.4740 fax 410.771.0480 email kdapp@mtglender.net Serving MD, PA, VA, DC, DE

The Center for Italian Studies School of Language, Literature, and Culture

Non-credit courses of Italian LANGUAGE (beginner to advanced levels), LITERATURE, CULTURE (Dante, Italian Cities, Films, European Union). New: Italian for Children.

Featuring high coffered ceilings with concrete beams,exposed brick and large wall windows. Solid oak wood floors throughout. Kitchen and baths designed with all granite countertops. Upgraded stainless steel appliances, oak kitchen cabinets with glass inserts.

To receive a brochure call 410-235-0006 www.centerforitalianstudies.it Courses are offered all year round. In Roland Park area. Free parking.

Chocolate cafe & Tea Lounge

Fine Swiss Chocolate Premium Estate Loose Tea

We will customize the perfect gifts & packaging to suit your company’s or your special occasion needs. 62 village square – The Shops at Cross Keys Baltimore, MD 21210 410.532.8500

“We’re on it” Are you? Are you in on the Secret?

234 Holliday Street, on the corner of Holliday and Saratoga St. Open Saturday & Sunday 1-4 pm and by appointment only. Office 410-675-5500 Sandra, cell 410-961-5103 & Burt, cell 443-416-5951 brecocondos.com Long and Foster Realtors

www.buildingbaltimore.com

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

eye to eye

Nancy Froehlich is a visual and conceptual artist living in Baltimore. Her most recent photography project, of which this work is an example, challenges the limiting binary choice of male/female. Using Baltimore drag queens as her subject matter, she explores the notion of gender as fluid and transformative. This photograph, taken mid-transformation, is straightforward and immediate. It draws us beyond our curiousity into an awareness of our relation to all humanity. It forces an inner dialogue. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Alex Castro

urbanite august 06

Untitled Nancy Froehlich 2006 photograph 40 x 60 inches

THE MODEL YEAR CLEARANCE. THE PRICES YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. �� 29 mpg

5-STAR HIGHEST GOVERNMENT CRASH TEST RATINGS

Auto, full power, PW, PL, air, CD, antilock brakes, #6051

HIGHWAY

SUBARU FORESTER 2.5x $

29 mpg

SIGN & DRIVE LEASE SPECIAL NO MONEY DOWN

SUBARU IMPREZA 2.5i SALE PRICE

LEASE PAYMENT

18,626 OR $215

manual, full power, cruise #6216

HIGHWAY

THE ALL-WHEEL DRIVE 2006

THE ALL-WHEEL DRIVE 2006 SALE PRICE

IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK GOLD RATING

PER MONTH

LEASE PAYMENT

16,961 OR $189

PER MONTH

ALL WHEEL DRIVE, 173-HP 2.5-LITER ENGINE, ABS, 6 STANDARD AIR BAGS.

ALL WHEEL DRIVE, 173-HP 2.5-LITER ENGINE, 4-WHEEL DISC BRAKES WITH ABS, 4 STANDARD AIR BAGS.

Price excludes tax, tags & freight, includes all rebates and incentives. 48 month Subaru lease based on 12,000 miles per year. $215 per month for 48 months, $0 due at signing. Does not require a security deposit. Forester: EPA fuel economy estimate - 22 City/29Highway, actual mileage may vary, 5 star safety crash test rating.

Price excludes tax, tags & freight, includes all rebates and incentives. 48 month Subaru lease based on 12,000 miles per year. $189 per month for 48 months, $0 due at signing. Does not require a security deposit. Impreza: EPA fuel economy estimate - 22 City/29Highway, actual mileage may vary.

Remember All Roads Lead To PENN AVOID ACCIDENTS, LIKE OVERPAYING. IT’S WHAT MAKES A SUBARU, A SUBARU. HURRY WHILE SUPPIES LAST! subaru.com North Point Blvd. & Kane St., I-95, Exit 59, Eastern Avenue or I-895 Exit 12 Lombard Street

410-633-9000

Toll Free 1-888-462-3311 • www.pennsubaru.com RETAIL SERVICE HOURS: M-F 7 am - 6 pm Sat. 8 am - 3 pm w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 0 6

Dora plays pinup in our T-Shirt Leotard, now available online and at our stores.

Made in Downtown LA Vertically Integrated Manufacturing www.americanapparel.net

urbanite august 06

Scoop Back