February 2006 Issue

february 2006

B A L T I M O R E

issue no. 20

marry your friends

online ordination

breaking bread

meals with an ex-mobster

the office evolution

better business through design

scouting baltimore style with guest editor

vince peranio

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contents

19 corkboard 21 have you heard ‌ 25 food: wiseguys don’t use chopsticks joan jacobson

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29 baltimore observed: the making of a main street andrew scherr

35 space: a new brew rachel adams

41 encounter: you may now kiss the bride ‌ reverend jason tinney

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46 on location 54 fashion forward robin t. reid

63 sustainable city: the society of fabric alice ockleshaw

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67 out there: the no logo movement jason tinney

71 in review 75 resources 78 eye to eye

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cover note: Paper doll dress designed by Claire McCardell.

Paper doll image courtesy of the Maryland H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y, B a l t i m o r e , M a r y l a n d

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Urbanite Issue 20 February 2006 Publisher Tracy Ward Durkin Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com General Manager Jean Meconi Jean@urbanitebaltimore.com Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth A. Evitts Elizabeth@urbanitebaltimore.com Guest Editor Vince Peranio Assistant Editor Marianne Amoss Marianne@urbanitebaltimore.com Copy Editor Angela Davids/Alter Communications Contributing Editors William J. Evitts Joan Jacobson Susan McCallum-Smith Contributing Writer Jason Tinney Art Director Alex Castro Production Manager Lisa Macfarlane Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com Traffic/Production Coordinator Bellee Gossett Bellee@urbanitebaltimore.com Production and Design Assistance Ida Woldemichael Web Coordinator/Office Assistant Adam Schoonover Adam@urbanitebaltimore.com Senior Account Executive Susan R. Levy Susan@urbanitebaltimore.com Account Executives Darrel Butler Darrel@urbanitebaltimore.com Keri Haas Keri@urbanitebaltimore.com Marketing Kathleen Dragovich Kathleen@urbanitebaltimore.com Founder Laurel Harris Durenberger 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.

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.

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urbanite february 06

editor’s note

quotes BALTIM ORE

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

—Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, and critic

It is impossible to imagine a Calvin Klein or a Donna Karan or a Marc Jacobs had there not first been Claire McCardell.

—Valerie Steele, director, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Kindness is always fashionable..

—Amelia E. Barr, English-born American novelist

I base most of my fashion on what doesn’t itch.

sense

courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland

—Gilda Radner, American actress and comedian

hroughout the compilation of this issue on fashion, I couldn’t stop thinking about designer Claire McCardell (1905–1958). I had the pleasure of working at the Maryland Historical Society in 1998 when the museum exhibited a retrospective of McCardell’s clothing designs from the 1930s to the 1950s, designs that revolutionized ready-to-wear fashion and spawned the “American Look.” Born in Frederick, Maryland, McCardell was a visionary in the truest sense of the word. “She was a pioneer of minimalism, an innovator of modernism,” wrote co-authors Kohle Yohannan and Nancy Nolf in their book Claire McCardell: Redefining Modernism.

“Throughout her short but influential career Claire McCardell provided women with designs that stressed comfort, practicality, and integrity.”

What made McCardell such a success was that she found the intersection of clothing and culture. McCardell disregarded the haute couture of fashion-dominant Paris and forged a style uniquely her own. She understood both the desires and the practical needs of the modern American woman and she took fashion to a place it hadn’t yet been.

McCardell outfitted a post-World War generation in easy-to-maintain, affordable fashion, which utilized readily available fabrics and newly developed textiles, like stain-resistant cotton. Her clothing was at once majestic and pragmatic. (McCardell designed the paper doll on our cover.)

In this issue, we wanted to look at clothing and culture today. Nationally, there is a rise in the popularity of custom-crafted clothing and what is being dubbed “regional retail.” As consumers become increasingly dissatisfied with the sameness of chain-store clothing, they are looking to smaller designers for originality. Locally, we are seeing a generation of young designers creating lines that are being sold in a growing number of area boutiques or through special events, like the annual Urban Designers Showcase. Consumers are also becoming designers themselves, taking a DIY approach to their fashion. Like McCardell, Baltimoreans are using technological advances and existing resources to create clothing inspired by their own sense of style, from computer-generated graphics printed for cheap on tee shirts to hand-sewn bags and vintage re-creations. As we canvassed the emerging fashion scene in Baltimore, I couldn’t help but wonder: Who is the next Claire McCardell, and what cultural trends right under our noses will find surprising, vibrant expression in his or her creations?

—Elizabeth A. Evitts

Above: Claire McCardell pictured in Vogue, 1945.

I’m nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else.

—Wallis Simpson, Baltimore-born socialite and Duchess of Windsor

When in doubt, wear red.

—Bill Blass, American fashion designer

Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.

—Coco Chanel, French fashion designer and perfumer

Where’s the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown?

—From “The Satin Dress” by Dorothy Parker, American poet, writer, and critic

It’s always the badly dressed people who are the most interesting.

—Jean Paul Gaultier, French fashion designer

Never wear anything that panics the cat.

—P.J. O’Rourke, American political satirist and journalist

Anyone who’s 20 and buys designer clothes is a moron. At 40, you should buy them. You need help! But at 20, you should find your outfits in the garbage and have designers copy your look.

—John Waters, Baltimore filmmaker

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contributors

behind this issue

self-portrait

photo by Lisa Macfarlane

self-portrait

Nancy Froehlich West Coast native Nancy Froehlich graduated from the University of Washington with a double degree in American ethnic studies and comparative history of ideas.

In Seattle, she worked as a professional photographer and photo editor for Resonance magazine and taught photography in an after-school arts program. Currently, Froehlich is a graphic design graduate student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she also teaches fashion and digital photography courses. Her work has taken her to South Africa, Indonesia, and Germany, and she has photographed artists such as musician David Byrne, the band Modest Mouse, and author Chuck Palahniuk. Froehlich took the images for “Fashion Forward” (p. 54).

Hellin Kay Russian-born and Baltimore-bred photographer Hellin Kay has been traveling the world shooting film and photography for more than a decade. She has contributed fashion images to The Fader, Tokion, Nylon, BlackBook, Elle, and London’s i-D magazine. Her first solo show, called Moscow Diaries, was at the Bronwyn Keenan Gallery in New York City in 2002. Kay, who recently returned to Baltimore after fourteen years in New York City, focused her lens on iconic Baltimore fashion for this month’s feature “On Location” (p. 46). She found herself inspired by the streets of Baltimore: “I like that they are still raw and untouched in many places,” she says. “Baltimore has just as many cool little spots and amazing creative people as New York City.”

Robin T. Reid Robin T. Reid, a native of New York City, has worked as an editor, writer, and researcher. Her work has appeared in national publications, including People and National Geographic magazines. For our feature article on local designers (“Fashion Forward,” p. 54), Reid investigated the Baltimore fashion scene and was surprised by the diversity of new local designers. At The Doll House Boutique in Mount Vernon she discovered “some very funky clothes that I’d love to wear—and never would have considered before!” One of her favorite jobs was co-writing National Geographic’s Eyewitness to the 20th Century; she wrote about the historic events of each year since 1950.

Currently, Reid is an assistant editor for the political magazine Campaigns & Elections and for American Journalism Review.

Helen Sampson While shooting images of West Read Street (“The Making of a Main Street,” p. 29), photographer Helen Sampson found this slice of the Mount Vernon neighborhood to be a microcosm of Baltimore: It welcomes the new while preserving its original character.

Sampson is fascinated by well-worn urban architecture and by obscure, overlooked corners of the city. She has photographed Baltimore since the late 1980s and believes that “there is no better subject matter than Baltimore. The city’s streets are filled with hidden architectural treasures, details, and intrigue.” Sampson exhibits her work in Baltimore through Art Exposure, Inc., and in Northern Virginia through the Fairfax Arts Council and the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria.

Baltimore native Vince Peranio may know this city better than anyone. Peranio began his career in film working as a set designer for John Waters’ 1970 production of Multiple Maniacs, and he has partnered with Waters ever since. Peranio has spent a career combing the city for locales to serve as backdrops to teleplays like HBO’s The Corner and movies like Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights. In his current role as production designer for HBO’s The Wire, Peranio continues to hunt the urban landscape of Baltimore for locations and characters that can help bring David Simon’s drama to life. In the process, he has seen firsthand our city’s intrinsic style.

photo by Marshall Clarke

self-portrait

with guest editor vince peranio

W

v hy, I asked myself, would Urbanite ask me to guest-edit the fashion issue? I’m not in the fashion industry: They should ask my wife, Delores Deluxe. (Now there’s someone who knows the importance of coordinated accessories.) I’m a filmmaker and most of the projects I work on are realistic. Except for John Waters’ films, which are part burlesque in nature. When we first started talking about fashion, I instantly thought about scenes from Female Trouble, of Divine ludicrously prancing down Howard Street as if she were on a Paris runway with people staring at her like she was nuts, of her gyrating while the characters of Donald and Donna Dasher scream: “Model, model, model!”

I spent many days the last twenty years walking the streets of Baltimore for shows such as Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, and presently The Wire, looking for murder scenes, victims’ houses, drug corners, and police stations. I’ve probably walked down every alley in Baltimore at least once. I’ve been in more homes than your average gas and electric man. “Excuse me, I work on the TV show The Wire. May I come in and look at your bathroom?” I made a study—part film, part archaeology, part anthropology—of the people I meet and the places they live.

Average Baltimoreans are not known for being fashionable, so how do we show our individuality? It can be very subtle here. Like the Baltimore rowhouses. Outsiders think they all look alike. But we see the tremendous variety of colors, textures, doors, windows, and porches. And so it is with our own street fashion. We are not a flashy group. Here, in this issue, we have captured a group of Baltimoreans in their second skins.

In meetings with Editor Elizabeth Evitts, Art Director Alex Castro, and photographer Hellin Kay, we decided to scout the city and hunt down characters and places to photograph. First we made a list of several types of characters: the Club Girl, the Hip Hop Kid, the Federal Hill Businessman. Some are people we know or work with. For others, Kay went to clubs and schools and took to the streets, and then we scouted locations. We wanted the everyday look. The fun part was photographing the “models.” Still photography is so intimate. I’m used to four blocks of trucks, equipment, and 120 people to get one shot. Our models came in their own clothes and did their own styling.

And here it is: an issue showing our modest, practical, and comfortable second skins with a little style thrown in. Thanks, Urbanite, for letting me see Baltimore with fresh eyes.

So let’s put on an outlandish outfit and prance around our neighborhood and show Paris a thing or two.

“Model, model, model!”

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what you’re saying

update

Architecture Forum It’s déjà vu all over again for observers of Baltimore’s architectural scene. As Amanda Kolson Hurley’s article about the proposed design for 20 E. Preston Street suggests (“The Battle over 20 E. Preston,” December 2005), folks interested in local design will once more be subjected to lots of words and very little substance in the argument over what an architect may or may not design. Like previous projects, Tower Hill Development’s will no doubt be realized in some form or another, determined by a consensus reflecting resignation rather than conviction. But one thing’s for sure: We Baltimoreans will probably learn nothing from the battle.

Our community’s continual failure to sustain real discussion concerning architecture and design is, in part, a symptom of what September’s Urbanite identified in a different context: the “branding” of ideas (“Branding Baltimore,” September 2005). Bad enough in commercial circumstances, the impulse to represent disputes by simple taglines inevitably reduces complex topics to mere sloganeering and partisanship: Once again, it’s Preservationists versus Modernists in the Mount Vernon “arena.” And, as architect Charles Brickbauer implies (ironically, one hopes), whoever has the best polling numbers wins.

Trying to read between the lines of Hurley’s article, one is led to suspect that both sides prefer to confuse the issue, rather than to tackle points headon. For the CHAP [Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation] spokespeople quoted in the article, “contextualism” is like pornography: They know it when they see it. The word “historical” seems to be used as a stylistic code word for the presence of certain masonry details. But the word’s real meaning is the evocation of a symbolic gestalt, as if the urban character of Preston Street is entirely dependent on the “aura” of the buildings there. Nobody was quoted in the article concerning the lack of commercial space in the new project, even though the life of this block of Preston Street derives much from its mix of uses. And no one mentioned the soul-sucking presence of the parking lot right across the street. One is led to think that “context” is simply someone’s fictional image of the status quo.

On the other hand, architect Peter Fillat cited an old, Craftsman-era argument to support the project: “Contemporary design … identifies the building with its time.” But what determines the iconography of those times? A visit to Fillat’s website shows the 20 E. Preston project clad in a gridded metal-and-glass

curtain wall, facing both south and west in addition to the north. Hot! (Quite literally—wait ’til July.) But is it “of its time?” Looks rather as though Fillat’s design is channeling SOM/Natalie de Blois’ Pepsi-Cola building, from the glamorous 1950s. Now, that’s history—more than half a century’s worth …

Baltimoreans have few sources for educating ourselves about these issues. Perhaps Urbanite would consider including critical essays to complement its reportage. Additional, ongoing news of individual, important architectural projects would be a welcome change from the “yesterday’s news” approach of most other architectural coverage here in town. Whatever the outcome at 20 E. Preston Street, such a forum for substantive discussion would better serve all Baltimoreans for whom current and future designs will inevitably affect their urban life.

Jeremy Kargon is a project architect for a local corporate practice. His home in Hampden was featured in the September 2005 issue of Urbanite.

Community Reader I’ve been talking about Urbanite with friends and family for more than a year, because I see the value and unique identity in your publication. You have developed a very special presence here. Congratulations on your success!

It is inspiring to see your momentum. It helps us as artists to realize and appreciate the changes around us, to acknowledge diverse points of view and healthy skepticism counterbalancing our most optimistic visions of the near future.

Community is ubiquitous and abstract, and the currents of change flowing through Baltimore in the new millennium are less baffling when you help us understand community with local views. The great value in what you all communicate is deeply felt.

Daniel Stuelpnagel is an artist and resident of Canton.

Last fall, Urbanite writer Jason Tinney and WYPR producer Aaron Henkin partnered to interview nine Baltimoreans about their belief systems. The results of those intimate conversations were featured in the November 2005 issue of Urbanite and were also the subject of a broadcast on WYPR’s The Signal called “Portraits of Faith.” The broadcast received rave reviews locally and Henkin posted it on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), a web-based forum for independent radio producers from which radio stations can download programs.

Dmae Roberts, a member of the PRX editorial board, had this to say about the program: “Producer Aaron Henkin and writer Jason Tinney have done a respectful and thorough job of asking people of diverse beliefs about their most intimate opinions of the meaning of life.”

It has since been aired by Ohio radio station WYSO and Boston-based WGBH. And the beliefs of Baltimoreans may continue to make their way across the country: The show can still be downloaded from the PRX website (www.prx.org).

Correction: In the December 2005 issue, a copy-editing error in the article “Tracking Your Past” changed the Russian word “pogrom” to “program.” We regret the error. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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Some women choose to lead very independent lives.

I, on the other hand, did not choose my independence; I refer to it as my “unwanted” independence.

I have grown accustomed to the way I live now, in my quiet apartment, with my beautiful cat. I like to come home and escape from all the noise. I pay all of my bills on time, work, and take fifteen credits of classes at Towson University. I have always tried to be responsible and independent, by my own standards—yet have that other person for strength, guidance, motivation, and also, of course, for love. But if someone walked into my life at this moment and looked around, they would see just me. They would see exactly who I am, without my husband.

It’s been fourteen months since he left. I’ve seen him four times since then. He was deployed with the Army and currently resides in Iraq. I will not see him again for at least another three months. I was not expecting to have to live alone, nor did I consider that it was more than likely he would be deployed sometime in our relationship. I have now been living by myself for the same amount of time we lived together, plus three months.

Scattered around the apartment are the memories he left that I can’t bear to touch or move.

I need his watch on the coffee table, and his BDU (battle dress uniform) cap on top of his bureau in the bedroom—tiny little pieces of him I need to see everyday, along with the ridiculous number of photographs I have put up since he left.

My situation is the new “normal” for so many women; if you fall in love with a man in the military, any branch, more than likely your love will be deployed. This hasn’t always been the case. There has always been a fear of war and deployment among military wives, but now the reality is that your husband, brother, or friend will be deployed at some point in the near future because of swiftly developing situations around the world.

My thoughts are always with him; they cycle through a routine: Where is he? How does he feel? Is he eating enough food? We talk maybe twice a week if we’re lucky. When I miss his phone calls I’m devastated for the rest of the day. I listen to the voice messages he leaves and the pain of loneliness sinks back in. Every morning I wake up and count the days remaining until I will see him again. He is my love, he defines me, but no one who has met me within the last year of my life would know that.

I am so proud of him. He is doing and seeing so many things I will never be able to experience, and it is making him so much stronger, even if he has a hard time grasping that now. Sometimes it frightens me to think of the new perspectives he will have about society and life when he comes home. Anyone who returns from war is changed. And each will have changed in a different way.

I must prepare myself for everything we will have to go through as a new couple. My independence will be altered once again, and I will need to accept that. I am just another military wife caught in an intricate web of circumstances outside my control.

Alter

illustration by Daniel Krall

what you’re writing

“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). Send your story to Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, Maryland

Ego 21211 or to WhatYoureWriting@urbanitebaltimore. com. Please keep submissions under fivehundred words.

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.

Topic

Deadline

Publication

Nakedness Playtime Awe Humility Commitment Blunder Duplicity Grace

Feb 13, 2006 Mar 13, 2006 Apr 24, 2006 May 22, 2006 June 26, 2006 July 24, 2006 Aug 28, 2006 Sept 25, 2006

May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 Aug 2006 Sept 2006 Oct 2006 Nov 2006 Dec 2006

Sally Sarah Carter is a senior at Towson University and is currently employed at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

15

M I LLRACE CON DOS 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 $200’s For more Information: 410-243-1292 or www.ClipperMillLiving.com

VI LLAGE 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

FRAN KFOR D 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 Now Selling -- Priced from the $200’s For more information: 410-325-8838

VI LLAGE 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 summer 2006...Priced from the $400's For more information: 443-573-4000

1209 NORTH CHAR LES 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 Preview sales begin March 2006…Priced from the $300’s For more information: 443-573-4494 or www.twelve09living.com

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16

urbanite february 06

Jonathan Flesher lives at Frankford Estates

An Event Dedicated to Unifying Art of All Forms Enjoy a decadent evening of delicious wines and international cuisine. Appreciate the latest in painting and sculpture from local artists. Sip maté tea while watching Balinese dance troop Gamelan Mitra Kusuma. Take in a fashion show or live bossa nova. End your night at Red Maple’s Shanta After Party. Experience Project One. March 1st | 7–11 pm | $25 To learn more about this event or to purchase your $25 ticket, call the CENTERSTAGE Box Office at 410.332.0033.

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Kickin’ It with the ’Rents M&T Bank’s “Kickin’ It with the ’Rents” program at Center Stage encourages kids and parents to experience the thrill of the theater together—and for less than the cost of a night at the movies.

Families participate in pre-show activities featuring guest speakers or theater artists, then enjoy a family-style dinner followed by a performance.

This month’s featured show is The Murder of Isaac (appropriate for children 13 and up, due to subject matter).

photo by Craig Schwartz

Fashion in Colors Exhibition Through March 26 $12; students with ID $7; children un der 12 and museu members free m Fashion in Colors Symposium 9 a.m.–2 p.m.

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photo by Takashi

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Mount Vernon Love Stories Tour

Join the tenth annual Mount Vernon Love Stories Tour and learn about two hundred years of loves lost and won by past Mount Vernon residents and habitués. Included in the walking tour are the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken, George Peabody, Francis Scott Key, and Betsy Patterson Bonaparte.

photo by Dawn Mercuril

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Seven storytellers get seven minutes each to tell true tales of loss, tears, mishaps, screwups, and shattered dreams at The Stoo p Storytelling Series premiere, “Legend s of the Fall: Stories about Failure.” Author Laura Lippman, WJZ-TV morning host Mar ty Bass, and Walters Art Museum Director Gary Vikan are some of the special guests who will share their tales; some audience members will get a chance to tell their own stories.

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urbanite february 06

have you heard . . .

New teahouse Tea-ology offers an oasis of calm in the middle of bustling Fells Point. Sunni Gilliam (coowner with fiancé Del Powell) depended heavily on the bursts of energy she got from coffee to survive the hectic pace of the food-service industry, in which she worked for six years. She eventually turned to tea because of its lower caffeine level, health benefits, and the variety. “I like the different options and different flavors,” says Gilliam. “It’s almost like wine, with different notes and flavors.” Tea-ology offers thirty kinds of gourmet black, red, green, and white tea by the cup and pot, from traditional Earl Grey to organic rooibos with vanilla. Patrons can also buy loose tea to make at home, as well as teapots and

other tea-making materials. The teahouse also has a variety of fresh salads, panini sandwiches, daily soups, and desserts like a mixed-fruit tart and a pyramid cake filled with chocolate mousse. The interior of the eatery is soothing, with exposed brick and tones of light and dark brown on the walls and tables. In the evening, the lights are dimmed, candles are lit, and patrons can feast on desserts and tea and relax. Wireless Internet access is available. Gilliam plans to offer tea tastings and other events in the future. Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. 1705 Eastern Avenue; 410-327-4TEA; www.tea-ology.com.

photo by Adam Schoonover

Teahouse …

—Marianne Amoss Baby tees …

These days, it’s not unusual for creative types to bypass ready-made, mass-produced clothes and instead design and make their own unique apparel.

Amanda White-Iseli, the art director for Baltimore magazine and a lifelong seamstress, started producing her Whirlybird children’s clothing line in 2003 because she didn’t like the apparel available for her two young nephews. White-Iseli started designing tee shirts for boys with classic images of airplanes and racecars, using atypical (not baby blue!) tee colors like black, bright red, and natural tan, with metallic silver, turquoise, and lime green ink colors for the images. The designs, adapted from old advertising art, are screen-printed onto cotton short- and long-sleeved infant American Apparel tee shirts.

Special-order tees and onesies feature square patches with images of robots and toys, spaceships, cowboys, cowgirls, birthday cakes, and more. The tee shirts come in sizes from 0 to 24 months and are for both boys and girls. Whirlybird, a name that comes from a childhood nickname given to White-Iseli by her mother, is available around town at Raw Sugar (Belvedere Square), Ladybugs and Fireflies (Federal Hill), 2910 on the Square (Canton), RetroMart (Highlandtown), and The Baltimore Exchange (Inner Harbor East); most designs are also available on the website (www.whirlybirdapparel.com).

—M. A.

Free …

Clothing, electronics, toys, and more—all free for the taking. Sound too good to be true? The Baltimore Free Store, run by a four-person collective and supported by dozens of volunteers, collects unwanted goods, organizes them, and then offers them free to the public. The organization was founded to promote recycling and reuse and cut back on waste.

Collective member Faith Void says, “We have so many gifts to offer the world. We should all just give freely.” The store, which opened in November 2004, sets up shop flea-market style about twice a month at Baltimore venues such as the Collington Square Recreation Center, the Bentalou Recreation Center, and at an abandoned lot at 23rd Street and Green-

“ I N T I M AT E SURROUNDINGS”

mount Avenue. Between 150 and 300 people attend each event. Those who want to give to the Free Store can donate anything in working condition except furniture. At this time of year, cold-weather gear is especially needed, and donations of time and money are always welcome. As of press time, the group accepts donations at a Charles Village garage, but they expect to acquire a permanent space for both donation drop-offs and Free Store events, thanks to a recent Open Society Institute grant. For donation information, store dates, times, and locations, call 410-340-9004 or visit www.baltimorefreestore.org.

—Rebecca Klein

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have you heard . . .

Karibu Books—the African-American-interest bookstore whose name means “welcome” in Swahili—opened its first Baltimore location in Security Square Mall in November 2005. Karibu Books started out in 1993 as a small vending operation near Washington, D.C., that was manned by cofounders Simba Sana and Brother Yao (aka Hoke Glover). The business developed quickly into a full-scale bookstore, with locations in Prince George’s County and Arlington, Virginia. Karibu stocks more than eight thousand titles, and customers can request that the bookstore carry certain books or genres in which they’re interested; for that reason, the books found

on its shelves range from the to-be-expected fiction, music, history, and poetry, to freemasonry, race and culture, and urban fiction. Karibu Books has hosted events with such standout writers as Nikki Giovanni, Terry McMillan, Toni Morrison, Omar Tyree, and Maya Angelou. On February 13 at 6:30 p.m., Karibu Books in Security Square Mall presents LaDawn Black, host of 92Q’s The Love Zone. She will be signing copies of her new relationship guide, Stripped Bare: The 12 Truths That Will Help You Land the Very Best Black Man. 410-944-6090; www.karibubooks.com.

photo courtesy of Karibu Books

Karibu Books …

—M. A. Bluehouse …

photo by Adam Schoonover

“I’m obsessed with the idea that what people put around their bodies is as important to their wellbeing as what they put into them,” says David Buscher, owner of Bluehouse, a home store and organic coffee bar that opened in Fells Point in December. Bluehouse has been years in the making, originating from Buscher’s desire to create a business that gives to the world instead of taking from it. Buscher didn’t intend to open a store centered on environmentally friendly items, but as he learned more about the harmful materials that go into many of the objects we use every day at home, Buscher

decided to build his business around safe materials and products. Bluehouse offers a range of items for the home: modern-looking organic, chemical-free upholstered furniture; tables and beds made out of wood recycled from barns; decorative accessories like large, colorful globes, and pillows in the shapes of animals; organic and chemical-free bedding in soothing colors; bamboo flooring; and paint and cleaning products minus the harmful chemicals. 1407 Fleet Street; 410-276-1180; www.bluehouselife.com.

—M. A.

In November 2005, chef-turned-caterer Cynthia Shea joined forces with longtime baker Rose Lansing (who makes desserts for Hampden’s Golden West Café and Café Hon) to open the latest hot spot on The Avenue for grabbing a quick and delicious bite: Soup’s-On at Rose’s Cookies. Whether you’re hungry for a steaming bowl of savory soup or a sweet sidekick for your afternoon coffee, this little bistro next door to Oh! Said Rose on 36th Street in Hampden has something for everyone. Recent soup choices include Latin-style chicken with wild rice, butternut squash with apple, and tomato fennel with garlic aioli. Visitors can dine in on a bowl of soup with a fresh salad and hot bread for

$6.95, or take a quart to go for $7.99. The countrystyle chicken pot pie ($6.50 per serving) features the same flaky crust that has earned Lansing’s pastries and pies citywide acclaim. For dessert, try the cookie classics like snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, and gingersnaps. And if you’re still looking for the perfect way to express your feelings to your valentine, consider a special-order cake, a “bouquet” of assorted cookies, or soup-to-go gift certificates to show just how sweet or hot you are! Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. 842 West 36th Street; 410-235-9801.

photo by Adam Schoonover

Soup (and cookies) …

—Shannon Dunn

Have you heard of something new and interesting in your neighborhood? E-mail us at HaveYouHeard@urbanitebaltimore.com. If we use your idea for a future Have You Heard, we’ll send you tickets to the Urban Comedy Showcase, playing March 11 at The Murphy Fine Arts Center on the campus of Morgan State University.

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food

by joan jacobson

photography by marshall clarke

Wiseguys Don’t Use Chopsticks A former mobster finds that home is where the food is

Above: Charlie Wilhelm, pictured here at the Cross Street Market, once risked his life for Utz potato chips.

When I started working with Baltimore’s ex-wiseguy Charlie Wilhelm on a book about his transformation from wealthy career criminal to FBI informant and working-class carpenter, I knew we’d be eating meals together. But I didn’t know every lunch would be an epicurean adventure with a man so devoted to provincial Baltimore cuisine that he didn’t know tofu from tapas. And he frankly didn’t care.

Charlie is a born and bred Baltimore guy who identifies with his native city through his salivary glands. When his life was in danger in 1996—after he’d gone undercover for the FBI, fingering more than twenty members of his crime ring for drug dealing, loan sharking, bribery, and murder—he refused the witness protection program because it meant never coming back to Baltimore. I’ve always believed part of his reason was the food he might never eat again.

Here was a man who used to have lump crab meat delivered to his door by boosters (professional shoplifters) at half price. He risked his life the day he fled Baltimore by making a detour to the Hollins Market for Utz potato chips to take to his new home in Alabama.

He and his family lived there for a few years, but eventually moved back to Maryland. Today there are many places he can’t eat because he might bump into his old friends. He misses the Baltimore County restaurant where he once bought cream of crab soup by the gallon. He will probably never eat in Little

Italy again. More than any dish, he says he’ll miss the Italian bread (pronounced “eye-talian” like a true Baltimorean).

It was his bread passion that nearly got him in trouble with the FBI while he negotiated a cocaine deal in Velleggia’s Restaurant with a hidden wire strapped to his back. He chomped so vigorously on the buttered bread that the FBI agents in a nearby van could hardly hear the transaction going down.

Years later, I agreed to help him write his memoir, based on his one thousand-page journal. On the day Charlie and I traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet our literary agent, I decided to keep my own journal—about every funny thing he said about food when we ate together.

On that day in Washington we met up with a childhood friend, FBI agent Bruce Hall, who’d grown up with Charlie in Dundalk and helped Charlie escape his life of crime.

Bruce walked us up the street from the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, ticking off the many restaurants to choose from. “There’s Italian, Vietnamese, and tapas,” he said.

Charlie looked alarmed. “Bruce!” he said curtly.

“Not topless, Charlie,” I said. “Tapas. It’s Spanish food.”

We chose a more chaste American restaurant with dark manly wood, oversized hanging ferns, and lots of beef on the menu. Charlie ordered a burger and fries. Bruce had the portabello mushroom burger w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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and offered some to his friend. Charlie cringed, as if he were being asked to taste a live octopus.

A year later, when we met up in Towson to have Bruce’s photo taken for the book, we had lunch at Thai One On/San Sushi Too, the ThaiJapanese restaurant.

Charlie ordered the beef teriyaki. The waiter asked if he wanted the ginger or the sesame dressing on his salad.

“Do you have ranch?” Charlie asked.

When our food came, Bruce tried to teach Charlie to use chopsticks. “You’ll be a pro in no time,” he said.

Charlie suspiciously picked up the sticks. Here was a man who had risked his life to catch a murderer confessing into a hidden tape recorder, but with chopsticks he had met his real Waterloo. After a few feeble tries, he gave up and grabbed a fork.

When our book was done, we decided to deliver it to our New York editors in person.

Waiting at Penn Station for the train, Charlie searched for a Coke, but only found Pepsi, which he refused to buy. “Pepsi’ll kill you,” he said.

When we arrived at the Manhattan publishing house, our editors took us to a posh Italian restaurant with white tablecloths and waiters in tuxedos.

I ordered homemade fettuccini in lobster sauce and baby shrimp. The editor-in-chief had the veal scaloppini and a chopped salad. The senior editor had fried mozzarella. Charlie ordered the chicken legs. When they arrived, he looked down at his rather slim portion and turned to the senior editor.

“Who do they think they’re feeding, a midget?”

Charlie asked.

After the best cup of Italian coffee I’d had in a while, we handed the editors our precious manuscript and a sixteen-page photo insert and walked down Third Avenue toward the train station.

Charlie waited for them to move out of earshot before he spoke.

“I’m starving,” he said.

“Did you see those chicken legs? They were the smallest chicken legs I’ve ever seen. And did you see those tiny potatoes they gave me? Only two potatoes! I get better chicken than that down the market.” I knew he meant the Hollins Market in SoWeBo. I started to explain that the chicken was “free range” and is smaller than what he’s used to. I wanted to tell him the health benefits of free-range poultry, despite its small size. But I stopped myself.

I knew he wouldn’t be interested. He just wanted something familiar to eat.

“There a Nathan’s at the train station,” I said.

So we walked down Third Avenue on that balmy fall day toward Penn Station, content that the overwhelming task of writing a book was complete. We detoured through side streets, our heads raised like tourists to admire the delightful array of New York’s early twentieth-century architecture, and wandered toward hotdogs and CocaCola, towards home. n To read about Charlie Wilhelm’s memoir, Wised Up, go to www.wisedupthebook.com.

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The Making of a Main Street Could Mount Vernon’s Read Street corridor become the city’s next shopping district?

Above: A diverse group of retailers and service shops lines the 200 block of West Read Street, like Neal’s: The Hair Studio & Day Spa, which has been here for sixteen years.

The 200 block of West Read Street is a curious place.

Sandwiched between Howard and Park, the street is quaint, charmed by that signature Mount Vernon architecture. It feels like a continuation of the surrounding residential neighborhood, but in truth, Read Street represents one of the more eclectic mixes of retail in the city. Seventeen operational storefront businesses line this sliver of road, offering everything from couture to clock repair. In one trip to Read Street, you can buy a new dress at Katwalk Boutique then have it altered at The Tiny Tailor Shop. You can have keys made, rent a movie, buy a cigar, get your hair trimmed, buy artwork and home décor, and pick up toys at the Antique Toy Museum.

Take a horseshoe left turn at the west end of the street and you’re smack on the Antique Row portion of Howard Street. If you continue east instead, you’ll find a smattering of interesting boutiques and businesses sprouting off the Read Street spine, like Read Street Tattoo Parlour, or Starwon Fashions, which opened this past fall. Should all the running around wear you out, you can end the tour with a relaxing spa treatment at Neal’s: The Hair Studio & Day Spa. So why, with this wonderful urban mix, is Read Street often void of shoppers?

On a recent winter afternoon, clear and unseasonably warm, the shops and streets were near vacant. R. Mark Mitchell, owner of R. Mark Mitchell,

CMC Fine Antique Clock Restoration is a veteran of Read Street and he says that business over the years has “been a roller coaster.”

“Sometimes it’s really, really good and sometimes it’s really, really terrible,” Mitchell says. When he first came to Read Street nearly 30 years ago, the block was bustling. Deb Sherer, who now runs Sandarac Gallery at 220 West Read, remembers those days back in the 1970s when she was a student of the Maryland Institute College of Art. At that time, she says, Read Street was “very bohemian.”

Peter Babones, who opened the Beatnik Barbershop at 241 West Read in August of last year, often hears stories from his elder customers about these good old days. “They say it was quite the thriving little mecca,” Babones says. “They had a Read Street Festival, bands would play, there were boutiques, head shops; it was like the Haight-Ashbury of Baltimore.”

But then the foot traffic waned and throughout the past three decades, the block has seen a high turnover of retailers that have left the block half vacant at times. Most recently, the street lost Designer’s Hardware, which had occupied a large storefront at 239 West Read and according to Mitchell served as an anchor for other retailers in the neighborhood.

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A development of Struever BroS. eccleS & rouSe. SAleS By mcWilliAmS|BAllArd.

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R. Mark Mitchell has been doing antique clock restoration and sales on West Read Street for twenty-eight years.

And it is those few empty stores, coupled with the odd business hours of the existing retailers that make Read Street seem so quiet. Some of the shops keep different hours and others aren’t open on the weekends.

Still, something seems to be happening. A new generation of retailers is calling Read Street home, joining service businesses like The Tiny Tailor Shop, Robert’s Key Service, R. Mark Mitchell, CMC Fine Antique Clock Restoration, and Neal’s, which have been here for 21, 58, 28, and 16 years respectively.

“This is an up-and-coming block,” says Amy Coleman, who opened her fashion boutique Beloved in June of last year. “There is a resurgence of new blood in the area.”

There are retailers like Toni James, owner of Katwalk Boutique, who, for the last nine years, has earned a name for herself by selecting up-and-coming designers before they become mainstream. Or Babones, who gives patrons a cup of coffee with their $12 cut at Beatnik Barbershop.

Babones says that he chose to open his barbershop on Read Street because of its character. “I don’t think I would get such an eclectic group of people anywhere else,” he says. “Within the same hour I had a federal judge and a barker … you know, one of those guys who stands there and tries to get you to come into the strip clubs [on Baltimore Street]. I get everybody in here.”

The people who do come to Read Street are often attracted by the area’s funky offerings. “We are the anti-mall,” says Sherer. “We don’t want to see franchises around here.”

And given a recent influx of new residents in the area, Lisa Keir, executive director of the Mount Vernon Cultural District, conjectures that the high turnover of Read Street businesses will start to decrease. In the past five years, she says, residential property values in Mount Vernon have tripled, making the area a more upscale place to live. The newer residents, she says, will have more disposable income to spend at neighborhood shops like those on Read Street.

“Retail is a function of the marketplace,” explains Keir. “Nobody can ensure [shops] will stay in the neighborhood. They will only do so if it is economically viable.”

The residential influx that Keir cites shows no sign of slowing. This area is seeing restoration from developers like Ron Singer of Galley Homes, Ltd., who renovated historic rowhouses on the adjacent Tyson Street, one of which sold for $260,000. Singer is in the process of converting the property at 836 Park Avenue (on the corner of Park and Read) into four approximately 2,200-square-foot luxury condos that he estimates will sell for between $500,000 and $700,000 each.

“Everybody gets workable granite tops. Everybody gets a parking space. For a city home, this is pretty valuable,” says Singer, who is looking to buy more real estate in the immediate area.

But for now, retail traffic is still slow on Read and its neighboring streets.

“There’s not a tremendous amount of foot traffic around here,” says Philip Dubey, owner of Dubey’s Art and Antiques, Inc. which occupies 805 to 807 Howard Street. As an antique dealer, Dubey has been quite successful. He expanded his shop from just one store space to its current 11,000-square-foot locale (which includes Antique Row Stalls, LLC at 809 Howard) and says he has built a following of connoisseurs from all over the world in his sixteen years of business. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that the area is always overlooked.

Dubey heads the only business coalition in the area, known as both the Antique Row Association and the Howard-Read-Tyson Street Association. He admits that there is not enough self-promotion by Read Street and Antique Row merchants and the association itself does not have a large budget, which is his diplomatic way of admitting that the group is not very effective. When it comes to working with the city to help promote the area, Dubey says most of the dealers do not want to be bothered.

“They haven’t raised their voices,” says Kader Camara of the association. Camara owns the Antique

Row coffee and pastry shop Café Mocha and in his three years on the block, he recalls only one association meeting. Camara says he would love to see the area become a more popular destination but he is concerned.

“Most antique dealers open when they feel like it,” Camara says. His café sometimes becomes a waiting room for frustrated shoppers who make the trip only to find the store they planned to visit unexpectedly closed. “People don’t come around here because they think nothing is happening.”

Camara is considering buying a larger place in a more popular area of Mount Vernon, perhaps closer to Charles Street.

Another problem, says Dubey, is the overall perception of the neighborhood as unsafe.

He maintains the problem is not the crime, but that the streets are not well lit in the evening.

“How do you convince the people in Homeland, Guilford, Roland Park, and the valleys to come downtown? They think they are going to get mugged and they’re not,” Dubey says. “It’s fine. Downtown is fine.”

So what would it take to create a cohesive commercial district in and around Read Street?

Denise Whiting, owner of Café Hon in Hampden, played a pivotal role in transforming Hampden’s 36th Street into a shopping destination. “[Merchants] have to share a vision of what the future could become and they have to not be selfish,” she says. “As the saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and what we have in Hampden is the whole. No one is out there to one-up anybody.”

“No one person can do this by themselves,” she adds. “You have to work together.”

Some retailers believe that that Read Street is on its way. “It was bohemian back [in the 1970s] but now it’s more urban creative,” says Sherer. “Things are more organized now and retail businesses can benefit from a more serious approach.”

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7. beatnik barbershop

M

AP

This good old-fashioned barbershop is owned by a versatile barber who can execute any kind of men’s haircut (women’s haircuts are also done, but please call ahead). Owner/ barber Peter Babones charges a mere $12 and throws in a coffee to boot. Located at 241 W. Read.

1. read street tattoo parlour Owner Seth Ciferri (above) made a name for himself when he opened up shop as the only tattoo artist at 231 W. Read in 1999.

Ciferri relocated nearby to 822 Park Avenue in February 2005, and is now joined by two other tattoo artists and an apprentice.

1 8. katwalk boutique Toni James, co-owner with husband Justin James and a designer herself (her clothing line, Simon Isrial, is sold in the shop), opened Katwalk in 1997 and now boasts a client book that includes actress Vivica A. Fox and singers Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige, and Alicia Keys. Located at 243 W. Read.

2. neal’s: the hair studio & day spa Owners Neal Foore and Joe Pitta opened their full-service hair studio and spa at 204 W. Read (also accessible from the other side of the building at 856 Park Avenue) in 1990. They offer spa packages for men and women that include facials, manicures, and pedicures.

3. r. mark mitchell, cmc fine antique clock restoration “No watches,” says Mitchell about his antique clock shop at 206 W. Read. The shop itself, in which Mitchell does clock restoration, is reminiscent of Gepetto’s workshop.

The constant ticks and tocks of Mitchell’s various antique clocks are surprisingly soothing and at times can even be musical.

6

Co-owned by Richard Boss (above) and Deb Sherer, the commercial gallery features jewelry, fine art, crafts, and giftables from Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and other exotic locales. Located at 220 W. Read.

4

9. drusilla’s books

3

“I do things the old fashioned way,” says owner Drusilla Jones, who started selling books in 1977. She sells mainly antiquarian and outof-print tomes, some of which date back to the 1800s. Her collection includes leather-bound sets and an original edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Located at 817 N. Howard.

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10. eubie blake national jazz institute and cultural center

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A gallery, performance hall, and classroom for local artists and schoolchildren, this multipurpose art center aims to promote African American art and culture and to provide artistic opportunities to low- and moderate-income Baltimoreans.

Located at 847 N. Howard.

5. antique toy museum

4. sandarac gallery

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8 7

Anne Smith’s antique toy collection—including dollhouses, games, jack-in-theboxes, and marionettes dating from 1800 to 1950—has been on display at 222 W. Read for the past five years. Connected to the museum is Smith’s antique shop, Anne Smith’s Antiques and Fine Arts, which features toys and early twentieth century American paintings.

6. iroko gallery and café Fola Olumide’s gallery at 224/6 W. Read celebrates contemporary African art, featuring paintings, sculptures, clothing, toys, and textiles that are mostly from Nigeria. Olumide, a designer, painter, and illustrator, believes that Iroko is as much a learning place as it is a gallery.

11. cafe mocha Locals love owner Kader Camara, who offers a mean mocha, delectable pastries, fresh sandwiches, and African and Caribbean specials. In just three years on Antique Row, Camara has developed a following of Mount Vernonites who have helped him turn his modest coffeehouse at 859 ½ N. Howard into a popular cafe.

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A New Brew A local architecture firm transforms the former Natty Boh brewery into a creative workspace

Above: A colorful wall is made up of Warholesque images of Development Design Group employees.

The most striking quality of the Development Design Group’s new office space, a revamped warehouse in the Brewers Hill area of Baltimore, may be its ability to concurrently convey grandness and intimacy.

Occupying 45,000 square feet of the Bear Cat–Malt Mill Building in the former National Brewing Company complex, the vast office expands out behind “The Vault”—a massive steel door that marks the entry into the reception area—before yellow steel columns climb skyward to support the original vaulted sawtooth roof 22 feet above. Below, the work areas for the architectural firm’s one hundred-plus employees are closely connected, compact without being claustrophobic, grouped around a central open area (nicknamed Central Park) that is peppered with sofas and slender palm trees.

“We knew immediately that this was where we wanted to be,” says Simon Sykes, one of the firm’s vice presidents, who was instrumental in bringing the renovation to fruition. “And as an architect, I’ve always wanted to work in a space like this.”

For much of its 27-year history, DDG, an international architectural design firm that specializes in

retail and mixed-used design, resided in corporate office buildings downtown, close to the Inner Harbor. That setup, says Sykes, always possessed an unshakeable sense of disconnection; the finance and marketing departments occupied a different floor than the design department, and the various studios were separated by a central core, making team communication difficult. There was an aesthetic problem as well: Visiting clients found themselves in a typical corporate office, a maze of cubicles and boardrooms. They also were unable to view graphics and architectural models in a larger, more accommodating space. When Sykes and his team began hunting for a new location, rectifying these issues was one of their fundamental priorities; the new office should be sizeable but not overwhelming, and should be defined by the company’s work, not restrained by the limitations of the space itself.

The seven-building National Brewing complex, near the corner of O’Donnell and Conkling Streets, had been largely vacant since the late 1970s. (Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, Inc. and Obrecht Commercial w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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Above: The staircases were designed in-house. Wilson Point manufactured the steel trusses and rails; Maryland Mill Work, Inc., fabricated the wood treads.

area for graphics and architectural renderings. In addition to three bright, billboard-sized signs that showcase selected projects, the walls are lined with photographs and with plasma screens used for video presentations. At the rear of the ground floor, behind double doors, is the model-making room,

We knew immediately that this was where we wanted to be. As an architect, I’ve always wanted to work in a space like this. scattered with scale renderings of designs in progress, and an adjacent kitchen and dining area.

The mezzanine level, linked to the ground floor by two wide staircases, features a series of glasswalled meeting rooms, seating areas, and additional studios. “Having the two sets of stairs helps the upper level seem like an extension of what’s below,” says Sykes. The marketing and communications

photo by Nicky Lubis

Below: Model planes suspended from the sawtoothed ceiling add color and whimsy to the space.

Real Estate, Inc. have been working together to transform the former breweries of Gunther Brewery and the National Brewing Company into a modern, mixed-use development.) When DDG launched its year-long endeavor to refurbish the derelict building in 2004, the firm had to remain mindful of the complex’s status as a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places. No major changes beyond general painting, cleaning, and repair could be made to its brick exterior, and the interior could not be drastically altered. Therefore, the firm inhabits the same basic architectural footprint as the original structure, which had been used as a brewing site for the National Bohemian beer brand since 1885.

The main room is more than two stories in height, bordered above by a mezzanine level that contains additional offices and meeting areas. On the ground floor, the set of cubicles—which are, actually, more like mini-offices unto themselves, each occupying a far greater area than a standard cubicle, with a large desk and secondary worktable—are arranged in what Sykes refers to as a “grid” system, in which each employee’s workspace is linked to three others, forming a network of larger squares. At each of the room’s corners, these “grids” are anchored by specific design projects. And the cubicle walls, notes Sykes, were intentionally built at torso-level, facilitating verbal communication.

The room’s significant amount of wall space is crucial, serving as the company’s primary display

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department—once relegated to a separate floor in the old office—now operates from one side of the mezzanine. “Someone from their area came up to me the other day and thanked us for making them feel more spatially included,” says Sykes. “That was great. That was exactly our intention.”

A staircase from the kitchen area provides access onto an expansive stone deck—one of two decks overlooking the waters of the Inner Harbor.

From this vantage point, development projects seem to be underway at all angles; in the foreground, the remainder of the National Brewing complex is rapidly being transformed into commercial and office space, and in the distance, the harbor area is dotted with various large-scale building projects. “We had a good view of downtown from our old office,” says Sykes, “but this feels much better. There’s a view here from the deck, and plenty of natural light inside, but the focus is more inward—on the work, and on the people.”

The layout of the new office, notes Sykes, is what solidifies this insular, cooperative air. What seemed restricted in the firm’s former home— physical openness and greater communicative ease—dominates its current space. The ability to maintain interpersonal connection without impinging upon individual activity is crucial, it seems, to any collaborative creative entity. To Sykes and his fellow architects, this is the linchpin of a thriving work environment.

“Much of our firm’s design philosophy involves organizing people around gathering places, and with everything in one big area, we’ve done that here, as well,” he says. “Hardly anything is segregated. But there’s still a sense of privacy and control, too, and that’s what makes the space function so well.” n

Top and middle: DDG employees build architectural models.

photos by Mitro Hood

Bottom: The former brewery offers enough room to display complex models for client review.

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urbanite february 06

by

reverend jason tinney

photo by Bradley Loren Marlow, Agency: Dreamstime.com

encounter

You May Now Kiss the Bride ...

photo by Jan Mikurcik

One man’s venture into online ordination

Reverend Jason Tinney performing a wedding ceremony on November 12, 2005

I was engaged for six months when I was 19. It didn’t end with the ringing of church bells, or a ring of fire.

No, it was more like a plane crashing into the side of a mountain. I can’t say for sure that my opinion of marriage was colored by that experience. Don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing against weddings or marriage. It’s just that, perhaps, like skydiving, it’s not for everyone. Nonetheless, I’ve reached a point in my life where many friends, near and dear, are tying the knot.

In January 2005, two such friends, let’s call them Earl and Regina, got engaged. They set a date for early November. The ceremony was to take place in the backyard of their home near Canton, but the question was who would perform the ceremony.

Regina was divorced and Catholic, so there were issues there and, for that matter, Earl didn’t want an overly religious ceremony.

One night over dinner, Earl and Regina asked me if I would read at their wedding. My sister was also dining with us and she suggested that I marry the two of them, that I perform the wedding. After a good laugh it got quiet. Earl and Regina looked at each other and then they looked at me.

“You’d be perfect,” Earl said.

Regina agreed.

I was filled with a mixture of honor and apprehension. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, man,” Earl said. “I just hope I don’t laugh during the ceremony.”

There were a few raised eyebrows when their families and friends found out what role I was to play in the wedding. I completely understood their concerns. In fact, I had them myself. First, how does one get ordained? Second, what are the legalities? Heaven forbid I perform the ceremony and later come to find out that the i’s weren’t dotted, t’s weren’t crossed, and the whole event is a fraud.

But there was a deeper question. Was I really the right guy? My feelings about relationships, commitment, and marriage were somewhat conflicted.

Let me put it this way: If I had to go before a Senate committee, it’s doubtful that I’d be approved.

I settled in on the idea that these were two people who I thought the world of. I would do anything to make them happy.

For my remaining questions, I turned to the guidance of the Internet almighty.

“Becoming ordained online” was my first Google search.

Within the Internet’s Tower of Babel there are endless options and opportunities for aspiring ministers, wherever your faith may lie. There’s the Universal Life Church Monastery’s free online ordination (www.ulc.net), and even www.beerchurch.com, where you can become ordained as a Beer Church minister. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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nney of Jason Ti courtesy

I settled on www.openordination.org, home of the Rose Ministries, a nondenominational ministry that is, according to its website, “committed to the rights of the individual to experience the divine according to their own personal beliefs.”

Once ordained by Rose Ministries, I would be able to officiate weddings and conduct any religious ceremony, including baptisms and funerals. I could even start my own church. I wanted to start small, though, and see how the wedding went before expanding my ecclesiastical empire.

Rose Ministries offers a web page with details regarding state marriage laws. For Maryland it noted that “a marriage ceremony may be performed in this State by any official of a religious order or body authorized by the rules and customs of that order or body to perform a marriage ceremony.” That seemed open to interpretation, so I didn’t see any problems.

There was one last item on which I needed to decide: my title. My choices were reverend, pastor, cleric or—for $5 extra—“other.” I was partial to pastor, but Earl really dug reverend, and as Earl was the groom and it was his show, I went with his preference.

I decided to spare no expense and ordered the Premium (with CD-ROM) Ordination Package, which included the official ordination, a certificate of ordination imprinted with name and title, clip-on clergy badge, “Official Business” clergy parking placard (laminated to boot), and the aforementioned CD-ROM with wedding and baptism certificates and sample wedding, funeral, and baptism ceremonies.

I filled out the appropriate online paperwork and charged $47.95 (plus shipping and handling) to my credit card, and on the evening of September 15, 2005, I became an ordained minister.

A few days later, a package arrived at my house addressed to Reverend Jason Andrew Tinney. I tore into the package as if its contents contained a sweepstakes prize. I went through three stages of reaction.

First, there was a bolt of energy that surged throughout my entire body. Second, I was overcome with this feeling of authority. And third, a voice inside my

head spoke up and said, “Get a hold of yourself.”

As the weeks passed, the big event took shape: Wedding rings were purchased, programs were designed, entertainment was hired, and Earl and Regina’s backyard was transformed into a beautiful wedding garden complete with a hand-built pergola for the ceremony.

Earl and Regina wrote their own vows, so I was off the hook on that front. But there were other aspects that I needed to work out, like the Declaration of Intent—the whole “I do” part.

I know a pastor in Baltimore and I contacted him for some advice. At first, I thought that he might be offended that I bought my credentials online from a church in Las Vegas, Nevada. But to the contrary, he was very open to what I was doing and knew that

my intentions were good. He even loaned me his minister’s handbook, which was of huge assistance.

In the book I found an informal ceremony, which helped me write a marriage script, including stage directions for the bride and groom, best man, music, etc. I typed it out and pasted it into a leather journal.

The day of the wedding came. Earl was calm.

Me? I paced nervously, going over all I was going to say, reminding myself of certain things to do. Like not screw up.

The ceremony started. Earl and I took our places on the pergola. A saxophonist played a jazzy rendition of the wedding march and then there was Regina, beautiful, all in white. I looked at Earl, who was looking at Regina. Right then, I knew everything was going to be just fine. n

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combing the streets for real baltimore fashion photography by hellin kay If you wrote a screenplay about Baltimore fashion, how would it read? For this photo spread, we made a list of several types of characters—the Club Girl, the Hip Hop Kid, the Federal Hill Businessman—and asked veteran location scout Vince Peranio to take to the streets with photographer Hellin Kay and hunt down some archetypal

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urbanite february 06

Baltimore looks. Real people in real locations. What they found was a breadth of style and personality born out of the many neighborhoods that make Baltimore distinctive. Within this city there is an individuality of personal expression spawning innumerable looks.

That individuality is now finding a voice in the growing

number of local fashion designers, and on p. 54, for the article “Fashion Forward,” writer Robin T. Reid visited the ateliers of local designers to report back on the burgeoning trend of regionally focused retail. Baltimore may not be haute couture just yet, but its style could represent the next wave in fashion.

read on ...

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Fashion Forward Local designers speak to a rise in regional retail B Y

RO B I N

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R E I D

P H O T O G R A P H Y

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B Y

N A N C Y

F R O E H L I C H

The concept of regional fashion isn’t new. How people in any given area outfit themselves has always been driven largely by climate, local conventions, and income.

But regional fashion has struggled to survive in this era of globalization. Monolithic retailers and online shopping have created armies across the country clad in the same sweaters, pants, tee shirts, and sneakers.

Yet, the cries for individuality have grown increasingly louder in the Gap wilderness.

“Individualistic expression is the counterbalance to globalism,” says Sass Brown, assistant professor of fashion design-apparel at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. “We’re seeing a higher value placed on idiosyncrasies. It’s been coming for a while, but it’s reached a level of prominence now.”

In Baltimore, local designers are busy answering those calls, whether they’re from individuals or new boutiques that want to sell the works of newcomers. Four such designers talked to Urbanite about their work and about the business of fashion in Baltimore.

Designer: Dermaine Johnson, 33 Label: Dermaine Johnson for Madison Walker Line: Clothing and accessories for men and women

Designer: Phillia Downs, 27 Label: pH by Phillia Line: Women’s clothing and accessories

A short, brown tweed skirt trimmed in velvet. Navy pea coats made with old print fabrics and piped. These are examples of what Johnson calls his “quirky classics.”

“My design philosophy is being able to wear my clothes from daytime to evening,” he says. “I love mixing different fabrics. A lot of my things are vintage-inspired.”

Johnson grew up in Baltimore, initially wanting to be a gymnast. Soon after graduating from Polytechnic High School, he saw a Fluevog shoe catalog. That was enough to shift his focus away from the parallel bars to the clothing racks.

He went to the Community College of Baltimore, repeating several courses by choice to ensure he mastered every aspect of fashion design. Under the label Madison Walker, a name concocted by an old friend, he started making clothes, hats, handbags, scarves, bracelets, belts—everything except shoes (but they’re on his to-do list). He finds inspiration in the designs of Gucci, Yves Saint-Laurent, Comme des Garcons, and Issey Miyake.

When he’s not managing the Belvedere location of Nouveau Contemporary Goods, Johnson works out of a studio in his Charles Village apartment with assistants LaKiesha Parker and Carvello Branch. He sells through word of mouth, area fashion shows, and, as of last year, two shops: The Doll House Boutique (525 North Charles Street) and Steph-N-Ty (10 West Biddle Street). His least expensive items are women’s blouses and men’s polos, which cost $110. On the high end, evening gowns and custom-tailored men’s suits are $500 and up.

“If you can make it in Baltimore, you can make it anywhere,” says Johnson, who turned a very modest profit on his clothing line in 2005. “More and more people here are getting fashionable. With more people coming to live downtown, it’s getting better.”

The Madison Walker spring line for women features lots of oranges and corals, with hemlines rising like an elevator from maxi to mini. Men’s polos will include the new Madison Walker logo, and pants will be made from premium denim.

This former cancer researcher spends her days in the second bedroom of her house in Columbia. There, Downs—with the help of her friend Nanako Mori, 28—breathes new life into old pieces unearthed in thrift shops. The results are colorful, vibrant, avant-garde clothes that appeal mainly to girls and women from 16 to 35. The line sells almost exclusively through its website.

“We’re getting interest from people in Australia, Asia, and Canada,” Downs says. “We did the Strut fashion show at Power Plant Live and were surprised by how many people were asking about our stuff. And we’re doing a lot of custom work.”

War memorabilia, the 1920s, ’50s rockabilly, and ’60s mod are among Downs’ fashion inspirations. “We do a lot of vintage redesign, where we incorporate historical elements. I like the idea of using stuff from different times and cultures and mixing them up. For example, I had a World War II sailor’s shirt that I turned into a zip-up jacket that was hand-painted on the back. I took an ’80s red clutch and put a metal drawer handle on it as a handle, then hung jade beads on it.”

Downs gets lots of things online and from friends living around the world.

Locally, she hits 9th Life (620 South Broadway) and Killer Trash (602 South Broadway) in Fells Point regularly for raw materials.

There’s been little time to create a spring line, but there are a few things on pH by Phillia’s drawing board so far: bell-bottom legwarmer flairs and more handmade bags.

Opposite: Dermaine Johnson (left) designs the Madison Walker clothing line; he’s pictured here at The Doll House Boutique in Mount Vernon with stylist LaKiesha Parker.

Above: pH by Phillia designer Phillia Downs (right), with help from friend and business partner Nanako Mori, creates colorful clothes with historic and vintage elements.

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Ali Dryer makes bags and purses from vintage fabrics for her handbag line, Pistol Designs.

Designer: Ali Dryer, 33 Label: Pistol Designs Line: Women’s handbags “Things don’t go well in my life if I’m not sewing,” says Ali Dryer. “I’ve been looking for a way to sew and get paid for it.”

Dryer has found her way with Pistol Designs, a handbag label that she launched in May 2005. Pieces of old and new fabrics now fill her house, as well as bags of cloth that friends have given to her. Between that collection and her brand-new Husquvarna Viking sewing machine, Dryer’s getting serious about her business.

Dryer’s love of sewing was passed on to her by her mother, who taught her the craft when she was 11 years old. Not long after, Dryer was the junior grand champion in sewing at the 4-H fair in Carroll County. “Mom’s the reason my seams are straight and things look finished. It’s a lost art, that precision.”

Her creations cost from $60 for a small cocktail purse to $100 for a market bag. They feature vintage or reproduction fabric, decked often with a big, old button. She designs the plywood handles, which she then finishes with linseed oil.

For spring, Dryer plans to start making overnight bags.

Pistol Designs bags are available locally at Trixies Palace (1704 Thames Street) and in D.C. at Nana (1528 U Street NW). Dryer prefers to sell her bags at art shows because she enjoys the travel. They sold very well at such a show in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Adams-Morgan. But she’s not ready to leave her day job of sorts: waiting tables three nights a week at Petit Louis in Roland Park.

“I’m keeping it realistic,” she says. “I’ve been growing at a pace I’m comfortable with. I feel like too many people want to put up a front of success when they’re not there yet.”

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urbanite february 06

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Cut It and Stud It designer Amanda Johnson (right) made this custom shirt for musical artist Ultra Naté (left).

Designer: Amanda Johnson, 32 Label: Cut It and Stud It Line: Men’s and women’s custom clothing Wearing Amanda Johnson’s clothes requires confidence, a very individual sense of style, and money. “I don’t work for free anymore,” says Johnson, who spends her days as the clothing designer for HBO’s The Wire.

Johnson has become known for her creative re-creations of existing clothing.

Dance music artist Ultra Naté trusts Johnson to redo clothes for her, and so does porn star-turned actress Traci Lords and several strippers. She’s transformed Gstrings, men’s jackets, ties, and many dresses with her unique sense of style. The one thing she hasn’t been asked to redesign is a wedding dress.

“I love the ability to be inspired by something. A crease, a tuck. I love a puffed sleeve. It reminds me of innocence,” she says.

She also loves things that connote anything but innocence. Like a glam gold and silver leather evening gown laced in the back with black. Or a jewel-toned quilted Talbot’s jacket with the front panels cut off just above the breasts. Her prices range from $75 for a slight update to $800 for a major overhaul (like a cocktail dress, for instance).

“It’s fun to have no limits in fashion,” she said recently as she modeled a men’s red jumpsuit modified to only have one pant leg, the other cut just below the crotch.

Fashion designers in Baltimore are lucky, in her opinion, because they can be big fish in a small pond. “Baltimore is fashionable in its dirt,” she says. “In the big 350-pound girls who are wearing it the wrong way, in the woman who sweeps her steps in a housecoat and do-rag. They want to look bad.”

After her day job for The Wire is over, Johnson works on her clothes in her Mount Vernon condo. She has a sewing machine she hates to use. “I prefer to work out my aggression through stitching,” she says. n

you can’t arrive unless you know the destination. the murphy fine arts center

The Murphy Fine Arts Center is Baltimore’s “Center of Attention,” replete with contemporary, state-of-the-art facilities for members of the performing and visual arts communities to showcase their talents. For our audiences, we have the most comfortable audience seats on the east coast and free, off-street parking. MFAC’s performance spaces ably accommodate performers and productions who play to “thousands” at a time as well as artists who prefer the intimate settings of studio theatre or recital hall venues. The Murphy Fine Arts Center houses four beautiful performance spaces that rival the offerings at Baltimore’s downtown performance venues; and The James E. Lewis Museum of Art.

www.murphyfinearts.org Tickets available through Ticketmaster at (410)-547-SEAT (7328), www.ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster Outlets, and at the Murphy Fine Arts Center box office (443-885-4440).

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2006 featured artists & performers:

the o’jays

kem Friday, February 10 8:00 PM w/Kindred the Family Soul

Thursday, February 16 7:00 PM

nick cannon presents w i l d ’N o u t (As seen on MTV) Saturday, Feb 25 6:00 PM w/special performance by

Bossman

also coming to the murphy fine arts center Urban Comedy Showcase from The Bad Boys of Comedy • Smithsonian Discovery Theatre presents Black Diamond: Satchel Paige & the Negro League • Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail • United States Marine Band • Beauty and the Beast • Ragtime • 70’s Super Soulfest: Con Funk Shun / Midnight Star / S.O.S. Band • Steel Magnolias • The Morgan State University Choir • “A World of Dance” • ‘‘Kiddie” C.A.T.S. Performing Arts Series for Children • The Soulful Symphony • Mint Condition • Symphonic Winds • Morgan State Jazz Ensemble • Peter and the Wolf

www.murphyfinearts.org w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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welcome to everything

charles VIllaGe.

Welcome to Village lofts. New condominiums in the heart of Baltimore’s favorite neighborhood, with plenty of places to shop, dine and satisfy your caffeine cravings. here, it’s all about convenience. a short walk to Johns hopkins University and The Baltimore Museum of art. a few minutes drive to the hippodrome. and your home is simply beautiful. Private balconies with city views, nine foot ceilings, and gourmet kitchens with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. add private garage parking and ground level retail for a positively charles Village lifestyle. From the upper $300’s. call today for an appointment 410.243.0324. sales center on site at the corner of 33rd st. and st Paul.

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urbanite february 06

in the heart of charles village 3201 st paul street baltimore maryland 410.243.0324

sustainable city

by alice ockleshaw

The Society of Fabric Local designers look to raise the profile of textile art

Above: A close-up of the Op-art Houndstooth pattern designed for Broadcloth by Bruce Willen and Broadcloth cofounder Sarah Templin

On a chilly November evening, the scene at Hampden’s Gspot: Audio/Visual Playground had all the makings of a trendy local event. A diverse group of Baltimore’s eclectic youth—from heavily tattooed to artsy sophisticates—drank wine and beer and head-banged to near-deafening live hardcore rock. To look at them, one would never guess the relatively un-hip reason for the gathering: embroidery.

A closer look around the opening of the textile art exhibition, however, revealed the reason for the presence of this young, urban crowd: This was not your grandmother’s needlework. From artist Andrea Dezso’s tongue-in-cheek representations of Transylvanian old wives’ tales stitched on cotton, to Elyse Allen’s psychedelic neo-pop hooked-rug art (done by felting, rug hooking, embroidering, knitting, weaving, and appliquéing), the first event for the new local arts group Broadcloth captured the role of embroidery in contemporary art and design—and, in turn, drew a new audience of admirers.

“We really want to challenge people’s perceptions,” says Sarah Templin, 29, Broadcloth’s cofounder and director. The show represented the culmination of Templin’s year-long effort to get Broadcloth up and running as an organization.

(Broadcloth is currently awaiting federal nonprofit status.) The show was also the first step toward fulfilling Broadcloth’s mission to encourage and develop an exploratory approach to textile art and design through exhibitions, courses, and artist residencies.

Frustrated by the exodus of talented textile artists and designers from Baltimore to other cities, Templin and Broadcloth’s cofounder, fellow artist Lesley McTague, 24, conceived the idea over drinks at The Brewer’s Art in Mount Vernon in January 2004. They were inspired by one of the nation’s few nonprofits dedicated to the advancement of textile art, The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, and they felt Baltimore was an ideal place for a similar venture. “It’s small enough that people want new projects and organizations to start so that there’s enough going on,” Templin says. “And it’s large enough to draw a crowd and make it worth your while.”

One of the duo’s original objectives was to create a dialogue among artists, commercial designers, and craftspeople. “There are certain textile artists who want nothing to do with sellable artists, and they only want to be associated with fine art,” Templin says. “We want to be equally about design and art and also incorporate the importance of craft.”

They hit the ground running, meeting with numerous local experts for advice and guidance on how to develop their idea, write a business plan, and raise money. They met with individuals from the American Visionary Art Museum (where Templin is the registrar), Baltimore Clayworks, and Goya Contemporary/Goya-Girl Press, as well as the Maryland Institute College of Art’s president, Fred Lazarus.

“We were doing it by the book,” Templin says. “If

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Broadcloth’s inaugural exhibition, Stitched: Craft/Design/Art, focused on embroidery from the perspective of both artists and designers.

someone told us to research something, we would do it all day, every day, until we understood it.”

The pair was so energized by the possibilities that they often got ahead of themselves. “We had these wish-list meetings where we’d say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if it involved this and that?’” says McTague, who turned over the management of Broadcloth solely to Templin, to pursue a graduate degree in sculpture.

Some of those wishes have already come true.

Broadcloth recently opened a studio in Area 405 (in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District) that boasts an 18-foot felt-padded screen-printing table— the largest in the area—for producing repeat patterns on up to six yards of fabric. “This will allow artists [who use] the facilities to do something that they couldn’t ordinarily do in their homes or their own studios,” Templin says. This month, Broadcloth will

put out an open call for its artist residency program.

Once chosen, the artists will have the opportunity to use the studio to print yardage of fabric for exhibition and as merchandise to raise funds for Broadcloth.

Over the past year, Broadcloth has held classes at the Creative Alliance, solidified its mission, and assembled an impressive—and enthusiastic—board of advisors, including Theresa Segreti, director of design and education for AVAM; Ellen Lupton, director of the MFA program in graphic design at MICA and curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City; and Nancy Haragan, executive director of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

“Baltimore has a rich history as a vibrant textile mill town,” says Annet Couwenberg, head of the fiber department at MICA and another of Broadcloth’s

advisors. “Broadcloth is really going to bring attention back to textiles.”

If all goes as planned, Broadcloth will attract and retain a community of textile artists and designers in Baltimore. And, as the embroidery exhibition at Gspot revealed, this new generation is prov-ing that textile art goes far beyond the expected.

Melanie Freebairn, a costume designer and a student at Goh’s Kung Fu, exhibited her sparring gear embroidered with images of her instructors.

“I was thinking about how I could feel stronger going into matches and I thought, ‘If my sparring gear could look like real armor, then I would be protected,’” she explains. As a member of Broadcloth’s new community of artists, Freebairn is excited by its possibilities. “It’s very easy to put together a painting show. There aren’t as many outlets for textiles.”

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urbanite february 06

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out there

The No Logo Movement No-brand brands make a name for themselves

Above: MICA grad student Chris Jackson designed this tee shirt, called “De-Branded.”

“Why do you keep calling me Calvin?”

“Well, that is your name, isn’t it?

Calvin Klein? It’s written all over your underwear.”

—From Back to the Future My eyebrows rise anytime I come across a product that refers to “kicking ass.” In this case, the product is a pair of shoes—the Classic Blackspot Sneaker, manufactured by The Blackspot Anticorporation and Blackspot Shoes, a venture project of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which publishes the social activist magazine Adbusters. The sneakers resemble old-school Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars, with some blatant and intentional differences. Instead of a star, there is a hand-painted white dot known as the “anti-logo” and at the tip of the toe cap there is a red dot, referred to as “the sweet spot for kicking corporate ass.” The mega-corporation rear-end that Blackspots target is Nike’s: In 2003, the same year that Blackspot began developing its sneakers, Nike bought Converse, which had been making All Stars since 1917.

On its website, Blackspot Anticorporation CEO Kalle Lasn puts it this way: “People were jaded by

megacorporate control for so much of their lives, but couldn’t see how they might take some power back.

We decided to launch a counterattack … Together, we’ll unswoosh Nike’s tired old swoosh and give birth to a new kind of cool in the sneaker industry.”

John Fluevog, well known for his cutting-edge shoe designs, created the Classic Blackspot Sneaker (low top) and the Unswoosher (high top). They are made with 100% organic hemp, along with rubber that is either 70% biodegradable (Classic) or recovered from used car tires (Unswoosher). Both models are fabricated in an anti-sweatshop union factory in Portugal.

Products like these are part of an escalating trend known as No Logo. The movement turns its back on or, in the case of Blackspot Shoes and Adbusters, directly takes aim at, big-name brands like Nike, Gap, and Microsoft.

This movement found a spokesperson in Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, whose book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies became the bible for anti-brand and anti-globalization activists. Klein explores the way major corporations sell an image rather than a product, and she looks at the negative effects of a branded culture, where consumers are essentially walking billboards. She writes that these corporations, ever in search of the almighty

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dollar, are often guilty of manufacturing their goods in some of the world’s poorest countries, exploiting employees working in sweatshop conditions. “… a new kind of corporation began to rival the traditional all-American manufacturers for market share; these were the Nikes and Microsofts, and later, the Tommy Hilfigers and Intels,” Klein writes in No Logo. “These pioneers made the bold claim that producing goods was only an incidental part of their operations. … What these companies produced primarily were not things, they said, but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but in marketing.”

The No Logo philosophy is finding a home here in Baltimore. Ellen Lupton, professor and founding director of the graphic design MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, says that more and more people are looking for and finding alternatives to buying name brands, such as creating their own clothing.

“It’s related to the No Logo movement,” she says, “in the sense that it has to do with being skeptical of corporate culture and wanting to be able to engage on your own terms.”

Lupton points to Muji as another company that has popularized the anti-brand movement. Founded in 1980, the Japanese company’s full name, Mujirushi Ryohin, translates to “No-label, quality goods.”

With a line of merchandise at affordable prices, Muji produces everything from clothing and accessories to household goods and office supplies that are simple, functional, and without a brand tag.

But it’s not all about sticking it to the big “brand bullies.” For some it is simply about individualism, a way of taking control of ones own style.

“The whole Blackspot Sneaker—I mean, that’s still a brand,” says Lupton.

“It’s not so much ‘no brand’ as just be your own brand,” Lupton says.

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MAGAZINE Cabinet Winter 2005/2006, Issue 20 Published quarterly

MUSIC Hersch Josquin Rihm Feldman Michael Hersch Artemis Classics, 2004

“Everything old is new again,” is a mantra used by one generation of artists after another to rejuvenate the creative vanguard. In modern music, the trend is to reach back to the so-called “pre-tonal” composers of the late medieval period for a compositional aesthetic that matches the highly modernist atonality of the present day.

It is with this sensibility in mind that Peabody Conservatory-trained composer and pianist Michael Hersch pairs two new compositions, Milosz Frag-

In the newest issue of Cabinet, a quarterly arts and culture magazine published in Brooklyn, New York, the lead article discusses European curiosity cabinets from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author describes how specimens of the day—shells, fossils, coins, and bottled and stuffed animals—were cataloged and carefully exhibited in these beautifully crafted cabinets, displaying not only the wonders of the world but also the collector’s own fascination with them.

Cabinet magazine itself is strikingly similar to these historic curiosity cabinets. Now with its twentieth issue, Cabinet is a catalog of thoughtful investigations into interesting and bizarre people, creations, and ideas. Every issue features regular columns like “Ingestion,” which explores the relationships among cuisine, aesthetics, and philosophy; and a main section with stories on unusual individuals and works. In this issue, there is an interview with Richard Reames, who creates furniture out of living trees by bending and grafting together branches.

There is an exploration (complete with a large, fold-out diagram) of how the big names in psychoanalysis are connected by their theories. And there are fun extras, like a pullout postcard emblazoned with swatches of patina colors that result from the weathering or aging of copper.

The magazine’s feature articles always tackle a theme. This go-round, the magazine explores the

concept of “ruins” with articles raising questions about the role of wreckage in our modern world.

How does a ruin function in the present day? How does it give us insight into how people lived? In “Derelict Utopias,” writer and photographer Mark Sanderson describes the mostly abandoned “colonias,” built in the 1930s, that dot the coastline in Italy; they served as holiday hostels for the children of members of the Fascist Party. The futuristic buildings’ weathered, starkly gray and white walls and uniformity give a sense of the highly regulated society that once lived there, and offer a reminder of how architecture can influence the way a society lives, and, conversely, that the ideals of a society can shape its built environment.

Cabinet falls into the category of publications like monthly literary mag The Believer—smart, well-designed magazines that contain articles on seemingly obscure topics that are rarely timesensitive. The content is not irrelevant, however; rather, this specific approach allows for subject matter that might not normally appear in more mainstream publications. Cabinet thereby functions as a modern kind of curiosity cabinet, one that tells us as much about how we live now as how we lived in the past.

ments and Sonata No. 2 for Unaccompanied Cello with two austere piano transcriptions of works by the pre-tonal Franco-Flemish master Josquin De Prez on his newest album. Hersch Josquin Rihm Feldman also includes works by twentieth century composers Morton Feldman and Wolfgang Rihm.

Hersch’s star has been on the rise since the Virginia native was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony, under revered conductor Mariss Jansons, to write three new works for the orchestra between 1998 and 2002. Critics, meanwhile, have always seemed to see potential in this 34 year old’s chamber music, which is darkly dissonant, spastically emotional, and reminiscent of Bartok and Schoenberg.

The sonata for cello, played with wrenching expressiveness by Daniel Gaisford, owes quite a bit to Josquin’s motet-writing style, despite its contemporary aspects. The piece calls for double-stops played in harmonies that shift in the lower part, one step ahead of the melody, almost like the voices in an early-Renaissance mass.

Each section of the eleven-part Milosz Fragments corresponds to one of ten lines from various poems and prose by Polish Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz (“Between the trees, smoke comes from a chimney / And crows fly in an overcast sky” or “Winter, night, the frozen sky is flooded with red,” for example). The music, like the poetry, is emotionally bleak and suggestive of strange, immutable open spaces and the composer’s personal relationship with them. Fragment II, which corresponds to the

line “On the wall a painting that depicts winter,” is made up of jerky and erratic dissonances that are loosely structured around tolling pedal tones. In the following sections, the music first takes on an introspective calm, then builds to a dense, frantic climax.

The question is whether or not we, as listeners, should think of Hersch’s jarring vignettes as a sort of impressionistic soundtrack to the images described in Milosz’s poetry, which would rather devalue it as cinematic and shallow. In response to Hersch’s 2003 work the wreckage of flowers, based on twenty-one excerpts from Milosz and written for Japanese violin virtuoso Midori, the New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini wrote, “... Mr. Hersch seems to have claimed Milosz’s haunting words as an excuse to jot down whatever popped into his head.” Just how important is the poetry to the understanding of the music?

The inclusion of the two works by Josquin, Mille Regretz and De Profundis Clamavi, is a subtle response to this sort of criticism. Josquin’s ponderous, somewhat incoherent use of harmony is a corollary to the ambiguity of emotional tone that is so stark in both Milosz’s poetry and Hersch’s chamber works.

He seems to be suggesting not that the fragments should be a backdrop for the scenes the poet paints, but rather that both expressions are guided by the same sentiment: an emotional tenor that is both evocative and open-ended.

—Marianne Amoss

—Robbie Whelan w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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urbanite february 06

in review

BOOK Atomik Aztex Sesshu Foster City Lights, 2005 The Aztecs believed in circular concepts of time, or, as poet Sesshu Foster puts it, “cyklikal konceptions of the universe where reality infinitely kurves back upon itself endlessly.” This is an important point to bear in mind before surrendering yourself to Foster’s new novel, Atomik Aztex, with its apparently plotless structure and dense paragraphs of “k”-heavy prose (his imaginative attempt to capture the tonality of the Aztec dialect).

Like Philip Roth in The Plot Against America, Foster re-imagines the Second World War—but with darker humor and wilder originality. At the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, the mighty warriors of

CULTURE Crossing the BLVD and Two Way Street Maryland Institute College of Art Decker and Meyerhoff Galleries February 2–March 12 A Nigerian Pentecostal prophetess who presides over a storefront church. A Vietnamese barmaid working in a strip joint. A Mexican husband and wife who crossed the border in the trunk of a car. These are some of the real-life characters visitors will “meet” in Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens

the Aztek Empire, complete with feathered plumes, face paint, and totemic powers, come to Europe’s aid against the Nazis, because in 1492, the European invasion of Mexico to “enslave our peoples down at the corner liquor store, crush all resistance thru germ warfare and lawyers, lie, cheat, kidnap, ransom, burn our sakred libraries, loot our kapital, install Christian theokratic dictatorships … ” hadn’t quite gone to plan. Under the pretext of defeating the Nazis, the Aztex intend to colonize Europe themselves, in order to harvest the hearts (and minds) of its citizens, human sacrifice being essential to economic growth.

The “hero” Zenzontli deals in European slaves.

“It’s one of the great sadnesses of my life that unknowingly I participated in the total destruction of kool ancient civilizations of the Caucasians,” he concedes, pondering his culture’s role in world history with the smug hypocrisy of the conqueror for the vanquished. “We Aztex also gotta admit that we have things to learn from the peoples whose hearts we’re cutting out.” Zenzontli’s life is complicated by the layered nature of Aztek time that causes him to sporadically fall into an alternative world—a contemporary world in which he works on the killing floor of the Farmer John meat packing factory in Los Angeles. Like his Mexican coworkers, Zenzón (Zenzontli’s alternate self) “wasn’t born working in a slaughterhouse. I crossed deserts to get here,” only to become a victim of rampant consumerism and immigrant exploitation.

The book is, fittingly, published by the City Lights Bookstore, that San Francisco monument to the Beat movement of the 1960s; and if you’re feeling nostalgic for angry young writers like Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, then Foster could be your

man. He has an (over) abundant gift for writing lists: “The world is full of signs … Stop signs, omens, faded inscriptions on old buildings, indicators, blinking lights, weather reports, routes, configurations, numbers, seabirds flying the wrong way, red sky at morning, dark looks … numerology, victimology …” And the list goes on for several more lines.

Zenzontli’s ironic appreciation of the German nation with their “fine athletic ability and a tremendous sense of graphic design” is transposed with Zenzón’s pungently gory descriptions of the abattoir, reminiscent of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. One long, detailed examination of the slaughter of a pig ends with, “Where you think your bologna sandwich comes from?” So we cycle from animal slaughter to human slaughter, gyrating endlessly in Dantean circles of hell.

Atomik Aztex defies genre-labeling, yet it may be pigeonholed as science fiction. That would be unfortunate, as it could limit its audience and belie its serious intent. Foster’s subversion of history is not a simple exercise in what-ifs, nor is it politically correct revisionism. It raises a fresh, if demanding, voice above the recent trend for books composed using understated, psychological, navel-gazing, whispering prose.

Despite his author’s note warning that this is a work of fiction and readers should not attempt to find a plot, Foster is being disingenuous, because there is a plot, or more accurately, a subtext running through this apocalyptic cocktail of parallel realities: It is a critique of “Amerika” and the world, as it is, has always been, and, he implies, always will be.

in a New America, a multimedia traveling exhibition opening this month at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

The “Boulevard” in question is Queens Boulevard, a twelve-lane highway that runs through the New York City borough of the same name. Documentary artists Judith Sloan and Warren Lehrer set out to provide a multidimensional glimpse into the lives of new immigrants and refugees living in Queens, a modern day Ellis Island that is home to a vibrant, often chaotic, mix of racially and ethnically diverse residents speaking some 138 different languages.

At the center of the exhibit are Lehrer’s colorful photographic portraits of individuals and families who have arrived in the United States from Barbados, Nigeria, Colombia, India, Austria, China—and just about everywhere else—since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ended immigration policies favoring white Western Europeans.

The photographs, taken in a variety of settings—from public housing projects to restaurants and bodegas—are paired with printed, narrative excerpts of the subjects’ own stories and objects from their “crossings,” along with contextual information, like international and local maps. Fourteen sound stations feature text/audio compositions, including radio documentaries made for NPR’s The Next Big Thing by Sloan and Lehrer, and original music by

composer Scott Johnson and some of the exhibition participants. Visitors are invited to contribute their own migration stories in the Mobile Story Booth.

Although the exhibit focuses on Queens, its implications are broader, according to its organizers.

“Queens perhaps is a look at the future of much of America,” Lehrer says. Including Baltimore.

Baltimore itself is the backdrop for a sister exhibit, which was planned in conjunction with Crossing the BLVD. Thirteen students from MICA’s master of arts in community arts program will present Two Way Street, an exhibition that uses oral history and mixed media to give voice to an array of Baltimore residents representing diverse ages and backgrounds.

There are opening receptions for both exhibitions on February 2 in the Decker Gallery and Meyerhoff Gallery, located in the Fox Building (1303 Mount Royal Avenue). Sloan and Lehrer will give a lecture on February 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Falvey Hall in the Brown Center (1301 West Mount Royal Avenue), and they will give multimedia performances at Theatre Project (45 West Preston Street) from February 23 through February 26. Call 410-225-2300 for more information or visit www.mica.edu.

—Susan McCallum-Smith

—Karen Baxter w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m f e b r u a r y 0 6

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29 The Making of a Main Street Spend a day on the 200 block of West Read Street, and explore the nearby streets while you’re at it, with the help of this listing of some of the area’s spots of interest. On the end of West Read closest to Park Avenue are Neal’s: The Hair Studio & Day Spa (410-528-8100; www.nealswebpage.com), R. Mark Mitchell, CMC Fine Antique Clock Restoration (410837-7055), Sandarac Gallery (410-625-9993; www. sandarac.biz), Antique Toy Museum (410-230-0580), The Tiny Tailor Shop (218 West Read Street; 410783-0110), and Robert’s Key Service (217 West Read; 410-728-7484). Heading toward West Chase Street, visitors will find Beatnik Barbershop (410-669-3033; www.beatnikbarbershop.com), Iroko Gallery and Café (410-244-1275; www.irokogallery.com), and Katwalk Boutique (410-669-0600; www.katwalk boutique.com). Nearby on Howard Street are Drusilla’s Books (410-225-0277; www.drusillasbooks. com), Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center (410-225-3130; www.eubieblake.org), and Cafe Mocha (410-669-7303). On Park Avenue, you’ll find Read Street Tattoo Parlour (410-5234657; www.readstreettattoo.com) and on Cathedral you’ll find Starwon Fashions (1015 Cathedral Street; 410-962-7277; www.starwonfashions.biz). For other destinations in the area, go to the “Places to Go” section of the Mount Vernon Cultural District website (www.mvcd.org/placestogo.cfm). There is a brochure with listings for the shops on Howard Street’s Antique Row at Dubey’s Art and Antiques (807 North Howard Street; 410-383-2881).

63 The Society of Fabric Susan Meller and Joost Elffers’ book Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns for Printed Fabrics Organized by Motif, Style, Color, Layout, and Period (Harry N. Abrams, 1991) is a reference tool for textile designers. It contains almost 2,000 color illustrations of and copious information about historic textile designs. Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005) by Matilda McQuaid is the catalog for an exhibition by the same name at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum that ended October 30, 2005. Cooper-Hewitt has several interesting exhibits running concurrently to Fashion in Colors, which was highlighted in the Corkboard department (p. 19). Selvedge magazine (www.selvedge. org) is a British publication that presents textiles in a range of contexts: fine art, interiors, fashion, travel, and shopping; it also features beautiful textile photography. At The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., the exhibit Rozome Masters of Japan features the work of fifteen contemporary Japanese artists utilizing the rozome technique of fabric dyeing unique to Japanese textile art; it runs until February 12 (2320 S Street NW; 202-667-0441; www.textile museum.org). Melissa Leventon’s Artwear: Fashion and Anti-fashion (Thames & Hudson, 2005) discusses wearable art. Telos Art Publishing has published, among other works, forty volumes of Portfolio Collection, a series featuring outstanding textile artists. Portfolio Collection Volume 24 features MICA faculty member Piper Shepard’s architecturelike textile sculptures (written by Angela A. Adams and William Easton, 2003). Portfolio Collection Volume 26, written by Elissa Auther, Adam Lerner, and Debra Rubino (2003), features the work of MICA fiber department chair Annet Couwenberg, which examines clothing as a metaphor for relationships between the private and the public. The Telos Art Publishing website is www.telos.net.

photo by Nancy Froehlich

resources

For more information on local designers, see page 54.

67 The No Logo Movement Naomi Klein’s No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Picador, 2000) is the no-brand movement bible; the website for the book is www.nologo.org. The Adbusters website, which contains information about Blackspot Shoes, is www.adbusters.org. John Fluevog Shoes are still designed by Fluevog himself, except in those cases where he credits God with the design inspiration (www.fluevog.com). Japanese company Mujirushi Ryohin’s website is www.muji.net.

coming next month:

What’s Individuals

Issues

Next?

Ideas

Innovations

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urbanite marketplace

Direct Pine Furniture Importers.

Specializing in distressed, olde wood reproductions. Natural hand rubbed and painted finishes.

www.annapolisfurniture.com Annapolis 410-295-7463 Baltimore 410-633-7224 Easton 410-770-6240

Buy premium quality seafood

Stressed Out? Let Us Help.

DIRECT FROM THE MANUFACTURER!

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.

• 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

Women’s Growth Center Since 1973 5209 York Road #B12 410-532-2GROW (2476)

By Appointment Only

Sacred Art Journeys The Temple of Sacred Art is a vessel for nourishing creativity.

Designed for both seasoned artists and those who have no formal art training, this visual art practice opens the gates to personal and mystical expression. We offer private instruction and group classes in Baltimore, and a national teleconference series.

For information e-mail kirsten@templeofsacredart.com call 410-578-1660 or visit www.TempleofSacredArt.com

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eye to eye

Adam Stab Fortune’s Forecast Adam Stab’s work is strongly based in street art and graffiti. This painting, done on a discarded window, is indicative of his recent studio work, which is a further exploration of a vocabulary rich in juxtaposition and association.

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2001 28 x 30 inches spray paint, paint marker, shoe polish, gold leaf on found window

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AKI BALTIMORE MARRIOTT WATERFRONT BIN 604

is for Where.

CHIU’S SUSHI CINDY WOLF’S CHARLESTON CINGULAR WIRELESS COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT FLEMINGS PRIME STEAKHOUSE & WINE BAR FOUR SEASONS HOTELS AND RESIDENCES* GAINES MCHALE ANTIQUES & HOME GRILLE 700 THE HARBOR BANK OF MARYLAND HARBOR CLEANERS HARBOR EAST DENTAL JAMES JOYCE IRISH PUB & RESTAURANT KOSMOS LOUNGE THE OCEANAIRE SEAFOOD ROOM PAD PAZO THE PROMENADE AT HARBOR EAST RIGANO’S ROY’S

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SOUTH MOON UNDER SPA SANTÉ

LATITUDE

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SPINNAKER BAY TACO FIESTA THE URBAN ADVENTURE CO. WATERFRONT DELI WHOLE FOODS MARKET [ coming soon*]

WHERE PRESIDENT STREET MEETS ALICEANNA STREET. Here you’ll discover a

completely new outlook on life in Baltimore. Harbor East. Dining. Shopping.

Hotels and Residences. All within a moment’s walk of one another. Vibrant.

Alive with activity. It’s the city as you’ve always dreamed it should be.

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LONGITUDE

Harbor East. Drink. Dine. Shop. Live. Enjoy. www.harboreast.com

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Bubblelicious.

Vanessa, a Cubana living in New York, manages one of our stores there.

She’s seen here testing a sample of some thigh-high knit socks, a potential addition to our line. Tell us what you think of this idea: stylefeedback@americanapparel.net To learn more about our company, to shop online, and to find all store locations, visit our web site: www.americanapparel.net

Made in Downtown LA Vertically Integrated Manufacturing

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