November 2012 Issue by Urbanite LLC

november 2007 issue no. 41

through feb 3

LaPlaca Cohen 212-675-4106

pa inter a s scu lp tOr

Publication:

the urbanite

Insertion date:

ReSeRve TiCkeTS at ARTbmA.org or call 800-919-6272. Only Members see it FREE! Join today at 443-573-1800. Presentation in Baltimore is generously sponsored by The Rouse Company Foundation and Jeanette C. and Stanley H. Kimmel. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Additional organizing support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Richard C. von Hess Foundation, and The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation. The national tour of Matisse: Painter as Sculptor is presented by Bank of America, the exhibition's exclusive corporate partner.

Left: Henri Matisse. The Serpentine. 1909 (cast c.1930). The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of a Group of Friends, BMA 1950.93. Right: Henri Matisse. Acrobatic Dancer. 1949. Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation Collection. Photo by C. Burke, New York. Both works ©2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Open Wed–Sun

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ReSeRve TiCkeTS at ARTbmA.org or call 800-919-6272.

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Prices subject to change. Copyright © 2007 Lennar Corporation. Lennar, the Lennar logo, Everything you want. Everything you need. and That’s the Logic of Lennar are service marks or registered service marks of Lennar Corporation and/or its subsidiaries. *MHBR #316. 10/07

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Developed and Managed by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse and Obrecht Commercial Real Estate. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

urbanite november 07

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photo by Jason Okutake

november 2007 issue no. 41

november’s cover: this month’s cover was designed by ellen lupton and urbanite’s design team. lupton is director of the center for design studies at the maryland institute college of art and the guest editor for urbanite’s september 2005 “charm city style” issue.

keynote: the principal cause interview by anne haddad

six years as an education policy analyst in the clinton administration taught jon schnur that the fulcrum for change in america’s schools was in the principal’s office. as his national school reform initiative launches in baltimore, he discusses the importance of training new leaders, why no child left behind isn’t working, and how to build a better school system.

62 62

grounds photos by mitro hood

the old adage is true: you can’t judge a book by its cover. but how much does the state of a school’s facilities affect the learning that takes place inside? a look at some of the best and worst in baltimore-area schools.

why we left/why we stayed by michael anft and molly rath

two families, two decisions, and two arguments for confronting the essential urban problem: where do we send the kids?

classtime by karen houppert

she’s been teaching in city schools for forty years, but sylvia hebronfurbush isn’t finished yet. “if they’re here every day,” she says of her students, “i’ve got to be here too.”

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AN ADDRESS LIKE NO OTHER

COMING SOON: ULTRA-LUXURY STUDIO, ONE AND TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT HOMES AND PENTHOUSES Introducing 39 West Lexington, a powerfully impressive residence in the heart of the city. Enjoy the grand style of yesterday with the ultimate in today’s comfort and convenience, in an apartment home that defies comparison. Historic quality. Superb amenities. Incredible views. Discover 39 West Lexington—truly an address like no other.

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departments november 2007 issue no. 41

what you’re saying

what you’re seeing

what you’re writing

corkboard

have you heard

baltimore observed

more rumblings on the subway

this odd house

origins: first loves, old regrets, and memories of apartheid

this month: black panthers, a century of football, and young adult fiction

a swiss chocolatier sails into the harbor. plus: kid art, trendy recyclables, and a house that sells itself

mr. mencken’s neighborhood can the sage of baltimore ever come home? by joan jacobson

45 49

at first sight a storefront photographer captures baltimore’s latest immigrants by violet glaze

once more, with feeling the city’s recycling re-do by donna m. owens

justice, denied remembering thurgood marshall, forty years after the supreme court by c. fraser smith

fiction

space: underground sensation

eviction, a short story by willie davis

cool digs in highlandtown’s basement bars by jessica leshnoff

food: a breed apart up close with a heritage turkey by martha thomas

reviewed: brasserie tatin and joe squared pizza and bar

recommended gutter press. plus: avec, installation art, and csi-baltimore county

105

resources

110

eye to eye

further reading on mencken, education, and old-school poultry

urbanite creative director alex castro on self-taught artist loring cornish’s glass house w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

Eye Candy Opticianry. Decorate your face - dress your eyes in style! Pick

from a carefully chosen selection of unique eye glass frames from Europe: France, Belgium, Italy & England as well as frames made in the USA. All that and more! 900 W. 36th Street • 410-889-0607

Grill Art Cafe. Brunch * Lunch * Dinner * Roasted Garlic Soup * Spicy Thai Shrimp * Wild Mushroom Ravioli * Seared Tuna * Kobe Steak * Chicken Satay * Mussels * B.B.Q. Chicken Pizza * Roast Veggie Salad * Lamb Kabobs * Casual * B.Y.O.B. 1011 W. 36th Street • 410-366-2005

Form Boutique.

Modern clothing and accessories for women. You will find unique pieces that have an edgy sophistication from only the best labels. 1115 West 36th Street • 410-889-3116 • formtheboutique.com

Mud and Metal. Hand made functional art created by artists to be used and loved! Ceramics, metal, jewelry, glass, fiber, paper. Enjoy! Art to live with! Open Mon - Wed 10am - 6pm, Thurs - Sat 10am - 7 pm, Sun 10am - 5pm 1121 W. 36th Street • 410-467-8698 • www.mudandmetal.com

The Dogwood Restaurant. Newly renovated, Baltimore Magazine’s

“Best New Restaurant” is again serving naturally elegant, seasonal creations. Free off-street parking behind the restaurant. 911W. 36th Street • 410-889-0952 • www.thedogwood.net

Golden West Cafe. “Green chile, green chile, green chile! A million New Mexicans can’t be wrong.” Open Wed.-Mon. 9am-10pm, Bar open till midnight. Closed Tuesdays. 1105 W. 36th Street • 410 889-8891

In Watermelon Sugar. Specializing in unique products for your

home. Bath and body. Scents for every palette. Colorful aprons, frames, furniture, cards and more. 3555 Chestnut Ave • 410-662-9090

Ma Petite Shoe .

Shoes & Chocolate! A wide assortment of exotic chocolates and shoes from the world’s wildest designers. Handcrafted slippers, luxurious socks, scarves and bags. Open 7 days a week. 832 West 36th Street • 410-235-3442 • www.mapetiteshoe.com

Milagro -A Global Boutique.

Clothing, jewelry, accessories for you. World folk art, pottery and mirrors for your home. Featuring a handpicked selection of holiday gifts from across land and sea. 1005 West 36th Street • 410-235-3800

Earth Alley. Looking for unique one-of-a-kind gifts? Earth Alley features a world of eco-friendly & fair-trade personal and home accessories. We are just up from the ‘Ave’. 3602 Elm Avenue • 410-366-2110 • www.earthalley.com

urbanite november 07

Paradiso. Antique to Modern Home Decor. Accent on exceptional furniture, lighting, fine craft, outsider art, jewelry and fabulous gifts for the Holidays. An outstanding destination! “ Open Fri-Sat 11-6, Sun 11-4. Call for holiday hours.” 1015 W. 36th Street • 410-243-1317 • info@paradisohampden.com

Hometown Girl.

Celebrating Baltimore urban life for twenty-six years! Browse our wonderful selection of Baltimore books, art, apparel and foods...Select a nostalgic toy from our collection of all things fun and whimsical...Enjoy hand-dipped ice cream treats and espresso drinks in our “Parlor of Sweets!” Saturdays in December, meet authors and artists at our book signing. 1001 W. 36th Street at Roland Ave.• 410-662-GIFT • www.celebratebaltimore.com

Red Tree. Home furnishings and artistic goods from around the world and around the corner. From furniture to jewelry, wall art to handbags, you’ll find a variety of creatively designed goods.

921 W. 36th Street • 410-366-3456 • www.redtreebaltimore.com

Angela Lynn. Comfort, Elegance & Simplicity... words that we live by in our home furnishings, jewelry, gifts and accessories boutique. 840 W. 36th Street • 410-235-4446

Discover

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breathe books.

From Chakras to Shamans, Aromatherapy to Zen, Bodywork to Buddhism—gifts, books, music and over 40 events a month for your mind, body and spirit. See our classes and workshops at www.breathebooks.com. Open Mon-Sat 11-7; Sun 12-5. Call 410-235-READ or email oracle@breathebooks.com for more information. 810 W. 36th Street • 410-235-READ

doubledutch boutique.

Showcasing both emerging and established labels, doubledutch caters to the women who can mix indie, vintage and designer clothing to create their own look. For this holiday season we have expanded our inspired collection of clothing, jewelry and other darling notions. Although a boutique in name, we strive to keep creative charm and individual style within everyone’s means. 3616 Falls Road • 410-554-0055 • www.doubledutchboutique.com

Sugar. The sex toy store you’ve been waiting for! Where sex is celebrated and everyone is welcome. We are near the corner of 36th and Roland. The entrance is in the parking lot off Roland, under Sprout. Look for the red awning. 927 W. 36th Street • 410-467-2632 • www.sugartheshop.com

Oakenshawe.

Baltimore’s most unique store for 20th Century Modern Design and Decorative Furnishings, showcasing handpicked furniture, lighting and art that reflect the rare and unusual as well as time-tested icons of design. 1021 W. 36th Street • 410-889-2279 • www.oakenshawe1021.com

Issue 41 November 2007 Publisher Tracy Ward Durkin Tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com Creative Director Alex Castro General Manager Jean Meconi Jean@urbanitebaltimore.com Executive Editor David Dudley David@urbanitebaltimore.com Managing Editor Marianne Amoss Marianne@urbanitebaltimore.com Senior Editor Karen Houppert Karen@urbanitebaltimore.com Copy Editor Angela Davids Editorial/Marketing Assistant Lionel Foster Lionel@urbanitebaltimore.com Contributing Editor Susan McCallum-Smith Editorial Intern Harrison Brazier Design/Production Manager Lisa Macfarlane Lisa@urbanitebaltimore.com Traffic/Production Coordinator Bellee Gossett Bellee@urbanitebaltimore.com Designer/Photographer Jason Okutake Production Interns April Osmanof, Stephanie Spinks Web Coordinator/Videographer Chris Rebbert Administrative/Photography Assistant La Kaye Mbah Senior Account Executives Susan R. Levy Susan@urbanitebaltimore.com Janet Brown Janet@urbanitebaltimore.com Marcella Rosati Marcella@urbanitebaltimore.com Account Executives Bill Sierra William@urbanitebaltimore.com Maureen Wilson Maureen@urbanitebaltimore.com Bookkeeper/Sales Assistant Michele Holcombe Michele@urbanitebaltimore.com Sales Assistant Iris Goldstein Marketing Kathleen Dragovich Kathleen@urbanitebaltimore.com Administrative Assistant Lindsay Hanson 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 editor@urbanitebaltimore.com (no phone calls, please). The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. Urbanite does not necessarily support the opinions of its authors. To subscribe or obtain assistance with a current subscription, call 410-243-2050. Subscription price: $18 per year. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission by Urbanite is prohibited. Copyright 2007, 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. Postmaster: Send address changes to Urbanite Subscriptions, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211.

urbanite november 07

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Exercise.HighArtistic. Freedom. View at Hunt Valley “Jewelry for the eyes”

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photo by La Kaye Mbah

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contributors

Michael Anft During the past decade, Michael Anft has written about media and politics for City Paper, foundations and nonprofit groups for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, arts and culture for Baltimore and Style, books for the Washington Post, and sports for PressBox. A city native and latent suburbanite, he lives with his wife and two children in Towson, where they enjoy the benefits of a strong public education system. His first article for Urbanite, “Why We Left” appears on page 66.

Violet Glaze Violet Glaze began her career in public television, where she won two Emmys as a producer for Maryland Public Television before switching to journalism. Her articles have appeared in many print and online publications including Baltimore, City Paper, Orlando Weekly, Popmatters.com, and now Urbanite. (See “At First Sight” on page 49.) She is the film critic for WTMD 89.7 and can be seen leading the discussion at the occasional Cinema Sundays film screening at the Charles Theater. Glaze lives in Baltimore with her husband, son, and too many cats.

Brian Payne Baltimore resident Brian Payne graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004. He is an illustrator, graphic designer, painter, and furniture maker. Payne uses a wide variety of materials and processes when making his art. Everyday objects and the visual evidence of the history behind them are his greatest influence. Payne illustrated this month’s feature articles “Why We Left/Why We Stayed” (p. 66). You can see more of his work at www.brianpayne.net.

editor’s note In 1959, the outgoing city school superintendent, Dr. John H. Fischer, was asked for “a frank appraisal” of the public school system by Baltimore, the venerable city magazine that celebrated its 100th birthday this fall. Fischer had won national acclaim for Baltimore’s incident-free desegregation efforts in 1955, and he was heading to a new position as dean (and later president) of Columbia University’s Teachers College. Keep in mind: This was the era of the Missile Gap and the Space Race. America’s math and science classrooms were at the front lines of the Cold War, and the Eisenhower White House was calling for doubling public education dollars. But in Baltimore, Fischer complained of being ignored by business leaders and politicians more excited by bold urban renewal projects like Charles Center than by teacher salaries. “We accept without question the idea that our nuclear physicists must be at least as good as Russia’s,” he wrote. “But when the time comes to shift from oratory to operations ... we suddenly find a lot of other things we’d rather do.” As proof, Fischer hauled out Baltimore’s per-child education spending numbers for 1957 ($281), which lagged behind cities like Philadelphia ($329), Cleveland ($330), and New York ($425). (In 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Baltimore spent $9,233 per pupil, more than Philadelphia’s $8,551 but less than Cleveland’s $10,420.) He closed by predicting citywide doom unless his successor was handed greater resources: “Worse things could happen to Baltimore than higher taxes for better schools … and one of the less welcome choices is a deteriorated city. The alternatives … are that simple and that ominous.” There’s a terrible familiarity about Fischer’s lament, and not only because his thesis—invest in schools now to stave off far more costly civic decline—is so often repeated (minus the threat of Soviet physicists) by education advocates today. More obviously, the consequences he prophesied quickly came to pass: During the 1960s, middle-class divestment from urban life swiftly crippled Baltimore’s school system, and the city itself. (Fischer never mentions race, but the superintendent’s exit occurred at a historic pivot point: 1959 was the last year of majority-white student enrollment in city schools. Only ten years after desegregation, many all-white Baltimore schools had already effectively re-segregated, with reversed racial demographics.) The not-so-surprising lesson from this exercise: Fixing a dysfunctional school system has always presented a less attractive challenge than bulldozing a blighted neighborhood or building a new downtown tower. It is unglamorous work involving many thousands of non-voting citizens, and it requires sustained communal commitment to a high-minded ideal from a social group— parents—that is wired to make decisions based on searingly personal terms. For this month’s look at how learning happens, in and out of the city, we asked two such parents, writers Michael Anft and Molly Rath, to explore both sides of that urban child-rearing cliché, the middle-class moment-of-truth about whether to flee to the suburbs (“Why We Left/Why We Stayed,” p. 66). We put images to the idea of educational disparities by sending photographer Mitro Hood into playgrounds and schoolyards (“Grounds,” p. 62). And contributor Anne Haddad questioned Jon Schnur, founder of New Leaders for New Schools, about his effort to reform urban school systems (“The Principal Cause,” p. 58). His interview also officially inaugurates Urbanite’s Q&A feature, “Keynote,” a monthly conversation with a national figure who addresses some aspect of that issue’s theme. Here’s hoping Schnur is on to something. Before my daughter was born three years ago, public education was one of those boringly intractable issues—like the trade gap, or Middle East relations—with no ready solution and little connection to daily life. There’s still no answer, of course, but for me the question has acquired an urgency that multiplies with each passing year. How much would it take to fix Baltimore’s public schools? A lot more than it would have in 1959, but maybe a lot less than it will ten years hence. “Only poor schools are expensive,” as Fischer warned. “In the long run, good education costs nothing.”

photo by Dan Boward

—David Dudley Martha Thomas Freelance journalist Martha Thomas moved to Baltimore in 2000 after living in New York City for a dozen years. She has written for publications ranging from Architectural Digest to Travel + Leisure; in addition, she was founding editor of the award-winning Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts magazine and a restaurant reviewer for Time Out New York as well as several neighborhood weeklies. She has written for many local publications and occasionally reviews theater on-air for WYPR’s Maryland Morning. Thomas also teaches a dance/movement technique called Nia, a fusion of dance and martial arts. Her article on heritage turkeys (p. 83) is her first for Urbanite.

Are you good enough? Coming Next Month: Philanthropy, community, and the cost of giving.

www.urbanitebaltimore.com

F O R

B A LT I M O R E ’ S

C U R I O U S

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The Neighborhood Corradetti Glass Cynthia Padgett Gutierrez Studios InfoCulture, LLC Linda Bills MudPies Studio | Madonna Hitchcock Mandala Creations | Chris Gavin Marketing Initiative, LLC Norma Wallis Gallery G @ The Beveled Edge Artisan Interiors Harry Campbell jordan faye contemporary Lisa Egeli Patrick O’Brien Paul Daniel Amaranthine Museum Woodberry Kitchen Artifact Coffee 4Thought, Inc. Urbanite Avalon Wellness People Encouraging People Havens by Hessen Williams Jackson Ewing The Law Offices of Arnold M. Weiner Fisher & Winner, LLP Gabrielli Design Studio, LLC Benchmark Asset Managers Castro/Arts THE HOT LIST » Art on Purpose BioHabitats JRS Architects G1440

Developed and Managed by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse.

An integrative, holistic approach to health and wellness offering a diverse group of health and mental health practitioners, classes and meeting space. Avalon Wellness Was Chosen Baltimore’s Best Wellness Center for 2007 by Baltimore Magazine. 2002 Clipper Park Road, Suite 110 410.889.8974 www.avalonwellnessllc.com info@avalonwellnessllc.com

Gutierrez Studios is a company of dedicated artisans specializing in the design and fabrication of contemporary furniture, lighting and architectural metalwork. 2010 Clipper Park Road, Suite 119 410.889.5341 www.gutierrezstudios.com info@gutierrezstudios.com

Artistry and industry merge before your eyes. Watch glassblowing from our showroom overlooking the studio. Classes and group glassblowing events available. 2010 Clipper Park Road, Suite 129 410.243.2010 www.corradetti.com studio@corradetti.com

WHERE CLIPPER PARK MEETS UNION AVENUE

Tucked away between Hampden and Woodberry in the Jones Falls Valley, Clipper Mill is truly an urban oasis. Here, you can live, work and play within a woodland neighborhood and yet be close to everything you love and need in the city, including great shopping and dining, cultural attractions and easy access to the Light Rail and I-83. This vibrant community is home to a dozen amazing artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studios and the most spectacular swimming pool in Baltimore.

CLIPPER MILL EVENTS 2nd Annual

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Design. Build. Install. Your resource for custom built metal furniture, railings, gates, window grates, architectural hardware, lighting & accessories. 2010 Clipper Park Road, Suite 101 410.366.8813 www.mandalacreations.com mandala@mandalacreations.com

Thursday, 6-8; Saturday, 10-4 2010 Clipper Park Road, Suite 118 www.cynthiastudio.com cynthP@aol.com

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what you’re saying

Wild at Heart

photo by Jason Okutake

I enjoyed reading “Wild Man Blues” by David Dudley (October), especially as I once had the late Wild Bill Hagy as my cabdriver for a trip downtown. Earlier, I’d made a rare visit to Memorial Stadium specifically to see his act, and I’m glad I did, too. His departure from that venue marked the genesis of the current baseball attendance slump; the game went from being the sport of the masses to that of the upper classes. —Blaine Taylor lives in Towson. He is the author of six published books on the World War II era.

Attention, Shoppers Towson Town Center wasn’t built to attract people just in the immediate neighborhood, but also folks from Rodgers Forge, Timonium, Cockeysville, and all up and down the York Road corridor, as well as other places. (The original Hunt Valley Mall was partially a victim of Towson Town Center’s success.) The Mall in Columbia, if I’m not mistaken, was built under a similar idea, that of being a “regional mall,” attracting folks from all over Howard County, parts of Anne Arundel County, etc. As these other malls were being built and expanded, I guess nobody considered that Mondawmin (“Scenes from a Mall,” October) could also become a regional mall, due to the neighborhood demographics and crime numbers, even after the Metro was built just outside. But while the immediate neighborhood may have had its problems over the years, you’ll find detached homes and stable neighborhoods up Liberty Heights Avenue and just beyond Druid Hill Avenue. Go down Gwynns Falls Parkway toward Windsor Mill Road and you won’t find the desolate criminal wasteland that the numbers might lead one to believe should be there. My intuition tells me that somebody from General Growth Properties finally figured this out. —Chris Kess is a writer and a Baltimore native who divides his time between here and New Jersey.

Safer Subways

Going Underground

I read “The Tao of Transit” (September) with great interest, since I use the Metro to get to and from work most days. The Baltimore Metro is fine 95 percent of the time. But what worries me is the absence of serious security. Most of the security folks I see at the stations are more interested in socializing with attractive women than in keeping the place secure. I was fortunate enough to serve this country for twenty years and spent quite a few years in Europe. I was impressed with the security on the Metro system in Germany and The Netherlands. Men who looked like they could do some serious physical damage walked the station platforms and train cars. They carried Uzis. They didn’t smile. They greeted no one. They watched everyone. The trains were clean and I never saw anyone eating or drinking. I would like to see the Metro sold to a private company that would take the job of taking care of its customers seriously. I’d even pay more for it.

In Mat Edelson’s well-written piece on transit (“The Tao of Transit”), Henry Kay of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) says that heavy rail (Metro subway) has been ruled out of consideration for the proposed Red Line. To justify this move, the MTA has argued that Metro subway’s initial capital costs are too high. Metro subway spares riders the low speeds— lower than existing bus service speeds—that light rail would face if in mixed traffic. (See the Light Rail moseying down Howard Street at about 7 mph!) Metro subway can be safely automated (unlike light rail and bus rapid transit, which operate in mixed traffic) and has a lower operating cost per passenger mile than either of the other two modes. Our existing Metro subway carries twice as many people on a system half as long as our existing Light Rail, while also going faster than automobiles and 50 percent faster than light rail. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), from which the MTA hopes to receive funding for the Red Line, focuses on rider benefit and cost effectiveness—

—Bob Jones is a retired member of the Air Force. He lives in Randallstown.

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the amount of time saved by riders, divided by the annualized cost of the project computed over the entire system lifetime. Because Metro subway goes faster and carries more people, it is likely to save more time in the aggregate—yet the MTA did not conduct any ridership or time-savings studies before eliminating Metro subway from further study. Moreover, Metro subway has lower operating costs (which, over the long run, dwarf construction costs), and its capital costs—while higher initially—depreciate more slowly: A Metro subway tunnel is forecast by the federal government to depreciate over 125 years; light rail or buses in mixed traffic have only a twenty-year depreciation period. Finally, the FTA requires that any project applying for federal funding include all reasonable alternatives for study. Failure to do so can cause delay, cost money, and put the entire project at risk. While the MTA has recently agreed to “examine” at least one Metro subway alternative developed by the Transit Riders Action Council of Metropolitan Baltimore (TRAC), it has still not agreed to study them. The Red Line Citizens’ Advisory Council, established by the General Assembly, was to start meeting in September, and it should be possible to find out about subsequent meetings from the MTA. It is well worthwhile to attend these meetings and call for a full and open process that considers all reasonable alternatives—as federal guidelines require. —Ed Cohen, who appeared on the cover of the September issue, is president of Transit Riders Action Council of Metropolitan Baltimore.

Transit Convert I thought Mat Edelson’s article “The Tao of Transit” was excellent in every aspect and overdue. As a pessimist by nature, I appreciate that the article refuses to make light of the formidable obstacles that our nascent mass transit system faces in becoming a synergistic system that a critical mass of citizenry could value and use. I like to think of myself as a successful convert to public transit and urban life. I grew up in Western Run Valley north of Cockeys-Vile and wanted to live there always. However, while vacationing in the UK, I was struck by how it was possible to go almost everywhere on a BritRail pass. This wasn’t seen as mysterious or tao-like, but just the connective tissue of any civilized society. Upon returning, I grew weary of local traffic. In 1999, I bought a house within walking distance of the Light Rail. I also started running wherever I continued on page 27

photo by Joe Rubino

update

One, two, three, four: Marin Alsop conducts the BSO at a summer rehearsal.

Marin Alsop, the subject of our July cover and feature, began her inaugural season as the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on September 27 at the Music Center at Strathmore. The audience enthusiastically greeted her official debut at the BSO’s home, the Meyerhoff, on September 28. As Chris Kaltenbach wrote the next day in The Sun, “Two years after anticipation of her appointment caused a near-mutiny among its players, Marin Alsop made her official Charm City debut as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last night, receiving a standing ovation as she took the stage. The ovation was repeated, even more emphatically, at the conclusion of the concert. The audience seemed reluctant to leave.” The November/December issue of Utne Reader magazine will include a reprint of the June 2007 article “Where Everyone Has a Seat at the Table,” written by regular Urbanite contributor Donna M. Owens. In the May “Have You Heard” department, we wrote about the opening of the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Southeast Anchor Library. In its first

week of operation, the branch—which contains 80,000 volumes, a drive-up window, and sixty computers for public use—had more checkouts than the Central Library on Cathedral Street. In September, City Paper named Southeast Anchor the best library branch in the city. Regular Urbanite contributor Joan Jacobson’s report for the Abell Foundation, “The Dismantling of Baltimore’s Public Housing,” was released September 30. You can access the full report at www.abell. org under Publications/Research. In September 2006, Urbanite contributor Nicky Penttila reported on Reality Check Plus, a statewide planning exercise designed to assess how the state of Maryland will accommodate an expected influx of 1.5 million people in the next twenty-five years. In September, the organization released a report called Today’s Vision, Tomorrow’s Reality that contrasts the Reality Check vision for the state with current and future development projects. Download the full report from www.realitycheckmaryland.org. —Marianne Amoss w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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Mention Urbanite magazine when responding.

needed to go when it was socially permissible; since 2002 my yearly mileage has been over 2,000. Whenever I return to the northern suburbs, everything looks drab, fatigued, and prematurely aged. As a city taxpayer, I don’t want to subsidize people who have made bad choices about where and how to live by gold-plating more parking lots, strip malls, athletic fields (that’s you, Loyola!), and freeways. —Paul Schlitz lives in Mount Washington. He has practiced law with Jenkins, Block & Associates, P.C. for twenty-three years.

Tapping the expertise of a friend is one thing; mentioning his “soon-to-open” restaurant every single time is inappropriate, in my view. I suppose this is not so unusual in the shilling-for-my-buddy milieu that apparently is still the Baltimore print-media scene. But I believe Urbanite has the unpleasant distinction being the sneakiest, slipping such backscratching into an ostensibly journalistic piece, as opposed to the less surreptitious gushing review or “Best of ” tactics employed by other publications. Please give me, and like-minded readers, a break from such blatant sewing-circle hobnobbing. —Steven Stepanek lives in California.

It’s a Bird It’s exciting to see the city investing in a green building at Cylburn Arboretum (“Mansion on a Hill,” September). However, I am concerned with the amount of glass that will be on the new building. Countless birds are killed annually by window strikes. Birds do not see windows and often fly into them thinking that the reflection they see is greenery or that there is nothing there. Will visitors have a positive experience watching a bird slam into a window, or finding one dead by one of the center’s window walls? For more information on this phenomenon, go to www.flap.org. I provided the city with a copy of bird-friendly building guidelines. They can be downloaded at www.birdsandbuildings.org/docs/Toronto DevelopGuidelines.pdf. —Wendy Olsson works in information technology and lives in Mount Washington. She enjoys birdwatching at Cylburn Arboretum.

In Bad Taste I am a native Baltimorean now residing on the West Coast. I find the “Food” article in the September issue to be utterly distasteful (“The $50 Feast”). Three times in the past year, Spike Gjerde has gotten a “plug,” not so hidden, in the “Food” department.

Helvetica Neue

Failing Grade As a kindergarten teacher with a vested interest in Baltimore City schools and the goal to start teaching there in a few years, I found Andrés Alonso’s comments and ideas about education inspiring and exciting (“The Big Test,” September). He seems to have a real understanding of how to educate children— not only by focusing on basic skills, but also through meaningful learning. One of the most important facts Alonso addresses is the blatant inequality in the schools in Baltimore. While some are very successful, those serving children in the impoverished areas of the city are failing the children in their neighborhoods. It is critical that the inequality in schooling is acknowledged, instead of blaming the failing schools on the children and teachers in them. While some teachers may not be of high quality, no one can determine that until teachers are allowed to do their job with equitable resources and support. I hope that Alonso follows through with the beliefs and plans he has laid out. I am convinced that, if he is able to carry out some of these changes, the Baltimore City schools will drastically improve. With such a dismal graduation rate, they can’t fail the children much worse. —Kathleen Sayers is a kindergarten teacher in College Park. She plans to work in the city schools

after finishing her masters degree in minority and urban education.

Tree for All I am writing in response to Gretchen White’s comments in the “What You’re Saying” department of the September issue. As an employee of the Friends of Patterson Park, I can say that we do currently and have for a number of years had annual tree plantings in Patterson Park. Our volunteers are instrumental in the plantings, and while these events may not be a “party,” they are a great time and everyone has fun. One of the easiest ways to find out about upcoming events is to sign up for our weekly e-mail (www.pattersonpark.com/Friends/mailingList.htm). Our next tree planting should be in November, so keep an eye out for information. —Christina Hailman is program assistant at Friends of Patterson Park. She lives in Locust Point.

Corrections In the September article “Signing Off,” the acronym of the Federal Highway Administration was incorrect. The correct acronym is FHWA. Because of errors in transcription, the July Q&A with Sarah McGaughey (“Talking Trash”) contained a number of misstatements. An updated version of the Q&A can be found on our website (www.urbanite baltimore.com).

We want to hear what you’re saying. E-mail us at mail@urbanitebaltimore.com or send your letter to Mail, Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. You can also comment on our website (www.urbanitebaltimore.com/forum).

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what you’re seeing The “What You’re Seeing” department is the place for photography that captures the true spirit of Baltimore, showing the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the sad—and don’t forget the wild, zany, and spectacular! Each month we choose a topic; you send us one photograph that speaks to that subject. Along with your photograph, please include a brief description of the image and your contact information. For more information on how to submit your photograph, please visit www.urbanitebaltimore.com/wyseeing. PLEASE NOTE: By sending us a photograph, you are giving us full permission to publish the image in its entirety. This permission extends to the models and/or subjects in the photograph. It is essential that all people in the photograph be aware that the image may be published. Please read the limited license agreement on our website, www.urbanitebaltimore.com/wyseeing.

Show us …

Deadline

Publication Date

My True Self A Hero Urban Animals

Nov 21, 2007 Dec 21, 2007 Jan 18, 2007

Jan 2008 Feb 2008 Mar 2008

Visit www.urbanitebaltimore.com/wyseeing for more information on how to submit your photograph.

A House with Character by Martha Cooper

This little wooden house at 1504 West Baltimore Street dates back to 1827. Built by the son of carpenter Malachi Mills, whose family lived there until about 1853, it reportedly was the first house on this now-forsaken block. Baltimore had outlawed the construction of wooden buildings as fire hazards, but at the time of its construction, this property was outside the city boundary and therefore exempt from its restrictions. The misfortunes of the neighborhood may have proven fortunate for the house. Still standing after 180 years, it continues to hold its ground, awaiting the day when its age and undeniable charm deem it worthy of restoration by its owners, the City of Baltimore. —M.C.

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urbanite november 07

Where life is a work in progress.

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 reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know. Due to libel and invasion-of-privacy issues, we reserve the right to print the piece under your initials. Submissions should be typed (and if you cannot type, please print clearly). Only one submission per topic, please. Send your essay to Urbanite, P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211 or to WhatYoureWriting@urbanite baltimore.com. Please keep submissions under four hundred words; longer submissions may not be read due to time constraints. Because of the number of essays we receive, we cannot respond individually to each writer. Please do not send originals; submissions cannot be returned. 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

Cravings Winners and Losers Secrets

Nov 20, 2007 Jan 4, 2008 Feb 1, 2008

Feb 2008 Mar 2008 Apr 2008

One summer day

illustration by Stephanie Spinks

Origins , I was outside with the sun and in the warm sandy spot where I always played. I grabbed one of my G.I. Joe action figures and marched him into the sand. My imagination quickened and we began to dig foxholes and prepare for the attack. Just as the enemy was about to swoop across the sand, my mother called out to me from the kitchen door. I turned and saw a skinny girl standing next to my mother. The girl was dressed in summer stuff and her legs were shiny from Vaseline. I thought she was a funny but pretty little thing with her little stick legs and plaits in her hair. They came close to me and I noticed that she was older, old enough to be in school. My mother was saying something about this girl helping to watch me. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at them. The girl said “hi” and took my hand. Her hand was warm like the sand. That summer I willingly did her bidding; I became her creature. She said that she wanted to be a teacher, so we played school daily. The only book we had was a tattered copy of The Wizard of Oz. She said that if I did not learn to read, we could not play together anymore. This was enough motivation for me. I struggled with that book. I tried to make sense of those black

marks on white paper. Finally, I could understand my first written word—that word was “Dorothy.” I was ecstatic that I could remain in my little teacher’s class. Slowly I began to understand the significance of my budding reading ability. When my mother took me to her beauty shop, I would carry my copy of The Wizard of Oz. At every opportunity, I would display my reading skills and receive hugs and treats from customers and beauticians alike. As an added bonus, I could travel the yellow brick road with Dorothy and her companions at any time of the day or night, as often as I wished. This was the origin of my love of books and women. —Herbert Johnson is a 71-year-old resident of Basilica Place. He loves to read, eat out, and go to Center Stage. His hometown is Cleveland, but he loves living in downtown Baltimore.

Raised in

South African apartheid, my father was a man called by God. He wanted to live a life that brought the message of God-peace to the Coloreds. So, at least three times a week

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our family would trek to another part of town, a part where colors blurred and lives entwined. The ride to church was maybe fifteen minutes: down our street; past the microwave tower; left at the “robots” (as the traffic lights were called), past the tall, spiky aloes; past the old man sniffing meth; past rag-tag children sucking on sweets and adults leaning against sun-heat faded cafe walls; past the pale green mosque and the shady peppercorn trees; then left onto DuToitspan Road. DuToitspan Road: a wide, flat, river of tar separating colors—blues above, reds below. Whites to the south, Blacks and Coloreds to the north and west. It was hot then, in the car, and I was carsick. With my 8-year-old nose pressed to the window, I would live the world we passed by. And so it was that I saw it—the lonely, solitary strip of street winding to Galeshewe, the area designated by the white people for the black people, watched over by street lights that looked like wire clothes hangers unraveled against the open sky, spaced too far apart to do much good. Deserted. Still. So still. Except for two handfuls of black people pulsing in a wretched, horrifying circle. And a plume of cinder-black smoke rising pencil-straight into the pale expanse. In those few moments it took to pass the road to Galeshewe, I glimpsed the center of attention: a black man, a scorching tire filled with petrol about his shoulders, necklaced. He was on fire, burning, flames devouring his shoulders and head. And people—standing, watching, dancing—fists in the air. And then we had passed that road to Galeshewe. It was gone, that nightmare-reality. Fleeting. With nuances so subtle you might never pick them out of your consciousness. But I was still. Burning, and breathing. —Christelle Moore lives in Towson and works in communications and design. She returns to South Africa whenever possible and still wonders about how to connect her roots to making a difference for good.

Last night

at the school play, I couldn’t hear him. He delivered his few lines with a pride well-suited for his lion costume, but the sound system was lacking and he did not face the audience or project his voice. Prior to the play, I had repeatedly

told him to be quiet as younger students sang their opening songs. Now my level of annoyance climbed. Silently I wished for cocktails at such events. Mother of the year, that’s me. On the way home, my husband immediately started in. “Remember to face the audience, project your voice, wait till after the dance number for the clapping to stop before delivering your lines …” I cringed, knowing the first thing to address should not be the negatives, no matter how carefully you tread. I tried to throw in compliments, but it still felt like we were quietly crushing his self-esteem. At home, we settled on the couch, and the chatter began. “His mouth runs like water,” my husband had whispered earlier. It was true—and frequently at a volume my nerves couldn’t bear. “Please lower your voice,” I repeated a half-dozen times before my reserve toppled and resentment lashed forth. “I could barely hear you in the play, but I can’t get you to lower your voice in a twelve-by-twelve room!” Sledgehammer. It is 6 a.m. now. He’s still in bed, nearing the end of his eight to ten hours of sleep. The house is quiet except for my breathing as I cross off another set of reps, and the sound of the radio. It plays a conversation between two mothers—one biological, one adoptive. They talk about the choice to enter into an open adoption; their tenderness is palpable, their respect mutual. Toward the end, their voices shudder and I can hear the tears in their talk. Too close to home. Years ago, almost twelve now, I wept and stared at my belly in panic and anguish as the warm shower water ran in long thick streams over the growing bulge. I came so close to reading profiles of aching couples, trying to imagine the day I would place the boy inside me in the arms of some joyful stranger and walk away with my pain. The soft rubbery surface of my hand weights has retained the residue of reminders I write on my palms with permanent marker. The words are blurred, indiscernible, more like bruises of things remembered. The tears well up in me; my soft, painful sobs break the quiet. This is all so damn hard … and then I hear his welcome steps coming down the stairs.

“Mark, no,”

she said plainly, almost deadpan, and with no trace of ill will or drama. I hung my head near but not touching her shoulder for several seconds before wordlessly shrinking down the steps. Even then, I knew that, for a seventh-grade girl with goddess legs, Dana had rejected me with grace. (The emasculations wouldn’t begin for about two more years.) Yet whenever I recall that Tuesday in 1984, a familiar anxiety gurgles in my stomach like bad milk. I’ve realized, after much preoccupation, that it’s not just because that first heartache stung in an unexpected way, like a nightclub slap. It’s not just because all historical events grow progressively fabled after years of recollection. When Dana turned her head that day on her aunt’s front porch, she engaged the intense contemplation-cum-neurosis to which my personality remains riveted. Prior to that afternoon I was relatively oblivious. I was fat but cute and almost completely hedonistic—a blissful middle-schooler. I wasn’t particularly introspective and, beyond wondering how Jughead remained so skinny after eating all those burgers, I had spent no measurable time truly considering anything. I had not meticulously deconstructed my conversations for social miscues. I had not rebuked my mother for buying boot-cut Levi’s instead of 501s. I had not obsessed over how the slippery concoction of Jheri curl activator, bowed legs, and stupidity had become a middle-school aphrodisiac. I slept through the night. I ate with enthusiasm. I was optimistic about high school. As I slunk home from Dana’s, I conceded to gravity pulling on my boy boobs and friction chafing my thighs. Later that night, I interrogated my reflection, scratched Dana’s initials into my doorjamb, and filched two of my mother’s Weight Watchers candy bars. —Mark Riding is director of middle-school admission at the Park School of Baltimore and is still quite contemplative about most everything.

—Bridget Parlato is a graphic designer/sculptor living in Fells Prospect with her drummer husband, his dog, and their 11-year-old son. This is the first time she has submitted her writing for publication.

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Ted Merwin, author of the critically acclaimed “In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture,” will give a multimedia presentation about the birth of American Jewish pop culture during that legendary era known as the Jazz Age, whose creative and social epicenter was New York City. A book signing and dessert reception will follow the lecture.

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Black Panther Rank and File

Nov. 8–Dec. 16

In October 1966, two college students in Oakland, California, drafted a ten-point platform demanding, among other things, the “power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.” In short order, the resulting Black Panther Party became synonymous with African American militancy in the late 1960s, and several of its members were arrested, imprisoned, and killed following confrontations with police. Forty years later, the never-before-released documents, recordings, and photographs in this traveling exhibition give the public a rare glimpse at some of the facts behind the legend.

Maryland Institute College of Art 1303 Mount Royal Ave. 410-225-2300 www.mica.edu

Harbor Lights 2007 Fiesta Night

Nov. 9, 7 p.m.

This year, the Baltimore Museum of Industry hosts the first in a series of annual parties highlighting aspects of the city’s history. The inaugural event recalls Baltimore’s role as an important entry point for immigrants by celebrating the contributions of Latin American peoples to the city’s culture. Fiesta-goers can enjoy food, wine, and dance from Central and South America and Spain. Funds from a silent auction will support the museum, and site tours will be available throughout the night.

Baltimore Museum of Industry 1415 Key Hwy. 410-727-4808 $50 in advance; $55 at the door www.thebmi.org

City-Poly Game

Nov. 10, 12 p.m.

The annual battle between City College and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute is the second-oldest high school football rivalry in the country and a fixture of the fall gridiron schedule since 1889. You never know what future greats might be on the field: Former City quarterback Kurt L. Schmoke went on to become mayor of Baltimore. Watch the competing varsity squads make history for the 119th consecutive year.

M&T Bank Stadium 1101 Russell St. $5 advance purchase; $10 at game For tickets, call City College at 410-3966557 or Poly at 410-396-7026

Reconnecting Humanity to the Environment

Nov. 13, 5 p.m.

Matt Petersen is CEO of California-based Global Green USA, a national environmental organization that has worked with world leaders, celebrities, and everyday people to combat climate change, support sustainable building projects, and promote the use of renewable energy sources. In a talk sponsored by the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Petersen will discuss ways in which residents of the East Coast can become a part of these movements.

American Visionary Art Museum 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-625-2585 for tickets and event information $15 general admission; $10 students, seniors, and associates www.avam.org www.aiabalt.com

Readings by Paula Chase-Hyman

Nov. 15, 27, and 29

By the time Maryland public relations consultant Paula Chase-Hyman became a mother, she was dissatisfied with many of the books available to young readers. “I thought young adult fiction was lacking in contemporary stories featuring African American characters,” she says. “So, I set out to write just that.” She reads from her debut novel, So Not the Drama, on November 15 and the recently released sequel, Don’t Get It Twisted, November 27 and 29 at local libraries.

Nov. 15, 11 a.m., at the Southeast Anchor Library, 3601 Eastern Ave. Nov. 27, 7 p.m. at the Essex Library, 1110 Eastern Blvd. Nov. 29, 7 p.m. at the Rosedale Library, 6105 Kenwood Ave. 410-396-5430; www.prattlibrary.org

Festival of Trees

Nov. 23, 24, and 25

Kennedy Krieger Institute’s annual Festival of Trees is the children’s hospital’s largest fundraiser and one of the biggest holiday-themed events in the MidAtlantic region. Christmas shoppers will find craft vendors, a silent auction, and live entertainment. Proceeds from the sale of more than three hundred trees, wreaths, and gingerbread houses will support the Institute’s research, treatment, and education programs.

Nov. 23 and 24, 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Nov. 25, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Maryland State Fairgrounds 2200 York Rd., Timonium Call 443-923-7300 for more information $10 adults; $5 seniors and children ages 5–12; children 4 and under free www.festivaloftrees.kennedykrieger.org

Photo credits from top to bottom: courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; no credit; photo by Vincent Giordano/Dreamstime.com; no credit; courtesy of David Hartcom; courtesy of Kennedy Krieger Institute

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View our online Arts and Events Calendar for details

Baltimore Yoga Village promotes peace in our hearts and in our city. We offer... ~Walk-In Yoga Classes 7 days per week ~Therapeutic Massage by appointment ~Nationally recognized Teacher Trainings ~Arts Programming for all ages

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urbanite november 07

have you heard

compiled by lionel foster

For the Love of Chocolate

photo by La Kaye Mbah

When Benjamin Hauser read about Jennifer Weber’s passion for chocolate in her profile on the online dating service they were both using, he knew he’d found the right woman. Six months later, Hauser proposed, and in 2004, the couple jointly opened Glarus Chocolatier in Timonium (9 W. Aylesbury Rd.; 410-252-6601). Named after the hometown of Hauser’s father, a Swiss pastry chef and chocolatier, Glarus sells truffles, bars, and other bite-sized confections made from authentic Swiss chocolate according to traditional recipes. The owners make

each piece by hand from natural ingredients. An assortment of truffles, the quintessential Swiss candy with a creamy center, come in milk chocolate or dark, with almonds, hazelnuts, and even a hint of Kirsch brandy. All are available in single pieces or by the box. Look for Glarus Chocolatier’s new store at 644 South Exeter Street in Harbor East, open since October. Go to www.glaruschocolatier.com. —Lionel Foster

Blogging for a Better Baltimore school? And Baltimore City Public School System CEO Andrés Alonso promoted the benefits of linking students with local businesses in apprenticeship programs. And that’s just the beginning. Debra Rubino, the organization’s director of strategic communications, says, “One of the tenets of an open society is the belief in discussion and debate,” she says. “It seemed natural to use this technology to encourage change.”

The Audacious Ideas blog (www.audaciousideas. org), launched in September by Open Society Institute-Baltimore, challenges Baltimoreans to think about what can be done to create opportunity, achievement, health, and prosperity in the city. Each week, a new guest blogger writes a proposal to improve life in the city. OSI-Baltimore Director of Education and Youth Development Jane Sundius asked, What if the city’s adults went to their porches, stoops, front doors, and windows to ensure that all students were safe on their way to and from

—L.F.

Waste Not

photo by La Kaye Mbah

When Eva Khoury asked the manager of a large supermarket in downtown Baltimore whether the store gave customers discounts for bringing their own bags, she received a dumbfounded stare. “She said she’d never heard of that before,” says Khoury, who’d grown accustomed to an environmentally conscious lifestyle after several years in Seattle. Incidents like this spurred Khoury and business partner Rick Packie to open Earth Alley (3602 Elm Ave.; 410-3662110), a green boutique in Hampden. The converted rowhouse features art and personal and home acces-

sories made from reclaimed materials. Each piece has a story: Chic bags and wallets are surfaced with recycled rubber from bike tires; purses have been fashioned from old vinyl records; picture frames are constructed with wood that once formed the hull of a boat. Open Thurs 4 p.m.–7 p.m., Fri and Sat 12 p.m.–7 p.m., and Sun 12 p.m.–5 p.m. (with expanded holiday hours coming soon). Go to www. earthalley.com. —Harrison Brazier

Have you heard of something new and interesting happening in your neighborhood? E-mail your news to editorial assistant Lionel Foster at Lionel@urbanitebaltimore.com, and you may see it in a future issue.

CHANGING THE FACE OF BALTIMORE

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HOLIDAY WINEd UP 2007

Tuesday November 27th from 6pm-9pm Tickets sold in the wine shop or by phone 410.244.6166 $27 per person all included Tickets are limited

• Brunch on Sundays (11:00-4:00) • Lunch, Tuesday-Friday

Over 30 wines from around the world paired with Hors d’Oeuvres by Chef Christian. Wines offered at a discount for sale in the wine shop.

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have you heard

Kitsch-Free Kid Art For parents who would rather eat shards of glass than put another penny in the pocket of Dora the Explorer, hope has arrived in the form of Presto Bingo.com, run by local artists/illustrators Joyce Hesselberth and Dave Plunkert. The husband-andwife team sells clever, thought-provoking posters of friendly aliens and geometric robots reminiscent of the work of Alexander Calder. The signed, limited-

edition prints range in price from $35 (unframed) to $70 (framed). “We’ve taken a modern approach to kid art that is not overly sweet,” says Hesselberth. “We wanted stuff that grownups would like to see hanging in their house, as well as kids.” It’s the best kind of compromise. —Karen Houppert

Resurrecting Lo-Fi Born in a warehouse on Hanover Street in Brooklyn, the Lo-Fi Social Club lived a short life, even for a new music venue: It was forced to close a few months after its January 2007 opening because of zoning issues. A second incarnation in Station North (1825 N. Charles St.) has not been without its troubles—the grand reopening in September was shut down mid-show because the club was over capacity. But with a larger support staff and, finally, the proper papers, Lo-Fi now appears to be open for good. Founder and co-owner Neil Freebairn plans to make his mark on Baltimore’s music scene by bring-

ing a wide range of performers to the space. “I’ve done punk, metal, electronic, indie rock, old-school rock and roll, and queer-core,” he says. “I like to throw it all together, sometimes even on the same night.” Freebairn plans to expand the club’s offerings beyond music to comedy and theater performances, art exhibits, and even a record store at 1827 N. Charles. Go to www.lofisocialclub.com. —Marianne Amoss

These Walls Can Talk Baltimoreans trying to sell their homes know well the pain of the current housing market cooling. Many sellers are doing everything they can, from covering condo fees to helping with closing costs, but any added edge is welcome. Enter Talking House, an AM-radio transmitter that broadcasts information about your home 24/7 to prospective buyers. The shape and size of a small VCR, the device can broadcast a message up to five minutes in length describing the number of bathrooms, square footage, asking price, or anything else a buyer might want to know. The transmitter sends the broadcast

within three hundred feet of the home, within a range of frequencies that will not interfere with local channels. A sign outside tells passersby where to tune their AM dial. The price for the device varies between $290 and $650, with discounts for bulk orders. Currently more than 100,000 Talking House transmitters are in use across the country. To get in touch with a local realtor using Talking House or to purchase one yourself, visit www.talkinghouse.com. —L.F.

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The Neighborhood Shops and Restaurants Bratt Décor Cloud 9 Clothing Daedalus Books & Music The Dutch Connection Egyptian Pizza Grand Cru Greg’s Bagels The House Downtown Lilac Bijoux Lynne Brick’s Women’s Health and Fitness Matava Too The Medicine Shoppe Nouveau Contemporary Goods Ryan’s Daughter Simply Noted Starbucks Sweet Papaya Taste Techlab Photo Imaging Tuesday Morning

one of a kind Belvedere Square Events Moonlight Merriment Friday, November 23

The boutiques, restaurants and market at Belvedere Square — an outdoor shopping destination unlike any other place in Baltimore, featuring the best in home furnishings, fashion, gifts, services, books, music and of course, gourmet foods.

{ Featuring }

Enjoy special promotions and plentyof entertainment to get you into the holiday spirit including discounts at many shops, champagne shopping, live holiday music, a visit by Santa Claus and so much more! Plus, all shops and the market will be open until 10pm! For information visit belvederesquare.com

Please join us for traditional food; soups, salads, sandwiches, pastries and cheeses. All made right here at the Square. | atwaters.biz | 410.323.2396

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Please join FACETS, an art jewelry collective, for their winter show on Saturday, December 1, 2007 from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. at the Radisson at Cross Keys, 5100 Falls Road, Suite 353, Baltimore, MD. Welcome our two new artists and see all of our new work. Left to Right, from top: Jenn Parnell, Lori Gottlieb, Shana Kroiz, Janet Huddie, Adina Kaiden, Giselle Kolb, Shannon Marshall, Lisa Cimino, Pam Fischer

www.flickr.com/groups/facets facetsjewelers@hotmail.com

urbanite november 07

photo by Mitro Hood

baltimore observed

House interrupted: Bureaucratic red tape has foiled the plans of a group of dedicated Mencken-ites, who are struggling to restore the writer’s former home on Hollins Street.

preservation

Mr. Mencken’s Neighborhood On a damp Sunday morning, Phil Hildebrandt makes the all-too-familiar climb up a ladder to prune H.L. Mencken’s unruly wisteria. Below, Betsey Waters weeds around the purple asters, yarrow, and begonias that she’s planted to recreate the garden that Baltimore’s most famous writer so prized behind his Union Square home. Taking care of the Mencken House is a communal effort these days; it’s been closed to the public for the last ten years. While perhaps no other vacant city-owned National Historic Landmark has been so fussed over by civic leaders, it has also been so neglected by bureaucrats of three mayoral administrations that the city twice contemplated selling off the house. Fifty-one years after Mencken’s death, the cantankerous newspaperman and social commentator might be amused to hear the quandary facing his old homestead. In 2005, an obscure Mencken fan named Max Edwin Hency died in Hawaii, leaving the Mencken House an estimated $1.5 million to maintain the property. Would the man who once wrote “all government is evil” be surprised to hear that this money is

still sitting in Honolulu while Baltimore’s cashstrapped City Hall hasn’t taken the actions needed to spend it? Mencken lived for seventy-plus years in a handsome three-story brick rowhouse with marble trim at 1524 Hollins Street in Southwest Baltimore. During a long and prolific career, much of it at The Evening Sun and The Sun, he wrote thirty books and contributed to ten others in the L-shaped, secondfloor room overlooking Union Square. Although he often traveled to New York City for his work, Mencken’s only home was Baltimore—and most of that was spent in the house he once called “as much a part of me as my two hands.” “There is no more significant pairing than Mencken and Baltimore,” says Henry Lord, president of the not-for-profit Society to Preserve H.L. Mencken’s Legacy, Inc., After the collapse of the City Life Museums (the Mencken House’s former overseers) in 1997, the writer’s furniture and books were put into storage at the Maryland Historical Society and the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Except for an occasional historic tour and an open house for Mencken Day, an annual event that commemorates

his September 12 birthday, the house, mostly empty, has been closed. But that could soon change. Lord’s group has produced a 100-page business plan to privately raise the half-million dollars for a full restoration. They have commissioned historically accurate architectural plans for the house and have presented them to Real Property Disposition at the Department of Housing and Community Development. And they have asked the city to put the Hency bequest into a permanent endowment that could be used to operate the house as a museum and writing and education center. Lord, a partner emeritus at the law firm DLA Piper, has been meeting and corresponding with a succession of city officials for more than a year, seeking a sale-lease agreement that would give his group the control to raise funds and restore the house. The most recent round of negotiations has been slow, but city officials are officially optimistic that they can move forward on the plan for the group to take over the house. “We want a win-win for the community and the property,” says Cheron L. Porter, director of communications for Baltimore Housing. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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The negotiator: The Society to Preserve H.L. Mencken’s Legacy, led by Henry Lord, has been talking with the city for more than a year to get control of the Mencken House.

photo by Mitro Hood

To Mencken fans in Baltimore, the bequest was a jaw-dropper; they knew little about Max Hency, other than the fact that he was a retired Navy commander and a member of the Mencken Society, a scholarly group dedicated to preserving his writing. But, as Lord’s organization demonstrates, the men and women who gravitate toward the curmudgeonly Sage of Baltimore can be a determined bunch. “All of us were touched by Mencken at some time in our lives,” says vice president for administration Robert J. Thieblot, a lawyer and historic preservationist. “Somebody said, ‘Here is somebody with ideas as crazy as yours.’” The Legacy group is a disparate group of people, a mix of Union Square residents, literary fans, historic preservationists, and Sowebo community leaders, all intent on protecting and promoting a writer who has become somewhat of a stranger in his hometown. First vice president Marion Elizabeth Rodgers is the author of the most recent Mencken biography, Mencken: The American Iconoclast. She compares his house to Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Samuel Johnson’s house in London, or the James Thurber house in Columbus, Ohio, which is now a museum and educational writing center for students and professionals. “We’re not so naïve to think if we build it they will come,” she says. “What makes the Thurber house work is its programs for school groups in the neighborhood for all age levels.” Mencken’s work endures, says Rodgers, despite the charges of racism and anti-Semitism that have impacted his literary reputation in recent decades. Rodgers argues that Mencken’s actions show he was neither: He urged the U.S. government to open its doors to German Jewish refugees during World War II, spoke out against lynching, and—in his magazine The American Mercury—was the first white editor to publish Richard Wright and other African American writers. Mencken had, she says, “the courage to speak out on issues that no one was speaking out about in his time.” Like Rodgers, many other Legacy group leaders are devoting their free time to reopening the Mencken House for their love of his writing. For others, it’s a matter of neighborhood pride. Treasurer Richard Pickens, who co-owns a Washington-area interior design company, had already bought his house in the neighborhood before he discovered it was a block from Mencken’s home. “It was closed up and I thought, ‘That’s another sad thing in Baltimore.’” Woodworker Phil Hildebrandt, vice president for operations, has lived across Union Square from the Mencken home for thirty years. He first got interested in saving the house, he says, in the late 1990s, when the mayoral administration of Kurt Schmoke tried to sell the house to reduce the City Life Museums’ inventory. He and others began meeting with city officials to try to get the house protected and restored. In 2001, when the city gave Hildebrandt access to the house, he found brass shavings in the front-door vestibule—the city, he said, had replaced the locks because they had lost the key. Hildebrandt and other concerned neighbors have doted over the orphaned home, boarding the

photo by Mitro Hood

baltimore observed

The historian: Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, author of a recent Mencken biography, believes that in order to be successful, the house must become a hub of literary activities and programming that appeal to all ages.

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In 2002, the Mencken House group waited nine months for the city’s approval to spend private funds to repair termite damage. “In the meantime,” says Union Square neighbor Phil Hildebrandt, “the termites ate the dining room floor.” executed renovation years ago. But the backyard is another story. Waters, a Sowebo community leader and owner of a local gardening shop called In the Garden, has recreated it with some of Mencken’s favorite plants—Dianthus, black-eyed Susans, petunias, and wild geranium (though not too much of the invasive ivy he loved). The gnarled wisteria and grapevine are original plantings that remain from Mencken’s time. Along the western property line is a striking brick wall that Mencken built himself, embedded with some of his favorite memories: an inlaid tile memorializing his dog, Tessie (1905–1921); a mask of Beethoven with the first few measures of his fifth symphony. Decorative Moravian tiles he brought from Pennsylvania are inlaid throughout the garden, as well as a few French wine labels dating to 1923 and 1813. The walled yard looks like it’s ready for regular visitors, but it will have to wait a bit longer—a future that Mencken once contemplated, with perhaps uncharacteristic optimism. “That wall of mine will be standing,” he wrote, “when the rest of Baltimore is dust.” —Joan Jacobson Web extra: Take a photo tour of the H.L. Mencken House at www.urbanitebaltimore.com.

photo by Jason Okutake

back against vandals, restoring the molding over the front door, and finding a blacksmith to repair the iron railing. But they have been limited in their efforts, since the city hasn’t given control of the house to any private group. In 2002, for example, they waited nine months for the city’s approval to spend private funds (using part of $100,000 donated by The Sun) to repair termite damage. “In the meantime, the termites ate the dining room floor,” says Hildebrandt. “It was a frustrating time. The city bureaucracy continued to churn. We’ve talked to five different property disposition administrators since 2001. ... I never intended for this to be my life’s work. I could have fixed this house up looking good if I’d taken the time I’ve spent going to meetings and instead had been scraping paint.” Ironically, during these years of bureaucratic delay, the city has been touting its Project 5000 program to put as many city-owned vacant houses back into use as possible, including many in the nearby Hollins Market area. There’s not much to look at inside Mencken’s empty house today, except for a collection of photos of the writer that still adorn the walls and some architectural details that weren’t ruined by a poorly

Watch the birdie: Yon Chong’s photos of the city’s newly arrived Hispanic immigrants hark back to portraits of the wave of newcomers that arrived at the turn of the twentieth century.

encounter

At First Sight The mother is young but weathered. Her coffeecolored eyes stare out wearily; there’s a shockheaded baby girl carried in her bearded husband’s arms. The couple’s other child, a school-age boy dressed in a basketball jersey, sits between his parents. On the bronze skin of his forearm is a yellow blot, the remnants of a stick-on tattoo of SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob is smiling, but everyone else’s expression is a mingling of apprehension and courage, the look of someone enduring an unsettling experience for a greater good. I’m leafing through the photos at E & S Discount in Highlandtown. In the back of the store, past the wig display and the “Yo Quiero A Papi” baby bibs and the framed posters of Tupac and Che, is a makeshift photo studio. Thirty bucks will get you one 8-by-10, one T-shirt, and your choice of watch or dogtag imprinted with a picture of the people important to you. The last time I was here, I tried to ask a Spanish-speaking store employee about the photos, to no avail. This time I’m with Larry Parr, a volunteer from the Hispanic Apostolate in Fells Point, who’s agreed to translate for me. Confident that the language barrier is no longer a

problem, we head up to the front counter to speak to the owner. But as it turns out, Parr’s help isn’t needed. “White, black, Spanish—mixed area, right?” says Yon Chong, the Korean immigrant who’s owned the store for the past year and a half. Most of the customers who come to the photo studio he set up, he says, are families seeking to document new babies. Privately, I think about these little dignitaries, all squinty and confused in their newborn clothes but possessed of a native-born citizenship that won’t be bestowed as easily upon their parents. When I mention aloud we’re looking to speak with a customer, Chong laments that there’s not much foot traffic but assures us that the weekend will be busier. One hundred years ago, the foot traffic on this stretch of Eastern Avenue came from Polish, Irish, Italian, and Greek immigrants. Now, the city’s newest residents are taking their turn, a journey captured in these portraits: a duo of teenage amigos with slick dark hair, grinning broadly and hugging each other’s shoulders in macho camaraderie; a toddler peeking shyly over an immense stuffed bear; two young boys kneeling in gangsta-aloof postures beneath the merciful gaze of the Virgin of Guadalw w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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upe, a superimposed garland of roses framing both their young bodies. All of them looking back at Chong through the lens, one immigrant photographing another. The laborer earns money, the entrepreneur receives it for services, and the click of the shutter baptizes everyone in the transaction—we’re all American now. While we wait around for someone to get their photo taken, Parr tells me about his work teaching English at the Hispanic Apostolate, which has been working with new immigrants since 1963. The group supplies medical care courtesy of twice-weekly visits from a clinic van supplied by St. Joseph’s Hospital and provides free English language classes to ease the transition to living in the United States. Belying the myth of the willfully monolingual immigrant, Parr is staggered by the motivation his students display. “Many people come here with low education levels from their home countries,” he says. “They can barely write in Spanish. Yet they try so hard, come to every class, work as hard as they can. People really want to learn and be incorporated into America.” He estimates that about half of the Latino residents he teaches at the Apostolate are Salvadoran. Many first arrived in Washington, D.C., but eventually migrated up to Baltimore for the same reasons everyone else does—it’s cheaper. And considering what it takes to come here, every penny counts. “Usually you have to go [to the United States] with a coyote”—a professional smuggler—“which costs $6,000,” Parr says. “So when they get to the United States, they’re indentured servants for the first two years before they can send money back home.” From El Salvador, this journey takes long months of travel through Guatemala and Mexico, with no guarantees for success or safety. “A lot of people get robbed,” he says. “A lot of women take birth control pills on the trip because they know they’ll probably be raped.” We loiter for a few hours, but it’s clear that Chong was right—nobody’s coming in for photos today. Parr and I walk down the street and stop at Chicken Rico for succulent Peruvian-style roasted chicken and syrupy Inca Kolas. After I get home, I find scans of photos e-mailed to me from the Maryland Historical Society and UMBC’s Kuhn Library, taken by anonymous photographers documenting Baltimore immigrants at the turn of the century: new arrivals crowded in an “immigrant pen” at Locust Point; Polish workers crowded in a Wolfe Street cannery, less than a dozen blocks away from where the Hispanic Apostolate is today. I think about how invisible these men and women were back when their anonymous labor helped build the city, and then how just as invisibly their descendants merged into the welcoming fabric of America, just in time for a new wave of immigrants to take their place. In every photo, their clothing and features are different than the photos at E & S Discount, but their unsmiling, equally apprehensive and hopeful expressions are the same. We were invisible, their blank faces say. But the camera sees. —Violet Glaze

photo by Jason Okutake

baltimore observed

Taking out the trash: The city plans to launch a simplified recycling program and a public awareness campaign to encourage greater household participation.

sustainable city

Once More, With Feeling Inside a children’s theater near Hollins Market, about thirty Southwest Baltimore residents assemble for a monthly community meeting. On tonight’s agenda: Tonya R. Simmons, the city’s new recycling coordinator, here to extol the virtues of recycling. “By a show of hands, how many recycle?” asks Simmons. All but a few hands in the room shoot up. “That’s a good number,” she says, looking pleasantly surprised. “We don’t usually have that level of participation.” Then Simmons asks who doesn’t recycle, and why. A lone woman raises her hand. “I put out the paper, and my neighbor puts it in the trash,” she begins. Her tone is polite, but she is clearly frustrated. “And no bins are provided by the city. And someone stole my trash can!” In a city beset with challenges, gathering bottles and newspapers has sometimes taken a backseat, especially in more troubled neighborhoods. Nevertheless, Baltimore is making a big push to upgrade its recycling program. Starting this month, the city will use utility bills, leaflets, and its website and cable television channel to promote a revamped curbside recycling system and office of recycling. A larger Cleaner Greener Baltimore campaign will debut in January, with the slogan “Don’t Make Excuses, Make A Difference.” “For years, we haven’t had anyone out in the community making residents aware,” says Simmons, who spends her days “trying to spark excitement” among neighborhood groups and schools about recycling. “We are being very aggressive now,” adds Valentina Ukwuoma, who in April became the new

(and first female) head of the Bureau of Solid Waste. One of three bureaus under the Department of Public Works, Solid Waste collects residential trash and recycling from some 210,000 homes. Its recycling office has three employees and a $1.8 million operating budget. Simmons and Ukwuoma, joined by Celeste Amato, the city’s Cleaner Baltimore Initiative coordinator, have been dubbed the Divas of Debris, the advance troops for the city’s latest assault on the mountains of trash its residents create. “There’s a push to get our citizens thinking about recycling as a routine part of waste disposal,” Amato says. A key component of that mission will take effect in January 2008, when the city plans to institute “single-stream” recycling—enabling both paper and bottles to be set out on the same day twice a month and in the same container. Currently, the city uses a “dual-stream” system—collecting those items on separate days. City officials say research has indicated that both tonnage and participation increase with the single-stream process. The conversion to single-stream recycling marks one of the most progressive moves since the program was formalized under Mayor Kurt Schmoke in the early 1990s. Former head of the Bureau of Solid Waste Ken Strong, who was Baltimore’s recycling coordinator from December 1991 to February 1994, says that the city recycled 11,200 tons of paper in 1991. By 1994, that number had tripled. “We were successful,” he says. “I still have people coming up to me and thanking me for our recycling efforts, saying how much it gave people a sense of pride in their neighborhoods.” But the program lost momentum over the years; in 2003, the recycling educational/outreach compow w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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nent was eliminated due to budget constraints. Last year, residents recycled only 9,031 tons of mixed paper and 2,125 tons of bottles and cans. The city doesn’t keep firm data on how many Baltimoreans are currently recycling, but Public Works spokesman Kurt Kocher says it’s currently less than 40 percent. Participation tends to skew along income lines. “When we go into more affluent communities, like Roland Park and Homeland, they get it. They’re already recycling,” says Simmons, who says that the northeast and northwest sections of Baltimore have higher recycling rates than the southern pockets of the city. “Sometimes I’ll go out to neighborhoods and people will tell me, ‘I have rats in my alley,’ or ‘Drug dealers are outside my house.’ They don’t want to hear about recycling,” says Simmons. Another issue: Baltimore’s recycling crews, who use trash-collection trucks with magnetic gold signs stuck to the sides during recycling runs, can be less than reliable, a problem that dates back to Ken Strong’s time. “It was a challenge to get crews to cover every block,” he says. “When they missed one, it totally discouraged people who wanted to recycle.” The city’s dual-stream system, which requires residents to separate their recyclables and remember collection schedules (using the DPW’s calendar and color-coded zone map), presents its own complications. “We were hearing from residents, ‘If I have to think about it, I won’t do it,’” says Simmons. Starting in January, “there will be no more blue or clear bags. We’re going to ask residents to use any clearly marked bin or cardboard boxes,” she says. Bins won’t be free (as they were during the Schmoke era), but the city hopes to secure a vendor to provide them at a reduced price. If the Divas of Debris and their colleagues are successful, the city’s environmental credibility— and its coffers—could benefit. According to Ukwuoma, Baltimore earned about $350,000 in revenue last year from its recycled paper items, but nothing from plastic. Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition in Washington, D.C., an advocacy group, applauds Baltimore’s renewed efforts. “One of the important attributes for a city to have in place is clear and concise communication,” she says. “You want to cut down on confusion … Citizens want to know what happens once they put something in the bin. They want to believe that recycling really makes a difference.” Developer Ted Rouse, cochair of the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance, hopes the city will consider other innovative ideas to increase participation—like RecycleBank, a national program that allows residents to earn credits for recycling that can be used at area businesses. “It can be hard to change how things have been done for years and years,” he says. “But we have the opportunity to be creative as a city, to be cleaner and greener and save energy and costs. If we don’t, we’ll feel the environmental impact for years to come.” —Donna M. Owens

photo by Jason Okutake

baltimore observed

Standing tall: Reuben Kramer’s bronze statue of Thurgood Marshall at Pratt and Lombard streets, dedicated in 1980. The Baltimore-born Supreme Court justice had mixed feelings about his hometown.

past & present

Justice, Denied Thurgood Marshall used to say that Baltimore was “way up South.” It wasn’t a compliment. He meant Jim Crow was just as malevolent in his Maryland hometown as it was in Mobile or Montgomery. When he told this to a classmate at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Marshall reported ruefully later, he received no sympathy. “Why don’t you do something about it?” the classmate said. As we know, Marshall accepted the challenge. And this fall marks the anniversaries of two of those achievements: It has been forty years since Marshall’s first season on the United States Supreme Court; fifty since the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. As the lead lawyer for the NAACP, Marshall led a team of lawyers who argued the landmark series of cases in 1954 now generally referred to as Brown v. Board of Education, in which the court ruled that its old “separate but equal” doctrine was “inherently unequal.” Marshall’s life in Baltimore poignantly illustrated the damage that segregation does to individuals—how it invades consciousness, limits opportunities, changes lives. Little wonder that his later success did not erase the anger that motivated him. When Marshall set out for law school, he didn’t apply to the University of Maryland School of Law, knowing that it didn’t accept blacks. Instead, he traveled thirty-five miles to the Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. Not coincidentally perhaps, Marshall’s first major civil rights case involved his home-state university. In 1935, Marshall and his mentor, Howard Law

School dean Charles Hamilton Houston, sued the University of Maryland on behalf of applicant Donald Gaines Murray, a graduate of Amherst College. Murray, Marshall, and Houston won. They argued that the U.S. Supreme Court dictum of “separate but equal” was a deceitful scrim thrown up to hide the shameful truth, even more shameful in Maryland: There was no law school for blacks in Maryland, so there was no separate, and obviously no equal. But the case had a more practical—perhaps more important—basis. Murray wished to practice law in Maryland. Wasn’t it logical that he would like to study law in Maryland? That goal lay at the root of the Murray case, which legal scholars say was a steppingstone toward Brown v. Board of Education. Years after the decision, Marshall told biographer Juan Williams that this sort of practical objective lay at the root of Brown as well. Seating black kids next to white kids was never the goal: Educational opportunity was. If black children had the right to be in schools with whites, school board officials could not neglect or subordinate the rights of black kids without hurting whites. In his later years, after he became the first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice, the University of Maryland School of Law planned to name its library after Marshall, who was said to have been reluctant to accept the honor. A delegation of friends and civil rights allies implored him to reconsider, and he finally did. But he did not attend the ceremony in 1980, an absence later attributed to a scheduling conflict. For their part, Baltimore officials found Marshall querulous, as if he should have gotten over the w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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treatment he received as a young man in a city as segregated as Birmingham. Then-mayor William Donald Schaefer never forgot Marshall’s reluctance to attend the library dedication. As state comptroller, Schaefer abstained from voting for the 2005 re-naming of Baltimore Washington International Airport in honor of Marshall. “He just didn’t like Baltimore,” the former mayor told the Washington Post, “and he so expressed it.” The justice knew, of course, after a lifetime in the political and legal arena, that public attitudes were as important as court cases: What was in people’s hearts would govern the atmosphere of a society, and Brown, no doubt, encouraged more enlightened racial attitudes in the country. Somewhat oddly, there has now come a time when the public view is more progressive than the court’s. This June, the Supreme Court struck down voluntary desegregation plans adopted for magnet school programs in Seattle and Louisville, maintaining that enrollment-balancing efforts had to be colorblind. Attempts to diversify school populations were effectively thwarted—with Brown, remarkably, used as the precedent. Civil rights veterans were outraged; Brown had been turned on its head, they declared. Washington, D.C., attorney Alan Morrison, an expert on the court and its history, says that Marshall almost certainly would have been outraged by the recent court decision, which he calls “mechanical” and “rote.” “[The court said] race is inherently suspect, so if it’s suspect in one direction, it’s suspect in the other direction, and that’s the end of it,” he says. This approach leaves out the analysis of real problems in the real world—something the Brown court had famously been more willing to address. But the larger legacy of the Brown decision, and of Marshall himself, will prove more resilient, reaching far beyond the courts and the law. “Brown ... showed people you could go to court and go after the most entrenched, deeply held, ingrained laws and get the Supreme Court to say no,” Morrison says. “That showed a whole generation of lawyers and activists that they could fight city hall.” Many people realized, with the nudging of the courts, that what they had feared was not fearsome at all. People could get along—even wanted to—and work for a better society. Just as the Murray case in Maryland led to Brown, Brown led to an array of laws on voting, employment, public accommodations, and the like, Morrison says. “I don’t think we would have had the civil rights laws we have without Brown. It made people think differently.” And to think, a lot of it started with an angry man from way up South in Baltimore. ■ —C. Fraser Smith C. Fraser Smith’s book, Here Lies Jim Crow: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Maryland, will be published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in the spring of 2008. He is senior news analyst at WYPR-FM. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

urbanite november 07

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

keyn te

INTERVIEW BY ANNE HADDAD

urbanite november 07

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CRAIG CHIN

The Principal Cause Jon Schnur, CEO of New Leaders for New Schools, on public education

rom his vantage as a policy adviser in the Clinton administration, Jon Schnur saw that the best point of entry for nationwide urban school reform was not at the federal government level—too clumsy. Nor was it at the classroom level—too piecemeal. It was one key step above that, with the principal. It is, he says, a matter of scale—a word that the 41-year-old Princeton grad uses a lot. In 2000, after months of collaboration with a few like-minded colleagues at Harvard Business School, Schnur founded New Leaders for New Schools, a New York-based nonprofit school reform project in more than twenty school districts nationwide, including Chicago, New Orleans, and Memphis. The group’s founding premise: A good principal is the critical first step to building a good school, and an infusion of true-believer principals into a troubled school system can revolutionize the way a city thinks about public education. In 2005, Baltimore beat out twelve other cities competing for a chance to have New Leaders train a critical mass of strong principals and support them through their first few years at the helm. For Baltimore, that means forty new principals in three years; twenty-one New Leaders principals are already in place.

Q A

Why did you choose a career in urban school reform?

I have long been almost obsessed with how to provide really quality education for kids in poor families. I was the sports editor of my high school paper at a public school in Shorewood, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, and I was friends with a number of students who had gone to Milwaukee public schools until eighth grade. Then, through a desegregation program, they came to my high school. They were incredibly bright, incredibly sharp. And I saw them handicapped so severely because they had not learned how to write well or how to read literature. I saw a girl trying out to be a reporter on the newspaper. She submitted a story to the editorial board, and grammatically, it was just atrocious. The editorial board kind of laughed. She was more insightful than anybody I’d met on our editorial board, but she just hadn’t learned how to write. So I became interested in why this was happening. I set out to figure this out and address it over the course of my life. Several years later, I wound up in the Clinton administration working on education. I learned a lot about what was happening in the most successful schools in the country and I saw the research about what seems to be driving the biggest improvements in schools. I came to the conclusion that the federal government was a really clumsy way to try to drive dramatic change in education; government isn’t very good at changing dysfunctional systems. And so I left the White House in 1999 with the idea of founding New Leaders for New Schools as a nonprofit social enterprise to close the achievement gap for kids from low-income families. Every school I visited that was really getting dramatic results—and there were a small number all around the country—all had great principals. So the first chapter of New Leaders was all about getting systematic about finding and training principals as a first key step to changing education.

I think the challenges that Baltimore faces are similar to the challenges faced by urban school systems around the country. On the other hand, Baltimore has some assets that give the city an edge over some other communities with high concentrations of kids from low-income families. The biggest challenge is that we, as a country, have not figured out how to adapt our schools to really help kids succeed in today’s economy and democracy. Public education has actually gotten marginally better in the last several decades: More kids are graduating from high school; more kids are taking rigorous courses. But the world has changed and we haven’t come close to keeping up. The school system was designed in another era, a time when a small number of kids were expected to be educated at high levels, and most kids at low levels. That was all we needed in the industrial age. There are a couple of big assets. The scale of Baltimore is exactly a perfect scale to drive big change. It’s not nearly as large as Los Angeles or Chicago, but you’ve got a fair amount of resources. You’ve got the financial and cultural capital that a city with a rich history like Baltimore has. And you’re in a region in the country where there is a lot of talent. It’s easier, I’d say, to find great teachers and principals in Baltimore than it might be in a city like the one I grew up in, Milwaukee. You have a concentration of universities, foundations, civic groups, education groups. People who have grown up in Baltimore might be living and working somewhere else within an hour’s radius, but it’s not that hard to get them to come back.

How do you change a school system from one that creates a few high-achieving graduates to one where all kids are expected to succeed?

One key step is that you have some rigorous standards for what all kids should know and be able to do, and provide quality assessments that set the right target and the right goal.

You’ve looked at schools all over the country. Compared to other large urban districts with achievement gaps, how does Baltimore stack up? Does Baltimore have a chance to succeed?

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Q A

Why do we accept that some kids won’t succeed, and that’s just the breaks?

Too often, there’s been an expectation that most kids from poor families won’t achieve at a high level. The evidence says that’s just wrong, but that belief system has not caught up with the reality. One thing that we need—and that Maryland has—is a good set of academic standards and assessments. The second thing you need is wellselected and well-trained principals and teachers. There is no more important factor than the teacher at the classroom level, and no more important factor than the principal at the school level. Educational change is really about the people working most closely with kids—principals and teachers. And third, you build a system around these well-prepared teachers and principals. Too often, school systems are designed to be principal-proof and teacher-proof, so there is systemic mediocrity in the classroom and the principal’s office. Once you flip that, you have a school system that looks really different. You have more latitude for decision-making. That school can be agile and adapt to changing circumstances. Take all these together and what you’ll see in Baltimore—and we’re very hopeful in Baltimore—is dozens and dozens of schools doing what only a tiny number of classrooms are doing now, where 90 to 100 percent of the kids are succeeding. And if we can do that in dozens of schools, there’s no reason why we can’t transform entire school systems.

If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?

In gathering the political will to do this, which stakeholders are the toughest to convince that it is possible? Is it government officials? The business community? Administrators? Teachers? Teacher unions? Parents?

The key is you can’t do just one. You have to get them all on the team at the same time. If you have parents who believe but teachers who don’t, you’re not going to succeed. If you have teachers and parents believing, but the school system is not part of that support, you can’t succeed. You need a coalition of public-sector leaders, private leaders, community groups, and educators. All of them have to say, Yes, we may not agree on other things, but in this case we agree on the need for great principals, and we’ll work together to make that happen. You can never focus on one group, because it’s only going to work if everyone is willing to put aside some of their historical beliefs and some of their narrower interests.

We think that creating really high quality education that meets the needs of every child should do that. At E.L. Haynes, a [public charter] school that one of our New Leaders is creating in Washington, D.C., there’s a waiting list of lower-income families as well as middle-class and upper-middle class families who want to get in. From the beginning, [Haynes principal] Jennifer Niles was absolutely determined to create a school that would attract kids from low-income and middle-class families and from all religious and ethnic backgrounds. It would both provide a very high-quality education and give kids the opportunity to attend a public school with kids who are both like them in some ways and different in some ways. So they aggressively recruited low-income families, but they also recruited middle-class families. And they started with preschool, which meant that you were starting with kids before there was a disparity.

When you talk about scale, how much difference do you need to make, before you make a difference nationwide?

The scale goal in our nine partner cities is to have more than half of the schools led by New Leaders for New Schools by 2014. That’s a scale goal inside of our cities. Nationally we’ll add one more city through our city competition each year over the next five years.

What about urban areas that don’t get chosen for an all-out branch office and training program?

We also have other cities around the country that have created a process of leadership selection and training that is modeled at least in part on New Leaders, but they aren’t programs that we’re running.

So you aren’t holding a tight grip on the brand, but rather allowing any motivated communities to model your principal-training program?

And how do you actually get them to do that?

Well, we do it at the city level. We [start with good principals], but what we really believe in is the notion of high standards for all kids. A key role of the principal, at the school level, is to bring together the community.

Is there a specific strategy for attracting middle-class parents?

Q A

Yes, that’s crucial.

You say the goal is to have all kids succeed. Is there also a goal of having urban public schools succeed at a high enough level to attract middle-class parents who are otherwise choosing private school, so that the system becomes less segregated by race and class?

That’s right. If we reach our goals in the partner cities, by 2014 about 20 to 25 percent of the new principals needed for low-income urban schools would be trained by New Leaders for New Schools. That’s a big deal nationally, but that also means that 75 percent of low-income urban school principals will be trained by someone else.

Is training and mentoring new principals just a first step? What comes after that? continued on page 95

I would change the scenery. I would like a quiet part of town with no violence. —DeShawn Hector, Grade 6, KIPP Ujima Village Academy w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

This page: Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Harlem Park. Opposite: Frederick Douglass Senior High in Mondawmin (top) and Loch Raven High School in Towson.

GROUNDS

urbanite november 07

PHOTO ESSAY BY MITRO HOOD

ood learning can and does happen in poor buildings. And it is no secret that the educational infrastructure of urban America leaves much to be desired. But, as school reformer Jonathan Kozol has long argued, the impact of such surroundings on the kids who live and play there goes beyond simple aesthetics. “The cumulative ugliness of things,” he writes, “contains its own toxicity.” In his 2005 book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, Kozol issued this challenge to those who fund, build, and oversee mostly African American inner-city schools: “Whether it is inequity alone or deepening resegregation or the labyrinthine intertwining of the two, it is well past the time for us to start the work that it will take to change this.” In September, we dispatched photographer Mitro Hood to explore some of the city’s learning environments—the windows, walls, stairwells, ball fields, and playgrounds—to see how they compared to other public facilities, just a few miles away. —Karen Houppert w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

urbanite november 07

Opposite: Roland Park Elementary/Middle School (top left), Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Mondawmin (bottom left), and Loch Raven High School in Towson (right). This page: Frederick Douglass Senior High (left and bottom right) and Loch Raven High (top right).

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

ournalists tend to meet up in bars, like the hipster hangout in Hampden where I was drowning my thirst one summer night. Alcoholic camaraderie among the ink-soaked (or inky camaraderie among the alcohol-soaked) is an occupational hazard. Well-lubricated young urbanophiles have UHaul-ed into stable enclaves of working-class white folks like this one, seeking a measure of safety in a city that offers too little of it. Nobody likes to talk about it, but there it is: Even the brave souls of the creative class need a nice place to live, and when they hunt for neighbors these days, they tend to seek out places where people look like them. Among the slackers and juicing scribblers is an education writer for The Sun. Upon overhearing a conversation about my two kids, who go to school in Baltimore County, he pipes up, with all the subtlety of a capital-I inquisition: “You’re not one of those guys who leaves the city because of the schools, are you?” I am exactly one of those guys, I tell him, but I understand the question/accusation. When I was the reporter’s age—around 30—I regularly performed high-and-mighty beat-downs on civic-minded, liberal friends who insisted on sending Junior to Friends or Park or St. Francis of Assisi. “It’s guys like you who are ruining the public schools,” I would say. “How are things going to get any better if everyone who can afford to flips the bird to city schools?” Then, I had kids.

top me if you’ve heard this one (or another tale that rhymes with it) before: My wife and I chose to live in a duplex in a safe Northeast Baltimore neighborhood (Beverly Hills) that we picked because of its affordable houses, mixed racial makeup (we’re white, by the way), and the local public elementary school’s impressive test scores. Not long after our continued on page 69

urbanite november 07

why we left By Michael Anft

Choosing Sides on City Schools Illustration by Brian Payne

why we stayed By Molly Rath

f you’re reading this, it’s because you have a choice. Or you had one. At some point, you weighed the options of where to send your child to school: public versus private, city versus county. My family, too, had that choice—one many families in Baltimore City do not. In our case, it was a long-ago decision that pre-dated having kids. But I still count us as part of that lucky subset of city residents with education options; even luckier now, as we watch the fruits of that choice unfold. Every day I catch glimpses of my two young daughters growing and changing in extraordinary ways—ways directly related to their school environment. I see them working through new ideas during homework, at dinner, and before bed while talking about their days. In my second-grader I see a sense of self taking root, curiosity giving way to possibility as she seizes her teacher’s nudges toward independence. In a few short months of pre-K, meanwhile, our younger daughter is more proficient in American Sign Language by the day and beginning to see herself as someone who can help, comfort, and lead others. They are building a social and academic foundation that will make them successful learners their entire lives. As a longtime education reporter in the city, and just a regular city resident with neighbors and friends, I know well the reasons why many parents in Baltimore choose private school over public, suburban living over city. I also know that, as parents, we strive to make choices that best fit our family experience, priorities, and hopes. For our own small part, I’m happy to report that our family experience has been enriched by our choice to enroll our children in Baltimore City’s public schools: Our family priorities have been met, and our hopes exceeded.

hen Lily, our 7-year-old, asked me about this article, I told her it was about why we continued on page 71

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What would you do if you were the principal?

Why We Left continued from page 66

kids were born, the school’s test numbers plummeted and reports of classroom mayhem multiplied. We looked for a public alternative; when that failed, we voted with our feet, moving to the vanilla desert of Towson in search of the ever-receding oasis of a strong public education. This may sound lame, but: We tried. When my daughter started her education eleven years ago, we placed her at the school nearest the daycare provider who watched her and her younger brother two days a week. Several acquaintances who fretted over discipline-challenged schools in Northeast Baltimore worked channels to get their kids into Roland Park, a public K–8 with state testing numbers that rivaled those in the ’burbs. Folks closer to the inner city helped form new charter schools. Others swallowed their secular leanings long enough to enroll their kids in parochial schools. Many, like me, had grown up in city public schools. They would be the first generation to raise kids whose schooling wasn’t entrusted to government employees. We wanted to resist the temptation. A generation earlier, I managed to stumble my way through the Norebo public schools and get out alive. Sure, there were those carefully choreographed “race riots” to avoid during junior high, and thousands of my fellow dopers (or so it seemed) with whom to float through months of four-hour, split-shift days in high school. But, I reasoned, my experiences prepared me for reality better than twelve cloistered years in private school would have. So my daughter went to a public school where, despite the outbursts from kids who seemed to have been encountering rules for the first time, she learned. Soon her second-grade teacher anointed her a “teacher’s helper” to try to corral the situation. Instead of learning more, my daughter re-learned things as she taught them to others. Classroom progress was—as they say—incremental. Art classes were nonexistent, so saintly moms took up the slack, picking up finger paints and construction paper at Target, then carving out time to share what they knew. Because the building’s pipes were encrusted with asbestos, the entire school was eventually shut down and moved into my former junior high school, an edifice on Northern Parkway that features all the charm of a medium-security prison. But this wasn’t a horror movie. The school was filled with caring, talented teachers and staff—people who stood their ground as beleaguered colleagues retired or transferred out. Most of the parents were interested in how their kids were doing, so PTA meetings were full. It was more like watching newsreels of Depression-era soup lines. People were being served, but it was a slow and often-desperate process, and the stew was thin. With first grade approaching for our son, we began to wonder what it would be like not to have to worry about both children getting a bare-bones education (at least until they could apply to one of the secular trinity of city public high schools: City, Poly-Western, and the School for the Arts). We tried to scrape together the nickels to send them to a private school. And we started kicking around the idea of moving out. We talked to people. While on a magazine assignment to interview lawyer Stephen L. Miles about the favorite part of his house (it’s his bathroom), I happened to mention our predicament. Miles’ two youngest kids attended public schools in Timonium—a surprise, at least to me. I assumed that a local legal celeb would send his scions to Park. He told me why: “If you pay a higher mortgage and move to the county for the schools, you’ll get that money back when you sell. Any money you send to a private school—well, you can kiss that goodbye forever.” We were hardly rich, so this made sense. Too many parents seemed all too willing to grind their souls into a fine, bitter powder working to pay god-awful tuition. We’d always been able to balance home and career; we didn’t care to join them. And besides: If you can’t take the word of a TV lawyer, who can you trust?

We put our house on the market. The folks we shared the duplex with, an elderly couple our family adored, decided that if we were moving on, they should too—after more than thirty years. When I talked about our move with friends and coworkers, I tried to steer clear of the whole school thing—the loaded gun on the table. But instead of righteous scowls and sharp rebukes, all I got were weary nods and words of understanding. “Well, who could blame you?” civic-minded, liberal folks said. As we searched—frantically—for a budgetable house in a Baltimore County neighborhood with high-performing public schools, signs became clearer that we were doing the right thing. One day, my daughter told me that, as she and her classmates were lining up for dismissal, an older kid from Northern High came hunting for an eighth-grade student at her school. The high schooler hinted at a gun in his sweatpants, and the younger children were quickly herded back into the prison complex—er, interim school—by staff. (Northern, my alma mater, was later closed after ongoing problems with discipline and violence. The building has since been reconfigured into the smaller W.E.B. DuBois High School, with a focus on environmental science. It has been listed as “persistently dangerous” by the state department of education for the last two years.) My daughter blew it off, but her mother and I didn’t, and once we found a house just inside the Beltway, we decided to pull her out of school before the semester change. I dreaded telling her teacher, a saint of a woman who had hung in for nearly thirty years. Here come the recriminations, the accusations, the who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-ares. Here’s what I got: “You’re moving to the county? Oh! I’m so happy for you!”

When I talked about our move, all I got were weary nods and words of understanding. “Well, who could blame you?” You can imagine how surprised I wasn’t to see her boss, the school’s principal, at an open house at a magnet elementary school near our new home. She, too, wanted what was best for her kid.

hat does it all mean? I wrestled with that then, and I still do. Thousands of people in our predicament over the years have performed this mass pullout from the city’s public education system—and the city itself—knowing full well that parents without means—those without cash for tuition, a connection here or there, the ability to take on a larger suburban mortgage or rent—are screwed. Many of us have felt sick about that. But the sad fact is that when solutions are beyond elusive, people make decisions based on the here and now. And the here and now is ruled by fear. We can argue that race is a big part of the issue—and, no doubt it is. White flight did little to improve the public’s commitment to taxpayer-funded schools. But some of our neighbors here in the county are African Americans who left the city for the same reasons. Class is what’s at play here. Acting on their fears of falling backward, or of being left behind in declining neighborhoods, those who can move up, many of them simply so they don’t go down. We’ve gone from “separate-butequal” education to separate-but-unequal regions. And the same people—a disproportionate number of them black—suffer. I wish someone had an answer for that. Short of reindustrializing the city so people have decent jobs and some hope, there may not be one. All I know is that looking askance at people who have moved to the ’burbs for the schools won’t change anything. No matter how much of your heart you have in your politics, you don’t sacrifice the well-being of your kids for the sake of anything more abstract. And in Baltimore these days, that’s just how it is. ■

I would make the pay of my teachers higher. —TaShawn Colbert, Grade 6, KIPP Ujima Village Academy w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?

Why We Stayed continued from page 67

live in Baltimore and send her and her sister to city schools. Her response: “Well, why wouldn’t we, Mama? This is a great city.” A simplistic view, some might say; the words of a child. And maybe Lily’s line of reasoning wouldn’t wash with parents who bemoan the city’s low test scores and sundry other unsavory realities and influences. But in those few words, Lily says much more about the potential of a Baltimore City public education than those who, in my experience, condemn and flee it. It’s a potential my husband, Terry, and I zeroed in on early in our fifteen years here in Baltimore City. We decided this was where we wanted to build our life and, some day, our family. And to us, building that life meant weaving our way fully into the rich urban fabric around us. As children, Terry and I both got happy starts in white, solidly middleclass suburban communities, in school populations mirroring those communities. My fourth-grade class had one Jewish student in it; there were two students with special needs in my older brother’s sixth-grade class, one of them black. To the extent that my elementary school was diverse, Michael, Julie, and Arthur were it. Subsequent years broadened that narrow view of the world. When I was 11 my family moved overseas and I saw poverty my leafy oasis would never have let me imagine; I discovered that most people in the world were not blonde, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned like me. I knew that when I had children of my own, I didn’t want them to have to wait to see all the world had to offer. Terry grew up in the Chicago suburbs and Oklahoma. His initial affection for Baltimore springs from a similar place. And, like mine, it has grown into a deep love and concern for the city, its people, its foibles, and all that comprises our life here. As journalists, we both became all the more immersed in the city over the years, and all the more painfully aware of its seemingly intractable problems—not least of which was the disastrous state of its public school system. But private school was never an option for us, philosophically or financially. And despite the dismal assertions and data, the notion of leaving the city for a better public school system never crossed our radar. Terry and I have engaged frequently and fervently over the years in discussions of urban, public education with colleagues and friends. And we’ve endured our share of “Just wait …,” “You’ll see …,” and “You don’t want your child to be a guinea pig for school reform,” or insinuations that we’re somehow blinded by idealism or sadly naïve. But if there’s one criticism in this debate I will strongly refute, it is the latter. At every step we have approached our children’s education armed with facts—and with eyes wide open. Herein, perhaps, lays our handicap; maybe even hypocrisy. We have thrown ourselves at Baltimore’s public school system completely, but not without the lucky advantage of being fully armed with information that comes from my many years as an education reporter. While I exhausted much more time and ink over the years on the system’s administrative ineptitudes and incessant failures to meet students’ wide-ranging needs, one thing that repeatedly struck me were the principals, teachers, and programs that proved, day in and day out, that our public schools are capable of doing right by our kids. A program at Lombard Middle School, where just 21 percent of students met the state academic grade last year, comes to mind. A friend of mine who works to empower young, black males—and ensure that they don’t fulfill societal stereotypes and become another grim statistic—paired up with a teacher at Lombard Middle a few years back, and for a semester led an after-school workshop on violence. The idea was to get kids thinking about violence and articulating their ideas, feelings, and experiences associated with it. The end result was a book in which the students shared

those feelings and experiences, and they unveiled it outside the East Baltimore home of Angela and Carnell Dawson, which, some months prior, had been firebombed by drug dealers. The five Dawson children—who all died, along with their parents, as a result of the fire—were the Lombard Middle students’ peers. My friend used a subject that was both meaningful and real to connect with the students, and the level of thinking and quality of writing that connection produced was extraordinary. Maybe it wasn’t particularly “academic” in nature, or literary in the classic sense. But the work these students engaged in and ultimately produced represented an informed and passionate response to the world around them. In my book, that’s the essence of what a good education should accomplish. There were many other programs I learned about through work, some of which our daughters are beneficiaries of today. And there have been others that we’ve learned about since having children enrolled in city schools. Lily is in second grade at Midtown Academy, a charter school five blocks from our house. Founded eleven years ago as part of a small pilot program, Midtown today is part of a growing movement to inject rigor, autonomy, and innovation into the city school system through charter schools and small, specialized high school academies. Maryland passed charter legislation in 2003, and today Baltimore leads the state, with twenty-two charter schools as of this year. (Prince George’s County is a distant second with four charter schools to date.)

Are people suggesting that those of us who do choose city schools are somehow gambling with our children’s well-being? The school, K–8 with one class per grade, was founded on the idea that two racially and socioeconomically distinct inner-city neighborhoods— Reservoir Hill and Bolton Hill—could come together and create a school that celebrated those differences. It was both a noble and difficult endeavor, in which the challenges have been many: insufficient finances, undersized and outdated facilities, messy governance, distrust, principal and staff churn, student departures. But at every turn, more educators and parents than not have dug in their heels and fought for the school’s perseverance. The saying that the good things in life don’t come easy wasn’t coined for nothing. And Midtown is, undeniably, one of those very good things. As parents in a small school community where parent participation is required and the closeness and sometimes conflict can be intense, our years at Midtown haven’t been all easy. Nor was our initial decision to send Lily there. We were equally taken with Mount Royal Elementary/Middle, the public school Lily is zoned to attend, and when Lily didn’t initially make the Midtown lottery, that’s where she was headed. Even after a spot for her at Midtown opened up, we wrestled for several weeks with the decision; we were in the extremely fortunate position of having to choose between two excellent public schools within walking distance. But Midtown is smaller and structured to let parent voices be heard—which, within reason, interested us greatly. And hands down, it has been a fantastic choice for Lily. Every staff member, most of the 180 students, and a whole lot of parents know her face and name—and she knows theirs. She has instruction in Spanish, music, art, and Tae Kwon Do every week. As a public school student, she was able to take advantage of a scholarship to attend Saturday art classes at the Maryland Institute College of Art for a semester. And, as a city resident, she can now take weekly dance classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts, also for free. Mostly, though, Lily loves school, is well-adjusted and self-aware and, well, just a deliriously happy kid. continued on page 97

If I could change one thing, I would change as many things as I could. —Antonio Gardner, Grade 10, Baltimore Talent Development HS w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

G rea ter B a ltimore L e a d e rs hip A ssoc iati on pro u d ly p rese n t s t h e

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CHESAPEAKE SYSTEMS 72

urbanite november 07

by karen houppert photography by gail burton

A veteran teacher, a September afternoon, and seventh-grade English

n a Monday afternoon in September, twenty-four seventh graders dressed in maroon polo shirts and khaki pants file into a classroom at Booker T. Washington Middle School in Bolton Hill. There are 651 students enrolled at Booker T.; according to the most recent records, two are Hispanic, two are white, and one is Asian. The rest are African American, including all the students in Sylvia Hebron-Furbush’s English class. As they take their seats and greet the teacher, she reminds them that their backpacks belong on the floor—not on their desks—and asks them to please open their language arts books to the table of contents. They do. Well, most of them do. “Miss Weddington, please put those pictures away so that I don’t have to take them away,” she tells a student who has arrayed some of her drawings on the desk. The class waits. Hebron-Furbush explains that the class will be reading an urban legend today. “Does anybody know what a legend is?” she asks. “Does anybody know what urban is?” Students raise their hands—and wait, while she tells them. “Excuse me,” she tells a boy, whose back is to her. “Can you turn so that I can see your face, please?” He gathers his belongings and switches his seat to a chair on the opposite side of the table, so that he is facing his teacher. The class waits.

“Young lady,” Hebron-Furbush calls to another student. “Come put your gum in the trash.” The students are facing an empty chalkboard and fighting a post-lunch slump, propping drooping chins on hands, yawning behind literature books, and, in one case, doodling graffiti onto a desktop. One boy falls asleep during the first fifteen minutes of class. A girl keeps herself occupied by zipping ahead to the next story in the book. “Miss Hopkins, we are on the table of contents. We have not begun reading yet,” Hebron-Furbush reminds her. The girl doesn’t hear her. Hebron-Furbush drums her elegantly painted nails on the desk until she looks up. “We are waiting,” she says. The girl shuffles back to the contents page. A loudspeaker calls a student to the office. And the class waits. Finally, Hebron-Furbush hops atop one of the desks and crosses her slim ankles before panning the room. Satisfied that everyone is on the same page, she tells the students to scroll down with their finger until they come to “Typhoid Mary.” “We already read that!” a few students shout out. “Please raise your hands,” Hebron-Furbush reminds them. “And, yes, well, that was the first story we did. So please go to the purple Roman-numeral seven titled ‘Twist and Turn’ and find the story under that titled ‘The Stranger’ by Sue Baugh.” She pauses while twenty-four fingers travel down the table of contents. “Who can tell me what page ‘The Stranger’ is on?” Hands go up. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

“a fellow that’s gonna show you the Secret of life ain’t to be taken lightly.”

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You Are Invited to The November 2007 Red Line Community Open Houses The MTA invites you to join us this November to share the latest information on the Red Line Corridor Transit Study.

Where Will your ticket take you?

The proposed Red Line is a 12 mile east-west corridor connecting the Woodlawn area of Baltimore County, Edmondson Village in Baltimore City, West Baltimore communities, downtown Baltimore and the communities in the vicinity of the Inner Harbor East, Fells Point, Canton and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Campus. The goal of the Red Line is to improve mobility in the Baltimore Region, and connect existing transit systems. This year’s meetings will be in an Open House format, which will allow you an opportunity to see the latest plans and obtain updated information on various Red Line topics. MTA staff and consultants will be available to address your questions and concerns. The MTA encourages all interested citizens, community leaders, business owners, transit riders and others to take part in the development of the Red Line MTA’s next transit line. For more information about the project, please visit the project website at www.baltimoreredline.com or call 410-767-3754.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 Woodlawn High School 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. 1801 Woodlawn Drive Baltimore, MD 21207-4008 Served by bus routes: 44

Thursday, November 8, 2007 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Edmondson High School 501 Athol Avenue Baltimore, MD 21229-6700 Served by bus routes: 20, 23, and 40,150

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Holy Rosary Church Hall 408 South Chester Street Baltimore, MD 21231-2729 Served by bus routes: 10

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Carter Memorial Church 745 West Fayette Street Baltimore, MD 21201-1111 Served by bus routes: 1, 20,

If you are unable to attend the Community Workshop, log onto our website for information at www.baltimoreredlinecom. Thursday, November 15, 2007 For further information on this project or special assistance needs for the meeting, please contact: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Lorenzo Bryant, Project Manager Our Lady of Fatima Church 6420 Maryland Transit Administration East Pratt Street 6 Saint Paul Street Baltimore, MD 21224-2812 Baltimore, MD 21202 Served by bus routes: 23, 40 Phone: (410) 767-3754 All locations are accessible to persons with disabilities. To request special services such as Email: redline@mtamaryland.com an interpreter for the hearing impaired, please call 410-767-3754 or TTY: 410-539-3497 at www.baltimoreredline.com least one week prior to the meeting..

TickeTs: $10–$60 410.332.0033

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urbanite november 07

“Yes?” she asks an eager student. “Page 170.” “Let us all turn to page 170,” HebronFurbush says. “Who would like to read?” When several hands go up, Hebron-Furbush explains that they will read popcorn-style, which means the last reader gets to pick the next reader. “You may begin,” Hebron-Furbush says at last to a girl who has been holding her right hand aloft so long that she has hunched over her desk and enlisted the help of her other arm to support the flagging hand. Nineteen minutes of the hour-long class have passed.

What would you do if you were the principal?

poor compensation that drives good teachers out. “Lots of good teachers are leaving the system for better paying jobs elsewhere,” she says. “We all get discouraged sometimes. There are not enough hours in the day to do what we need to.” Has she ever felt like quitting altogether? “Last Friday!” she says, laughing. It was nothing in particular—she left the iron on at home, a student was upset when she arrived, the kids were wild all day. “When I walked out at the end of the day, my girlfriend and I had to stop at the nearest restaurant for an immediate cocktail.” The job takes its toll. “Sometimes you get like that, like, ‘I can’t take it anymore,’” she acknowledges. Then shrugs. “But Monday morning, I’m ready to roll again.”

ylvia Hebron-Furbush runs an orderly class. The students are well-mannered and he students have finally begun reading a story respectful, and she is surely devoted to them. called “The Stranger” (not to be confused with Presumably this is why the city school system’s the Albert Camus book). The four-page tale tells of a public relations people put forward her name: young man driving down the road on a stormy night Here is someone who spent much of her life who stops to pick up a young woman who flags him working in one of the city’s more challenging down. He gives her a lift home, and when she shivers schools, despite the daily obstacles. in the wet cold, he hands her his jacket to wear. After “Some of the kids here honestly go he drives away, he realizes he’s forgotten his coat. through a whole lot in their young lives,” When he returns for it the next day, an older woman Hebron-Furbush says of her students. The answers the door. She says she has no daughter that statistics for Booker T.’s kids—89 percent came home last night; her daughter died in a car “Sometimes you get like, ‘I can’t wreck exactly one year ago. She points out the girl’s qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, only 18 percent passed the math proficiency test take it anymore,’” she acknowl- grave in the nearby churchyard, and the young man in 2005—offer only a hint of the troubles they discovers his jacket neatly folded near the headstone. edges. “But Monday morning, experience outside of school. “Sometimes I “Who believes this really happened?” HebronI’m ready to roll again.” Furbush asks the class. say to myself, how have they survived to even come to school this morning?” A few puzzled students raise their hands. Hebron-Furbush has been teaching in the Baltimore City schools off There is some kind of scuffle going on in the hall outside—a bang, a few and on since 1967. She began her second stint at Booker T. in 1993. She yells, and an announcement over the loudspeaker asking all available staff could have retired in July, but didn’t give it a second thought. “If they’re here to report to the hall. Hebron-Furbush ignores this. “Me, I’m on the fence every day, I’ve got to be here too, to help.” about it,” she says. Still perched on top of one of the student desks, she leans forward. “The night my daughter passed, I got the call that she had gone These kids break her heart, she says. “I have this little girl now who is late to school every day because she has to dress and feed and take all her and that very minute after I put the phone down, I got up out of my bed and young brothers and sisters to school first,” she explains. “I see these kids walked to the closet in her room. I found this little seashell box—never saw come in tired, sleepy, with no energy, and sometimes they are even angry.” it before—and opened it. There was a letter inside from my daughter with She does her best to help them. When one boy kept coming to school with a gold necklace with a little pearl on it. ‘Mommy, if you are reading this,’ the only a sweatshirt a few winters back, Hebron-Furbush bought him a coat. letter said, ‘I am no longer with you. I’m with our heavenly Father. Love, Ash“You clip the tags off it and hand it to him when he comes into class and tell ley.’” him, ‘Go put this in your locker.’” “Mrs. Hebron-Furbush,” a student interrupts. “How your daughter pass?” When referring to teachers, she often speaks in second person, a gener“Raise your hand,” Hebron-Furbush says automatically. “I told you beous assumption that sweeps the whole profession into this way of life. “You fore: AIDS. You know that.” just spend your own money when you need to on bulletin boards or paper The student nods. “I forgot.” or pencils.” She points to the brightly colored wallpaper that she hung in her “Things happen in life with no explanation,” Hebron-Furbush says. classroom. “You don’t want students in an ugly classroom because that says “Here I am in this big house, all alone, and every night after she passed I you don’t care.” would be awakened between 12:00 and 12:30 by the scent of my daughter’s Colleagues who work with Hebron-Furbush commend her for this atperfume, coming across the bed. Happened every night for three weeks. I’m tentiveness. “Her classroom is always serene and orderly, so the kids can telling you this because I want you to know there are some things you just focus on learning,” says Zaakira Muhammad, who worked with Hebron-Furcan’t explain.” bush for twelve years as the instructional support teacher for language arts The students look at her, silent. at Booker T. “New teachers seek her out because she is known for having “So,” she says, clapping her hands together. “This is ‘The Stranger.’ Any excellent control of her class.” questions?” ■ The daughter of a sharecropper father and a mother who worked in an oyster cannery, Hebron-Furbush made her way through Morgan State —Senior editor Karen Houppert wrote about Baltimore’s economic transforby working the fields all summer. She is used to hard work, she says; it’s the mation in the October issue.

I would let all the students run wild for fifteen minutes. Then I would get back to work.

—Darnell Gwynn, Grade 6, KIPP Ujima Village Academy

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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fiction

Eviction by Willie Davis

photograph by Jefferson Steele

hey sat in adjoining green folding chairs with their front door propped open, so they could see the eviction of their upstairs neighbors. “Goddamn shame, this is,” Monk said to Hannah Rose. “You think they’d do this to a white woman?” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “No way. I don’t care what she’s done.” Hannah Rose patted Monk on the knee. She hated how he raised his voice whenever the landlord walked past the front door. Monk slapped his hand against his thigh. “If we don’t pay our rent, what do you think’ll happen to us? A warning, maybe. Maybe. But what happens to this woman?” “Marcia.” “Yeah, Marcia. What happens to her? Out on the street.” The landlord walked by with a cardboard box tucked under his chin. “What you got there, chief?” Monk called to him through cupped hands. “Stuffed animals? Photo albums? What part of the gutter you going to stick them in?” “Look buddy,” the landlord said. “I had about enough out of you. Close your door and mind your business.” Web extra: Read a conversation with the author at www.urbanitebaltimore.com.

“Fine.” Monk stood up and tightened his bathrobe. “But I hope you learn something from the three ghosts that’ll visit you this Christmas.” “What’d I just say?” The landlord adjusted his stance to get a tighter grip on the box. “Consider this your first warning.” “Baldheaded prick.” Monk kicked the door closed and walked into the kitchen. “First warning,” he called to Hannah Rose. “It means you got at least one more warning coming.” “What’re you getting in there?” “What motivates a guy like that?” he said. “First girl he showed his dick to laughed, so he takes it out on the world by becoming a landlord?” Hannah Rose heard the cabinet doors swinging open and closed. She squeezed her cheeks between her palms, and stared at the hangnail coming off her big toe. “I don’t know. Maybe.” “I mean, that happened to me, but I didn’t become a landlord.” Monk walked out of the kitchen holding the coffeepot. “You forget your cup?” “No.” He looked at the coffeepot, then back at her, as if he was surprised she noticed. “No. I just want to know if we have any milk.” Hannah Rose shrugged. “Did you check the microwave?” continued on page 101 w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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space

Join the club: Daniel Schiavone’s cavernous basement clubroom boasts a worldclass collection of 1970s bar paraphernalia.

Underground Welcome to Highlandtown, by jessica leshnoff

Joe Di Pasquale couldn’t have asked for a better time to be a teenager in Highlandtown. He came of age in the 1970s, heyday of the neighborhood’s basement clubrooms—subterranean shrines to TV, football, and, of course, booze. “We did a lot of partying in those basements,” recalls Di Pasquale, who owns Highlandtown’s Di Pasquale’s Italian Market (founded by his grandfather Luigi Di Pasquale Sr.). He pauses to reflect on how many of his buddies managed to squeeze into the narrow enclaves. “It just didn’t seem as claustrophobic back then. But we had some serious parties.” Just as Formstone took Baltimore by storm in the 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s saw the advent of the basement dig-out: Not only did deeper basements add more space (and value) to the city’s tiny working-class rowhomes, but they also offered a getaway from the pressures of family life: a dark and cozy place where Dad could enjoy a beer, kick back with friends, watch the game, and maybe store his larger-than-life Chianti bottles. As Di Pasquale explains it, homeowners usually dug out the cellars themselves, then had contractors—often other family members who had sidelines

urbanite november 07

in the concrete waterproofing business—finish the job. Moisture control is an ongoing challenge in lowlying Highlandtown, especially since area rowhomes were typically built with porous local bricks. But the mustiness, Di Pasquale says, is all part of the charm. “You get used to it.” And few neighborhoods embraced the clubroom concept as avidly as Highlandtown, where

a close-knit community of predominantly Italian and Eastern European residents tended to do their socializing at home. “What’s interesting about Highlandtown is that the social life is different than Fells Point,” says Daniel Schiavone, Highlandtown resident, artist, and owner of an authentic basement clubroom. “Fells Point is lazy. You go out your door

and it’s there. You don’t make arrangements, you don’t call. Highlandtown is all about entertaining. So you have people over to your house. You have people over for dinner. You have people over to your club basement.” Many of those original hideouts still exist, complete with knotty-pine paneling and vintage bar signs. The signature clubroom look is tongue-incheek campy—at least to modern eyes— full of beer collectibles (Natty Boh and Pabst Blue Ribbon are favorites), strings of Christmas lights, pool tables, and working bars with beer taps. Little wonder that a new generation of Highlandtowners has embraced the neighborhood’s clubroom heritage, albeit with a 21st-century twist. (Some of them aren’t even in the basement.) They’re also delving into the art of homemade wine, another Highlandtown tradition brought here by the neighborhood’s ItalianAmerican residents. Both can be experienced in all their glory at this month’s Highlandtown Basement Bar Tour. The second annual event, held in association with the Highlandtown Community Association, will highlight a half-dozen of the best of the neighborhood’s

Sensation

Baltimore’s basement-bar capital

Life of the Party: Scott Perryman and Lotta Carter turned a backyard greenhouse into a cozy pool-player’s hideaway.

photography by jefferson steele

clubrooms, along with a San Martino celebration at the tour’s end featuring roasted chestnuts and locally made young wine at Di Pasquale’s, in honor of the patron saint of winegrowers and tavernkeepers. The tour begins at the Schiavone abode on South Highland Avenue, a double rowhome and former Moose Lodge. Schiavone has worked hard rehabbing the building; his art gallery is on the first floor, studio on the second, and family quarters are up top. But it’s the basement that everyone wants to see first. Schiavone updated the room since he bought the house ten years ago, but it still retains its 1970s roots, minus the drop ceiling and fake-wood paneling. Visitors can marvel at the cornucopia of oldschool details—from the vinyl chairs, Formica bar, and multicolored floor tiles to the foosball table, gas fireplace (donated by his plumber), and red dinerstyle booths he acquired from the set designers of the John Waters film Hairspray. The combined effect is astonishing, charming, and joyously bewildering: kitsch piled upon kitsch, with moose antlers and a vintage fan collection on top. “People find out you have a basement like this, so they start bringing you tchotchkes,” he explains of his never-ending collection of wine crates, beer

signs, and sundry bar memorabilia. The room makes an inviting party space, and Schiavone hosts regular family get-togethers, christening parties, and impromptu block meetings. Whenever a snowstorm blasts through town, the neighborhood community association (what Schiavone calls “the provisional government of Highlandtown”) gathers for wine and cheese. Just around the corner, next-generation neighborhood residents Scott Perryman and Lotta Carter mixed past and present for their aboveground clubroom, a chic, industrial homage to beer, pool, and cigarettes attached the rear of their Claremont Street rowhouse. Once a greenhouse, the structure was partially destroyed by 2003’s Hurricane Isabel, so the creative couple—Carter is a graphic designer and caterer, Perryman is a photographer—decided to use the concrete pad and two surviving corrugated steel walls to create an updated basement-style rec room. The space developed organically. The pair first received a free pool table from friends of friends. (“It had been in somebody’s basement since 1976 and was their laundry table,” Perryman says.) Next came a row of circa-1938 folding theater chairs from the antique salvage spot Second Chance, and a vin-

tage cigarette machine from an acquaintance’s basement. The Natty Boh sign was a chance find in a St. Mary’s County barn. And their kegerator came from the Dundalk Volunteer Fire Department. The hefty cabinet doors above the bar—stocked to the brim with beer glasses—were recycled from the wreckage of the Little Tavern restaurant on Eastern Avenue that was demolished to make way for the new Enoch Pratt Southeast Anchor Library. The look they’re going for? “It’s just to make whoever comes in feel comfortable,” Carter explains. As neighborhood natives like Joe Di Pasquale will tell you, that’s the Highlandtown way. Di Pasquale plans to showcase his own clubroom for next year’s tour. He quickly lists its old-school attributes—“knotty-pine bar, long-necked Chianti bottles, tiled floor, drop ceiling, lots of waterproofed concrete”—but it’s not up to snuff yet. “It’s in a transition period,” he says. “It’s my wine grape season. I just can’t get to it.” —Jessica Leshnoff wrote about the Red Hat Society in the March 2006 issue of Urbanite. The Highlandtown Basement Bar Tour takes place on Saturday November 10 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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David Calkins 2007

Festive Flavors on November 8th 82

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Join Whole Foods Market for a store-wide sampling of our favorite Thanksgiving foods. Please contact the individual store for event time.

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food

PHOTOGRAPHY BY J . M . GIOR D ANO

A Breed Apart My daughter wanted me to tell the Turkey Story at the table. We were eating a heritage breed called Blue Slate, a bird that had been raised on a farm in Cecil County. When living, it had looked like the iconic turkey I knew from picture books: dark brown and silver feathers with a blueish sheen, tail feathers that spread in a great fan, a puffed-out chest, and bright red wattle. Cooked, it was the best turkey I’d ever eaten. That’s not a grand claim, mind you, but this bird reminded me of lamb in Iceland, or oysters from Prince Edward Island. It had the flavor of its origins. The turkey tasted grassy and wild, but not gamey, and though there was almost no fat, the meat was tender. I remembered the turkey’s gizzard when it was still warm from the bird’s body. Robin Way, who owns Rumbleway Farm in Conowingo with her husband, Mark, had sliced it open like a bagel and pointed to the ground-up grass and pebbles resting inside. “They don’t have teeth,” she reminded me. “The gizzard starts the digestion process.” I hadn’t quite killed the bird myself, though that had been the intention. Following in the footsteps

Going eye to eye with a heritage turkey

of Michael Pollan—who describes slaughtering a chicken for a locally sourced meal in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his bestselling 2006 indictment of industrial eating—I had decided to look my food in the eye. I wanted to be part of the turkey’s journey to my table, to appreciate its short life in the pasture—a happy one compared to the ones raised plucked tail to seared-off beak in factory farms. I wanted to make sure I would never again balk at the price of farm-raised poultry. Thanksgiving is—or should be—the ultimate localvore’s holiday, an annual opportunity to embrace the New World foods that we imagine the native hosts shared with the Plymouth colonists. There’s disagreement about whether turkey was even on the menu at that first feast—and if it was, it may have been one of the few local items the pilgrims had seen before. Turkeys had been brought to Europe from Mexico by Spanish explorers, and made their way to England by the 16th century. However, I’d be willing to bet that if those settlers encountered one of today’s broad-breasted Butterballs, bred so vigorously for plump breast meat that it can barely stand on its own legs, they’d be baffled.

Home on the range: Heritage turkeys take in some sun before Thanksgiving at Cecil County’s Rumbleway Farm.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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food Today’s heritage turkeys—descendents of the wild turkeys eaten centuries ago—still represent less than one percent of the turkeys sold in the United States, but they are rapidly becoming more popular, despite their added cost. (Expect to pay $50 or more per bird.) Marjorie Bender, research and technical program director of the American Livestock Breed Conservancy in Pittsboro, North Carolina, says that the number of people breeding heritage turkeys has grown from seventeen to more than eighty in the last ten years. Organizations like Slow Food and books like Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle have helped stoke demand; the most popular heritage breed is the Bourbon Red, which Bender attributes to a 2001 article by Marian Burros in the New York Times. “But the Standard Bronze is catching up,” she says. Choosing a heritage bird means more than just circumventing industrial agriculture and supporting local family farmers—you can help restore an entire category of animal that was dwindling to near extinction only a few years ago. “The way to save the heritage turkeys is to eat them,” Bender says. “This was their job and we’ve got to give them their job back.” I did not tell the entire Turkey Story at the table. But I’ll tell it here: Two days before that dinner, I had driven to Rumbleway Farm before dawn. It was several weeks early for harvesting turkeys—most of the flock isn’t fully fattened until the holiday season— but Mark Way had agreed to let me choose one of the heritage birds for an early fall turkey dinner. I told him I wanted to participate in the slaughter and he had cheerfully agreed to “process” my turkey with that week’s chickens. The Ways process chickens every other week. By the time I arrived at 5 a.m., Mark had only a couple dozen left to kill. The birds were still drowsy in the dark and sat calmly in their crates. The Ways were sending about 160 to market that morning, and Robin was busy in the other room cleaning the birds. The Ways’ 9-year-old daughter, Missy, who would have to get the school bus in a couple of hours, took a break from helping her mother to help catch my turkey. She drove the pickup truck, her nose about level with the top of the steering wheel, her father sitting on the edge of the truck bed patiently calling out instructions. The sky was just beginning to lighten as we approached the turkey run, a corral with a wooden shed in the center, encircled by an electric fence. The heritage turkeys—a flock of Narragansett, Black Spanish, Bourbon Reds, and Blue Slates— had been hatched in April and May, and would gain about five to six more pounds before processing on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Mark switched off the juice and stepped over the wire. He walked into the squawking flock and grabbed a turkey by the legs. He held it upside down and ran his hands along the ribcage. If you can feel the center bone jutting out, he said, the

bird isn’t plump enough to bother with. This bone is called the keel, like a boat, and its length matches the length of the turkey’s legs. According to Bender, modern commercial turkeys are bred with shorter keel bones, to broaden the pectoral muscles and make more room for breast meat. But the resulting shorter legs make the animals ungainly. “The turkeys pitch forward and can’t mate properly,” she says. Mark let the bird go, and I spotted one that looked promising—though it’s hard to tell as they strut around, puffing out their chest feathers. Missy crept up on it and grabbed it, and Mark held its legs while I gently felt for breast meat. This one was deemed adequate, and Missy drove us back to the processing shed. To fulfill the promise I’d made to myself, I participated in the killing of my bird. Mark placed the turkey upside-down in an inverted cone suspended from the wall, its head poking from a small opening at the bottom. I held the head still while Mark sliced the jugular. Actually holding the knife myself felt like unnecessary bravado, and I didn’t want to make a hash of the job: The trick, Mark told me, was to not actually kill the bird instantly, so the heart will keep pumping the blood out of the body. Mark dreams of owning a stunner, an expensive piece of equipment, he says, but in the meantime, he does his best to handle the birds gently and do the job efficiently. Once its blood had drained into a bucket on the floor, my turkey went for a dunk in scalding water, followed by a turn in the plucking machine, which looks like an industrial dishwasher lined with rubber probes that agitate the bird to loosen its feathers. By the time Mark dropped the bird into a tank of cooling water, it looked familiar enough to be food: The clawed feet were lopped off and its legs jutted from its pink, pimpled body. The next step was a messy one: cleaning, which involves slicing off the anal gland and reaching inside to pull out all the organs at once. I had already practiced this trick on a chicken, and in doing so left some of the stuff behind and had to dig around between the ribs (we all wore surgical gloves) to make sure I’d gotten all the spongy bits of lung. By now I felt familiar with the cleaning process, though everything is bigger inside a turkey. Preparing what we eat can make us squeamish, not to mention dirty—by the time I finished fishing out the stray shreds of lung and liver, my clothes were infused with the smell of poultry blood. But every step of this process was required to get meat to my dinner table. After Robin had packed the organs, clean gizzard and all, into a plastic bag, I set about pulling out the pin feathers with tweezers. The dark tips are filled with inky pigment that will spread under the skin if you don’t get it all in one yank. Not surprisingly, by the time I was finished, my turkey had several dark spots that looked like bruises. To me, they were more like medals, proof that my turkey would never pass muster in the supermarket. ■

Recipe

Roasted Young Heritage Turkey Andy Thomas (no relation), the chef at Donna’s in Charles Village, suggested brining a heritage turkey overnight before cooking, to help keep the leaner meat from drying out in the oven.

Brine: • A large soup pot or bucket filled with cold water to immerse the bird

• 2 cups coarse sea salt (dissolve salt in a small amount of hot water, then let cool so it doesn’t warm the bird)

• Handful of coriander seeds • Fresh herbs: whatever you have on hand—thyme, rosemary, sage—stuffed into the turkey cavity

• Refrigerate or store in cool place overnight

Cooking: • Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. • Remove turkey from the brine about an hour before cooking and pat dry. Place on the rack of roasting pan.

• Soak a large piece of cheesecloth (enough for three or four layers blanketing the bird in the pan) in a mixture of wine (red or white) and melted butter. Place over the bird for cooking.

• Roast the bird in an oven until an internal thigh temperature of 140 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit is reached. This will happen quickly: Our ten-pounder was done in under three hours. (The USDA recommends turkeys be cooked to 160 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, but these temperatures will dry out a heritage turkey. Also, USDA recommendations are part of “safe handling” procedures for birds grown in industrial settings. Heritage turkeys are not only less likely to be exposed to viruses, but they have also been shown to have stronger immune systems than their factoryraised cousins.)

• Remove the cheesecloth for the final hour or so, so the skin will get brown and crispy.

Stuffing and gravy: Experts caution against stuffing heritage birds because the long, lean bodies cook faster than conventional turkeys and will be ready before the stuffing is fully cooked. I did, however, leave the herbs inside the bird after brining; others have put apples, celery, and even grapes in there. If you love stuffing, cook it separately. The roasting bird generates little pan juice, so start the gravy by simmering the organ paraphernalia in a pan of water to make broth. After removing the bird from the hot roasting pan, sprinkle in a little flour, deglaze with a bit of wine, then add broth and simmer over medium heat until thickened. —M.T. w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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Brasserie Tatin

French club: Gerard Billebault, sous chef Scott Elseroad, executive chef Stephen Blaser, sous chef J.R. Mace, and maitre d’ Marc Dettori (left to right)

The most auspicious moment of a meal at Brasserie Tatin, better even than maitre d’ Marc Dettori’s crisp greeting, is the arrival of the breadbasket. There’s no ceremony— the basket just lands at the table not long after you do. But the bread is strikingly good: chewy, crusty, slightly sour, and possessed of robust alvéolage, the lattice of airbubble holes within the crumb that define a properly ripe baguette. The authoritative baked goods come via Gerard Billebault, Paris native, former Le Bec Fin pastry chef, and a present Tatin co-owner. The restaurant opened to acclaim in 2005, taking over the space long inhabited by chef Roland Jeannier’s eponymous French eatery, and last February it acquired a new chef in the Swiss-born Stephen Blaser. The concept is unchanged: restrained updates of brasserie classics in a curiously funked-up orange-and-aqua interior. Where Jeannier’s was dowdy, Brasserie Tatin is chain-restaurant perky: Waitstaff bustle about in casual-day polo shirts, and the bar looks like the kind of place Hopkins profs would convene after a difficult tenurecommittee meeting. You can sit there with a crock of onion soup and a stem of Côte du

Rhône from the tidy list of mostly French bottles, or retreat into the dining room for more ample repast. Chef Blaser is a man who isn’t afraid of his animal fats. Witness the lush duck mousse and coarse pâté de campagne, or the salade frisée aux lardons, feathery greens tossed with cured pork belly and blue cheese and topped by a poached egg. Grilled hanger steak is crowned with a melting rosette of compound butter, and even simple whole branzino gets a gilding in velvety beurre blanc. But the kitchen doesn’t descend into sheer unctuousness— the tastes are distinct, the preparation careful, the sides well chosen. Duck confit, often a flabby grease bomb, is a crisp-skinned roasted leg, tender meat infused with flavor from the slow boil in its own fat. As you engage in some unseemly bone-sucking, don’t forget the obligatory stop at the restaurant’s flaky namesake tart—a sort of Gallic apple pie à la mode, complete with heart-stopping scoop of crème fraîche. (Lunch Tue–Fri, Sunday brunch, dinner nightly. 105 W. 39th St.; 443-278-9110; www.brasserietatin.com) —David Dudley

As human events routinely prove, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Say, for instance, you wanted to create a pizza with corned beef, cucumbers, fennel, and squid. According to their menu, the people at Joe Squared Pizza and Bar would be powerless to stop you from selecting this particular topping combination. Indeed, this art-school stronghold at the well-scuffed foot of the Howard Street bridge seems to encourage genre- and logic-busting reinterpretations of bar-food starches: Pizzas, pastas, and risottos are all customized from a large and eclectic pantry. This tyranny of choice can, as one might expect, produce mixed results. But, critically, owner Joe Edwardsen—a twentysomething Rochester native who knows a few things about eating pizza and wings in bars—can play the standards straight. His pizza is square, thin, and as delicate as a soda cracker. With a pink scrim of tomato sauce and dainty pools of fresh mozzarella, the basic Margherita is closer in spirit to the real Neapolitan thing than anyone should ever expect on North Avenue. Likewise, Buffalo wings are plump

and well executed, if too mild. (Joe has less luck with this region’s culinary mainstays: Maryland crab soup is as sweet as a bowl of stewed tomatoes, and the crab cake is hohum.) Adventurous patrons are more likely to venture into the wild with sage-flecked chicken, corn, and apple pizza, which approximates the flavor profile of a potpie, or the curious Chesapeake pizza (tuna, dill, and cilantro). This kitchen-sink approach is likewise applied to a dozen risottos, both quasi-traditional (spinach and provolone) and otherwise (curried carrot; venison, arugula, and Swiss). The results are soupy, rich, and satisfying, if more than a little bizarre. Joe’s fusion fare can be polarizing, but many pizzaphiles consider these pies among the city’s finest. And even those who don’t approve of the kitchen’s conceptual liberties might be moved by the bar’s excellent beer menu, giant stash of high-end rum, and avant-garde jollity, all of which has helped breathe some welcome life into a dire street corner. (Lunch Mon–Fri, dinner until 2 a.m. daily. 133 W. North Ave.; 410545-0444; www.joesquared.com) ■

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Edgy pie: The thin, square pizzas from Joe Squared, affordable fare for the MICA crowd

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recommended

When Brooks Harlan, front man of the nowdefunct Texas band Sand Which Is, moved to Baltimore with his bandmates in 2000, Shawna Potter wasn’t far behind. The bundle-of-energy lead singer of the Nashville-based band Fair Verona (and sometime Sand Which Is touring buddy) joined Harlan’s band in Charm City in 2002. The new ensemble practiced and played out as Sand Which Is for several months, but by the end of 2002, they decided that their new songs and style also warranted a new name. In 2004, the four-piece band released their first full-length album under the moniker Avec, If I Breathe I Fall Asleep. Since that record, the dominant dynamic in the band has been between Harlan and Potter, who, in addition to taking turns singing lead and playing complementary punk-crunch guitar parts, back each other up with clear-as-day vocal harmonies. On Avec’s sophomore release, Lines, put out in September by Civil Defense League/Doghouse Records, the musical relationship between Potter and Harlan is palpable, sometimes as experimen-

tally fertile as spouses Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth (as in “House” or “Beautiful Veins”) and at other points as cleanly and preciously platonic as Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis of indie band Postal Service (see “Hamartia”). “Everybody likes to guess which boys in the band I’ve kissed,” sings Potter on “In Character,” and given how tight her dueling leads with Harlan sound, one really does wonder. Musically, Avec’s brand of punk-driven pop-rock is frenetic and passionate, but also unconventional in its composition. The songs “Dysplasia” and “Albina Krobot” bookend Lines with off-putting, stop-and-start phrasing; and the ominous, minor-key instrumental “Ageyeva” incorporates a muffled radio sample. “Man in Space” changes character completely over the course of its three-and-a-half minutes, starting as a bubbling punkabilly shake and ending as a dish of halfspeed, heavy-metal drudge.

photo by Dan Stack

MUSIC

By Robbie Whelan

Harlan and Potter’s stinging guitar lines and scrunch-faced vocals mesh together with an urgent, hard-rocking accord, and it’s tempting to imagine that Avec’s songwriting charisma is a product of the couple’s personal chemistry. But for listeners, it’s enough that these two musicians have found their musical foils. —Robbie Whelan wrote about Among Wolves for the October issue.

MAGAZINE

By Marianne Amoss

courtesy of J.M. Giordano

When the new issue of Gutter magazine comes across the Internets, twentysomethings of Baltimore take notice. “Gutter caters 100 percent to the MySpace generation,” says photographer (and occasional Urbanite contributor) J.M. Giordano, who cofounded the monthly online-only publication with website designer Tom Doxanas. Quirky and bold, Gutter has quickly made a name for itself with

strong fashion photography; commentary on city issues and culture; and its reliance on local models, artists, photographers, and writers. “We want to focus on people in the city who don’t get recognized in other publications,” says Giordano, “to get new faces and new talent out there.” To subscribe (for free) or read current and back issues, go to www. guttermagazine.com.

The spare white-box format employed by most art institutions exemplifies a belief in cool tidiness as de rigueur for high art. Denise Tassin’s hyper-dense installations, showing November 7 through December 1 in the Amalie Rothschild Gallery at the Creative Alliance, challenge this staid notion—her signature style, an everythingbut-the-kitchen-sink approach, results in dynamic, highly complex presentations. Here Tassin presents an exhibition made up of five mini-installations containing a mix of old and new work. The ephemera she collects en masse—

detail of mixed-media installation Mobile Home/Collaborative Family. Emily Barthelemy, Emma Crysel, and Camie Duplechain, 2007

ART

By Jack Livingston

materials such as paper dolls, candy, paint samples, stuffed animals, plastic bottle caps, games, and psychotropic medications—are methodically reworked and altered by the artist, all becoming part of her ongoing opus, The Museum of the Mostly Unexceptional. Volume and strategies aside, the real power of Tassin’s art springs from her workingclass roots in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Some of her hometown relatives have become her collaborators, augmenting her powerful southern-gothic-meetsJohn-Cage autobiographical style. —Jack Livingston is an artist, critic, and arts activist living in Baltimore.

w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m n o v e m b e r 0 7

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recommended

literature By Susan McCallum-Smith

When faced with a chore as awful as ironing, I pop in a DVD of The Thin Man and enjoy the capers of detectives Nick and Nora Charles, that wisecracking marriage of equals on which I my husband and I try to model our own, though with a gag on martinis before noon. How we do like to turn crime into entertainment! Accomplished Norwegian author Karin Fossum serves up her crime over-easy. The Indian Bride is her fourth novel featuring the taciturn, sensitive Inspector Konrad Sejer. (I like to picture him as Viggo Mortensen in a cable sweater and an anorak, like an advert for a Nordic knitting pattern.) Sejer investigates the murder of an unidentified exotic-looking woman, whose body is found outside the small village of Elvestad. The village reeks of “onions and leeks, or the rank smell of manure in spring and the sweet smell of apples in autumn;” it is peopled with local farmers and salty with gossip, boredom, and xenophobia. Fossum follows the classic psychological thriller format, but she denies her reader a tidy resolution, concluding with the realistic if unsettling insinuation that criminals do not always get caught. At the novel’s end, two villagers in the local cafe wonder if the guilty may still be among them, then they “fell silent once more, staring out the black window, but they found only each other’s faces in there and turned away.” Dana Kollmann’s insights into crime are of a more pungent variety. In her recent memoir, Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand: Curious Adventures of a CSI, she dishes about her decade as a Crime Scene Investigator for the Baltimore County Police Department. “We were the condom collectors, the vomit samplers, pubic pluckers, the semen swabbers, and the dumpster divers of the department,” she writes, noting that it was not uncommon to end her shift scraping “mung” (human remains) from her boots and flicking maggots out of her bra. Kollmann’s memoir is eye-opening and informative, often funny, and persistently gruesome. Although she apologizes many times for her gallows humor, Kollmann consistently poaches her style from the cynical noirs of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett without taking into account that they were peddling fiction while she is peddling fact. The off-color banter between Kollmann and her law enforcement colleagues is understandable given the unenviable nature of their tasks, but her flippant descriptions of her daily interactions with human misery risk giving readers indigestion. Referring to a witness as a “thing” may be funny during an off-duty yarn in a bar, but in print it reads as derogative.

Kollmann successfully debunks the glamorized soft-focus mythology of those CSI dramas pockmarking our TV lineup. With admirable frankness, she admits her work’s emotional toll in the final chapter. Too late—she has written the book in the tone of the woman she was while doing the job, not as the wiser woman she purports to be now. No one could accuse David Peace, who prefers to serve up his crime scrambled, of having a sense of humor. You can tell he takes things seriously by his glowering photograph on the back jacket flap of Tokyo Year Zero, his intoxicating, infuriating new release. Postmodern in style, Tokyo Year Zero traces the existential journey of Detective Minami as he struggles to catch a serial killer while wrestling with memories of his military conduct during the Second World War. It is 1946 and Japan lies in ruins. “Everyone is talking now about the one million unclaimed ashes of the war dead, the four million repatriated soldiers and civilians … the piss and the shit in the rivers, the cholera and the typhus … about purges … about trials.” Among this bedlam, the brutal murders of several young women almost pass unnoticed. Peace uses a subject-verb sentence construction with metronomic persistency, interspersed with the italicized thoughts of the conflicted Minami. “Night is day. I open my eyes. No more pills. Day is night. I can hear the rain falling. Hide from sight. Night is day. I can see the sun shining. No more pills. Day is night. I close my eyes. The corpses of the dead. Night is day.” After a few pages had beat my brain to runny yolk, I gave up and vaulted over the italics like a steeple-chaser and found the going considerably smoother. Peace’s ending, like Fossum’s, may not satisfy every reader, but it is entirely appropriate given his ironic intent—to explore our contradictory relationship with atrocity and violence, how sometimes we commend acts committed during war that would earn the gallows in peacetime. Tokyo Year Zero is a darn good book, darn it, ruined by style. The reader is always party to the confused thoughts of Detective Minami, whereas we never know what Dashiell Hammett’s characters are thinking. In Everyman Library’s new collection, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, and Selected Stories, Hammett serves up his crime (here it comes!) hard-boiled, and although we hear his characters talk and watch them do, we are left to imagine their intent. This is a world where, as James Ellroy writes so eloquently in his hip, staccato preface, Hammett’s “workmen heroes refuse

to soliloquize or indict—they know the game is rigged and they’re feeding off scraps of trickledown graft.” “I can stand anything I’ve got to stand,” says Ned Beaumont, the “hero” of The Glass Key, the second and best of the two novels in this edition. Beaumont works as a sort of hired goon for an upand-coming politician in a district outside of New York. Summarizing the convoluted plot is beyond me, but his daily rounds appear to consist of committing random acts of violence, suffering random acts of violence, drinking, and seducing women with his rough-and-ready charm (“‘You can’t go by my manners,’ he told her. ‘They’re always pretty bad.’”). Hammett’s get-it-done, dialogue-driven prose masks his genius. “The door was opened by a gray-haired bespectacled man. His face was mild and grayish and the eyes that peered anxiously through the pale-tortoise-shell-encircled lenses of his spectacles were gray.” The subtle repetition in this section is perhaps what Peace was striving for, but executed with greater finesse. What did our local-boy Hammett make of The Thin Man movies, of Hollywood’s whimsical adaptation of his unsentimental soul? And what does watching such movies say about people like me, who live in a crime-infested city yet like their noir served sunny-side up, where the hero is morally unconflicted, “mung” isn’t spattering from the ceiling fans, and no one weeps for the dead? ■ —Susan McCallum-Smith is Urbanite’s literary editor.

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The Principal Cause continued from page 61

We actually are saying a well-trained principal is enough to get incrementally better results. But our goal is to give kids a fundamentally different kind of education that changes their life trajectories. So for us, chapter two of New Leaders is [about] refining our principal recruitment and training program. But the second half of our chapter two is putting in different kinds of supports to help the schools led by New Leaders principals to succeed. We’re going in and videotaping and documenting and really figuring out what’s happening in those schools that are making the most dramatic improvements, and making that available to the New Leaders network. In time, it will be available online for free to any educator in the country.

What about No Child Left Behind? Does it support or distract from what New Leaders advocates?

What would you do if you were principal for a day?

I think the goals of No Child Left Behind are really on target. We as a country are responsible for closing the achievement gap for kids who have historically been underserved. But the means have not been exactly the right means to get to the goal. The most significant one is that when your system relies so much on tests and assessment and data, you need those assessments to be high quality. With No Child Left Behind, each state determines what it means to be proficient in reading or math, and really low-level tests have often been used as a measure. A Fordham Foundation study just came out showing that the improvements that have been made in many states are due essentially to the fact that they have lowered the bar. In Texas, for example, if you’re in the tenth percentile—basically, if you are performing better in fourth-grade reading than 10 out of 100 kids—that’s enough to earn you proficiency. Whereas in a place like Massachusetts, you have to be doing better than 60 or 70 kids out of 100. In Wisconsin, being proficient in reading means looking at a simple sentence and filling in a couple of multiple choice words in that sentence; in Massachusetts, you actually read a portion of a book and respond in an essay. In my view, the solution to that would be to create a national standard for what it means to be reading at a high-quality level in the fourth grade, or to be able to do algebra in eighth grade. And then give states and school

systems freedom to design curricula and other strategies to achieve that national standard.

The criticism I’ve heard is that teachers don’t spend time on content because they’re spending so much time on skills. Is there a way to do both?

Yes. While I do think there are some improvements that need to be made, it is absolutely possible for good principals to lead really genuine improvements in education under No Child Left Behind. Where you don’t have the right leadership, you often do see schools make the mistake of dumbing down to do test preparation. If you use tests as the driver, the beall and end-all is to pass the test. The schools that are making the most sustained improvements in scores are not doing test prep; they’re doing deep, meaningful improvements in education, and they’re seeing an improvement in scores as a byproduct.

Is a good principal something like a CEO, who is responsible for keeping the investors happy—which in this case would mean parents and community members?

I would say that half of that I agree with and half I don’t. The role of the principal is to be a CEO and an instructional leader. What that really means is that the principal’s responsibility is to ensure quality education for every single student in that school. They also need to be a leader and manager of culture—a culture of high expectations. You mentioned the idea of keeping investors happy. I would say that one of the mistakes that some systems have made previously is making the principal’s role that of instrument of bureaucracy, instrument of the status quo. The goal really isn’t to keep everyone happy—sometimes, you keep everyone happy, and you see no change in educational outcomes. ■

—Anne Haddad is a veteran education reporter and the mother of two students in Baltimore public schools.

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If you could change one thing only about your school, what would it be?

Why We Stayed continued from page 71

Prior to Midtown, Lily went to pre-K at the William S. Baer School in West Baltimore, a public school for children with severe physical disabilities that has inclusion built into its pre-K and kindergarten programs: Children without disabilities learn, eat, and play with children who use feeding tubes, wheelchairs, and walkers. And now Nell, our younger daughter—who learned to walk at Baer, pulling herself up on the chairs and walkers that line the hallways—is a Baer student herself, learning new ways to communicate, asking lots of questions and carving out her own extraordinary experience. The arguments people cite against sending their children to city schools are numerous, and often very particular to individual circumstances. But there are a few recurring statements: City schools are dangerous. Test scores at city schools are terrible. I don’t want my child to be a minority. And to these, I feel the need to respond. I’m not certain that schools in the county are necessarily safer than in the city; I often wonder: Do the statistics truly support that statement? Do kids in the suburbs not fight or carry weapons to school? (Anecdotal evidence and regular news reports suggest they do.) And, by raising this argument, are people suggesting that those of us who do choose city schools are somehow gambling with our children’s well-being? As for test scores, how many parents really study these and know what they mean for their children? The nation’s education experts can’t even agree about their purpose and significance. I’m told that my own child’s scores last year on the Stanford Achievement Test were excellent, and each year I see Midtown among the city’s top scorers on standardized tests. But I look at Lily and Midtown, and can honestly say that none of those numbers suggest anything to me about her overall education and success in school. And finally, many parents express concern about their child being in a racial—some say socioeconomic—minority. Why? We live in a city where

nearly 70 percent of residents are African American and more than one-third live below the poverty line. I also wonder if that concern works the other way around: Are these parents equally concerned about their children being in a majority? Placing a child in a substantially white environment for its own sake strikes me as racist and classist—a reflection more of parental ignorance and fear than of a child’s skin-color sensibility. Kids, frankly, don’t care. Both of our children are minorities in their schools: Midtown and Baer, like the city they serve, are more than two-thirds black, with significant numbers of children who are also poor. (Midtown is 69 percent African American and 40 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch; for Baer those numbers are 84 percent and 65 percent, respectively.) Are our girls somehow worse off for it? Have they suffered in any way? Do they have a skewed sense of self or view of the world as a result? Hardly. And I feel certain most parents at Midtown and Baer School—white and black—would jump just as quickly to dismiss any such notion. It’s fragile terrain, this school debate. The stakes are huge—our kids’ futures—and because it’s fueled by core beliefs, prejudices are often laid bare. As parents we can be passionate, which makes it a difficult topic to discuss without having strong opinions and passing judgment on (or being judged by) others. And because our choices for our kids reflect us as parents, we feel compelled to defend those choices, often stridently. But in the end, the only people Terry and I need to answer to on the subject of our children’s education are our two daughters. We want Lily and Nell to navigate with both heart and smarts the world around them. We want them to have a deep connection with other human beings, built on appreciation and understanding. And given that, the choice about schools for us has always been clear. ■ —Freelance reporter Molly Rath lives in Bolton Hill.

I would get a hamster in the classroom. —Cecelia Roth-Eagle, Grade 2, the GreenMount School

Web extra: Read more comments at www.urbanitebaltimore.com.

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here is all, doing work.” They finished repacking the box, hoisted it up to chest level, and walked downstairs. “The microwave?” Hannah Rose leaned forward, and put her chin on her fist. “Doing work “If we have any milk,” she said, “where do you think it’d be?” is no excuse,” she said. No one was there to hear it, but she said it anyway, “I know.” He looked once around the room, and then disappeared because she knew it was true. All of America could plead work as a way of back into the kitchen. “I was just asking.” pawning off their dirt, as a way of being happy without thinking, whether Hannah Rose shut her eyes. The warm breath from her nose grazed they were any good at it or not. over the hairs on her upper lip. He was looking for the bourbon, and She had her own work to do, but she couldn’t quite place what it was. that’s why she’d hidden it. If he’d asked, she would’ve told him—maybe At her most ambitious, she thought her work was to pinpoint the distinct even drank it with him—but he didn’t want her to know he wanted it. and beautiful in every passing situation. The distinct wasn’t always beauti “It really is a shame about that woman, though.” He walked out of ful, but at least it gave her memories a personality, a way to make them the kitchen holding a blue coffee cup at eye level. “I don’t know where stick out in her mind. In the mornings, before her first meal, she usually those women go.” settled for finding a way to laugh off the dull and everyday. “Marcia.” Even this was funny. Some men say they’re going to the liquor store “Is she the one with the fat kid?” and never come home; some men say they’re going for breakfast and go to Hannah Rose nodded. the liquor store. Either way, the women were supposed to throw up their “Man, that kid is fat.” He chuckled and took a sip of coffee. “I mean, hands and wail. But God wouldn’t look down on her for not giving up just he’s a tank.” yet. If he picked up the juice like she asked, he’d buy vodka instead of whis “I know. You said already.” key, which meant he’d be easier to handle in the late afternoon. That alone “One time, I saw that kid when he’s about to go swimming. He had showed it wasn’t hopeless. those plastic things around his arms. Looked like a gigantic humming She opened her purse and took out the bourbon. Monk didn’t see debird.” He walked behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “What tails very well, but at least he saw the outlines. sort of landlord kicks a poor boy out He knew to be angry at the eviction, even if he Some men say they’re going to the liquor forgot Marcia’s name. No one else in the buildon the street when he’s young and pregnant?” He laughed and tickled store and never come home; some men ing even opened their door to watch. Hannah the bottom of her earlobe with his Rose pressed her eyes shut and imagined Marsay they’re going for breakfast and go to cia’s tea saucers and gravy boats, cracked and fingertip. “I’m going to say that to him when he comes back.” the liquor store. Either way, the women scattered on the sidewalk, her special occasion “Please don’t.” She stood up sold secondhand for nine dollars apiece were supposed to throw up their hands dresses and turned to face him. “Tell me you to broad shouldered women who wouldn’t and wail. But God wouldn’t look down won’t say that.” fit them right and wear them twice a week. “What? The kid’s not here. She saw the son’s toy soldiers and barely used on her for not giving up just yet. It’s funny.” board games half-buried in the lawn, moldy “Promise me you won’t say that or anything like it.” She brushed a and rotted out. Every boy ought to have enough toys so he can ignore a few loose strand of hair back from her forehead. “He’ll kick us out if you keep of them. All she’d cared about was Monk mocking the kid, when a thousand hounding him like this.” kids like that were getting kicked out of their homes all across America. “For God’s sake.” He took off his robe, tossed it onto the couch, and But Monk, he cared about the important things, the adult things, and she’d worked his way into a pair of jeans. “He’ll give us a second warning.” He learn to as well. sniffed an off-white undershirt and put it on. “Why don’t I go down and She unscrewed the bottle cap and took a long pull of bourbon. It tasted pick us up some eggs or donuts or something? You’re hungry, right?” too sweet at first and then too warm, but by the time she swallowed, she Hannah Rose nodded, and sat back down. Her jaw ached as though wanted another sip. It went down easier the second time. Brown liquor she hadn’t brushed her teeth in days. “Maybe grab some juice while runs right through details, smoothing out their rougher edges. Names you’re there? Grapefruit or orange or something.” and shapes and tics could fade, until a person became a people, each one They heard a large crash outside. Monk opened the door to see the as good and bad as the next. Instead of noticing the threads in a man’s landlord’s two nephews hunched over a busted cardboard box, with trousers, or the words his accent hitches on, she’d feel an overarching passtuff spilled all over the floor. “If it isn’t Curly and Shemp,” he said. “Tell sion—a need to help. me you didn’t ruin that kid’s saltlick.” Hannah Rose rested the bottle on the floor and stood up. She wanted “I tripped,” said the younger, pale one. He had thin, orange hair and to dance. Every time Monk left her alone in the house, she tried to practice cheeks still full of baby fat. “On the carpet back there. I’m sorry.” dancing, but since the stereo broke, she felt too awkward. Now she didn’t “You’re a regular chip off the old prick.” Monk shook his head. “You need the music. She put a finger on top of her piled hair, and spun backknow, we were talking about what makes your uncle tick, and my girlward circles around the living room, moving from corner to corner, winding friend here had an idea it maybe was related to his formative years, and unwinding herself in her own imagined rhythm. When she felt the when he was first courting women.” crack in the wood with her left heel, she stopped, changed direction, and “The carpet’s not flat,” the younger nephew said. His voice quivered as spun back again, giggling at the wind her spinning created. if he expected Monk to kick him in the teeth. “I got caught up on it.” It will be okay, she thought. Marcia and her boy will have a new place “Right. Remember it goes left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.” by Christmastime. Monk will be back with breakfast soon, and they still Monk blew Hannah Rose a kiss goodbye, and then walked downstairs. have the whole afternoon. The sun shone through the window, half light Once he was out of sight, she went to close the door. At the last ing the living room, and she danced around the rim of the shadow. The second, she stopped, sat back on the folding chair, and looked at walls still seemed very far apart, and the day felt very young. ■ the two men. They worked fast, but there was a strange delicacy in their movements. Willie Davis’ fiction has won the Willesden International Short Story Compe The taller, darker one looked at her and raised his eyebrows, as if retition and the Katherine Anne Porter Prize. A native of Whitesburg, Kentucky, sponding to a question. “Look, this wasn’t our idea,” he said. “We’re just he teaches English at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Eviction continued from page 77

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DON’T MISS the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Annual BOOK SALE at the Central Library, 400 Cathedral St.

Taylor Rental & Party Plus Have Your Holiday Needs Visit www.partyplusrentals.com for pictures and pricing. Our in-house staff of event coordinators and consultants can help you choose the right equipment for your next corporate party, wedding, graduation, childen’s party, whatever! Cockeysville: Taylor Rental 1 Beaver Court 410-771-1997

Columbia: Party Plus 6770 Oak Hall Lane 410-381-8880

DISCOVER

UNIQUE & ECLECTIC FURNITURE, ACCESSORIES LIGHTING & MORE!

118-PP SHAWAN RD. HUNT VALLEY 410-771-9191 www.brandonofhuntvalley.com 104

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Friday, November 30 & Saturday, December 1 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sunday, December 2, 1 – 5 p.m. Thousands of used and new books, CDs, phonograph records, videos, and magazines, plus The Collector’s Corner.

www.prattlibrary.org

resources

58 The Principal Cause The following books are excellent resources for further reading on the state of America’s schools. Jonathan Kozol’s Letters to a Young Teacher offers decades of insight and observation to a first-year teacher at an inner-city school in Boston. Dan Brown’s The Great Expectations School is the autobiographical account of a 22-year-old teacher’s experience during his first year in the Bronx. In Tested, former Washington Post reporter Linda Perlstein chronicles an Annapolis elementary school’s attempt to raise its failing test scores. Lastly, Alec Klein’s A Class Apart describes the academic pressure cooker that is New York City’s Stuyvesant High School.

91 Recommended Music: For Avec’s upcoming tour dates, go to www.myspace.com/avec. Art: The Creative Alliance is located at 3134 Eastern Ave. (410-276-1651; www. creativealliance.org). The opening reception for Denise Tassin’s show will be held November 7, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

photo by Jefferson Steele

45 Mr. Mencken’s Neighborhood For more information on the Baron of Baltimore, read Marion Elizabeth Rodgers’ recent biography, Mencken: The American Iconoclast.

83 A Breed Apart For further reading on the local food movement: The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website (www.albcusa.org) features a list of farms that raise heritage breeds of domestic livestock, including chickens, turkeys, lambs, goats, and cows; Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma offers insight into the mixed blessing of boundless food choice; and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle tells the story of her family’s yearlong attempt to eat nothing but locally grown food.

To read about basement bars in Highlandtown, go to page 80.

Mimi Kapiloff Limited Appraiser Specializing in fine art, antiques & estate jewelry Appraisals for insurance, estate, donation, damage, or loss and equitable distribution purposes. 200 W. Cold Spring Lane Baltimore, MD 21210 phone: 410-262-6426 mimikapiloff@hotmail.com

30 Courthouse Square, Ste. 405 Rockville, MD 20850 phone: 301-838-0788 fax: 301-838-3458

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urbanite marketplace

The Ron Howard Sales Team

Visit www.mgfk.com to see our monthly menus & place an order or call 410 847-9770.

RE/MAX Sails 410-814-2404

www.baltimoreshowcase.com

1425 Clarkview Road, Suite 300 (1 mile north of Mt. Washington off Falls Rd.)

You havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been to Lillies yet? Gourmet Food Beautiful View Daily Food and Drink Specials Ample Free Parking Hours: Mon-Fri 4-10pm Dinner Sat & Sun 11-3pm Brunch 3-11pm Dinner 500 Harborview Drive, Baltimore, MD 21230 Phone 410 230 0704

Higher Standards l Better Results

making transformations happen

700 S. POTOMAC ST BALTIMORE MD 21224 410-342-0280

Space Planning Paint/Color & Fabric Coordination Custom Windows & Floor Treatments Furniture, Art & Accessories Redesign of Existing Furniture 410.415.5117 studio 410.415.5116 fax 410.960.5002 cell

MON-THURS 5-11PM FRI 5PM-1PM SAT 10AM-1AM

10429 Stevenson Road Stevenson, MD 21153 www.chrysalisredesign.com

yellowdogtavern.biz

Christine Grillo, M.Sc. Clinical Herbalist

Individual Consultations Men, women, children (10 yrs +) Custom plan includes herbs, supplements, food and more.

410.796.5786 www.naturAHealing.net

Style. Sophistication. Custom Functionality. JBeady creates handcrafted jewelry that fits into any lifestyle, complimenting any occasion. Host a private jewelry party, shop online.

www.jbeady.com 443.956.4460

gallery M.I.M.

MIM

Art Jewelry! Unique opportunity to own one-of-a-kind art jewelry pieces.

NOW ON SALE AT 10% OFF! Jo-Ann Aiken, Owner 3600 Clipper Mill Rd., Suite 130 Baltimore, MD 21211 410.662.6623

NEOPOL Baltimoreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ONLY smokery, specializing in smoked seafood and meats, savory cheese pies, gourmet foods, smoked seasoning salts and chefâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supplies. Belvedere Square Marketplace, 529 E. Belvedere Square

410-433-7700

www.artonpurpose.org

How do different people find a common language? Art on Purpose brings together people from different backgrounds, ages, races, and ethnicities to make and view art and to talk about the complex issues of our life. In just a few short years, Art on Purpose has introduced over 6000 people from the Baltimore region to exhibitions, workshops, and programs directly supporting education, social justice, and community service. Art on Purpose has partnered with nearly 600 professional artists, students, teachers, after-school programs, senior citizens, cultural and community organizationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all with the idea art can be a language that breaks the barriers and begins to build understanding and knowledge in an everincreasingly complicated world. Using art to bring people together around issues and ideas.

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Hunt Valley Tile and Stone

sleek & UniqUe

Designer Showroom Exotic Materials Handmade Tile

ONLY at Alex Cooper’s

Featuring marble, granite, travertine, slate, limestone, mosaic, glass, metals, porcelain, and ceramic.

Consult an AIA architect.

Furnish YOUR lifestyle with Alex Cooper’s distinctive auction items

www.huntvalleytileandstone.com 11110 Pepper Road, Suite D Hunt Valley, MD 21030 410.771.6441

GOOD DESIGN MAKES A DIFFERENCE

908 York Road, Towson 410.828.4838

Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976). “Spirals,” serigraph, artist proof

AIABaltimore www.aiabalt.com 410.625.2585 11 ½ W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201

www.alexcooper.com

INCENSE.......... Innovative INNOVATIVECuisine CUISINE andAND Housemade HOUSEMADE BBeers EERS OPULENT Setting SETTING in IN anANOpulent 1106 N CHARLES ST

1106(410) N. Charles 547-6925 St WWW .THEBREWERSART (410) 547-6925 .COM www.thebrewersart.com

Astrology Horoscope reAdings tArot cArds psycHic clAirvoyAnt Specializing in horoscope and tarot card reading. Solve all Problems such as love, happiness, business, Reunite the separated, solve mysteries of the past life. Interpret past, present and future. Call for 1 free question by phone.

Call Katherine at 410-285-7084

FEED YOUR HEART Women’s Growth Center is a small, non-profit collective of therapists. We offer individual, couples, family, and group therapy.

Women’s Growth Center Since 1973 Psychotherapy for Women & Men

5209 York Road #B12 410-532-2GROW (2476) By Appointment Only www.womensgrowthcenter.com

HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE & SILENT AUCTION Sunday Nov. 18, 9am–5pm

INNOVATIVE CUISINE Monday Nov. 19, 10am–6pm AND HOUSEMADE BEERS Something for Everyone! IN AN OPULENT SETTING40 + vendors 1106 N CHARLES ST (410) 547-6925 WWW.THEBREWERSART.COM

All-Day Café by Classic Catering Free admission and parking Visa & Mastercard welcome Baltimore Hebrew Congregation 7401 Park Heights Avenue Baltimore, Maryland 21208 410-764-1587 ext. 270

Taste The Adventure! Waverly Farmers Market Saturday’s 7am till Noon Mill Valley Garden Center and Farmers Market Thursday - Sunday 8 am till 4 pm Friday till 8pm www.whiskeyisland.com 2800 Sisson Street Baltimore, Maryland 21211 410.236.0001

Designed and built one at a time.

Custom…Not Costly 410.559.0000 x121 www.AshleyHomes.com MHBR No: 126

1605 Union Avenue Baltimore, MD 21211

EHO

30% OFF SALE

An eclectic collection for all types of women who have one thing in common: the desire to wear unique and one-of-a-kind jewelry.

Custom & bridal jewelry available www.alexandrawebbjewelry.com 5726 Falls Road Baltimore, MD 21209 410.303.1703

SEAFOOD DIRECT FROM MANUFACTURER!

Crab Meat • Crab Cakes Fish • Shrimp Seafood Entrées & Appetizers Mon – Fri: 10am – 6pm Sat: 10am – 4pm, Closed Sunday Phillips HQ – Locust Point 1215 E. Fort Avenue (443) 263 – 1314

European Furniture Crystal Chandeliers Bronze Statues Original Paintings Design Services

Regency Gallery

3890 Main Street Ellicott City, MD 21043 410-465-3005 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

10,000 sq. ft. Warehouse Open By Appointment 895 North Howard Street

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E M E R G E N C Y

Emergencies happen in an instant ... so should your care.

C A R E

At Maryland General Hospital, we realize the last thing you need during an emergency is to have to wait. So, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve streamlined our emergency care. Under our new system, patients receive bedside registration and quick triage. Shortly after that, you are visited by your Rapid Access Team made up of a physician and other clinical staff. They all come at the same time so that everyone hears your history and current problems at once. All this terrific care is delivered by our experienced team of emergency experts. Plus, Maryland General Hospital has been designated as a Primary Stroke Center. At Maryland General Hospital, great things come to those who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to wait. 827 Linden Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

410-225-8400

Smart medicine.

For a life-threatening emergency, dial 911. www.marylandgeneral.org

M C L A

a new way to divorce… collaborative family law

Transparency and cooperation, without court intervention

List, buy, sell and rent your residential property for free...

Divorce • Custody • Separation • Alimony • Child Support for more information contact the

maryland collaborative law association www.marylandcollaborativelawassociation.com

THE PROPERTY SOURCE your one stop source for real estate information and empowerment. www.thepropertysource.info 443.255.5151

Have you booked your Holiday Party? Tis the Season to Party! Private and Semi-Private Rooms Now Available

Restaurant Row at Market Place � 614 Water Street Baltimore BlueSeaGrill.com � 410.837.7300 Complimentary Valet Parking

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photo by Jason Okutake

eye to eye

We adore chaos because we love to produce order. —M.C. Escher What is it that makes someone alter his environment so fully as Loring Cornish, the Baltimore native who transformed his Druid Hill rowhouse into a kaleidoscopic work of art? Is it a dissatisfaction with the world as it is, or is it a spirit, braver and more imaginative than our own, that revels in the raw energy it feels at composing one’s own universe? Cornish finds his materials in objects that have been cast off by the city—mirrors, clocks, glass, metal, whatever catches his eye. He works every surface of his private world, crafting it into his own particular vision. —Alex Castro

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Loring Cornish 2714 Parkwood Avenue Open house November 17 and 18, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. For more information, e-mail loringcornish@aol.com

2400 BOSTON STREET IN HISTORIC CANTON

THE NEIGHBORHOOD Shops And Restaurants

FRESH FUN DAILY Situated in the heart of Canton, there’s something for everyone at The Can Company. Stocked with Baltimore’s lively dining and nightlife, stylish shopping, plus, services and essentials, The Can Company offers variety everyday.

thecancompany.com Developed and Managed by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse.

2400 Boston Street, Baltimore, MD 21224 410.558.CANC (2262) | www.thecancompany.com

Austin Grill Babylon Nails Boston Street Dentistry Brocato’s Studio of Hair Design Chesapeake Wine Company Cloud 9 Clothing Cold Stone Creamery Downs Stationers Electric Rays Tanning Salon GNC Kiss Café Lenscrafters Long and Foster Realtors Outback Steakhouse Pasticcio Ristorante Italiano Radio Shack Ray Lewis’ Full Moon BBQ Ritz Camera Starbucks Subway SunTrust Bank Vircity

Offices Alexander & Tom Benexx Community Analytics Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University DAP Design Purchase Link Emerging Technology Center Francis Cauffman Notemarks LLC RPI Consultants Safe Harbors Travel

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window & door replacement | 866-211-3781 1 Computer simulation average when Designer Series® windows with triple-pane glass are compared to single-pane wood windows. Actual results may vary. 2 Qualifying products must be installed in the taxpayer’s primary residence. Consult with a qualified tax adviser to confirm the amount you may be eligible to receive.

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