Lint Lips and Lily: City No. 1: Baltimore, Maryland, or, "Baltimore, you are AWESOME!"

Our Honeymoon, or, How We Got to the Midwest One Interview at a Time: The Northeast Cities According to Me, the One Who Wanders the Cities While Peter Completes the Interviews.

Disclaimer: This should by no means be used as a real resource to the northeastern cities. While I am an observant person, I have no background in city development, nor do I have expertise on the cultural or historical background on these cities. For the most part, I am reviewing these cities based on my personal preferences, as we will be moving to one of these cities in the spring. And, if you are hoping for a lot of artwork (as this is my art blog), sorry to say, but you will be sadly disappointed if you continue to read this blog in the upcoming two months. Apart from my photographs of the cities, I doubt I’ll get to very many art and craft projects. Lastly, please forgive any spelling or grammar errors. I'm typing these out pretty quickly, sometimes battling failing routers at these coffee shops. There's just no time to proof-read.

Harbor! Sailboats!

I have to say that I knew very little about Baltimore before we entered its city limits. In fact, as we’ve started this trip, I had to come to terms with the fact that I know very little about the Northeast in general. Not only that, seem to know nothing about the geography of the area. I had a long moment of epiphany when I opened the map, and realized that the distance from Baltimore to New York City is very tiny (this encompasses Wilmington, DE, AND Philly!). Only 5 hours or so (minus traffic)! Being a Midwestern girl, where things are spread out (Madison is 5 hours away from MSP), this was very shocking.

I’ve known a few friends who lived in Baltimore for a few years throughout the years, but I guess I never really took too much interest in the details surrounding the city. Everything was very new, except for its reputation for being poor, and dangerous. While these things are indeed still very valid attributes of the city, I learned a few new things:

1) Baltimore is a harbor city! (Who knew! Big boats! There’s even a draw bridge!)

2) There are many areas that are totally “up and coming” and will be very important to the revitalization of the city in the upcoming years

3) It is very large, much too large to be totally walkable (believe me, I tried. Anyone willing to give me a foot massage?)

Also, most of the houses in Baltimore are “row-houses” which makes this city a very interesting one to think about if you’re thinking about buying. As a musician, and one who tends to be loud-spoken sometimes, I would wonder about the passage of sound through the walls…and there is very little greenspace, as there is little or no yard. But literally ALL of the houses within the city are row-houses. The “normal” houses are a little further out of the city in the suburban areas.

As for being dangerous, I did encounter an area that was a little sketchy, and being on foot, I was a little uncomfortable, as I could not get out faster than I could walk on my little legs. But, it should be taken into account that this was at 7 am in an area surrounding a hospital. This tends to be a bad area in any city, and 7 am is a bad time to judge a place as people are not out and about on their way to work yet. Later, we drove through this same area and shops were open, people were working, and it seemed to be transformed. But this is not to say that there are not areas that are very dangerous. We drove through an area that had blocks upon blocks of boarded up rowhouses. Blocks upon blocks. No exaggeration. And this is typical for many areas of Baltimore. And these areas tend to be very impoverished and, therefore, dangerous. While there are many efforts to “revitalize” these parts of Baltimore, it seems that there is still much more work to be done.

There were many “cute” areas around town, each neighborhood with a different character (much like MSP), and each with a feeling of potential for something great coming up in the future, but my favorite (just because of its location near the harbor) was Fells Point. I could easily see myself wandering down to the docks in the morning, a fresh cup of coffee in hand, to enjoy the fresh air while planning the rest of my day.

Baltimore has much to give. Two days was not enough time to get the full experience, I suspect. Much to many little neighborhood pockets here and there to see everything! Apparently there are 4 different opera-based groups, a strong art movement--all stuff that I would explore more if there were more time. Unfortunately our trip did not cover a weekend, and so most arts and entertainment activities were very limited, but I suspect it would have been awesome. We got a chance to see inside the Schuler School of Fine Art, an incredible hidden fine arts jewel, and it would be a place that I would want to check out to greater depth if we moved here... Baltimore is definitely high on my list, thus far.