Wherein I can't quit you, Baltimore. . .
Recently, rev_e contacted me because he has a friend moving to Baltimore. Replying to him made me realize how much I love and miss that city. Like I say below, it's the kind of place you have to hate before you love. This is what I wrote:
"Sorry this has taken me a few days to get back to you. I got swamped Thursday, then I had an unexpected 15 hours in New York City on Friday, then. . . well, it was the weekend.
Tell your friend that I love Baltimore. It's a hardscrabble city, it was once described by a fellow Michigander as "Detroit on the ocean," and it's the kind of place you have to hate before you love, but it's full of charms once you give it a chance. It's probably the last affordable east coast city. Martino and I were able to afford a palatial three-story rowhome from 1895, and everyone I knew had a great home or apartment.
I lived in Hampden, and I loved it there. I loved it so much I kept a neighborhood gossip blog for a while. Hampden has some rough edges, but it's really my favorite Baltimore neighborhood.
Walking places is totally important to me, and in Hampden, I could walk to a plethora of bars/restaurants, shopping, the grocery store, a drug store, the post office, a movie theatre, professional live theatre, the library, a park, the light rail. . . you get the idea. You can drive to Penn Station in just five minutes. It's a "transitional" neighborhood (as some would say), but it's full of life and community and creative people. Atomic Books--one of the great alternative bookstores of the world--is in Hampden & its owners are friends of mine and great champions of the Baltimore I know and love.
Like many cities, Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods. The best thing your friend can do before he thinks about signing a lease is to spend the day exploring the hood. Walk its streets, visit its shops, eat its food & tell the people you encounter that you're thinking of moving there & see what the vibe is. It's how Hampden creeped up on me.
Lastly, a word about crime. Baltimore is a tough city. It's not all The Wire, but it's not the contemporary cleaned-up NYC either. You have be smart & there's certainly petty property crime galore, but block by block, the city changes and it NEEDS good folks to live in it and care about it. With a little searching, it's an easy place to love.
I'll close with this: Baltimore is the only city I know that can support events like mini-motorcycle cake jumping and a water ballet about the life of Charles Darwin. What's not to love?"
In conclusion, I now realize how important mini-motorcycle cake jumping is to me. It took a move to New Jersey for me to learn that, but it's a lesson I won't soon forget.