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Visiting Baltimore, Maryland

japhyrider

I'm visiting Baltimore next week and was wondering if anyone has some suggestions on what to see on my trip. Thanks.

 
Sep 25, 04 12:24 am
danimal

depends on what your interests are... if you are looking for fabulous examples of contemporary architecture, you may want to go elsewhere. if you are interested in community groups dealing with urban blight, you are in a great place. go to the ndc.org website for info on their efforts and links to other groups.

Sep 25, 04 12:48 pm  · 
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Just go visit the harbor and walk around, follow the waterfront walk all the way to Fell's Point and check out the square. The Living Classrooms campus in Fell's has a pretty nice new building (I'm biased, though, cause I worked on it). MICA (Maryland Institute College of the Arts) has a great new graphic design building by Ziger/Snead on Mt. Royal Ave. in Bolton Hill, that's a fabulous example of contemporay architecture for sure.

Go get brunch at Little Havana, go see the Visionary Art Museum, have drinks at the Rondevous Lounge in Charles Village, there's a lot more to Bmore than just urban blight!

Sep 25, 04 4:16 pm  · 
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ovalle

Baltimore watershed, was a case study for urban design studio :

http://www.arch.columbia.edu/Studio/Fall2003/UD/

Sep 25, 04 4:21 pm  · 
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threshold

I second sevensixfive in that you should go to the Visionary Art Museum.

Sep 25, 04 4:54 pm  · 
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c

the brewer's art . on charles st. a nice place for a drink. on the weekend in little italy they screen movies outside. its funny, I am from baltimore but can't think of anything worthwhile at the moment...

Sep 26, 04 3:26 pm  · 
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rorei

I second also a lot of what sevensixfive said but take one of the water taxis around to see the harborr areas. Once your done at AVAM go check out Tide Point, especially during early evening. I think it is Baltimore's best waterfront location. You actually get a sense of industry and nature coliding. In the evening in hot weather they turn on theirlight/misting system which is particularlly nice. If you want to see a movie check out the Charles Theatre and if your lucky you will be able to see the "no smoking in this theatre" reel John Waters did for them in the 70's.

Sep 27, 04 9:06 am  · 
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st.

a couple more:

mattin art center (williams + tsien) @ johns hopkins
one charles center (mies): downtown (you'll recognize it)
apt. building (early gehry): on I-83 inside the beltway
basilica of the assumption (latrobe): first american cathedral

correction, 765: more accurately, the new MICA building (brown center) was designed by Charles Brickbauer.

i would spend very little time near the inner harbor (none, if you've been before). get lost in the neighborhoods. specifically: hampden, mt. vernon, federal hill, fells point, little italy.

i hate these posts. but whatever:
dinner @ the helmand (mt. vernon)
desert @ viccaros (little italy)
beers @ the brewer's art (mt. vernon)
late night @ ottobar (remington)

Sep 27, 04 6:03 pm  · 
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japhyrider

i was looking for sites that might show the gritty side of baltimore. i'll check the web site danimal mentioned. any other suggestions?

Sep 28, 04 12:32 am  · 
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japhyrider

uhm, ndc.org seems to be a diabetic site. was there another url you were thinking of?

Sep 28, 04 12:34 am  · 
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Point taken, st. I forgot the Brown Center was by Brickbauer with z/s.

I also can't spell: that sould be the Rendezvous (with a z and an e) Lounge.

More on the gritty side: take a walk along the light rail tracks to go see some great graffiti. Walk or ride a bike down Falls Road, where you'll feel like you're in rural West Virginia all of the sudden, with weird bits of forgottten urban industrial infrastructure poking up through the weeds. Ride through the real, industrial harbor: down Clinton St. southeast of Canton. Walk through West Baltimore (or East Baltimore), where the ratio of occupied to abandoned row houses is less than 1/10 for some blocks.

But like I said, Baltimore is way more than just urban blight. I also second the Brewer's art (go on Sunday afternoon for happy hour), the Helmand, The Charles Theatre on Charles St., the Billie and Tod building at John's Hopkins ... ah, I love that city, I can't wait to get back there.

Sep 28, 04 1:04 am  · 
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st.

baltimore really is a great place, but it's informative that so many responses to the original post include overlapping placenames. can you imagine the number of different responses there would have been had japhy* asked about NYC (or even philly or DC)? baltimore is small-town.

check out baltimore's City Paper online (no, not the Sun). their "best-of" issue just came out and is full of information about out of the way places (+ grit and grime, if that's your bag).

Sep 28, 04 2:00 pm  · 
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danimal

my bad. the site i was trying to send you to should be www.ndc-md.org
they have a great set of links/resources to all sorts of neighborhood groups. and they are a fabulous group of people. check em out.

Sep 28, 04 8:56 pm  · 
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japhyrider

thanks for all the information. very much appreciated.

Sep 29, 04 1:15 am  · 
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