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It's something of a mythic city in my family's history. My grandfather "got the call" to be a minister and decided that he needed an education to do it. The family lived on the Eastern Shore where, at the time, there was no high school. (I will say that my cousin Nettie, who only completed school on Eastern Shore -- 8th grade -- had beautifully legible handwriting, misspelled words phonetically, and had a much wider vocabulary than I find among the 8th graders I currently work with.)
High School meant Baltimore. He worked the desk at the YMCA at night in order to attend school during the day. His room was covered by his work. I think they fed him, but I don't know if he had any additional walking around money.
In those days, Baltimore was still Charm City. It was, like its northern brethren Dover and Trenton, a transportation hub and industrial city. There are other cities that are one or the other on the Eastern seaboard, but few, at the time, that were both. McCormick Spices were packaged in Baltimore, arriving from far off lands in the port and being shipped to grocery stores via train and truck. Domino Sugar was processed and distributed in Baltimore. The inner harbor was working class in the same vein as Red Hook. Phillips frozen fish, canned shrimp and crab, and bottled oysters and clams was also an industrial giant there. Chesapeake Bay provided lavishly.
It was a major naval port with Annapolis to its south and safety -- at least compared to the roarings of the Atlantic ocean -- available to ships in the bay.
The near collapse of the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem in the late 1950s to early 1970s devastated the city. White flight didn't help, but Phillips cut back tremendously in its factories because the oysters and crabs were so depleted. Domino Sugar cut back with much of its packaging moving closer to the cane fields in the Caribbean and South America. McCormick also packaged more of its spices closer to where they were grown for freshness. The port became the main employer. Trucking was also big as DC didn't have the area to be a trucking hub.
The collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge will further devastate a city that didn't fully recover from the recession of the 1970s. When you want to know why drugs are so big, why The Wire showed such slums, remember that Baltimore -- once one of the top 5 seaports on the Eastern Seaboard now ranks behind Savannah, GA in overall tonnage. [Savannah is second to New York/New Jersey as an Atlantic port. Boston is well behind Baltimore, though it's still a major hub for Gasoline. Baltimore's main load? Coal.]
I hope that the new bridge will be built quickly, that other infrastructure projects will be tied to it, so that Baltimore, once the lovely Charm City that smelled of spices and sugar, can once again be a city with hope for its future.
High School meant Baltimore. He worked the desk at the YMCA at night in order to attend school during the day. His room was covered by his work. I think they fed him, but I don't know if he had any additional walking around money.
In those days, Baltimore was still Charm City. It was, like its northern brethren Dover and Trenton, a transportation hub and industrial city. There are other cities that are one or the other on the Eastern seaboard, but few, at the time, that were both. McCormick Spices were packaged in Baltimore, arriving from far off lands in the port and being shipped to grocery stores via train and truck. Domino Sugar was processed and distributed in Baltimore. The inner harbor was working class in the same vein as Red Hook. Phillips frozen fish, canned shrimp and crab, and bottled oysters and clams was also an industrial giant there. Chesapeake Bay provided lavishly.
It was a major naval port with Annapolis to its south and safety -- at least compared to the roarings of the Atlantic ocean -- available to ships in the bay.
The near collapse of the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem in the late 1950s to early 1970s devastated the city. White flight didn't help, but Phillips cut back tremendously in its factories because the oysters and crabs were so depleted. Domino Sugar cut back with much of its packaging moving closer to the cane fields in the Caribbean and South America. McCormick also packaged more of its spices closer to where they were grown for freshness. The port became the main employer. Trucking was also big as DC didn't have the area to be a trucking hub.
The collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge will further devastate a city that didn't fully recover from the recession of the 1970s. When you want to know why drugs are so big, why The Wire showed such slums, remember that Baltimore -- once one of the top 5 seaports on the Eastern Seaboard now ranks behind Savannah, GA in overall tonnage. [Savannah is second to New York/New Jersey as an Atlantic port. Boston is well behind Baltimore, though it's still a major hub for Gasoline. Baltimore's main load? Coal.]
I hope that the new bridge will be built quickly, that other infrastructure projects will be tied to it, so that Baltimore, once the lovely Charm City that smelled of spices and sugar, can once again be a city with hope for its future.
