I was in Baltimore two weeks ago, doing research for a new book. I usually find a bartender or cab driver who knows the town well, and hire them for an afternoon or evening to show me the seeier side of their city. In Baltimore, I found Bob.
Baltimore is the murder capital of the United States. The six days leading up to my trip, they had a murder every day. The four days I was there, they had a murder every day. But not to worry…they’re down 15% from last year. So things are good.
Baltimore is an edgy city, with a beautiful Inner Harbor. Shops and restaurants are everywhere and boats out on the water sail in the pristine bay while bums and panhandlers lurk every ten feet. The first time I ever visited I had my pocket picked.
Minorities congregate by the hundreds on street corners in very fasionable areas as potential employers (construction mostly) drive by and pick out a handful of laborors every morning. The cops are out in force checking papers.
Right behind the beautiful Bishop Robinson Police Headquarters and the Archbishop’s offices are about a dozen very seedy strip clubs, led off by a former employer of mine…Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club. Bob tells me that his fares claim open prostitution goes on in some of the clubs. He says it’s simply paying off the authorities.
Fell’s Point is a beautiful historic area, on the water, with a bar that goes back to 1775, called The Horse You Rode In On. The Point has great restaurants, shops, bars and an open air market where you could probably get your pocket picked.
Bob tells me he used to have a pool hall and game room and he would see drug deals go down and shootings right outside his window.
Mt. Vernon is a historic area with old churches and one of the first monuments built to George Washington. Of course Edgar Allen Poe was buried in Baltimore and lived here for awhile. His body was found in a ditch, possibly killed outside Bob’s Pool Hall. You never know.
There’s the Owl Saloon, with stained glass owls from the prohibition era. The Owl would blink if a raid was going to happen. Apparently even back then, they paid off the cops.
I enjoyed the city, the live music, even some of the inventive panhandlers, but I never felt safe and was always aware of the murder thing. It made headlines every day in the paper.
Even when people weren’t being murdered, they were threatening death. I must have heard three or four people talking about the Baltimore Orioles. They were saying things like…”someone should just put them out of their misery!”