Baltimore's Newest Gateway Signs (2015, crime rate, new home)

[Infinite_heights77]

*Have you seen them yet??!!


https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2016/1...-a-box-cutter/




Orange like a steamed crab? Pointy like a box-cutter?


Baltimoreans sort out the messaging meant by the new “gateway signs”
Above: On York Road, one of the new signs the city is putting up on roads entering Baltimore. (Fern Shen)


People are just beginning to notice the tall, skinny orange-and-black “Baltimore” signs that have cropped up on the city’s borders.
Squinting at the one standing on a busy stretch of York Road near the county line, Wanda Johnson made the obvious connection with the colors of the city’s baseball team.
“Now that you mention it, it’s nice,” Johnson said, pausing before getting into her car. “It looks like something to do with the Orioles.”
Online, meanwhile, the commentary was a good bit sharper about the slim new sign – one of 15 new “gateway” markers being erected by the city on Baltimore’s perimeter.
“Does the back say ‘Gurl/Boy, Bye!’?” cracked a woman posting on Facebook.
Gateway sign locations. (Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts)

“How about ‘Home of 300 Murders’?” another observer said, suggesting a motto for the civic entrance signs. (“That’s helpful!” came one woman’s sarcastic reply.)
The city already has de facto welcome signs at its periphery, argued another person: “When Smooth Roads Turn Into Pothole Pavement.”
“Is it just me, or is it a little guillotine-ish?” observed still another commenter, seizing on the sharply angled bottom part of the sign that others likened to a box-cutter.
City Councilman Bill Henry suggested on Facebook that the slant might simply be an allusion to the city’s angled southern border.
“It is!” said Ryan Patterson, public art administrator at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA), with obvious relief, going on to recite the project history.
Refreshing and Unifying

Speaking with The Brew, Patterson said he almost hated to step in and “sign-splain” what turns out to be an organized “Baltimore Gateway Sign” project carried out toward the end of the Stephanie Rawlings-Blake mayoral administration.
“I was enjoying hearing all the gut reactions,” Patterson said. “This is what art is supposed to do, inspire a dialogue. People obviously care about this.”
In 2015, he said, the mayor pulled together BOPA and the Department of Transportation “to refresh and renew the city’s gateway signs.”
The existing signs, in three distinct styles, were in disrepair and needed an overhaul “that would produce a unified style for the city that does not feel like a new branding campaign,” Patterson said.

[Infinite_heights77]

The name of the article is funny within itself.

[james777]

Amazing how this corrupt city has money for such nonsense, after they gutted the police department of personnel and money, so much so that they couldn't even afford to keep the police stations open at night. If they spent some of this money in the police department, maybe they could get the crime rate down.

[pappjohn]

The democrat politicians don't running the dump don't want to prosecute criminals.

[bus man]

You'd think they could say "Welcome to Baltimore" instead of just blandly stating the name. Or maybe, "Warning: You Are Entering Baltimore."

[beasley106]

As a new homeowner in Baltimore City, let me just say that I approve of my hard earned property tax dollars being used to put up useless signs as opposed to other worthy projects (like improving the streets so that they are not filled with potholes, improving public transit, lowering the crime rate, etc). *sarcasm*

[Infinite_heights77]

Lol! I agree! Very wasteful!

Originally Posted by beasley106

As a new homeowner in Baltimore City, let me just say that I approve of my hard earned property tax dollars being used to put up useless signs as opposed to other worthy projects (like improving the streets so that they are not filled with potholes, improving public transit, lowering the crime rate, etc). *sarcasm*

[Tinawina]

Baltimorians will complain about anything. Like I've said before, town full of Eyeores. LOL!

[beasley106]

Originally Posted by Tinawina

Baltimorians will complain about anything. Like I've said before, town full of Eyeores. LOL!

Yes, because putting up signs around Baltimore City is supposedly going to improve quality of life and attract outside investment. Let's be honest here this practically fits the definition of wasteful spending.

[Tinawina]

Originally Posted by beasley106

Yes, because putting up signs around Baltimore City is supposedly going to improve quality of life and attract outside investment. Let's be honest here this practically fits the definition of wasteful spending.

I'm sure the cost of, like 20 signs and labor would have saved the city from it's myriad of decades-entrenched woes if it had just been redirected elsewhere! I mean how dare they do ANYTHING that might make the city just look a teeny bit brighter?! Don't they know we are MISERABLE and don't DESERVE any nice things! Even if those nice things are a tiny slice in the budget? Bah! Humbug! Baltimore is bad bad bad bad and everything is stupid!


This is how y'all sound to me.


This city needs a hug.