Mini- History for Baltimore (credit, renewal, cities)

[jonjj]

Global Harbors Documentary

Very interesting read. I think there is a program airing on PBS about this also.

[krakenten]

Baltimore has a complex history, and a short memory.

The Baltimore Fire, perhaps the most influential single event in the history of the city is all but forgotten-at least until recently.

The very streets were different after that.

And hard by Baltimore and Central Avenue, there's the St. Vincent de Paul Mission-until not so long ago, it was topped by barbed wire and sandbag machine gun emplacements.

It was on my beat when I was a cop-so I asked one of the old timers what it was.

He told me that it was where the Norden Bombsights for the planes being built at Martin were assembled(the Norden was a super secret device, though it seemed a little hysterical to fortify the place against an infantry attack!)

He also remembered seeing burning Merchant Marine ships off the mouth of the bay, where the U-Boats lurked in the early part of the war.

Really, it's past time to capture this history, before it gets lost forever.

Laura Lippman mentions something called, "The Memory Project", perhaps an effort to do this?

[rudy_d]

Originally Posted by jonjj

Global Harbors Documentary

Very interesting read. I think there is a program airing on PBS about this also.

It's on tonight (Tues) at 10 pm. Looks interesting.

[barante]

That was a terrific program about Inner Harbor renewal and its impact on other cities around the world. The perspective was right: It was Theodore McKeldin who first came up with the concept, even though other people now take the credit. The film really tried to give credit to everyone.
This program should be part of the registering process for new forum members. It is a great introduction to Baltimore by documenting how far the Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin, as John Goodspeed put it, has come.