Maryland Daily PhotoEvery Week Day a New Picture from MD

What’s Missing?  From this perspective you might mistake Baltimore’s (and Maryland’s) tallest building for another building of similar design: the world trade center in Baltimore.   While they look very similar from three sides, you can usually tell the difference because the world trade center is a five sided building. In fact, it’s the world’s tallest five  sided building.  So that means that this must be the FORMER Legg mason building / USF&G building.   What’s missing?  The Legg Mason sign on top of the building is what’s missing.   Considering the skyline’s loss of the Maryland National sign and the Alex.Brown sign, a 500 foot tall invading monster would have a much harder time getting around modern Baltimore than they would have had in 1995.

As we continue to celebrate the 133 birthday of the Johns Hopkins university, it seemed only right to supplement Monday’s picture with this one of two of the university’s most famous points: the Keyser/upper Quad and Gilman Hall, named after the University’s first president.  Gilman Hall is currently undergoing a significant renovation so this picture from the outside will have to do for now.

On sunday morning there was a fire in Baltimore near the clipper mill complex.  I had no idea there had been a fire earlier as I was driving through the area on my way to other MDP posts, even though a road had been blocked off and that made it inconvenient for me to get back to the main streets.    In fact, I took this picture without realizing just how relevant it was.   The clipper mill community is a conglomeration of former industrial buildings that have slowly and partially been renovated into living spaces and small retail establishments and other spaces given vague titles like, ”space for artisans.”   

The location is hard to beat, being near the highway and light rail, but isolated enough to give a sense of community.  The only detractor is the lack of residents.  The building that caught on fire was in fact vacant, and the clipper mill revitalization project went bankrupt last year.  Hope is not lost, and the neighborhood is still growing, just slowly.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday wandering around Baltimore finding pictures for the website.  I ended up at Johns Hopkins, where I came across a poster saying that February 22nd was “Commemoration Day.”  Back at home on the internet I found out that 2/22 was the day that the university was founded in 1876.  This is a picture looking south at the campus’ Wyman Quad, just before sunset

Gustav Brunn was a german immigrant to Baltimore, who in 1939 started to sell a spice blend that would later come to be known as Old Bay.  According to the Old Bay website, his store was on market pl, across from the fish market, which would put it somewhere in the modern day powerplant live area.    I’ll see if I can track down the real location for a future post. 

Gustav’s blend has taken over the hearts of Marylanders in the last 70 years.   When I was 12 years old,   I was amazed to see the stuff poured over everything and to see middle schoolers fighting to get the last bag of Crab Chips, the special chip which at the time was flavored with old bay.  (now with some sort of generic seasoning)  

Though they recruit ‘em young, the obsession with the 12 herbs and spices of old bay is present across the full lifespan of an average Marylander.  My company cafateria has a big bin of it in the condiment rack that needs to be replaced about once a week.  I even find myself using it with my daily pretzel at work. (some of you might know that I also love pretzels)    A big hit at a favorite night spot 40 miles south of Baltimore in Silver Spring: the quarry house tavern is the tater tots with old bay.  At the soft shell crab festival in Crisfield, Old Bay was plentiful.   I even noticed it sitting prominently at a popular establishment in Cumberland.  

My boss used it as ammunition to make fun of Virginians the other day as they eat their crabs without the necessary seasoning.   (Not that anyone needs that much ammunition becasue Virginia’s poor road signage is sufficient to ridicule the state.)

I’ve even gone so far as to use it for a barbeque rub.   One day I was thinking that it has all the key ingredients: heat, garlic, salt, paprika.  That’s what every barbeque rub starts with.   However, I can tell you that after more than 12 hours of smoking, much of the spice flavor mellows out: except for the celery salt.   It was after that day that I noticed the first ingredient in Old Bay is in fact Celery Salt: perfect for crabs, not so much for pork butts. 

The spices are no longer manufactured in a retail space downtown, the bottom of every bin says it is packed in Hunt Valley, MD, though the spices as they have historically been, are likely sourced from around the world.

This title is somewhat self explanitory.   You can tell that these people were out at the begining of the storm as it barely reaches their shins.

Returning to the site of a previous post, today we have the Kensington Marc station surrounded by snow.

While working from home yesterday (the only good part of this snowstorm), I found this inquisitive little guy perched on my windowsill, apparently fascinated with the spreadsheet I was working on.   He looks nothing like an oriole.  So what’s with the title of the post?

I have been accused on many occasions of mistaking a robin for an oriole, something that seems odd based on the picture above and my other reference point. Fortunately, just a minute later, one of his friends, a true oriole impostor, showed up at my window.  See below, and you might understand why, from a distance, they can sometimes be difficult to differentiate.