For the 16 years I've owned Baltimore, I've been a tireless booster not just of the Baltimore region generally, but of the downtown, in particular, which has rightfully received ongoing national and international attention for its rebirth. Its transformation from a grimy smokestack town in the 1970s is not only a big tourism draw but is also now wooing back residents from the suburbs to its...
<p>Coming from a football family and bringing the Ravens to the playoffs every year he's been here, John Harbaugh was clearly born to lead.</p>
Nine-year-old John Harbaugh strapped on his helmet, slid into his shoulder pads, laced up his cleats, and stared at the mirror. Scowling back, he saw the world's toughest football player. His father saw things differently.
"My dad was right behind me," Harbaugh recalls. "'John boy, you're not a football player,' he says, 'until you make your first tackle.'"
The Ravens coach is recounting his...
Robert McClintock puts his art out there any way he can
When Robert McClintock first pursued art, he was realistic. "I was a good photographer, but not the greatest."
Then one day, he was playing around in Photoshop and started to digitally paint on top of his photographs. "I realized I could develop my own exclusive style," he says.
That style—which he calls "photo-digital illustration"—has since taken off: McClintock has been creating scenes of...
A Lauraville woodworking shop is proving that tools are for everyone
In a room full of power tools, table saws, and drill presses, you don't expect to find a Girl Scout troop making birdhouses, a group of girlfriends creating decorative mosaics, or a grandmother gluing wooden toys.
But that's a typical scene at Beth's D.I.Y. Workshop in Lauraville, which owner Beth Dellow started so there could be an all-inclusive space for woodworking.
"I wanted to open this...
Ben Rosen is taking his comedy to NYC
Park School alum Ben Rosen remembers his first attempt at a joke. He was five, and his family was exchanging one-liners so he wanted to join in: "The house . . . was red!" he said, cracking himself up. While it wasn't comic gold, the quip made him realize he wanted to be a comedian. He began studying Steven Wright and George Carlin, but it wasn't until 2009 that he mustered the nerve to get...
A group of Eastern Shore history buffs believe Anna Ella Carroll was a secret member of Lincoln’s cabinet.
On a cool, autumn evening, motorists traveling U.S. 50 through Cambridge were doing double takes. As if twilight on the Choptank River had conjured apparitions, there was Abraham Lincoln, alive and well, smiling and waving from a horse-drawn carriage ambling across four lanes of highway. Sitting across from the President was a woman, not so familiar, her black and gray hoop skirt blooming about...
Baltimore's most notorious graffiti artist tries to go straight, juggling family, school, sobriety, and an art world that just might embrace him.
Frank Arthur doesn't just tell stories—he acts them out. Between bites of a Reuben at an Arbutus diner, Arthur recalls creeping past the Pepsi building on a summer night in 1986 with Scrappy G, One Way, and a few other graffiti writers in tow. An assortment of construction equipment and trucks concealed them from cars whizzing past on I-83. The expressway was being widened, and Arthur and his...
MICA alum paints the town with her art
Local artist Erin Fitzpatrick contends that the best way to meet people is to paint them. The MICA alum started painting portraits a few years ago and hasn't looked back. "I started painting my friends, but then realized it was more interesting to meet somebody for the first time that way," she says. The process starts with a 10-minute photo session, where she takes about 30 photos of someone in...
The new leader of Reservoir Hill's Beth Am draws Jews back to Baltimore City.
It's just after 10 o'clock on a spring Saturday morning, and Rabbi Daniel Burg is leading the congregation at Beth Am in Reservoir Hill in a hymn before opening the arc and removing the Torah to read for Shabbat services.
At his feet, under the altar, his children Eliyah, 5, and Shamir, 3, quietly look at books. Nearby, a half-dozen kids gather for the "Torah parade," when youngsters proudly...
Don't worry parents, those otherworldly Otakon costumes are just a fun part of growing up.
Sixteen-year-old Anna Hiser has been planning her costume for this month's Otakon since last October. It's only her second time attending the annual Japanese anime (or animation) conference, but the rising senior at Notre Dame Preparatory School has already become fully immersed in the Otaku culture.
Anna fell in love with manga (Japanese comics) five years ago, when her neighbor loaned her one...
