I've returned from a weekend trip to Baltimore to stay with some friends I hadn't seen in about a decade. I was able to fly free as I had some miles to redeem but my options were so severely limited that it was nothing short of highway robbery (do you realize how many miles you have to log to even get a free flight, for chrissakes?) As a result my trip was very short, only a day and a half. During that time I managed to fit in a nice dinner of Maryland crabcakes and made a day trip to DC.
My impressions of that area of the country weren't very favorable. I don't know that you could pay me enough to live in Baltimore, at least not the east side where my friends do. They have an adorable little brick Cape Cod and the neighborhood was quaint and comfortable but when you got in the car to go anywhere there was something unkempt about the atmosphere that gave me a sense of unease. It felt old.
Don't get me wrong. I love old if it also manages to impart a sense of the place's history. This wasn't that sort of old. This was submissive, squandered old, teetering on that awkward fence between slovenly and dangerous. I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed the company and I enjoyed the time away from my routine but I didn't like Baltimore much.
My trip to DC was very much the same. Driving in through the surrounding neighborhoods we passed rowhouses that reminded me of those in Philadelphia and in Boston. They are -- or could be -- genteel multi-storied bricks with refined lines and black wrought-iron gates. But no. These were painted so garishly that it detracted from the elegance of the old buildings. Bright yellow, mint green or salmon, paint chipping from the windows and tattered curtains. Boys and men hanging out on stoops or crouching under the ironwork.
So you drive on and suddenly you're surrounded by the glamour that is downtown DC. Buildings from the Civil War, the Potomac winding around, the Smithsonian. The White House. Blair House. The Lincoln/Jefferson/Washington Memorials. The Vietnam and Korean War walls.
It's like heads and tails or silver and gold. Opposites. A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps.
I know that all cities have this two-sided coin vibe to them; the rich and poor and the in-betweens live everywhere. I've seen it over and over again. I suppose it became more apparent to me when I was there because it was our nation's capitol. I've always heard that the crime in DC is some of the worst in this country and having seen the neighborhoods I can see why. While I don't believe it justifies crime in any way, shape or form, I am not without empathy and am able to grasp how some would feel quite strongly that to be poor in the city supposed to represent all that is glowing about our nation is the pinnacle of irony.
Still, DC isn't all that and a bag of chips. It's just a city with a lot of power condensed in a relatively small space. As with Baltimore, I wasn't impressed. Wouldn't live there. But it was a nice trip.
((Song: "Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller Band. Lyrics here:
http://www.oracleband.net/Lyrics/jet_airliner.htm ))
1 comment:
When I saw those row houses, I could see the potential. I could see myself living in one of those houses. But they are just letting it go...they have let it go. I assume that most of those houses are free housing or rentals as the people I saw out in the streets in front of them couldn't afford them even in their condition. And, people don't take care of things that don't belong to them. What do you do with the great unwashed masses?
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