http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/Baltimore

We've brought a flag!



There's so much love in Baltimore

Working hand in hand

To make this place a better land

In Baltimore

Love is what you'll find

So stop and take the time

I've got Oriole Baseball on my mind" Tori Amos note 1979, under the name Ellen Amos. "We like it here in BaltimoreThere's so much love in BaltimoreWorking hand in handTo make this place a better landIn BaltimoreLove is what you'll findSo stop and take the timeI've got Oriole Baseball on my mind"

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Baltimore (nicknamed "Charm City") is the largest city in the state of Maryland. It is located in the central area of the state along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore was founded in 1729 and became an independent city (separated from Baltimore County) in 1851. Information about the distinct neighborhoods of Baltimore City can be found at the Other Wiki .

Historically, Baltimore is probably most notable for being the birthplace of the National Anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner". The titular flag in the song was flown over Fort McHenry during the siege of Baltimore during the War of 1812. As depicted in the first stanza of the song (the part sung at the start of every major sporting event) the flag continued to fly over the fort, despite the siege, with only minor damage. Fort McHenry is also the first to fly the new flag when a state enters the union. The actual 15-star flag, however, is not kept here (it's in the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.).

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Fort McHenry also was famous (or infamous) for turning its cannons on the citizens of Baltimore during the Civil War, done to keep the city, a major trade port which served as an outpost of the slave trade, from defecting to the Confederacy and thus surround Washington with hostiles. In fact, had it not been for this incident, which was memorialized in the song "Maryland, My Maryland," the war could have turned out very differently. Incidentally, this put Baltimore and Maryland as a whole into an odd little identity crisis over whether it was a northern or southern state. This still persists to this day, and it's not uncommon to see memorials to the brave Maryland Troops on both sides of Civil War battlefields. In Gettysburg, there is even a case of a Union Maryland monument directly across the battle line from a Confederate monument.

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In sports, the Preakness Stakes, an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds (and the "second jewel" in the Triple Crown note Between the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes), is held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course. Fans of the city's pro football team, the Ravens, have a long-standing rivalry with those of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They aren't too fond of the Washington Redskins either. In fact, part of the reason the Steelers and Redskins are both so detested in Baltimore is because they both have significant fanbases in Baltimore, which infuriates Ravens and Baltimore Colts loyalists. Speaking of which, don't mention the Indianapolis Colts if you value your teeth. They used to be the Baltimore Colts, but the franchise moved out of the city in the dead of night, leaving it with the distinct impression they had been stabbed in the back. note The retaliation against the company that moved the team's equipment, Mayflower Movers, was so strong that the company is still unable to get work in the state. Cleveland has a similar attitude towards the Ravens, since they were the original Cleveland Browns.

In baseball, Baltimore is home to the Orioles of MLB's American League, who have a long-standing rivalry with the New York Yankees (who were actually the original Orioles for two years before moving to Bronx in 1903), the New York Mets (Baltimore tends to hold deep grudges in sports; the dislike of the Mets is due to a "bad call" in the 1969 World Series), the Cleveland Indians (several nasty playoffs meetings; see the deep grudges thing) and the Washington Nationals, though both the Mets and Nats are rarely played against (being in the National League). Since 1992, the Orioles have played in Orioles Park at Camden Yards, a refurbished train yard that turned into the first of the retro ballparks created in the 90s and 00s. The Orioles have also had an impressive list of who's who, being the first top-flight team Baltimore native Babe Ruth played on, and the exclusive team of Cal "Iron Man" Ripken Jr., who played the most consecutive games.

Artistically speaking, Baltimore is home of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, the Baltimore School for the Arts , the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and the Peabody Institute .

Baltimore City is also the home of Johns Hopkins University , Johns Hopkins Hospital , the Domino Sugar refinery (known locally as "the sugar factory"), and the Inner Harbor, a tourist location of shops, restaurants, boat slips, and the National Aquarium. It is no longer the home of McCormick & Company, the spice maker, who moved out to Hunt Valley, a suburb of Baltimore. In fact, to celebrate the anniversary of their move, during 2007, McCormick was running ads in newspapers and magazines to tell people that if you still had a can of McCormick Spice that in the manufacturer's identity field, said "Made by McCormick & Co, Baltimore MD" instead of "Made by McCormick & Co., Hunt Valley, MD" your can of spice was over 20 years old.

Hunt Valley is also the home to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of many TV stations in large markets. Also in the realm of TV are the stations based on Television Hill in the northwest side of town: WJZ-13, owned by CBS, and previously a Westinghouse station, before CBS bought them in the 90s (they were ABC before that); WBAL-11, flagship of Hearst Television and an NBC affiliate (they switched to CBS in 1981, but reclaimed NBC in 1995); and the flagships of Sinclair, WBFF Fox 45, and WNUV CW 54. TV Hill's famous candelabra tower can been seen from across the city.

WMAR-2, the ABC station (owned by Scripps; they were initially CBS but got NBC in 1981, then ABC in 1995) is the only station that isn't based on Television Hill. In May 2014, their studios were the subject of a major news story, when a man tried to force his way into the studios by ramming a stolen truck into the lobby .

As a port city, Baltimore was kind of important during things like the colonization of America, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. Baltimore was also the second busiest port of entry on the East Coast in the 19th century. Because Maryland was founded as a religious sanctuary for Catholics in England, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore is the oldest in the United States and is a major stopping point for Popes when they visit the country. Pope John Paul II famously held mass in Camden Yards in his 1995 visit. Because of this, it's not uncommon for people from the Baltimore Area to be depicted as Catholics in media and having gone to Catholic School. Babe Ruth and Tom Clancy both attended local Catholic Schools.

Culturally, Baltimore is known for two things: Crabs, which must be covered in large quantities of Old Bay Seasoning, and must be Maryland Blue Crab, none of that stuff you get in Florida. The other is the...unique accent of city natives. Be prepared to be called "Hon'" A LOT, and learn to say goodbye to hard consonant sounds and hello to drawn out vowels. ("Baltimore" is pronounced by natives as "Bawl'imer" (or "Balw-mer" or "Ball-tee-mo") more often than not, as examples.) Baltimore is also the birthplace of National Bohemian Beer, or "Natty Boh" as Baltimoreans call it.

Unfortunately for Baltimore, the city is most likely to appear in media because of its high crime rate. Both Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire—helmed by former Baltimore Sun journalist David Simonnote A D.C.-born Baltimorean who, for the record, cares deeply about the city and regards his two most famous works as tough love for his beloved home—focused on the high crime and corruption in the city and, by and large, did a good job portraying it. The annual murder rate typically goes above triple digits before June; this is factoring in that crime in the city is on a downturn. This has lead many people both in and out of the city calling it "Harm City" or "Bodymore, Murderland". When Osama bin Laden was killed, Steven Colbert noted that if the capitol of Pakistan was Washington D.C., then the bin Laden compound was in Baltimore... then observed that you were more likely to get shot in Baltimore. Since the Freddie Gray Riots in 2015 (two riots, one lesser known that took place on a Saturday and caused Camden Yards to refuse people from leaving the stadium as the riot was one block over and the more well known one the following Monday), the murder rate has gotten much worse. With an average of one murder a day, Baltimore may not boast the most murders per day (that honor goes to Chicago) but it holds the most murders relative to the population. To put this in perspective, in 2016, Chicago had just north of 700 murders compared to Baltimore's 300+. However, Baltimore is a smaller city and, had it had a population similar to that of Chicago, would have had an estimated 1,000 plus murders. And those are just the people who die. The number of people who are the victims of violent crime is incredibly high and the only reason that the shooting victims to murder ratio is so low is some of the worst parts of the city just happen to be near some of the best hospitals in the country. So the good news is if you're shot in Baltimore, you're more likely to survive. The bad news is you're more likely to get shot in Baltimore! It's gotten so bad that the Yanks with Tanks have started sending combat surgeons to train in area hospitals because it's the closest thing in the states they have to actual injuries they are likely to face in the field. So the reputation in media, while unfortunate, is not unfounded.

Unfortunately for the rest of Maryland, people from out of state tend to use "Baltimore" and "Maryland" interchangeably, despite the cultural diversity of the state, and in particular despite the fact that the city is unrepresentative of the state as a whole. Fun fact: The most populous and arguably the most economically important county in Maryland, Montgomery County (which is also the one Maryland location out of the 20 finalists for Amazon's HQ2), is not even in the Baltimore metropolitan area; it is in the D.C. area.

Baltimore is the only jurisdiction specifically established by the Constitution of Maryland (all other cities, towns and counties were established by ordinary legislation). It used to be suggested from time to time to amend the state constitution to rejoin the city and Baltimore County, although such proposals always drew strong opposition from Baltimore County. The last such proposal was made in 1999 and withdrawn in less than a month.

Notable Pop Culture Things From or Set in Baltimore

Film

Literature

Most of Tom Clancy's novel Without Remorse is set in Baltimore.

In From the Earth to the Moon the protagonists are members of the Baltimore-based social club "The Gun Club".

Jane Porter and her family from the Tarzan series are well-to-do Baltimore natives.

In the Hannibal Lecter franchise, the titular doctor practised in Baltimore and was a member of the city's social elite — who unwittingly chowed down on banquets made from the flesh of his victims. Once the truth comes out and Lecter is incarcerated, the Baltimore elite are said to suffer a sudden rash of alcoholism, institutionalisation, and crippling anorexia.

Live Action Television

Newspaper Comics

One Big Happy is set in Rick Detorie's hometown of Baltimore.

People

Stacy Keibler - Former Ravens Cheerleader, WWE "Manager"

Ric Ocasek

Tupac Shakur (attended the Baltimore School for the Arts; not a Baltimore native)

Dru Hill (90's R&B group where Sisqo of "Thong Song" fame got his start. They're named after Druid Hill Park, which sounds like "Dru Hill" in the local accent).

Jada Pinkett-Smith - attended high school with Tupac.

Web Comics

When Heaven Spits You Out: Baltimore serves as the home of series protagonist, Ryan Hanson.

Notable Pop Culture Things From or Set in Maryland in General

Film

Television

''Homicide: Life on the Street is about the Baltimore Police Department.

NCIS occasionally sends the team into "Maryland". It's never actually Maryland.

The Wire is set in Maryland.

The X-Files would have you believe that parts of Maryland and Baltimore City look a lot like Vancouver.

Music

David Deboy's Christmas song "I want Crabs for Christmas" is about a Baltimore native asking a mall Santa for a bushel of Maryland Crabs for christmas, as it would remind him of his home in "ol' Ball-tee-more". You can listen to it here .

Professional Wrestling

WCW's secondary-flagship pay per view event The Great American Bash was generally, although not exclusively, held in Baltimore. When WWE revived the event they did not retain the association with Baltimore.

People

Notable Pop Culture Things Where Baltimore or Maryland Subbed for Another Location

General

In the 2000s and 2010s, a small part of Maryland's politics have been looking for ways to attract the film industry to do shoots in the city and in the state in general. Maryland being a small size has a surprisingly diverse topography, which affords film makers the ability to get a good bulk of subbed locations with little travel time to location sites. Early, Baltimore was even discussed as Hollywood of the East. The problem comes with taxation, which cost Maryland several of these film locations. It wouldn't be as embarrassing if two films (Annapolis and Hairspray) weren't set in the state. This is changing, as noted in House of Cards below.

Film

Washington Metro: The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the bus and subway operator for Washington, DC, has a policy that they will not permit any filming of any movie in the subway system where violence occurs. If someone gets shot in film taking place a subway in Washington, DC, it will not be allowed to be filmed there. Typically the producer will travel 65 miles to downtown Baltimore, where the Maryland Transit Authority has no problem allowing a movie where someone is shot at to be filmed in the Baltimore subway system. The movie The Jackal (the one with Bruce Willis) has a scene involving a firefight in the subway, supposedly in Washington, but the subway fight was filmed in Baltimore.

In For Richer or Poorer, Baltimore subbed for New York City for street scenes. The bulk of the film was filmed in the small town of Wetminister, MD, which is about 40-minutes from Downtown Baltimore, just south of Pennsylvania, which was subbing for Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is just north of the Maryland Border.

The Social Network uses Johns Hopkins University's main "Homewood" campus for many of its Harvard scenes, thanks to Harvard's famous prohibition against filming on campus.

Live-Action TV

The American version of House of Cards, although set in DC, is largely filmed in Baltimore, thanks to the similar look-and-feel of the locations, and because of Maryland's tax credits.

Notable Pop Culture Things Associated with Baltimore or Maryland

Anime

Otakon , an anime convention held in the Inner Harbor during the summer until it outgrew the venue, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 2017. Reported may return after renovations to the Baltimore Convention Center.

People

Edgar Allan Poe

Cal "Iron Man" Ripken

The Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts

The Baltimore Ravens

The Baltimore Orioles

Michael Phelps aka The Baltimore shark.

Events

The middle-of-the-night move of the Baltimore Colts football team to Indianapolis. Decades later, some people still haven't gotten over it.

The Beltway Snipers: John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, a pair of serial/spree killers active and captured in 2002. note Except Not Really. The Beltway Snipers were active around the DC Beltway, not the Baltimore Beltway and are often properly referred to as the D.C. Beltway Snipers. That said, they were never tried for their crimes in D.C. because the Beltway only runs through D.C. for length best measured in feet. It's the shortest stretch of Interstate Highway between borders of two separate states. Their crimes were entirely within Maryland and Virginia. The pair inspired a series of Ripped from the Headlines stories, most notably a Season One episode of CSI:Miami and a one off gag in Runaways justifying why the team's first mode of transportation was a white van note Complicating the capture of the perpetrators was that the initial attacks just happened to have white vans, often associated with home maintenance and utility services, that were leaving near the scene at the time of the attack. The snipers heard this report and made sure their future targets were killed by White Vans... they drove away in a blue four door sedan.