I grew up in a very stable household. My dad had a stable job working as a general contractor developing commercial real estate, such as office buildings and strip malls. We moved from California to Texas to Idaho for his job, but didn’t have to move again after I entered the 3rd grade. My mom was mainly a stay at home mom when we were in elementary school so she could be involved in our school. After my younger brother started middle school, she went back to work and got a job as an administrative assistant/payroll person/HR rep/jack of all trades for a small manufacturing company (until she retired last month).

We had a stable childhood. Our parents were responsible. I figured they always had their act together.

It wasn’t until I went to college and was sitting around with my parents talking about life that my vision of them was shattered. While my dad was an MBA educated general contractor with a good job, it had been a bit of a long road to get there. After graduating high school, he took a detour through the 1970’s by way of a construction job, housekeeping at a ski resort, and other odd jobs.

During the same time, my mom had a few waitress jobs over the years, but mainly traveled the country with my dad from Michigan, to DC, to Yellowstone, through Houston, to California. She was very invested in the idea of getting married and having kids. However, my dad was in no hurry for either of those things and required a bit of negotiating to get him on the same page. When my dad wanted to move to Los Angeles for his MBA, she said that was nice, but she wasn’t coming unless he put a ring on it. And then when he asked to buy a computer for business school, she countered by asking him if they could buy a crib.

Granted, she was patient. She waited five years for the ring, and another five years for the baby that would eventually go on to move to Baltimore and start a critically acclaimed blog series (or something like that), but it was not a given that I would have the childhood that I had.

Finding out that my parent’s past was not everything I expected based on my upbringing was similar to the reaction I had when I found out that Baltimore’s Inner Harbor has not always been the public face of the city. I have lived in various parts of the Baltimore metro area for over eight years, so I have only known the current iteration of the harbor. Its the big, beautiful spot that acts as the spot for tourists, and large city events like Light City and Fleet Week. The main parts of the city are setup around the harbor, and the beautiful waterfront promenade traces from Canton, to Fells, through the Inner Harbor, and down to Fed Hill. The main draws that make Baltimore more than a mid tier city like Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium are a few blocks west, the Convention Center is almost next door on Pratt St, and our world class aquarium is on one of the many piers.

“You know, when I was growing up, we would never go to the inner harbor. It was dirty, and full of rats,” said Linda, my friend’s Mom who grew up in the suburbs.

Just like the surprise when I found out that my dad was a ski bum in his 20’s, I was shocked to find out that Baltimore had gone through a rather significant change in the mid to late 20th century.

The harbor in the 1960’s. http://www.kilduffs.com/Harbor.html

Last week I found out how close the city came to putting an interstate through the Inner Harbor and Fells Point, but I never realized that they basically did put a highway all the way around it by the 1960's. The Key Highway, Light St and Pratt St were all right next to the harbor. But the industrial boom in Baltimore was already starting to fade, and there were some beautiful plans for the waterfront, but nothing had really come to fruition yet.

The 1970’s were the years in my parent’s lives where they started dating, and making the changes in their lives that would result in the childhood that I took for granted. Baltimore saw the same changes happening to the area that would become the core to its identity as well.

The closed power plant building with the National Aquarium behind it. http://www.woodhavenhistoric.com/index.php/photos-by-subject/power-plants/pratt-street-power-plant-independent-city-md-photo.html

1973 — the Pratt St Power Plant, which would eventually hold retail space in the harbor, officially stops being used as a power plant. It had largely been out of use since the beginning of the century, and had seen a spike in usage during World War II, but dropped into disuse again and was officially decommissioned in 1973. It would have a theme park and dance club as tenants in the 80’s, before finding success with its current format in the 90's.

1976 — The Maryland Science Center opens.

1977 — The World Trade Center opens.

1980 — Harbor Place opens. These are the two shed-like buildings that are the home to the very touristy tenants like the Cheesecake Factory, Ripley’s, Its Sugar, and many others at the corner of Light and Pratt.

1981 — The National Aquarium opens. As you can see from the picture of the power plant above, even after that point, there still was not a cohesive waterfront because it lacked the walk-ability that the waterfront promenade would eventually provide.

This video from the 1980’s, after the Aquarium opened, shows the early stages of the waterfront. Even with all of the ingredients set in place, including some of the first parts of Rash Field.

Today, the waterfront is still growing. We have Rash Field undergoing a major redevelopment, Harbor East and Harbor Point going up in force, McKeldin Square being redeveloped, and the remodeling of the Harbor Place sheds. The waterfront is still growing.

Fogo de Chao

The Inner Harbor is an amazing place, and is a tourist draw. If you have done any traveling to other mid to large sized cities that have a tourist facing downtown, you may recognize the same places that Baltimore has attracted: Hard Rock, Dick’s Last Resort, Its Sugar, Urban Outfitters, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and Bubba Gump. A recent trip to San Diego’s Gas Lamp District had a lot of those places almost in the same order that we have them in the harbor.

Another common ingredient in tourist areas is Fogo de Chao, a high end Brazilian steakhouse that tends to open in higher end tourist areas. Even though the restaurant is usually filled with tourists visiting from our of town, there is nothing Baltimore about Fogo. But there is everything amazing about this place.

The reason we chose the Inner Harbor this week is because our friend, Becky from Montana, was in town. Despite the fact that, over the course of writing this blog, I have found so many great places in Baltimore to explore, the Inner Harbor is still a great place to bring people new to the city. There are few nicer walks you can take someone on to show them the best views of Baltimore than the waterfront promenade.

Before we moved to the city, we used Fogo de Chao as a special occasion type dinner. Not only do they have an amazing selection of meats, but their salad bar is pretty amazing. I was not a huge fan of my veggies, but I can partially attribute my warming relationship to healthy foods to the Fogo salad bar.

If you have never experienced a Brazilian churro style restaurant, they basically bring skewers of meat around and give you small cuts of as many of them as you want. Its expensive, at $55 per person, but is well worth the experience. It is Maureen’s birthday this week, and her friend was in town, so it seemed like just the excuse to go.

If you want cuts of meat done well, Fogo is definitely a good place to go. They have amazing cuts of sirloin steak, pork, bacon wrapped meat, ribs, and about a dozen other great cuts. The salad bar has some of the best tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, crisp asparagus, and salad of course. The Parmesan bread and polenta come when you sit down, and are great if they are fresh. Its a spendy meal, but you get what you pay for.

I am not sure how authentic it is, but I guess it bodes well if there is a Fogo in Brazil. But honesty, I don’t care if its authentic. The food is phenomenal.

The Wrap

Sometimes you can spend lots of time with someone and think you know them well, and then find out that they were a wildly different person ten years before. That’s what I learned about Baltimore this week. I enjoyed a great meal at Fogo with an out of town friend, but there were a lot of ingredients that brought together the Inner Harbor stew that created the environment that would attract a high end restaurant like Fogo to our beautiful city.

This blog is about celebrating the diversity in our great city, and its easy to say that the diversity should be the blue collar, non chain type of diversity. But true diversity goes all the way from our visit to Waverly last week, to the Inner Harbor this week.

Next week, I will be at a conference in the Baltimore Convention Center, so we will be back in two weeks! If you like this post, please recommend it to your friends!