A part of Belt's City
Anthology Series, a unique take on Charm City through the
eyes of those who live there every day.
To many outsiders,
Baltimore--sometimes derisively called "Mobtown" or
"Bodymore"--is a city famous for its poverty and violence,
twin ills that have been compounded by decades of racial segregation
and the loss of manufacturing jobs. But that portrait has only given
us a skewed view of a truly unique and diverse American city, the
place that produced Babe Ruth, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Edgar
Allan Poe, John Waters, and Thurgood Marshall, and a city that's
completely its own. In the over thirty-five essays, poems, and short
stories collected here, the authors take an unfiltered look at the
ins and outs of Baltimore's past and present. You'll hear about the
first time an umbrella appeared in the Inner Harbor,
nineteenth-century grave robbers, and the city's history with
redlining and blockbusting. But you'll also get a deeper sense of
what life is like in Baltimore today, including stories about urban
gardening in Bolton Hill, the slow demise of local journalism, what
life was like in the city during COVID, and the legacy of Freddie
Gray.As Ron Kipling Williams writes in his essay about the city's
magnetic appeal, "Baltimore has always been a city worth
fighting for," and running through all these essays is the story
of Baltimore's resilience. From Pigtown to Pimlico, this anthology
captures the sights, sounds, and feel of this city that so many
people have come to discover is truly a lovely place, a fighting
place, a charmer.Edited by Gary M. Almeter and Rafael Alvarez, this
anthology offers an unfiltered look at Baltimore that will appeal to
anyone looking for a portrait of an American city that's far more
nuanced than the stories that are generally told about it.
