On Baltimore

Several of my recent posts have made allusion, either passing or explicit, to the unbearable weather afflicting the mid-Atlantic states. No city is succeptable to such as Baltimore.

Downtown Baltimore is a gridded mish-mash of ugly buildings, endless concrete and dirty water. It may, perhaps, be the least aesthetically pleasing city in America. I have met delightful people here, but there dispostion scarcely distracts from the fact that the live in a pit of despair.

For miles and miles one finds no estimable green space-- no parks, no yards, only a few fresh planted trees. There is only concrete here-- and this concrete absorbs the heat and magnifies it until one has the impression of living in a pizza oven.

The Inner Harbour, a blight on the otherwise pleasent Cheseapeake Bay, is a yacht-filled mass of pollution that stretches it's brown, oily fingers haphazardly through downtown.

Away from downtown, one encounters slum after slum, urban decay and empty lots overgrown with weeds and poverty. Standard issue architecture lines every street. Nothing stands out amidst the lackluster skyline.

Gross, sweaty, entirely unremarkable and wholly unpleasent, one can only flee and catch the first train to the District of Columbia.