Close

More search Options

Browse by Subject

Close
Close

More search Options

Browse by Subject

LRB blog

In Baltimore

Ellie Mae O’Hagan

Lexington Market is in downtown Baltimore, a stone's throw from the financial district. The stalls sell soul food, east Asian cuisine and bread; there are also tobacconists, book stalls and jewellers. The covered market, which was established in 1782, will soon be razed and replaced. The developers have promised existing vendors will be able to relocate to the new building. The ostensible aim of the project is to ‘invite more diverse vendors and pull in a broader swath of Baltimore residents’. Most of the people who shop, eat and hang out there are working-class African Americans; it’s hard not to conclude that the ‘broader swath’ the developers hope to attract are affluent white people.

After looking around the market a few weeks ago, I went to see the activists who last year took over an abandoned rowhouse in the Gilmor Homes neighbourhood. The Tubman House, named for the Maryland-born abolitionist Harriet Tubman, is opposite a gigantic mural of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died from ‘significant spinal injury’ after he was arrested and locked in a police van in April 2015. None of the officers involved was prosecuted. The incident led to mass protests across the city.

At the time of Gray's death, houses were being torn down in West Baltimore and the area was slated for gentrification. ‘We wanted to put our grab in,’ the activist Dominique Stevenson told me at the Tubman House, ‘because there’s going to be a land grab.’

The organisers have formed a board, with a president, other officials and bylaws, so they can be a legal entity to which the city can give the house, making it a permanent fixture of the community. At the moment, people from all walks of life stop by – from ‘hippy white folks’ to ‘corner boys’ (young men who sit on street corners, often suspected of involvement in drug dealing). The daughter of the assassinated Honduran activist Berta Cáceres has visited. At Halloween they turned it into a haunted house for local children. ‘We also ran a dance class and a video journalist class, a movie night, political education, and art classes,’ Eddie Conway told me. (He’s an executive producer for the Real News Network and former Black Panther who was imprisoned for nearly 44 years after being dubiously convicted of shooting a police officer).

The activists are growing food on the land next to the house. ‘The community produces something and it’s theirs,’ Conway said. ‘Until there was the Tubman House, all people experienced was police oppression. The house is an example that people can learn from and duplicate.’ Stevenson added: ‘It’s showing people what a socialist system could look like.’

The Algebra Project is based downtown, not far from Lexington Market. Children from three local schools go there to improve their maths, learning from older pupils who act as their tutors. They are also developing skills in political activism. The city has just decided that young people won’t be able to use their free bus passes after 6 p.m. (it used to be 8 p.m.), meaning that those who want to take part in after school activities will have to pay for their transport. The Algebra Project is planning walkouts and rallies to protest against the change.

‘When I first started working here, I never wanted to get arrested and I didn’t think racism was a thing,’ the Project’s 19-year-old social media manager, Kaylah Blake, told me. ‘Being at the Algebra Project made me realise things aren’t sugar sweet. And then Freddie Gray died and I was like, yup,’ she snapped her fingers, ‘this is a thing. And now I’m woke as hell!’

Through political activism, members of the Algebra Project have become more assertive about their place in the world. ‘You learn about who you are and where you come from,’ Blake said. ‘If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you stand for. If I’m black I know I’m black. I came from slavery. Black is not only a skin colour; it’s a lifestyle, a culture, a history.’

Some of the older people involved in the Algebra Project have also been organising with the Tubman House. Both projects are part of a political philosophy running through grassroots activism in Baltimore: that political change will come from the communities who suffer the most from current circumstances, and that they need to regain a belief that they have power. ‘People need something tangible,’ Stevenson said. ‘A win or two or three. People have got used to losing.’

In Baltimore, I saw a microcosm of what broad-based resistance to the Trump administration might look like. The organisers I met there believe that ordinary people already know how to change the world, but lack the tools and encouragement they need to do it. ‘Solutions to poverty will come from someone who had their water cut off last night,’ Blake said. ‘Ordinary people have the power to address ordinary problems because we’re already here and we know the solutions.’

baltimore

Comments

  • 20 February 2017 at 3:02pm
    Fred Skolnik says:
    I hesitate to backtrack but, looking back, you will all have noticed that the Editors close down the Comments section whenever the ignorance or malice of the Israel haters is exposed too pointedly. Of course the remedy would be occasionally to post an unbiased entry but I am afraid the Editors are biased themselves if not actually haters so it is not surprising that other haters are attracted to the site. In any case, questions should not be left unanswered. In the previous post, stettiner stated correctly that the Arabs are not native to Judea and Samaria and someone who calls himself pdiveris immediately popped up and said: "Show us your evidence for this ludicrous claim. Tell us also what you mean by Arabs, as opposed to whom etc." – so I will oblige him with your indulgence:

    An Arab is a descendant of the self-defined Arab nation that came out of the Arabian Desert in the 7th century (note the derivation) and conquered the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, Persia, etc,. etc. That is what stettiner means when he says that the Arabs are not native to Judea and Samaria, just as they are not native to Spain, Persia, etc., etc., and just as the Europeans are not native to the Americas and the conquerors of Britain, from the Romans to the Norman Vikings, are not native to the British Isles.

    But please carry on with Baltimore and pardon the intrusion.
    • 20 February 2017 at 3:39pm
      Dominic Rice says: @ Fred Skolnik
      Well said, sire. The Editors should emulate your exemplary lack of bias.
    • 20 February 2017 at 3:50pm
      holografLRB says: @ Dominic Rice
      Anyone who questions Zionism is antisemitic, QED, but the question I have as a native of Scotland whose 'racial' origins may well combine Pictish, Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon and Norman elements, and perhaps others, is where to pitch my tent and deny land and rights to others. What do you think, Fred? And will the Pictish/Celtic lobby in Washington pay for my sophisticated weaponry and security systems?
    • 20 February 2017 at 4:06pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      I shouldn't reply to this sort of garbage anywhere, much less here, but I can't help myself. Perhaps Mr. Skolnik should read some of the many genetic studies of middle eastern people, which clearly show common genetic heritage for Jews, Arabs, and many other middle eastern peoples. Jews and Palestinian Arabs share the most genetic heritage. What it might mean to be "native" to Judea and Sumeria I won't go into, if you take the bible literally the Jews aren't native either since Abraham started in Turkey. Humans are "native" only in Africa. The Jews claim is that god gave them Canaan, I can't see how this can be made into a reasonable reason to give Jews a state on that land now.
    • 20 February 2017 at 4:41pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ holografLRB
      But the Jews didn't deny land and rights to anyone. They purchased private land in the pr-state period and made a claim to sovereignty in part of the Land of Israel based on their historic connection to the country that wold not have displaced a single Arab.

      What do you mean "questions Zionism"? That's too mild a way to characterize people who uncritically repeat every piece of dirt that vilifies Israel, which they pick up from second- and third-hand English-language sources that they are unequipped to evaluate or verify. That's what I call hatred as opposed to criticism of Israel. Criticism in the spirit of criticism is fine.
    • 20 February 2017 at 4:50pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ suetonius
      Have you read these studies? Are you a biologist? Or are you just taking someone's word for it because it's what you want to hear? The Jews and Arabs are two distinct nations by their own definition and with their own distinct histories. Both of them know exactly where they came from.

      Zionism is a secular movement that grew out of the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, where, unlike the Arabs, their language culture, religion and national identity were formed. God has nothing to do with it.
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:10pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      I am a scientist, and I have read some of the studies. They are very clear. There is no question whatsoever. Zionism was secular, but the choice of Palestine was biblical. Herzl would have been happy with Argentina, but they chose Palestine, and they chose Hebrew, which is a tell. Hebrew was the language of the synagogue. How one might argue that the Jews even had a "national identity" I don't know, the last Jewish state prior to the current one was almost 2000 years ago, and Judaism was quite different back then. There were priest in a temple sacrificing animals to Yahweh. And that was a largely Hellenized state, where the language was Aramaic.
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:29pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ suetonius
      The choice of Palestine was historical. The Bible is a product of a real people with a real history that happened to be rooted in the Land of Israel, which continued to be its focus during all those 2000 years. The Jews have defined themselves from ancient times as a nation or people ("am yisrael"). Herzl would not have settled for Argentina. The reason that he seemed to go along with the so-called Uganda Scheme is clarified in his correspondence with Leopold Greenberg as a tactical move to get the British to accept the principle of establishing a Jewish homeland that would "gradually and surely lead to Palestine."
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:40pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      Well, right. Somehow the fact that the Jews had once lived there gave them the eternal right to rule there? You've made my point for me. And in regards to your post below, "no one asked the Arabs to leave," sorry, but during the war in 48 the Jews drove the Arabs out, not always but often. And they won't let them back. And the Arabs had ruled in Israel 1200 years after the Jews had, so your argument there works against you.
    • 20 February 2017 at 6:09pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ suetonius
      No the Arabs had not ruled for 1200 years. They ruled for 600 years, up to the 13th century, which is less time than they ruled in Spain. You have no point. The fact that a nation is born in a certain place and develops its national life and national consciousness there and aspires to reestablish its sovereign national life there shouldn't have to be explained to anyone.

      The establishment of the Jewish state did not involve the displacement of a single Arab. The war that the Arabs initiated did, just as it involved the displacement of an equal number of Jews from Arab lands.

      You are a perfect example of what I mean when I write about hatred as opposed to criticism of Israel. Your hostility has a bad smell. It is not just that you take one side or the other, you wish to delegitimize the Jews as a people and even their history. I have written that it is not the Palestinians as victims that interests the haters, it is the Jews as culprits. How you came to be a "champion" of the Palestinians I can't imagine. Somehow I doubt your sincerity.
    • 20 February 2017 at 6:31pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      First, try reading. I did not say the Arabs ruled for 1200 years, I said they ruled 1200 year AFTER the Jews. The establishment of Israel involved the displacement of many Arabs. The fact that the Arabs invaded first is irrelevant. The UN decreed that their land was no longer theirs, why should they agree? And as I said, Israel won't let any of them return. If the Arabs do the same does that make it any less wrong?

      As far as hatred, you're funny. I have no interest in delegitimizing the Jews as a people, I am Jewish. I love my heritage. The "Jews" are not culprits, only the current rulers of Israel are. I don't believe in the notion that any group is collectively responsible for anything. Israel has done more to dump Jewish history than I have, with their dismissal of all of Yiddish culture, a thousand years of history. The only reason any of it survived was because an alumni of the same college I went to started collecting all the Yiddish books that were being thrown out in NYC, and opened a museum on campus.
    • 20 February 2017 at 7:01pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ suetonius
      The fact that the Arabs "invaded first" is of course relevant. Since when is starting a war irrelevant. No war, no refugees. The UN didn't decree that the land wasn't theirs. You are confusing presence or land ownership with sovereignty. The land hadn't been theirs in a sovereign sense since the 13th century. They wanted it back. So did the Jews. A compromise was offered. They rejected it. Azzam has explained why. Think about that for a while. That you as a Jew should come down so unequivocally in all this on the side of the Arabs is almost incomprehensible.

      When you write "How one might argue that the Jews even had a 'national identity' I don’t know," it is not, I'm afraid, in the benign spirit of scholarly inquiry but to delegitimize tha Jews as a people for the express purpose of delegitimizing their mational aspirations. There are Jews like yourself who are hostile to Israel, which I don't think you will deny. This involves a particular kind of pathology in my view, for it is unnatural. Anyone armed as you are with so many arguments, going all the way back to Abraham, is clearly nursing a monumental resentment against the State of Israel. I have no interest in speculating about your specific circumstances.
    • 20 February 2017 at 7:42pm
      stettiner says: @ suetonius
      The Jews didn’t live ”once” in the Land of Israel. They lived there continuously for over 3000 years. The Jews are the natives; the Arabs are invaders.

      “Who are the Arabs? The name was originally used to designate the nomadic tribes of Arabia. (…) In the seventh century, however, these nomads established a great empire. (…) For three or four centuries, the Muslim inhabitants of this empire were known as Arabs. With the disintegration of the Arab Empire in the tenth century, the word reverted to its meaning of “nomads”, the peoples of the empire resuming their previous designations (…)”. John Bagot Glubbb, “A short history of the Arab Peoples”.

      Glubb Pasha is of course the man who 1948 ethnically cleansed the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem (in today’s UN-lingo “Arab East Jerusalem”), killing and expelling its inhabitants. The Jews who came back after 1967 are now called “illegal settlers” by the same people who advocate forced Arab emigration to Israel.
    • 20 February 2017 at 8:54pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      "National Identity" has not a thing to do with legitimacy as a people. The land was theirs since they lived there. Jews who lived there deserved the same rights. That is different from the right for any Jew from anywhere to move there. And it is different from the right to have a religious state which automatically delegitimizes anyone of a different religion. What the UN offered was not a compromise. There was a government there. And why exactly is it unnatural for me to dislike the Zionists, or the Israeli government Am I supposed to somehow like anything any Jew does? My wife is a Loeb, no doubt a cousin of some sort of the Loeb of Leopold and Loeb. Am I supposed to defend what he did because he was a Jew?

      I won't even dignify stettiner with a response, you at least seem like a thoughtful person, he is clearly a racist. I will point out that it is not clear that the Jews lived in what is now Israel for anything like 3000 years (though they might have), they certainly didn't have a "Jewish" state there for anything resembling that long. And if one wants to use that argument, then the Europeans had better all leave the Americas quickly.
    • 20 February 2017 at 9:24pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ Fred Skolnik
      You seem to be sliding around whatever spoils your thesis. What does "leaving" have to do with anything, for Europeans in America or Arabs in Israel. No one asked them to leave, only to live under Jewish sovereignty in the part of Mandatory Palestine designated for the Jewish state.

      Israel is of course not a religiou state and it certainly doesn't delegitimize people of different religions. Are you being serious? It is a secular Jewish national state with an Arab national minority, just as Turkey is a Turkish national state with a Kurdish national minority.

      Why shouldn't Jews from "anywhere" move to the State of Israel. Why shouldn't Italian Americans live in Itayy if they wish to? Israel is a sovereign state and like any other sovereign state determines who will live there and under what circumstances. As for the pre-state period, that was entirely in the hands of the Turks and the British. They allowed Jews to come and they also allowed Arabs to come from over 20 different countries in fact.

      When you write that "the 'Jews' are not culprits, only the current rulers of Israel are," or that you "dislike the Zionists or the Israeli government," you are being disingenuous. Like all haters, you are condemning Jewish national aspirations across the board, going back to the time before there was a Jewish state. You are disparaging not only their desire to want one but also their status as a people and their historical attachment to the Land of Israel. So it is a little more than "current rulers" or policies. And that is unnatural because you are denying your own origins and your own history insofar as it is rooted in the Land of Israel. Or maybe you think we're Khazarians.
    • 20 February 2017 at 9:34pm
      Graucho says: @ Dominic Rice
      :)
    • 20 February 2017 at 9:35pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      I give up. You say the same thing, over and over, ignoring anything I say, and ignoring history and logic. And English. You might want to ask a Kurd what it's like to live in Turkey. And you might want to look up the definition of "religious state." But I'm done, no more responses from me, I have a life. I will point out that contrary to your original implication, the LRB has not shut off comments, despite the fact that none of these have anything to do with the original post.
    • 20 February 2017 at 9:46pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ Fred Skolnik
      You should give up. And yes, the Kurds have it pretty bad in Turkey compared to the Arabs in Israel. Amd no, Israel is not a religiou state. I would know if it was. I live there. A dictionary is not going to teach you history or very much else about how people actually live in places you've never seen, but it also isn't going to tell you that it is "irrelevant" who starts a war.
    • 20 February 2017 at 11:31pm
      Graucho says: @ Fred Skolnik
      " where, unlike the Arabs, their language culture, religion and national identity were formed" So what language were the Jews speaking when they were slaves in Egypt and in what language did the almighty carve the ten commandments on the tablets of stone that they might be understood ? Oh and wasn't mount Sinai on the way to Israel and not in it ?
    • 21 February 2017 at 5:49am
      Fred Skolnik says: @ Graucho
      I didn't realize that you were an Orthodox believer. Good for you!

      But wait. If you are, then you have to be one of those people who believe that God gave the land to the Jews. But if you aren't, then you have to be one of those people who believe that the whole thing is made up and God did nothing of the kind, so why bring it up? To prove that there is a contradiction in the Zionist argument? But the Zionists are not Orthodox believers.

      You don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that the Jews were a real people with a real history and a real national life in the Land of Israel.
    • 21 February 2017 at 1:22pm
      Graucho says: @ Fred Skolnik
      I believe there are Jews that believe that God gave them the land, not the same thing as believing it oneself. One sees a lot of debate about whether Moses existed or not which, from what you say, appears to be motivated by the question of whether Jews are native to Israel or not, whatever the word native really means. As to your last paragraph, having gone to school in the days of compulsory RI, I grasp it perfectly.
    • 21 February 2017 at 2:02pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ Graucho
      I can't say that I understand what you are talking about. All Orthodox Jews believe that God gave the Jews the Land of Israel. Zionism is a secular movement that does not invoke God but bases its claim on the historic connection of the Jews with the Land of Israel. Moses is regarded by historians as an ahistorical figure and the Egypyian Exodus as an ahistoricak event as it is described in the Bible. Those who find a grain of truth in the story speak of smaller numbers. They also point to the Hyksos invasion of Egypt as a likely time for a figure like Joseph to have attained prominence, as the Hyksos were a semitic people. All this is studied by historians. What people trying to make political points say about the matter can only be a reflection of the historians they read unless they are just shooting from the hip.

      The connection of the Jews to the Land of Israel and the nature of their national life there does not depend on a literal reading of the Hexateuch or even the later books of the Bible for corroboration. Up to a certain point in the history of nations, there is no historical record, and then suddenly the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans are there in their own lands, leaving us myths, texts, inscriptions, monuments and artifacts out of which a fairly clear understanding of their ancient histories can be arrived at. The same is true of the Jews.
    • 21 February 2017 at 8:01pm
      Graucho says: @ Fred Skolnik
      "I can’t say that I understand what you are talking about". On this at least we can agree.
    • 28 February 2017 at 7:52pm
      zproberts says: @ Fred Skolnik
      Well in the spirit of pure criticism, I've been to Israel and the occupied territories and what is going on there is nothing short of apartheid. That the Israelis, of all people, would do this to another group of people is really depressing. What's even more depressing is that my tax dollars are supporting this apartheid. Shameful.
    • 1 March 2017 at 8:36am
      Fred Skolnik says: @ zproberts
      No, what is going on there is not aparthheid, it is a military occupation. If it were a form of apartheid, all occupations would be forms of apartheid, including the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II. An occupation by definition entails separation between the occupying power and the occupied population and the existence of two different legal systems for occupying and occupied nationals. All separation measures instituted by Israel are solely for purposes of security. Whoever didn't open his mouth when Israeli women and children were being blown apart in buses and restaurants by barbaric Arab terrorists coming out of the West Bank is a hypocrite and a fraud.
  • 20 February 2017 at 4:55pm
    holografLRB says:
    Fred, dear, you've avoided answering my question, but you continue to imply that what's called for is DNA accreditation as a basis – the sole basis? – for residence on a particular part of the Earth's surface. How do you think that will work?
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:08pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ holografLRB
      I'm not really your dear and I don't really understand your question. The issue isn't residence, it's sovereignty, which accrues to nations. Two nations made a claim to sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The Jewish claim was certainly no less valid than the Arab claim. The Jews accepted a compromise, the Arabs chose war with the declared aim of destroying any Jewish state that might be established in the area, and of massacring its population for good measure.

      “The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It’s likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your [Jewish Agency] plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won’t get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we’ll succeed, but we’ll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it’s too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”


      (Azzam Pasha, Arab League Secretary-General, Sept. 1947)

      This is what it's all about. Just another Persia or Spain to conquer. Do you get it now?
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:14pm
      suetonius says: @ Fred Skolnik
      How exactly was the Jewish claim to Palestine as valid as the Arab claim? There had been no significant Jewish population in the area for close to 2000 years. Lets see, 2000 years ago the British Isles were populated by Celts, so perhaps all those Angles and Saxons should leave.
    • 20 February 2017 at 5:34pm
      Fred Skolnik says: @ suetonius
      No one asked the Arabs to leave and the Arabs had not exercised sovereignty in the Land of Israel since the 13th century. The Arabs did not own the Middle East by virtue of conquering it in the 7th century.
  • 20 February 2017 at 7:37pm
    whisperit says:
    Aha! At last, a relevant post for me to continue past discussions that were so disgracefully cut off by the Editors.

    1. In response to "Bloomsburycleverclogs", I'd like to point out that male orangutans have NEVER been observed to use their nipples in anger

    2. Contrary to the assertions of "IhavenofriendsbutaLOTofopinions", it should be noted that, prior to March 1947, the archive of the fifth Earl of Sandwich (the notorious "ChipButty files") had been thought to have been destroyed in the great Deep Fat Fryer Fire incident. Paul Nuttal could therefore have not read them in preparation for his PhD as early as June 1946.

    3. And to "Kate", yes, of course I will marry you.
    • 21 February 2017 at 1:54am
      Bob Beck says: @ whisperit
      Not so fast, "michael bosley" (if in fact that's your real name, which I very much doubt: see below). We've known since at least the last monograph by Stilton-Cheesewright (1973) that the ChipButty files were in fact the archive of the *sixth* Earl of Sandwich: and, moreover, that the so-called Deep Fat Fryer Fire incident was apocryphal. The sixth Earl concocted it in an effort to cover up the truth: the ChipButty files had been eaten by his dog, an Afghan hound of sweet temperament, but mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence. Still, the Earl quite reasonably expected that no-one would believe this account, truthful though it was.

      This elementary error completely destroys your credibility, Sir, leading me to believe that this "Kate" person is a mere figment of your imagination.
    • 21 February 2017 at 9:36am
      whisperit says: @ Bob Beck
      *curses* that's what my therapist said.....
    • 21 February 2017 at 9:38am
      whisperit says: @ whisperit
      waaiit a minute....that's not you, is it, Karl...???
    • 21 February 2017 at 2:21pm
      Bob Beck says: @ whisperit
      Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.
  • 20 February 2017 at 8:47pm
    Bob Beck says:
    This is a quibble, but I thought the officers responsible for Freddie Gray's death were in fact prosecuted -- some of them at least -- just not convicted?

    An inspiring post, anyway. Thank you.
  • 21 February 2017 at 6:09pm
    Timothy Rogers says:
    While I no objection to the nature of the two above discussions that have hijacked this particular blog's comments section, I do have a question: Where are the blog's editors? As an old man who was born and grew up in Baltimore long ago (and was taken to the Lexington and other city markets back in the early 1950s) I have a sentimental and practical-political interest in the topic of the blog, which has suffered from the invasion of the "let's continue a different discussion" folks. Come on, editors, do your job.
    • 21 February 2017 at 8:48pm
      whisperit says: @ Timothy Rogers
      I was, of course, trying to make this point in my own way.

      But perhaps yours is better.
    • 21 February 2017 at 9:59pm
      Timothy Rogers says: @ whisperit
      Well, mine is more direct, but not necessarily better -- I found your back and forth with Bob Beck amusing, but mysterious, having missed the blog to which you were both referring.
    • 22 February 2017 at 3:47am
      Bob Beck says: @ Timothy Rogers
      For my part, judging that Mr. "bosley" (ha! likely story!) was referring to a nonexistent post, I just decided to play along. (Having contributed what was, to that point, the only post both serious and on-topic, my conscience was fairly clear).

      But to the point, and since you know Baltimore: Ellie Mae O'Hagan writes that the market was established in 1782, but does that mean that there's been a market there since, or that the actual building is that old?

      If the latter, the imminent demolition seems even more barbaric. And maybe counter-productive besides, just from the cynical/commercial point of view. Many cities that have renovated such old spaces, instead of "clearing" and rebuilding, have seen a surge in local property prices and an influx of the affluent, white or otherwise. The Distillery District in Toronto, most buildings of which date to pre-Confederation times (1830s), is just one example that springs to mind.
  • 2 March 2017 at 3:15am
    Doc TH says:
    Wrong! Get your facts straight. ALL the police involved were prosecuted. Most were tried and found not guilty, the remaining cases were dropped. The prosecutor overreached on the charges and could not make their cases in court.
Read more