Boom and Bust

July 2, 1980, was a very big deal in Baltimore City, Maryland. The two Harborplace pavilions downtown, right on the water, opened to great fanfare.

Developer James Rouse turned old ratty docks and vacant fields into a glitzy shopping-eating-fun factory that had people coming from all over. "It's the new wave of city planning," everyone said, and business boomed and the city and state built a baseball stadium and football arena nearby and everything was going to be crabcakes and fudge. The Fudgery was a popular shop where fudge was made and while the young men and women who worked there flopped the fudge with giant spatulas on marble, they sang in such beautiful harmony that a group of them got together, formed a singing quartet called Dru Hill (after the Baltimore way of saying "Druid Hill," their northwest neighborhood) and had some hit records. One of the group, Sisqó, had solo hits including the wedding-reception favorite "The Thong Song."

Oh, it was glorious down there for the first couple of years and then, four decades later, people started noticing that one by one, businesses (and crowds) were leaving Harborplace, and what had been the hope of the newly revitalized Inner Harbor was just a couple of tumbleweeds short of ghost town status.

So now, they're going to tear it down and do something else there. David Bramble is the developer from West Baltimore who is heading up the project to turn Harborplace around, and he has decided to tear down both pavilions and start from zero.

It's going to take time (5 years) and money (millions of dollars in public and private investment) but it's going to happen.

I don't know what sort of store or restaurant will be popular down there, but someone will think of something.

I don't know much, but I do know people will always need to eat and wear clothes, so let's see who comes up with what!