man about town

I get around. Part of my duties as editor of this magazine is to be aware of openings around town of new restaurants, stores and other businesses. I personally write about new restaurants and clubs in our Epicure pages in each issue and on my blog. And for all the musings about the sour economy and sad announcements of store and restaurant closings, there’s a bright spot: There are just as many new restaurants opening up regularly as there ever were. Maybe even more, by my measure.

In this issue, you’ll read about four new restaurants in Baltimore City: Langermann’s, Field House, The Rowhouse Grille and Sam’s Kid (see pages 32 and 34). In the May/June issue, we’ll cover more: Milan in Little Italy, Miguel’s at Silo Point, Blue Grass in Federal Hill, Portalli’s in Ellicott City and Venegas Steakhouse in Maple Lawn. And they keep coming: Ullswater recently opened in Federal Hill, and slated to open this spring are the City Tap House in Harbor East, Charmington’s in Remington and a new tapas bar in the space once occupied by The Bicycle in Federal Hill. That’s just what’s on my radar right now.

So take heart, friends— things aren’t all that bleak. Every new restaurant, pub, bar, lounge and club adds more diversity and excitement to our cultural landscape. It all helps form a more vibrant, livable city.

Another part of what makes for a cosmopolitan, livable city is a thriving and diverse downtown retail landscape. Baltimore once had this in spades: four major, local department store chains— all with behemoth flagship stores centered on Howard and Lexington streets. A “ladies’ mile” of high-end boutiques and shops on Charles Street that lured fashionable women up from Washington to shop. Smaller neighborhood shopping districts on Greenmount Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, in Hamilton, Hampden, Essex and along York Road. Sadly, most of these are gone.

On page 42, Style contributor Mary K. Zajac digs into the history of the Hochschild, Kohn & Co. department store and its grand, six-floor emporium downtown. It’s hard to imagine the bustling energy that these stores had, and how intricately they were woven into the day-to-day lives of Baltimoreans. The memories of the decorated store windows at Christmastime, the formal dining rooms and tearooms, and the much-cherished Thanksgiving Toytown Parade that brought Santa to town and kicked off the Christmas shopping season— all make one a bit melancholy that Hochschild’s is no more.

You can still see Hochschild’s engraved-stone store logo on its big, old service building at Park Avenue and Centre Street. And you can still appreciate its taste and cachet in its 1948 Streamline Moderne-designed Belvedere branch, still looking spiffy on York Road at Belvedere Square (now Daedalus Books and a Lynne Brick gym). The next time you’re there, walk down that sweeping entrance ramp to the lower level (near where Hochschild’s Coffee Cup snack bar once was). There’s a nice display there with big, vintage photographs that relates some of the history of this once-great store. 

Brian Michael Lawrence
editor-in-chief
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http://www.baltimorestyle.com