Secret Baltimore: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

by Evan Balkan

Where in Baltimore did the most decorated female spy in American history go to school? Why are Dorothy Parker’s ashes sitting in a memorial garden at the old NAACP headquarters? And which notorious gangster planted cherry trees in Charm City that are still in bloom today? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t even know you had in Secret A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure.Learn about the connection between the Frank Zappa statue in front of the Enoch Pratt and free-thinkers in Lithuania, or about the blind soccer team in Baltimore with a national championship title. From Lamar Jackson's favorite dessert spot to where Edgar Allan Poe took his last steps and from the childhood home of the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice to a burlesque bar that inspired a Paul Newman movie, you’ll find no shortage of weird, wonderful, and obscure in Maryland’s largest city.Local writer and professor Evan Balkan provides your expert introduction to the poets, gangsters, abolitionists, domestic terrorists, singers, assassins, athletes, and everyone in between who have called his city home. With his book as your guide, you’ll get to know an entirely new side of Charm City.

208 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2020

Reviews

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decently interesting review of lesser-known locations in Baltimore, Maryland. None of them receive an in-depth treatment, but there's enough here for tourists to work with. (B)

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's like a 200 page Baltimore Magazine article, and that's not a good thing. The book is 186 quirky & obscure things to see in Baltimore. Each attraction takes up two pages with a photograph or two. The author uses much of the same cutsie language and approach that is typical of Baltimore Magazine articles, ones that are usually featured on the cover to get you to buy a copy. Except when you do, you realize that you could have read the whole article while waiting to pay for your groceries, and that may have been a waste of your time too. This book is just like that. It actually makes me embarrassed to admit I'm from Baltimore. I've lived here all my life and didn't know about much of what's featured in this book, and I'm still not interested in seeing any of it. Most of the stuff in this book is so mundane that it's not even that unique to Baltimore. I'm sure every major city has much of the same "hidden gems." It's really reaching and you'd do best to not reach for this one.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming selection of areas in Charm City.