<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Baltimore, affectionately called &amp;quot;Charm City&amp;quot; by natives, is living up to its nickname. This Mid-Atlantic port is no longer merely a convenient, if undistinguished, stopover for devouring crab cakes and catching a game at Camden Yards en route to Washington, D.C., or New York. Seafood and sports are still a draw, but today Baltimore hums with energy, boasting downtown towers, a burgeoning harbor, a vibrant cultural scene, and hip restaurants. Empty mills and factories, the run-down remnants of the city&amp;#039;s industrial heritage, have been recast as commercial and residential spaces, often with stunning period details restored. A new generation of talented designers and artists, lured by the city&amp;#039;s affordability and neighborliness, is beginning to convert ragged areas into artsy pockets with catchy names like Station North and Highlandtown. Even the iconic crab cake has been spiced up by chefs eager to experiment with Chesapeake traditions.  1 --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt;  Next --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt;  &amp;quot;People are realizing that the things they enjoy when they travel to New York or Europe, they can have here,&amp;quot; says Patrick Sutton, a designer and architect who owns a chic eponymous home-furnishings store. &amp;quot;Baltimore was a meat-and-potatoes, blue-collar, conservative town, but now there is a buzz.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s an exciting time,&amp;quot; says Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, an architecture and design writer who grew up in Baltimore and relocated from the West Coast six years ago. &amp;quot;I am constantly amazed by the talent and depth of work happening here. There is a strong core of creative energy that wasn&amp;#039;t around 15 years ago that is galvanizing the city.&amp;quot;   Baltimore&amp;#039;s renaissance began in the 1970s with the transformation of the Inner Harbor from a dilapidated port surrounded by vacant warehouses and factories into a throbbing tourist mecca complete with glass pavilions for shopping, a superb aquarium, street musicians, and a flotilla of colorful paddle boats bobbing on the water. Half a mile away, Oriole Park at Camden Yards rises from the site of a former Baltimore &amp;amp;amp; Ohio rail yard.   The best way to get a sense of the area&amp;#039;s historic past and its recent rehabilitation is via a blue-canopied water taxi. Harbor East, until recently a no-man&amp;#039;s-land of empty lots and vacant buildings, is now a hub percolating with restaurants, boutiques, high rises, condos, and hotels (a much-anticipated Four Seasons is slated to open next year). Browse the trendy boutiques on Aliceanna Street before heading to Pazo, a machine shop that has been transformed into a rendezvous for martinis and Mediterranean cuisine.   Further east are Fells Point, with its cobblestone streets, eclectic shops, and boisterous nightlife, and Canton, a working-class neighborhood that is becoming a lively enclave, with engaging spots like Blue Hill Tavern. On the opposite side of the harbor, Fort McHenry is a must-see for history buffs, the site of the pivotal battle in the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that would become &amp;quot;The Star-Spangled Banner.&amp;quot;   As exciting as the revamped areas are, they don&amp;#039;t fully represent the diverse, unpretentious, and, yes, quirky, soul of this postindustrial city of more than 600,000 inhabitants that was named after Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Baltimore became a center for shipbuilding and rail and sea shipping; by the 1890s, it was a major port of entry for immigrants, who labored in its factories and mills and are responsible for making the place the rich ethnic tapestry it is today. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;ELLE DECOR Goes to Baltimore.&amp;quot;  --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; 2 --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt;  --&amp;amp;gt;  Baltimore is also a town that revels in its loopy idiosyncrasies. The Ouija board was invented here, its Ravens football team is named for the famed poem by local bard Edgar Allan Poe, and hometown hero John Waters draws inspiration for his subversive films from what he once called &amp;quot;this gloriously decrepit, inexplicably charming city.&amp;quot; Only in Baltimore is Bromo Seltzer combined with the Palazzo Vecchio: In the heart of downtown is a 1911 Italianate landmark, commissioned by Captain Isaac Emerson, who invented the headache remedy. Each of the tower&amp;#039;s four clock faces spells B-r-o-m-o S-e-l-t-z-e-r, but the rotating blue-lit bottle, which once could be seen 20 miles away, was removed in 1936. Today the tower houses artists&amp;#039; studios.  &amp;quot;Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Baltimore has a wonderful eccentric streak,&amp;quot; says Deborah Buck, a native who now owns Buck House, a Manhattan art and antiques gallery. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not a northern or southern city but a mix of people who don&amp;#039;t care about joining the throng and like to think outside the box.&amp;quot;   Many residents are irked that their hometown&amp;#039;s image has been largely shaped by tourist attractions and the gritty inner-city life depicted on the TV drama The Wire. While there is no denying Baltimore&amp;#039;s struggles\u2014its crime rate is among the highest in the country\u2014it is also true it possesses abundant appeal.  &amp;quot;I love walking around\u2014you just turn a corner and come upon an incredible building or unexpected patch of green,&amp;quot; says Meg Fairfax Fielding, a 12th-generation Baltimorean who writes a blog about design and art, Pig*Town Design. &amp;quot;Friends who visit can&amp;#039;t believe the mix of historic and modern.&amp;quot;   About a mile north of the Inner Harbor lie the cobblestone streets of Mount Vernon, a Parisian\u00AD-style square studded with statuary and lined with 19th-century townhouses that could have been the setting for a Henry James novel. On balmy days, when the windows of the Peabody Institute conservatory are open, violin music drifts through the tree-lined streets. This was the address of the town&amp;#039;s social swells, like Betsy Patterson Bonaparte, Napoleon&amp;#039;s sister-in-law, and the Duchess of Windsor, n\u00E9e Wallis Warfield Simpson. If you have the energy, climb the 228 steps to the top of the Washington Monument, the first memorial to our first president. But you might want to save your strength for the Walters Art Museum, where the works, including medieval manuscripts and Greek antiquities, were amassed by William Walters and his son, Henry, and donated to the city.  Bolton Hill, another neighborhood of fashionable townhouses, about a mile northwest of Mt. Vernon, has been compared to Philadelphia&amp;#039;s Society Hill and Beacon Hill in Boston. Design hounds will be delighted that the houses&amp;#039; large, high windows allow them to peek into living rooms, one of which belonged to F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1930s. A popular local watering hole, B Bistro is the spot for eggs Benedict and mimosas on a Sunday.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;ELLE DECOR Goes to Baltimore.&amp;quot;  --&amp;amp;gt;   --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; 3 --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt;  --&amp;amp;gt;  If you prefer kitschy bohemianism to quiet elegance, head to Hampden, a former mill town northwest of downtown where John Waters filmed Pecker. In June, its ebullient annual Honfest, celebrating the sassy local &amp;quot;Bawlmer&amp;quot; women (who address one and all as &amp;quot;hon&amp;quot;), brings out a galaxy of brassy babes in beehives, leopard prints, and cat&amp;#039;s-eye glasses. The heart of Hampden is the Avenue, a four-block stretch crammed with shops such as Red Tree, full of funky home accessories, and Hometown Girl (across from campy Caf\u00E9 Hon), overflowing with wacky souvenirs.   No visit to the city would be complete without a pilgrimage to the Baltimore Museum of Art, adjacent to Johns Hopkins University. It houses, among other treasures, the largest Matisse collection in the world, an extensive array of African art, and a contemporary wing. The BMA is the town&amp;#039;s cultural grande dame, but the American Visionary Art Museum is its iconoclastic wild child, displaying provocative works by self-taught artists.   Is there any visitor who hasn&amp;#039;t been tempted by Baltimore&amp;#039;s famed crab cakes, whether served on a bun or accompanied by asparagus with garlic aioli? Every native has a favorite haunt, but you can&amp;#039;t do better than the jumbo-lump crab cakes at Faidley&amp;#039;s Seafood, a counter in noisy Lexington Market, where the scrumptious food more than compensates for the lack of ambience.  Baltimore&amp;#039;s dining scene has much more to offer these days, thanks to several innovative new restaurants as well as established favorites like Charleston, whose award-winning Low Country\u2013inspired cooking by chef Cindy Wolf has tempted the palates of Ren\u00E9e Zellweger and Condoleezza Rice. &amp;quot;There is a lot more creativity now,&amp;quot; says Tony Foreman, Wolf&amp;#039;s husband. &amp;quot;Fifteen years ago, the most popular entr\u00E9e was $15 fried chicken with a bottle of Kendall-Jackson. Today there are more interesting options.&amp;quot; The lobster risotto at Aldo&amp;#039;s, in Little Italy, and the rice-crusted scallops at B&amp;amp;amp;O American Brasserie, a snazzy downtown newcomer, are two good examples.  Shopping isn&amp;#039;t Baltimore&amp;#039;s raison d&amp;#039;\u00EAtre, but its retail landscape has some diverting design stores that are off the beaten path. Housewerks has a bonanza of architectural salvage and unusual decorative objects stowed inside a 19th-century gas-valve house. And on the city&amp;#039;s northern edge is Mt. Washington Mill, a historic industrial mill that contains Gore Dean, noted for its antiques, tableware, and linens, and Home on the Harbor, an outpost of carefully culled modern furniture and accessories.  Nearby is Roland Park, a hilly three-square-mile residential area developed in the 1890s as one of the nation&amp;#039;s earliest &amp;quot;streetcar suburbs.&amp;quot; Here, Baltimore&amp;#039;s elite built ample Queen Anne\u2013style cottages, English Tudors, and columned stucco mansions. Goodwood Gardens, one of its prettiest blocks, is where Billy Baldwin, the dean of American interior designers, grew up. Known for combining elegance with comfort and disdaining anything boring, Baldwin probably wouldn&amp;#039;t recognize his hometown today. But the city&amp;#039;s energy, quirky attitude, working-class roots, and entrepreneurial spirit create the sort of marvelous mix he no doubt would have appreciated. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;ELLE DECOR Goes to Baltimore.&amp;quot;  --&amp;amp;gt;   --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; 4 --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt;  --&amp;amp;gt;  ESSENTIAL BALTIMORE The area code is 410, unless noted.  Sea the sights. Explore the Inner Harbor by canopied water taxi (563-3901; thewatertaxi.com), stopping at different landings\u2014historic Fells Point, trendy Harbor East, the aquarium\u2014to stroll, shop, and snack.  Immerse yourself in masterpieces. The stately Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) boasts the world&amp;#039;s largest Matisse collection and a sculpture garden (10 Art Museum Dr., 443-573-1700; artbma.org).  Get a kitsch fix. Saunter along the Avenue, four blocks of funky shops, galleries, and caf\u00E9s on West 36th Street in Hampden, a former mill town that&amp;#039;s a favorite of filmmaker John Waters.  WHAT TO SEE  American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy., 244-1900; avam.org: A colossal whirligig and scrap-metal robots are among the many unusual pieces on display here by self-taught artists.  Baltimore &amp;amp;amp; Ohio Railroad Museum, 901 W. Pratt St., 752-2490; borail.org: Marvel at magnificent 19th-century steam locomotives, original tracks, and elegant parlor cars.  Baltimore Museum of Industry, 1415 Key Hwy., 727-4808; www.thebmi.org: This former oyster cannery contains fun interactive exhibits showcasing Baltimore&amp;#039;s commercial history.   Evergreen Museum &amp;amp;amp; Library, 4545 N. Charles St., 516-0341; museums.jhu.edu: An exquisitely restored 48-room Gilded Age mansion full of a railroad tycoon&amp;#039;s treasures.   Fort McHenry, 2400 E. Fort Ave., 962-4290; nps.gov/fomc: These are the ramparts watched o&amp;#039;er by Francis Scott Key in 1814, inspiring the poem that became our national anthem.   Oriole Park at Camden Yards, 333 W. Camden St., 685-9800; theorio\u00ADles.com: Go for a game, a tour of the stadium, and Boog&amp;#039;s barbecue beef.   The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St., 547-9000; thewalters.org: Old Masters, Roman sarcophagi, and Art Deco jewelry are only part of this vast collection bequeathed to the city by Henry Walters in 1931.  Washington Monument, 609 Washington Pl., 396-1049; baltimoremuseums.org: The first monument to the first president towers over Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore&amp;#039;s nod to Paris&amp;#039;s Place Vend\u00F4me.  WHERE TO STAY  Admiral Fell Inn, 888 S. Broadway, 522-7377; harbormagic.com: This historic inn, in what was once a shipyard center, dates to the 1770s and offers afternoon tea and ghost tours.  Hotel Monaco, 2 N. Charles St., 443-692-6170; monaco-baltimore.com: This trendy, pet-friendly hotel, new from the Kimpton group, features 202 guest rooms in a downtown landmark former B&amp;amp;amp;O railroad headquarters.   Inn at 2920, 2920 Elliot St., 342-4450; theinnat2920.com: Mixing quaint with hip, this intimate bed-and-breakfast in a converted row house serves a delicious complimentary breakfast.  Intercontinental Harbor Court Hotel, 550 Light St., 234-0550; harborcourt.com: Every luxury\u2014195 plush rooms, pool, tennis court, and rooftop health club\u2014plus a killer view of the harbor.  WHERE TO EAT  Aldo&amp;#039;s, 306 S. High St., 727-0700; aldositaly.com: Superb Southern Italian food in an elegant setting with private wine cellars for dining.  B bistro, 1501 Bolton St., 383-8600; b-bistro.com: This cozy spot in a 19th-century row house features an eclectic menu and a lively Sunday brunch.  B&amp;amp;amp;O American Brasserie, 2 N. Charles St., 443-692-6172; bandorestaurant.com: Chef E. Michael Reidt serves up charcuterie and pot roast to chic downtown denizens.   Charleston, 1000 Lancaster St., 332-7373; charlestonrestaurant.com: A favorite of foodies, with inspired New American cooking by chef Cindy Wolf.   Faidley&amp;#039;s Seafood, 203 N. Paca St., 727-4898; faidleyscrabcakes.com: Fans of the scrumptious crab cakes have flocked to this Lexington Market lunch counter since 1886.   Gertrude&amp;#039;s, 10 Art Museum Dr., 889-3399; gertrudesbaltimore.com: Gourmet Chesapeake cuisine from chef John Shields in an airy restaurant overlooking BMA&amp;#039;s sculpture garden.   Pazo, 1425 Aliceanna St., 534-7296; pazorestaurant.com: An 1880s tool factory reborn as a hot spot for Mediterranean food (grilled fish, roasted game) and people-watching.  Teavolve Caf\u00E9 &amp;amp;amp; Lounge, 1401 Aliceanna St., 522-1907; teavolve.com: Sunni Gilliam&amp;#039;s spacious modern tea salon showcases a dizzying assortment of brews and light fare.   The Wine Market, 921 E. Fort Ave., 244-6166; the-wine-market.com: This big former foundry has a lively vibe and an adventurous menu, ranging from dumplings to braised pork shank.  WHERE TO SHOP  Antique Exchange, 3545 Chestnut Ave., 532-7000; antique-exchange.com: Husband and wife Tom and Wesley Finnerty mix old and new; vintage items, porcelain, and prints join contemporary pieces.   Betty Cooke Jewelry, 24 Village Sq., 323-2350: This renowned local designer transforms gold and silver into wearable minimalist art.  Gore Dean, 1340-D Smith Ave., 323-7470; goredean.com: The go-to destination for tastemakers in search of high-quality antiques, home goods, and tableware.  Home on the Harbor, 1340 Smith Ave., 433-1616; homeontheharboronline.com: Steps from Gore Dean, this is a sunny oasis of modern design from Knoll, Alessi, Kartell, and Blu Dot.   Housewerks, 1415 Bayard St., 685-8047; housewerksalvage.com: A mecca for industrial artifacts, furnishings, and decorative objects displayed in an 1885 gas-valve house.   McLain Wiesand, 1013 Cathedral St., 539-4440; mclainwiesand.com: David Wiesand&amp;#039;s showroom brims with handcrafted metal and wood furniture, mirrors, and lamps.  Patrick Sutton Home, 1000 Light St., 783-1500; patricksuttonhome.com: \u00ADArchitect-designer Sutton&amp;#039;s sleek domain of custom-designed furniture, antiques, sculpture, and accessories.   Red Tree, 921 W. 36th St., 366-3456; redtreebaltimore.com: Chockablock with quirky gifts, painted furniture, pillows, and works by local artisans.   Sassanova, 805 Aliceanna St., 244-1114; sassanova.com: An adorable pink-and-brown shoe boutique stocked with heavenly soles by Tory Burch, Missoni, and Kate Spade.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;ELLE DECOR Goes to Baltimore.&amp;quot;  --&amp;amp;gt;   --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; --&amp;amp;gt; 5  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/travel/a1476/elle-decor-goes-to-baltimore-63045/?src=shelter_footer>