Talking to Myself, #1: Orleans St.

I was driving down Orleans St. the other day. East side. Past Hopkins. I saw something I wasn’t expecting to see.

I saw some of those new gray buildings. You know, that unnecessarily confident gray? All posted up in a little row. Like they just arrived at the party but only plan on talking to each other because everyone else is “ugh so lame”. Dressed wrong too. The whole kit and kaboodle. Never forget the kaboodle.

It’s one thing to be out of place. It’s another to be proud of it.

Like that one guy that inevitably walks into the cafe because of course he does. And he thinks he’s one big renaissance man, but can’t seem to grasp the frustratingly obvious fact that zero people have ever cared. I mean, his mother barely cares. You know she’s long been had enough. And as I write this I can’t help but realize I spend so much time in cafes that what if I am that guy? Scary stuff. God forbid I should ever disappoint my mother like that.

“What’s with him and this extended metaphor?”, you ask yourself. You’re right. I’ll move on.

Point is that guy is always in the cafe because the cafe is his stage. It’s a tool at his disposal. And so he entitles himself to it. He doesn’t really appreciate it because he doesn’t believe he needs to. He transactionally appreciates it. Just as those new gray houses transactionally appreciate that quaint block of Orleans St.

And that brings us to Your Friendly Neighborhood Urban Developer who can never quite drum up the desire to appreciate the neighborhood either.

But it’s more than that.

He has disdain for the neighborhood. Actively. He wants to change it. And then, because he’s such a nice guy, he wants to make money off of it. As much money as possible.

Here’s what I’m getting at:

He saw part of a block of Classic Baltimore Brick Rowhomes — and yes that’s capitalized because there is literally nothing like them and they are living breathing architectural history that will one day be wiped out for no reason other than unbridled unchecked unimpressed cynicism — and he found nothing worth saving. Nothing whatsoever.

In case I didn’t make it clear, he didn’t just paint the houses gray.

He tore down and redesigned the front of each house. Bye bye classic Baltimore architecture. Just like that.

Gasp. Right?

“Come on, isn’t that just the nature of a changing market?”

Look I understand as much as the next person that these are marketing decisions. The Young Urban Professional (insert registered trademark) is after all the one buying these joints up. Confident gray has done a helluva job lobbying that demographic. And Mr. Developer sure does know his audience. Which means a decision has been made as to which audience to cater.

And isn’t that just about as revealing as it needs to be? A hyper-conscious hyper-calculated decision to hyper clash with the neighborhood because of hyper-cultural supremacy. Territorial, really. Like staking his make-believe flag on a hill somewhere because it’s the only way for him to justify his depravity.

But there is no hill. Never was. There is nothing to stake claim to. Never was.

The situation is simple. There were people living there, he showed up, tore down part of their historic neighborhood, and built whatever he damn well pleased. What’s worse is e v e r y o n e knows he didn’t build those houses for those people. He built for specifically not them. He fired the first shot and then crippling anxiety forced him to invent a hill.

Get off the fucking hill.