Baltimore: gleaming with new-found optimism, this thriving Maryland port brims with maritime lore and family-friendly appeal - City Of The Month

Travel America, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Randy Mink

Mounted on the smokestack of an old power plant, a giant neon guitar heralds the home of Baltimore's Hard Rock Cafe, part of an entertainment complex that symbolizes the new image of an historic port city once short on glitz, glamor, and visitor appeal.

Inside the red-brick building that provided power for Baltimore's electric trolley system, pleasure-seekers throng the Hard Rock for music memorabilia or immerse themselves in the world of sports at the Disney-designed ESPN Zone. After dining at these theme restaurants, they can walk inside the supersized chimneys that shoot through Barnes & Noble Booksellers, another tenant of this reborn edifice (called The Power Plant) on Baltimore's downtown waterfront, the Inner Harbor.

Along the harbor's brick promenade, ringed with shops, eateries, and museums, a carnival atmosphere prevails where sailors and dock workers once toiled. People pedal away merrily on paddleboats. There are families everywhere.

Before urban renewal started turning things around in the 1970s, the harbor basin was mostly a collection of rotting wharves and abandoned warehouses. Hardly a tourist playground, Baltimore was just an aging industrial city, not worth more than a quick stopover between Philadelphia and Washington. A second renaissance, with $1 billion in construction projects planned through 2002 for the Inner Harbor and elsewhere, started in the late '90s.

From your room at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel or Hyatt Regency Baltimore, you can see the masts of the tall ship U.S.S. Constellation, the only surviving Civil War-era naval vessel afloat. It became the Inner Harbor's first tourist attraction in 1969.

Pedestrian bridges link the hotels to the green-roofed, glass pavilions of newly revitalized Harborplace, a festival marketplace featuring outposts of such national favorites as Banana Republic, Planet Hollywood, and California Pizza Kitchen. Connected to the 622-room hotel is the Gallery at Harborplace, an atrium mall with upscale stores like Godiva and Brooks Brothers.

All the Inner Harbor's attractions are within walking distance of each other; Baltimore's intriguing neighborhoods, such as Little Italy and Fells Point, are easy to reach by foot or water taxi. The red-brick Baltimore Waterfront Promenade, almost complete, connects the waterside communities.

Most sightseeing in Maryland's largest city seems to center around its maritime heritage. For a harbor overview, many visitors launch their explorations with a narrated lunch or dinner cruise aboard the Bay Lady or Lady Baltimore.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore, an Inner Harbor landmark crowned with a pair of ribbed glass pyramids, is one of the country's best aquariums and Maryland's most visited attraction. During the summer tourist rush and holiday periods, it sometimes sells out by mid-afternoon. One pyramid houses the Marine Mammal Pavilion, site of daily bottlenose dolphin shows. The other encloses the rooftop South American Rain Forest, alive with squawking parrots, scampering monkeys, and sloths hanging on branches. Complementing this upland forest is the new Amazon River Forest, a flooded lowland jungle with a diversity of wildlife, from piranhas and giant turtles to brilliant birds, dwarf caimans (close relatives to the alligator), and a 300-pound green anaconda.

The Maryland Science Center is another family-friendly attraction on the Inner Harbor, offering three floors of hands-on exhibits, an IMAX theater, and star shows in Davis Planetarium. Junior scientists ages 3 to 7 can experiment in the K.I.D.S. Room.

The nation's third largest children's museum--and the only one designed by Walt Disney Imagineering--is located in the former Fishmarket building, a block northeast of the Inner Harbor. Billed as the "Kid-Powered Museum," Port Discovery includes KidsWorks, a three-story climbing structure; and Miss Perception's Mystery House, where children can crawl into the kitchen sink and snoop around a wacky, clue-ridden house in search of a missing family. Kids can rise 40 feet in a hot-air balloon tethered outside.

Across the plaza from Port Discovery is Power Plant Live! It's a new entertainment district with night clubs and restaurants in redeveloped brick townhouses. Tenants include Ruth's Chris Steak House, the Havana Club, McFadden's Irish Pub, Improv Comedy Club, and a 2,500-seat music hall where nationally known artists perform in concert. There's plenty of outdoor seating on the common plaza, where a sound-and-light show takes place every night.

Besides the U.S.S. Constellation, the waterfront abounds with other National Historic Landmark ships worth a visit. An all-day pass ($15.50) covers several museum ships grouped under the National Historic Seaport of Baltimore banner.

The Torsk, a Navy submarine now painted to resemble a shark, torpedoed the last enemy warships in World War II. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney is the last warship afloat that survived the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Tourists also can board the bright red Lightship Chesapeake, which marked the entrances to the Chesapeake and Delaware bays for almost 40 years.