Home turf

BALTIMORE

WORDS BY CATHERINE ARNOLD

Woman of Letters

Thriller writer Laura Lippman says her love for her hometown of Baltimore is no mystery.

If there’s one thing detectives know, it’s the streets they work. Laura Lippman has published a mystery novel a year since 1997, most set in Baltimore and about gumshoe/ reporter/rower Tess Monaghan. Nearly every day, Lippman— a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun herself—walks the streets around her south Federal Hill neighborhood looking for stories and dialogue.

It’s clear that the city by the Chesapeake has rubbed off on Lippman, the author of titles such as Baltimore Blues and Charm City (the latter is a reference to Baltimore’s nickname).

So, enough suspense—here’s what Lippman has to say about her hometown.

What tugs at your heartstrings in Baltimore?

I love being able to get around this narrow-streeted city on foot.

I started to walk in order to be more of a citizen of the world, but have continued because I learn so much about day-to-day life for my books. Really, it’s all about eavesdropping on people’s conversations.

I also really like to walk around in cemeteries—though they’re not really about the overheard conversations. Graveyards are a great place to get a sense of a place’s history, to know where you are. And, for writers, they’re great places to find inspiration for character names.

The city’s best is Greenmount, where John Wilkes Booth is buried. It has a whole Booth family area, although his grave is unmarked in order to protect it; it’s a beautiful old cemetery. At Loudon Park Cemetery, [journalist] HL Mencken is buried, and Mergenthaler, who invented offset printing.

One of the best graveyards is Hebrew Friendship Cemetery, in east Baltimore. Harry Weinberg, one of Baltimore’s wealthiest citizens, is buried there; he died a billionaire in 1990. He grew up in southwest Baltimore and prospered in real estate. Westminster Cemetery, where Edgar Allan Poe is buried, is another favorite. Westminster has catacombs, and there’ve always been rumors that local medical students spirited away bodies for scientific experiments.

As is well known, a mysterious visitor goes to the graveyard every year on Poe’s birthday, leaving three red roses and a bottle of cognac. They go to the site where Poe was originally buried, before being moved to a monument. That cemetery is a beautiful, old-fashioned, eerie place in the middle of bustling downtown Baltimore.

What else do you like in your city?

Water taxis on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor are pretty great—$8 buys you unlimited rides all day. You can go all around the harbor, from South Baltimore to Canton.

Fort McHenry, a War of 1812 landmark, is about a mile and a half from where I live, with a terrific view of the harbor on a clear day: blue water, the fort, and its cannons. We go there to fly kites.

I love the American Visionary Art Museum, in my neighborhood. They specialize in outsider [untrained] art, and have a permanent exhibit of screen painting. That’s a disappearing folk tradition in Baltimore—people paint elaborate scenes on their screen doors.

The Baltimore Museum of Art has a wonderful permanent exhibit on the Cone sisters, who were from Baltimore and were great collectors of art.

Where’s a good place to eat and forget those pesky plot details?

I grew up with a family that really liked food. Although my parents weren’t indulgent in their spending—they were very Depression-era—they liked to eat. These days, I can say with confidence that there’s never been a better time to eat out in Baltimore.

In my neighborhood, I love Bicycle, which is modeled on the Alice Waters concept of using only seasonal ingredients. It’s a wonderful restaurant, and popular enough that on weekends you need reservations. Also nearby is The Wine Market, a wine store with a great restaurant attached. If you buy a bottle of wine in the restaurant, it’s only about a 10% mark-up from the store. They do a lamb burger with spicy sides, and I love the house salad with greens, apples and cheddar.

In neighboring Locust Point, the Italian restaurant Pazza Luna is in an old rowhouse with a Formstone façade (cement-based faux stone)—very Baltimore. It has great food.

One of the best possible dates is to see a movie at The Charles Theatre, a multi-screen arthouse cinema, then head next door to the Tapas Teatro. I love having lots of bites of things, especially if there are several people with you—it makes it easier to have many tastes without being a pig! They have some great dishes there; lamb meatballs with raisins and cilantro, salmon and molasses. Great sangria, too.

The Joy America Café is very good, and is inside the American Visionary Art Museum. Another place, Vineyard, has wine and wholewheat baguettes, which I love. They’re good at matching up wine to what I’m cooking for dinner. They also have a $5 wine tasting on Wednesday night. You get five wines in glasses poured nearly half full, so it’s a good deal. Everybody talks to other people—we always end up talking to all these strangers and having a great time. It’s a fun experience.

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