Every year there is an art festival called Artscape. The festival is in the Bolton Hill neighborhood. This is very close to the Maryland Institute College of Art. Artscape is called the "largest free arts festival in America." Another art festival that happens in Baltmore is the Maryland Film Festival. It happens every year in May. At the Film Festival, movies are shown at the Charles Theatre. (The Charles Theatre is an old cinema.)
One of Baltimore's nicknames is "Charm City." Some advertisers wanted to make the city's reputation better. They started using the name in 1975.
People in Baltimore speak English. They have a very unique accent and way of speaking (dialect). For example, they pronounce "Baltimore" as "Balamer" or "Balmer." The Baltimore dialect is sometimes called "Baltimorese." It is a kind of Mid-Atlantic English. People from Baltimore will often call each other "Hon."
There are movies that parody (make fun of) the way people from Baltimore talk. A lot of these movies are made by John Waters. He is a movie maker from Baltimore. Most of Waters's movies were made in Baltimore. "Pink Flamingos" and "Hairspray" are some of these movies. Waters also wrote the musical version of "Hairspray."
Many very famous and important people were born or raised in Baltimore. Some of these are:
Baltimore used to be mostly industrial. There was a lot of steel processing, shipping, car manufacturing, and transportation. Deindustrialization happened, and Baltimore lost a lot of jobs that paid a lot of money and did not need a lot of training or skill. Today, most of the jobs in Baltimore are service economy jobs. These jobs do not pay very much. 90% of jobs are service jobs today.
In July 2012, the unemployment rate was 11%. Also in 2012, the steel mill (factory) at Sparrow's Point closed. This will mean more people will lose their jobs. 25% of people who live in Baltimore, and 37% of all children living in Baltimore, live in poverty.
Johns Hopkins Hospital is in Baltimore. Some big companies from Baltimore are Under Armour, Cordish Company, and Royal Farms. There is a big sugar refinery in Baltimore. It is owned by American Sugar Refining.
There are eight Interstate Highways in Baltimore. These are:
Some of these highways do not connect to each other. I-70 stops at a parking lot just inside of the city. This is because of "freeway revolts" that happened in Baltimore. The interstate highways were supposed to go through downtown Baltimore, but the people in the city did not want this to happen. Barbara Mikulski, now a United States Senator, started the "freeway revolts" to keep the highways from being built in downtown.
Today there are some highways numbered U.S. highways and state routes that run through downtown. These are US 1, US 40 National Road, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. There are also some tunnels underneath the Baltimore harbor. I-95 runs through the Fort McHenry Tunnel. I-895 runs through the Harbor Tunnel.
Baltimore has a beltway. A beltway is a highway that circles around a city. The Baltimore Beltway is I-695. It crosses over the Chesapeake Bay on the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This bridge is just south of the Inner Harbor.
Baltimore is an important train stop. Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor stop in Baltimore. Penn Station is one of the busiest train stations in the country. In 2008 it was the 8th busiest train station in the United States. That year, more than 1 million people took a train to or from Penn Station. Another important train station is at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Many Amtrak trains stop at the BWI Rail Station. The Amtrak trains that stop in Baltimore are: "Acela Express", "Palmetto", "Carolinian", "Silver Star", "Silver Meteor", "Vermonter", "Crescent", and "Northeast Regional". The MARC commuter rail service also has trains that stop in Baltimore. The MARC trains run from Camden Station and Penn Station in Baltimore to Union Station in Washington, D.C..
Baltimore has many colleges and universities. These are both public (run by the government) and private. Some of them are:
Baltimore City Public School System runs Baltimore's public schools. Some of these schools are well known. Carver Vocational-Technical High School was the first vocational high school for African-Americans in Maryland. Lake Clifton Eastern High School is the biggest school campus in Baltimore City. Frederick Douglass High School is the second-oldest African-American high school in the United States. Baltimore City College is the third oldest public high school in the country. Western High School is the oldest public all-girls school in the nation. Baltimore City College and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute are football rivals. This is the second-oldest high school football rivalry in the country.
Baltimore Stations
WBFF FOX
WMPB PBS
Baltimore's main newspaper is "The Baltimore Sun." In 1986, the newspaper was sold to the Times Mirror Company. This company was bought by the Tribune Company in 2000. Today, "The Sun" is still a Tribune newspaper.
Baltimore had two newspapers until 1986. (It was very common for US cities to have two newspapers.) The other main newspaper was the "Baltimore News-American". The "News-American" went out of business in 1986.
"The Baltimore Examiner" was started in 2006 to compete with "The Sun." It was owned and run by a company that also published newspapers like "The San Francisco Examiner" and "The Washington Examiner". "The Examiner" was a free newspaper that was paid for by advertising. ("The Sun" is not free.) "The Examiner" was not able to make money, and it stopped being published on February 15, 2009.
According to Nielsen Market Research, Baltimore had the 26th-largest television market in 2008-2009. It was the 27th-largest market for 2009-2010. Arbitron listed Baltimore as the 22nd-largest radio market in Fall 2010.
Baltimore has a long baseball history. The first team to play for Baltimore were the 19th century Baltimore Orioles (1882-1899). This was one of the most successful early baseball teams. The team had many hall of famers play for them. The great Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore in 1895. He played for the minor league Baltimore Orioles team. This team existed from 1903 to 1914 and from 1916 to 1953.
Today, Baltimore's Major League Baseball team is the Baltimore Orioles. They play in the American League. The Orioles came to Baltimore in 1954. Before that, the team had been in St. Louis, Missouri, where they were called the St. Louis Browns. The Orioles went to the World Series in 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979 and 1983. They won the World Series three times: in 1966, 1960, and 1983.
In 1995, Cal Ripken, Jr. broke the record for the most games played in a row. The old record was set by Lou Gehrig, and was 2,130 games. Ripken was added to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was also named "Sportsman of the Year" by "Sports Illustrated" magazine. There are six Orioles players and two managers in the hall of fame.
Baltimore's first football team were the Baltimore Colts. The team came to Baltimore in 1953. Before then, they had played in Dallas, Texas as the Dallas Texans. The Colts played for Baltimore until 1984. In 1984, the team moved to Indianapolis and took the name. Today the team still plays as the Indianapolis Colts.
In 1996, the Cleveland Browns came to Baltimore. They were renamed the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens won a Super Bowl championship in 2000 and again in 2012. They also won three American Football Conference (AFC) North division championships in 2003, 2006, and 2011. In addition, the played in three AFC Championship Games in 2000, 2009, and 2011.
Baltimore has an indoor soccer team, the Baltimore Blast. They play for the Major Indoor Soccer League at the 1st Mariner Arena. The team joined the League in 2001. The Blast have won 5 league championships: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008.