Nikki and Peenut have been there lately. Donte and Trina (of Eastside) dropped by as well. So did Buzzy and Lynda.
They are among the relatively few people who have come anywhere close to visiting the Pier 4 Power Plant since the Six Flags Corp. closed its P. T. Flagg's nightclub there in 1990.
Today, the city-owned Power Plant stands practically vacant on the north shore of the Inner Harbor, a forlorn symbol of The Renaissance That Faltered. It's the building that everyone wants but no one seems to be able to figure out how to finance.
The Power Plant's dormancy was apparently a source of frustration for Nikki, Peenut, Donte and Trina, who got no farther than the shuttered ticket booth near the main entrance. That's where they scrawled their names, along with other graffiti, much of it unprintable.
Buzzy actually got inside. He's A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, chief executive officer of Alex. Brown & Sons, the investment firm that's looking for a new headquarters in Baltimore. After he toured the Power Plant last spring, the city offered him a chance to study it in greater detail. He said he'd think about it.
And then there's Lynda O'Dea, who wants to build a sports-themed entertainment center inside. She had been working on it for two years when the city revoked her development rights and offered them to Mr. Krongard. Now she's trying to get back in the picture. Meanwhile, the building is once again up for grabs.
What is it that makes the Power Plant so alluring to developers -- and yet so resistant to development? The answer lies as much with the cavernous spaces inside as with the hulking, brooding presence visible from the pier. It has always been one building that can't be fully understood from afar.
Last week, a visitor to the Power Plant found it to be a place that time forgot, eerily lifeless in the midst of Baltimore's bustling Inner Harbor tourist district.
It's also a curious amalgam of layered images that reflect two incongruous uses the building has had over the past century -- power generating station and Victorian fun house.
Known for its four towering smokestacks and warm red brick, the power station was built from 1900 to 1909 by the United Railways and Electric Co. to supply electricity for the city's streetcars. Alex. Brown was a key investor. In 1921, it was converted to generate steam heat for the Consolidated Electric Co., predecessor of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. Covering nearly an acre, with ceilings up to 75 feet high, the complex actually consists of three buildings, structurally independent but interconnected. It operated until 1973, when BGE declared it to be obsolete. The city bought it for redevelopment in 1977.
$40 million investment
After reviewing more than a dozen proposals over the span of several years, the city leased the Power Plant in 1982 to the Six Flags Corp., an operator of suburban theme parks. It spent $40 million on Pier 4 to create an urban entertainment center that was conceived as a possible prototype for other cities, but it was not to be. Six Flags' Power Plant opened in mid-1985 and closed in 1990, after years of disappointing attendance and millions of dollars inlosses.
Today, the Power Plant looks much the way it did when Six Flags was there. Many of the spaces still exhibit the ornate Victorian decor Six Flags introduced to give character to the different areas it created, such as the Hall of Invention, the Circus of the Mysterious and the Magic Lantern Theater. It's as if the employees went on a coffee break one day and failed to come back.
Though Six Flags removed boilers and related equipment as part of its conversion, the Power Plant still bears numerous vestiges of its industrial heritage, including metal roof trusses and a giant crane at the top of the northernmost building. Natural light still filters through the large clerestory windows in the southernmost building, while other areas are darker and more forbidding, particularly around the smokestacks.
Six Flags' creative gurus conceived the complex as a Jules Verne-esque "time machine" containing the inventions of Phineas Templeton Flagg, their fictional character who served as guiding spirit of the project.
According to Six Flags' script, Phineas Flagg was a futurist, scientist and philosopher who lived at the turn of the century in Baltimore and predicted many of the technological advances that eventually came to pass. The Power Plant was supposed to be not only the site of his workshop but the repository for his inventions, which ranged from a submarine to a scale model of the City of the Future.
After paying admission ($7.95 for adults and $5.95 for children), visitors were allowed to roam around the building, testing and exploring his creations. All that remains of many of these failed innovations -- a leprechaun hologram and a diorama of Pandora's Box, for example -- are the empty alcoves where they were once displayed.
One of the more popular spaces was the Sensorium, a theater where patrons watched a 3-D movie as scents of fresh oranges, blooming roses and pine forests wafted overhead, corresponding to the story line. Unfortunately, the different odors piled up on each other so that by the end of the movie, the theater smelled like a garbage dump. Today, the seats have been removed but everything else remains, including the pipes -- now dangling from the ceiling -- that carried the different scents out over the audience.
In its last years of operation, Six Flags shut down the daytime amusement center altogether and turned the building into a giant "high-tech disco" called P. T. Flagg's, featuring a dance area called the Power Core. That drew nighttime crowds. But the city said Six Flags was in breach of its lease because it offered nothing during the day, and forced the company to leave.
The southernmost building, which served as the entrance and "Great Exposition Hall" for the original complex, gives the best sense of the carnival-like atmosphere Six Flags tried to create. A grand staircase in the middle leads to a series of balconies and overlooks, ornamented with faux wrought iron street lamps and a giant mural of old-time Baltimore. A makeshift submarine rests in an undercroft near wharf level, and a colorful flying machine hangs in the air as if frozen in flight. Around this central space are bars and storefronts from which Six Flags vendors sold popcorn and souvenirs, unattended now but as festive as ever and ready to be put back in service at any time.
Hanging above this space like an Alexander Calder mobile is a cluster of giant white baseballs. They were put up along with red-white-and-blue bunting and a passel of American flags to decorate the building the last time it was open to the public, for a gala held just before the 1993 All-Star Game in Baltimore.
The adjacent Hall of Invention contains another All-Star remnant, a statue of Phineas Flagg altered so that he appears to be holding a baseball in his hand. Winged angels above the concession stands are adorned with miniature baseball jerseys, another All-Star reminder.
Inside the north building, meanwhile, the 375-seat Magic Lantern Theater still features its lighted marquee, cabaret-style chairs and tables, and fringed velvet curtain. Posters on each side of the stage tout computerized robotic acts such as Marvel and Otto Matic, a pair of "mechanotriloquists" and Mr. Electro and the Electro-nettes, "Performing the Great Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas."
Many of the remaining artifacts were to be auctioned off to help defray the cost of clearing out the building, but the auction was never held. If it ever is, it would doubtless be a treasure trove for the next music hall to go up in Branson, Mo.
Finally, and perhaps most ironically, there are three floors of office space inside the northernmost building. They were built as management offices for Six Flags. Now, one level is occupied by Ms. O'Dea's Sports Center Inc. The local group was allowed to move in after it was awarded development rights in 1992. Besides paying a nominal rent, it has spent more than $11,000 to fix the air-conditioning system and redecorate the office space. Attractive as they are, the offices are perhaps the least interesting part of the building, conventional spaces that could be anywhere.
Technically, the Sports Center group's lease expired with its development rights on July 31. But city officials did not ask it to move out, and don't plan to do so. For now, it is the only paying tenant. And if nothing else, its space shows the potential for converting the entire building to offices -- something Ms. O'Dea hopes will never happen.
Taking a toll
Since 1990, the city has maintained the elevators and the security system and has kept on the electricity and other utilities. It also hired a full-time manager, a former Six Flags employee, to make sure the building stays in good working order for whomever comes next. The cost of all this maintenance work exceeds $100,000 a year. It's no wonder the mayor is anxious to find a new user.
At the same time, the years of vacancy have taken a toll. Last winter, pipes broke near the ceiling, and signs of water damage are visible all over the floor of the southernmost building. Flashing has come off the four smokestacks and pigeons have begun to fly in, leaving droppings around the base. Unused floor drains and vent pipes have dried out and now give off the musty odor of backed-up sewage.
Perhaps the most telling symbol of the building's uncertain state is the massive set of bronze doors that separate the fanciful Victorian interiors from the thousands of Inner Harbor visitors who stream by on the pier outside.
Salvaged from the B & O Building on Charles Street, they gleamed when the Power Plant first opened. But it's clear they haven't been polished in months, and they're starting to tarnish like everything else. The longer the building sits dormant, the harder it may be to restore their luster.
Power Plant ins and outages
A brief chronology of the Power Plant:
1900 to 1909: The United Railways and Electric Co. builds the plant to supply electricity for city streetcars. (The complex was partly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1904 and rebuilt.)
1921: Power Plant sold for $4 million to Consolidated Gas and Electric Light and Power Co., predecessor of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., and converted to generate steam heat.
1973: BGE turns off Power Plant.
June 1977: City agrees to buy abandoned Power Plant for $1.65 million.
October 1978: City seeks developers' proposals, saying it would prefer housing-related projects.
July 1979: City picks a group headed by Boston developer Mortimer Zuckerman to develop a $28 million, 300-room hotel.
November 1980: -- Citing money woes, the developers abandon plans to build a hotel.
April 1982: City seeks new bids.
December 1982: City selects Six Flags Corp. proposal for an "urban entertainment center."
July 1985: Six Flags opens Power Plant urban entertainment center. Ho-hum response.
January 1987: Six Flags turns Power Plant into disco P. T. Flagg's.
January 1990: Six Flags vacates Power Plant, at city's request.
October 1990: City receives seven new ideas.
July 1992: City accepts proposal from Sports Center USA for a sports-themed entertainment center.
July 1993: Sports Center's development rights expire.
Aug. 1, 1993: City woos Alex. Brown and Sons.
Aug. 4, 1993: Alex. Brown turns city down. Power Plant up for grabs again.