There's lots of Inner, but not much Harbor left

The Baltimore Sun

Maybe we'll have to start calling it something else - the Inner Mall, perhaps, or Inner HiddenView. Or maybe we can just go with ironic quotemarks, and call it the Inner "Harbor."

It is ironic, after all, that the harbor is becoming an ever-diminishing presence in the Inner Harbor.

On the ground, the new retail kiosks that Sun architecture critic Ed Gunts wrote about last week block the view of the water from some vantage points. And, on higher ground, the view from Federal Hill Park similarly has dried up - you can't even see the water any more as the HarborView complex continues to build up and out, making it look like you can walk across its rooftops to those on the Inner Harbor East.

And yesterday, the Inner Harbor's resident tall ship, the Clipper City, was sold at auction after its previous owner defaulted on the mortgage. It's still docked at the harbor - for now, but maybe not forever.

"Anyone can have it, for the right price," said Brad Sanner, president and CEO of Regal Bancorp, which bid $350,000 on the ship and won it. It will now put it for sale on the private market, with no requirement that it remain at Harborplace as a charter and tourist boat.

Regal held the mortgage for the ship and bid only to make sure it didn't sell for less than the $750,000 loan that the bank was stuck with after the previous owner defaulted.

That would be John Kircher, who in an orange Clipper City T-shirt came out for yesterday's forlorn scene. Like the more typical foreclosure auctions in which houses are sold outside the courthouse, the Clipper City changed hands on the sidewalk - in this case, outside a rowhouse on Light Street in Federal Hill that had housed its office. Kircher had already vacated the office - even the sign had been ripped off the door.

Kircher, who bought the boat in 2004, said it was particularly painful to lose the Clipper City because he thought he was starting to turn the business around. He was having his best year yet as far as charter bookings and ticket sales but was too far in debt to ever catch up on the missed mortgage payments.

"Baltimore has always been a huge maritime port," said Lewin Usilton, a former captain of the Clipper City, who rushed over yesterday to see if he could bid on behalf of a group of potential buyers, but arrived after the auction ended.

Maybe - but increasingly, you wouldn't know that from a visit to the Inner Harbor. The kiosks, which sell ticky-tacky touristy things, detract from the harbor's maritime past rather than enhance it. Same goes for the visitors center built in front of - and partially blocking - the Constellation.

And now the Clipper City remains docked. It's been more than a month since its last voyage, and who knows how long until its next one. Sanner doesn't even know how long it will remain at the harbor - the bank could decide to dock it somewhere else while it tries to sell it.

It's not that the Clipper City is such a landmark - it was only built in 1985, and it's a replica of a 19th-century lumber-hauling schooner that mostly hauled tourists, wedding parties and other day-trippers. So it was ersatz - but then, since not much about the harbor except the Constellation is truly historic, the Clipper City was a picturesque piece of the whole pseudo-harbor-theme-park experience. Seeing it glide out of its berth, its sails fluttering, en route to Fort McHenry and beyond, was a reminder of the harbor before Harborplace - and the view-blocking HarborView.

It doesn't take too much imagination at this point to envision much of the waterfront dwarfed by new towers - condos and offices, HarborThis and HarborThat. Every time I drive down Key Highway or walk up Federal Hill Park, it seems like more and more of the actual harbor is disappearing behind new construction. Which is great for whoever will live or work in those new buildings - at least until even newer ones are built right in front of them, of course - but a loss for the rest of us.

Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe I shouldn't get sentimental about a basin of water that lately has been the site of fish-suffocating algae blooms - not to mention the occasional human floater. But what the Clipper City harked back to - Baltimore's days as a working waterfront - seems like something worth preserving at a time when the harbor seems to have become more valued as a view from someone's window rather than as, well, a harbor.

jean.marbella@baltsun.com

online

Read previous Jean Marbella columns at baltimoresun. com/marbella

Copyright © 2021, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad
72°