Small Town Baltimore: An Album of Memories

by Gilbert Sandler

Overview

Winner of the Baltimore Book Festival Mayor's Award for Literary Excellence and Honorable Mention in the Non-Fiction category

Before Harborplace and the Convention Center, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the Ravens, shopping malls and multiplex movie theaters, Baltimore was a very different city. Most Baltimoreans would agree that, until recently, living here was like living in a small town. For more than 25 years, Gilbert Sandler chronicled this bygone life of streetcars and cinema palaces in his Evening Sun (and later Sun) column, "Baltimore Glimpses." Now collected, edited, and expanded in Small Town Baltimore, Sandler's delightful sketches of life in Baltimore from the 1920s through the 1970s take readers back to a time when flagpole-sitting was all the rage, when guests at high society weddings and cotillions were fed by the prominent African American business Hughes Catering and chef David Bruce's famous chicken croquettes, and when the salt rubdown at Rowland's Turkish Bath could take all one's troubles away.

This "album of memories" introduces the reader to the people and places—neighborhoods, restaurants, department stores, parks, hotels, night clubs, racetracks, and theaters—that once put the charm in Charm City. Sandler recalls the events that shaped life here, from strikes and demonstrations to baseball games and parades. Through interviews and reminiscences, Sandler catches a double feature at the Valencia; visits Howard Street's Arabian Tent Club to listen to Cab Calloway; attends the funeral of Chick Webb—"the greatest jazz drummer in the world"—along with such jazz luminaries as Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and Ella Fitzgerald; listens in on Arthur Godfrey's audition in the studios of WFBR; eats knockwurst at Schellhase's, steamed crabs at Bankert's, and Cantonese cuisine at Jimmy Wu's; takes the Chesapeake Restaurant up on its offer to "Eat our steak with a fork, else tear up your check and walk out"; and rides the Charles Street double-decker bus with Ms. Reuben Ross Holloway, who fought to make "The Star-Spangled Banner" our national anthem. Small Town Baltimore shows us how far Baltimore has come and what's been lost in the process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801870699
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	10/10/2002
Edition description:	20
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.86(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born and raised in Baltimore, and a service member in the Navy during the war, Gilbert Sandler has been published in the Baltimore Sun, the Jewish Times, and Baltimore Magazine. Former editor of Generations, the journal of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, he is the author of Jewish Baltimore: A Family Album and the award-winning Small Town Baltimore: An Album of Memories, both also published by Johns Hopkins. Sandler hosts the popular "Baltimore Stories" series on WYPR, the local National Public Radio affiliate.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. ARTIFACTS
Chapter 1. Look Up Here!
Chapter 2. Reminders of the 1930's
Chapter 3. They're Off and Running at Pimlico
Chapter 4. "Separate but Equal," So They Said
Chapter 5. Eating Out
Chapter 6. All That Jazz
Chapter 7. Days of Delight, Nights of Magic
Chapter 8. Small-Town Sports
Part II. SOUVENIRS
Chapter 9. Getting Away
Chapter 10. Getting Around
Chapter 11. Overnight Stays
Chapter 12. The Home Front
Chapter 13. That's Entertainment
Chapter 14. Scents and Sensibility
Part III. MEMORIES
Chapter 15. Simple Pleasures
Chapter 16. True Sports
Chapter 17. Signs of the Times
Chapter 18. Fond Farewells
Noted in Passing
Index

What People are Saying About This

Camay Calloway Murphy (Cab Calloway's daughter)

Baltimore has always been a sensory town full of color, smells, loudness, smooth jazz, jagged emotions and watery ways. Ethnic neighborhoods add to the excitement and cacophony of Baltimore. Small Town Baltimore goes beyond the veneer of the Harbor and brings all the inner senses to light.

— Camay Calloway Murphy (Cab Calloway's daughter), Executive Director of the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, Baltimore, Maryland

Barry Levinson

This 'album of memories' guides us from Baltimore's distant past through the middle years to recollections of the 1950s and 60s. With vignettes and short stories, Gil Sandler affectionately brings out Baltimore's appealing provincialism and home-grown innocence.

— Barry Levinson, Filmmaker

Camay Calloway Murphy

Baltimore has always been a sensory town full of color, smells, loudness, smooth jazz, jagged emotions and watery ways. Ethnic neighborhoods add to the excitement and cacophony of Baltimore. Small Town Baltimore goes beyond the veneer of the Harbor and brings all the inner senses to light.

— Camay Calloway Murphy (Cab Calloway's daughter), Executive Director of the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, Baltimore, Maryland

From the Publisher

This 'album of memories' guides us from Baltimore's distant past through the middle years to recollections of the 1950s and 60s. With vignettes and short stories, Gil Sandler affectionately brings out Baltimore's appealing provincialism and home-grown innocence.
—Barry Levinson, Filmmaker

Baltimore has always been a sensory town full of color, smells, loudness, smooth jazz, jagged emotions and watery ways. Ethnic neighborhoods add to the excitement and cacophony of Baltimore. Small Town Baltimore goes beyond the veneer of the Harbor and brings all the inner senses to light.
—Camay Calloway Murphy (Cab Calloway's daughter), Executive Director of the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, Baltimore, Maryland

Editorial Reviews

Gilbert Sandler is our great rememberer. Small Town Baltimore is an absolute delight—not only memories of distant times and vanished places but details that bring every corner of the old town back to life.
—Baltimore Sun

From the Publisher

Gilbert Sandler is our great rememberer. Small Town Baltimore is an absolute delight—not only memories of distant times and vanished places but details that bring every corner of the old town back to life.

Baltimore Sun