The 2010 Block Fire

Long view of the fire from E. Baltimore Street on December 6th, 2010.
Photo from bizjournals.com.

The Gaety Show World after fire ravaged the building and destroyed this business.
Photo by Baltimore Sun.

The Hustler Club was not damaged in the fire but was directly across the street from the 5 alarm conflagration.
Photo by Jerry Jackson, Baltimore Sun December 7, 2010. 

   On Monday December 6th a fire of unknown origin began at 404 E. Baltimore Street, better known as The Block. It developed quickly into a 5 alarm blaze that shut down much of downtown for the day and into the evening. 4 buildings were directly affected by the fire including The Gaety Show bar and popular Crazy John's, which apparently had delicious french fries I've yet had the chance to sample.

    I got news of the fire via local NPR station 88.1 around 5pm and had to sit quietly for a moment to catch my breath. The last thing this struggling area needed was a huge fire to further depress their businesses and add yet another abandoned and dangerous structure to the cityscape. To be brutally honest, my initial panic at the news happened because I did not know if The Gaety (now Hustler Club)  and The Two O'Clock club had been affected. Much to my relief I was soon able to deduce that neither were directly involved. It is still a great loss of historical buildings that contained a century of great stories. The Gaety Show World building was a very important place in the early history of The Block. I'll soon be posting an in depth history of what was lost during this fire.

    Below I have compiled a short collection of articles and video clips regarding the fire. Most of the major local network news organizations are included as well as the major newspapers. While the majority of the material represents The Block as nothing more than a crumbling strip club district (which has only been true for the past twenty years, out of 111) the similarity in the articles is what I find most interesting. For a history freak like me who has dedicated years to researching this location I find it ever intriguing that the people of this city know so little about this once rich and lusty district of stars, sex and politics.

     Occasionally the articles will drop a few interesting pieces into their generic accounts of fire companies, closed roads and billowing smoke. By reading and comparing them all, as well as perusing the many other news archives not represented by my list, the continuing pattern of neglect, disdain, reverence, aloofness and hope emerge over and over as different people from all parts of Baltimore society weigh in on the impact of this fire. It is a stark reminder that the people of Baltimore somewhere and somehow recognize the need for this historic vice district to both tourism and the human condition and they also see that its current condition is not the solution. However, the same people are not willing to take the steps to clean up the corruption or invest the time and money to improve the district. 

     Coverage of the fire just continues the limp debate that flares up in city government every ten years or so regarding the state of The Block. Nothing ever happens as the business owners of The Block refuse to cooperate with clean-up efforts preferring the flow of money from prostitution and drugs to the capital required for change. The police and politicians sent to correct the corruption and free flow of drugs very often fall into it themselves as a result of inconsistencies in city policy enforcement and opposite political and social feelings towards this district.

      Just as before, I see this sad event as another call for action to the politicians that have offices next to these dirty clubs and the mayor who brings dignitaries and diplomats down 400 East Baltimore Street. It's an opportunity to rebuild and reinvent up to 4 businesses in this Adult Entertainment Zone, as defined by city law. Essential is understanding the history and culture we Baltimoreans stand to lose with inaction. The citizens can do nothing and get nothing in return or stand up to reap the rewards of progressive improvement embracing the past and future essential to forward movement. I take that as my cue to continue with my research, writing and impromptu lectures to unassuming people in the grocery store check-out line. A historic renovation of The Block will be mine...oh yes...it will be mine.

Read through the articles below and come up with your own observations of how the city and the people view this part of history that refuses to fade away.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-12-10/news/bs-md-block-clubs-street-20101210_1_strip-clubs-chez-joey-hustler-club Good general article from the Baltimore Sun on economic impact of fire on The Block by Peter Hermann (keep your eye out for his other Block articles circulating around the web) 10/10/2010

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/26092703/detail.html WBAL TV fire update 12/10/10

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/26045626/detail.html uLocal photos of fire from viewers of WBAL TV 12/7/2010

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-hermann-block-survival-20101207,0,990003,full.story Refreshingly good Baltimore Sun article on the fire and The Block past by Peter Hermann 12/11/2010

http://www.batangastoday.com/baltimore-fire-hit-the-block-in-downtown-area-photos-and-video/7151/ Batangas Today brief poorly representing The Block, but two good fire pictures 12/7/2010

http://site-press.com/2010/12/how-did-the-baltimore-fire-of-december-2010-start/ 6 different articles archived on Site-Press regarding the fire and its investigation 12/6/2010

http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/region/baltimore_city/fire-breaks-out-on-east-baltimore-street ABC News brief on ATF investigation beginning on fire site with video of interviews 12/6/2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/AR2010120605302.html Washington Post article on fire with only generic info regarding The Block 12/6/2010

http://statter911.com/2010/12/06/multi-alarm-fire-hits-the-block-in-baltimore/ great collection of video and some interesting and a couple hilarious quotes from individuals on the scene. Compiled by Dave Statter at Statter911.com beginning with 12/6/2010 and it promises to continue updating as new info is revealed

Video of the Gaeyty Show World roof collapsing as shot by Alexander Koblansky, an employee in an adjacent building. Posted on http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2010/12/video_of_roof_collapse_in_bloc.html 12/7/2010


WMAR TV news snippet describing the basics of the fire with various angles and perspectives from the event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GoOrunR-HY&feature=related 12/7/2010

A Sinful Collection of Smut

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Being a Historian DOES NOT have an age requirement!

   **please see disclaimer below if you are a graduate school admissions officer

   If you love history you know that it's everywhere. I say it all the time to every skeptic I talk to about the value of the subject. It's behind all of our beloved technology, media, food and daily traditions. I heard a guy speak last night about Historic Preservation...he loved to emphasize that it was impossible to accurately describe the field in one paragraph due to it's broad field of influence. This was a guy that is an architect whose firm does over 90% of their business in historic preservation cases. He is the director of one of the nation's leading Historic Preservation grad programs and quick to describe his many successes in the field throughout the country. He'd done some cool stuff and definitely had some jobs I would kill for. Yet he stood in front of the lecture hall in a suit that looked liked he'd grabbed it out of a Goodwill refuse bin 30 years ago, his humor only existed to laugh at his own stale jokes and the MA program he runs falls just short of visionary because he puffs up with pride when he announces that the median age of the students is 40.
   I'll come back to that age issue in a minute, but I first need to add the other part of his self important banter that caused me to swallow a little vomit that had cruised up to the back of my throat. Many may find that reaction strange, but if you've been looking for a "History Revolution" as hard as I have people like this would make you nauseous too. I promise.
   The man pointed out, very casually, that the environmental movement and the historical preservation movement developed very much side by side. However, he noted, the Sierra Club has over 3 million members while The National Historic Trust, the nation's leader in HP, has only 250,000. His response to the discrepancy was to note that the Sierra Club used the "KISS" method with the message, "Clean Water, Clean Air, or You Die." "Historic Preservation," he smiled, "just isn't that simple to explain." Really? "Reduce. Reuse. Restore," is that hard to copyright? "Save History or America Disappears," isn't simple enough for people to understand? Without efforts of historians throughout time America would be missing...the White House, Constitution, Liberty Bell, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, the French Quarter of New Orleans, the Vegas Strip, tv re-runs of I Love Lucy or The Brady Bunch...simple enough now?
   When combining this man's delight in age discrimination because, "people under 30, statistics prove, are less motivated and focused than older students,"with his obvious inability to distill information down to its marketable basics I was looking at one of the "leaders" in my future field slowly and joyfully kill off any interest the subject may have for my generation.
   I'm not too proud to say that change comes from youth because we are too idealistic and stubborn to back down from a fight. Sure, 40 year olds with families and life experience could be great at saving historic buildings and fighting politicians and developers over public policy...but at that point in an established existence how much are they willing to sacrifice for the cause? Us youngsters...we don't have anything to lose. We have to prove ourselves to move ahead or we get nothing for the effort. And by the way, I'm a youngster so much as I'm 27, been married for 8 years, expecting a kid in April and have had almost ten years of serious work experience. If I have to wait until I'm 40 to develop focus and motivation my family is screwed and my kid will starve.
   Going back to school serves so many great purposes for people of all ages. It is a big leap when you get older and put it all on the line to start a new career or push for a bigger one. But the reality of the situation is that the 69 year old woman this guy spoke of that had just graduated from his program wasn't going to be rocking any boats. Her area of expertise, historic cranberry bogs in New England. Somehow, I don't see that giving the Historic Preservation genre a step up on The Sierra Club.
   Young people have just as much right, and twice as much experience with the rapid changing technology that is set to rule our world in less than a lifetime, to decide how the history of our world is going to be presented and preserved. By shutting out our opinions and discriminating against our modern ideas...such as...*gasp* using multi-media markets to present history to the public...this man and his Historical Preservation program are dooming the field to failure. Once they die off, and it is sooner than they want to admit, the hole they created with their short-sightedness becomes too big to fill.
   As much as I've wanted to find a place in the world of history to feel accepted, as hard as I've looked and as far as I've stretched my standards to fit the mold I know now that I have to give up that fight. There is no group out there to protect the fun and excitement of history. There is no academic program that is fighting to secure the future of the subject...Being young and spry and only having everything to prove, we don't need to stand for snobbery and traditionalism for the sake of stagnation. Those groups we are looking for...we have to make them ourselves. There is no "History Revolution" until we make it happen. So, I wish those geezers well and I'll wave at them as I move on into the future.

**Disclaimer: if you are reading this as part of my admissions packet to your grad school program...please remember that I'm just a kid and I don't really know what I'm talking about. Think of all your program can teach me! Thanks, Kristi Cory

History of History.

 "Many think that getting a master's degree in History is a dead end." 


This is how the website, Mastersdegree.org begins their description of what to do with a History masters. It pretty much sums up the popular opinion of what it is to be a Historian. 


I know that my mother holds tightly to that assumption as she always changes the subject from my historical aspirations to medical school. Recently even suggesting I become an accountant to run my husband's business while, "doing volunteer work for history on the side." An accountant? Seriously, Mom! Historians may be nerdy, but accountants are downright zombies. Albeit the kind of zombies one would like to have chained up in the back yard during tax season...


The real history of history goes like this...History has been the staple of politics, law and culture since the beginning of time. In fact, we wouldn't even know about the beginning of time without concerned record keepers. Even the disgustingly nostalgic and sentimental scrap booking moms who buy polka dotted paper and and stickers that say, "Love" or "Imagination" employ the magic of history to maintain a record of family events. They too are archivists and historians. 


It is however somehow not acceptable to aspire to just be a Historian. One may take that undergraduate degree as long as they vow to continue on with their studies in law or business or even forsaking it altogether when a better paying career beckons.


Public and private middle and high schools across the country have deadened the experience of History for most individuals. At least in elementary school with the interminable study of Pilgrims and Christopher Columbus came picture books, school assemblies and those awesome turkey pictures where you get to use your spread out fingers as feathers. Past that light hearted approach to inspiring patriotism school strips away most truth, interest and value of the Historical genre. Hence, making it one of the most loathed subjects known to students. Me included.


Now I stand at the precipice of continuing my education into the post grad world. I've tried to force myself into med school, law school, matchmaking, motherhood, and housewifery just to avoid the truth that I am a Historian for life. 


That's right, I'm a Lifer. The tweed jacket, pipe smoking, long winded, short pant wearing, unkempt keeper of facts that resides somewhere between the obsolete card catalog and dusty historical tomes in a forgotten college library. That's what we look like to you, right?  


It's still better than the cadaver cutting, God-complex, white coat wearing, germ soaked doctor.... or ambulance sniffing, bad day-time commercial making, over worked and underpaid member of the public legal world. Historians have enough to deal with...paper cuts, eye strain, being dull in social situations and the extreme deficit of interaction with the opposite sex. It's not all heroes and high-jinxs in the world of History. It's serious business.

A BA and The Block

It's official, I have my Bachelor's Degree in History from Goucher College.

Historian for Hire complete with BA and low rates!

My first edition of Sin In Mobtown: the academic version has been written and is under revisions. I will not sleep until the red light history of Baltimore is revealed and the people of Baltimore understand the dire need for change on East Baltimore Street. Learning about The Block isn't just history it's about human rights in the present. Adult entertainment can be profitable, fun and doesn't have to be exploitation.

This is NOT Sucking Up! I promise.

Stumbling into an article like this on Goucher College's news site brought a huge smile to my face. Robert Beachy has been my college adviser since Sophomore year. While I've been working with him for a few years he has never taken a moment to boast about all of his amazing accomplishments. The only reason I knew he had recently won a Guggenheim Fellowship was because I found a page containing the winners list in the New York Times orphaned on a library table. All he can do is giggle and blush when I ask about how he did it. He changes the subject quickly to my projects and we move on.

Please take a second to check out this link as well (just look quickly past the murder thing..all the Gopher's were fine...) and get to know this awesome guy and professor. His progressive ideas of sexuality and gender through history have been inspirations for this Baltimore history project. Going to his office is always an experience filled with laughter and support and I will miss him greatly as my advisor in my last year of school as he works on his book Gay Berlin due out in 2011.

I still have at least one pending grade from Robert, but even if I didn't I would be saying the same nice things about his work, really Robert, I think you rock...Thank you for inspiring me and telling me when I am completely whack.

Stop by the Goucher link up top and give this man some love! I promise that when you're finished the only word you'll have left to say is, "Daaaammnn!"