Oh, Baltimore
Oh, Baltimore
Michael Janofsky reflects on the toughness and strength of his home city
The first images were horrifying, as if Godzilla and King Kong had fought and finally left the area. Jagged lengths of steel, all akimbo, poked out of the chilly water under inky skies, with parts of the roadway they once supported bent across them.
By dawn, the true nature of the disaster became clear: At each end of the 1.6-mile Francis Scott Key Bridge across the Patapsco River, four-lane stretches of concrete simply ended. In the space between, the massive cargo ship that collided with a support structure was tangled in steel, locked in place where a bridge support had stood since 1977, the year the bridge opened to traffic.
Video showed the moment of impact, a vessel that moments before lost power and the ability to steer, crashing into the truss. In seconds the bridge collapsed like a horizontal Jenga game. Over and over, the networks showed it in real time. It was sickening to watch.
Eight men had been working at the roadway centre, repairing potholes at the moment of collision. All fell into the dark waters 185 feet below. Two swam to safety. The other six died, including two found later by divers inside a pickup truck. The body of another was recovered, but the other three weren't found.
Alas, Baltimore, the city where I grew up, was in the news again. It happens a lot and not always for great reasons. For all the fun facts about the city — the crab cake capital of America, a quirky “Balmerese” accent, successful baseball and football teams — it’s equally known for its noir-ish underbelly. Two recent mayors and a state’s attorney were found guilty on corruption charges. Murder rates ranked among the highest in the country. A 2017 investigation led to charges against a team of city police officers for robbing drug dealers and planting evidence.
Perhaps nothing has shaped the national image of Baltimore more than television. Three critically acclaimed shows, each fictionalized but based on real events, painted a brutish picture of the city — Homicide Life on the Street, a weekly show about detectives working murder cases that ran for seven seasons; The Corner, a six-episode series that traced the volatile mix of poverty and drug dealing; and one of the best series ever broadcast (my opinion), The Wire, which showed police activity through a different societal background in each of five seasons — drug dealing, the ports, city government, schools and newspapers.
The police scandal also led to a series, We Own This City.
These shows contributed to what lots of people know of Baltimore. It’s not so bad now. Crime rates are down.The current mayor has been in office since 2020 with no hint of scandal. Plans are underway to rebuild the Inner Harbor retail pavilions. A dozen city neighborhoods are being redeveloped.
And maybe some day, a television series will chronicle what happened at the Key Bridge, so named for the poet who wrote what became our National Anthem. He did it from his Baltimore hotel room during the War of 1812 with the British, not far from where the bridge would later stand.
It could be a story with a happy ending. But a lot has to happen first, starting with the efforts to clear the waters of debris to reopen the shipping lanes that serve the port, one of the biggest on America’s east coast and a leading port of entry for foreign-made cars. That work began within a few days of the collision.
But there’s no telling how long clearing and reconstruction will take or how much it will cost, not counting the economic ripple effects across the globe. Thousands of dockworkers are idled, and thousands more people whose jobs and businesses depend on the port for their livelihood will suffer. Cargo companies are moving operations to other ports while the work to reopen the sea lanes continues. Shippers who depend on the port to move their goods are making other, more distant arrangements, creating new supply-chain issues and higher costs for consumers.
Travellers are also impacted. The bridge was one of three north-south routes traversing the Patapsco, along with two tunnels, and the only one that allowed hazardous materials. The tunnels now have to absorb the 35,000 daily vehicles that used the bridge, with hazmats pushed onto alternative routes, using smaller commercial and residential streets.
The federal government has promised a downpayment of $60 million to help with the cleanup effort, but reconstruction costs are expected to soar over the years. And who knows how easily that money will be secured at a time Republicans in Congress are seeking to cut budgets everywhere.
Living in Los Angeles, I won’t be affected by any of this. I left Baltimore almost 50 years ago, but my reverence for the baseball Orioles and relations with a few remaining family members keep me connected to the local goings on.
For years, I was almost embarrassed to say I grew up there. It was a working-class city then, built around big manufacturing plants, the docks and mom-and-pop retails stores. On summer Mondays, my friends and I ventured downtown to see a movie for 50 cents — once we were robbed of $1 each in a theater men’s room.
It’s a more diversified city now, economically and demographically, with better restaurants, world-class museums and gentrified neighborhoods. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the sense of Baltimore as a step-child city compared with Washington, D.C. to the south and Philadelphia and New York to the north. Sure, they had their share of crime and corruption, but they also have renowned attractions like the Washington Monument, the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty. And now Baltimore has a crumpled bridge and a bruised ego.
In the days after the collision, Governor Wes Moore of Maryland and Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore have repeated the same mantra in their public remarks, “We’re Maryland tough. We’re Baltimore strong.” I hope they’re right. The city needs all the strength it can muster. And a lot of money to rebuild the bridge.
Michael Janofsky is a former staff correspondent for The New York Times who now writes a column on US politics for Perspective