Wish You Were Here!: A Guide to Baltimore City for Natives and Newcomers. This item is unavailable.Wish You Were Here!: A Guide to Baltimore City for Natives and Newcomers

Guidebook Heralds Baltimore's Second Renaissance
Fun Resource a Must for Tourists, Long-Time Residents Alike

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Charm City, the Jewel of the Chesapeake, the Monumental City, even Mobtown! Call it what you like, it's all Baltimore. Perfect whether you're a first-time visitor or you live in the neighborhood you were born in, Wish You Were Here! sneaks a peek at what's unique about this storied port city.

We've got wacky: What other city could have grown bizarro movie auteur John Waters and his 300-pound drag queen leading lady, Divine? What other city annually commemorates the death of one of the strangest writers that ever put pen to paper--Edgar Allan Poe?

We've got culture: Peabody Institute with its renowned classical music curriculum; Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Opera; Walters Art Gallery and Baltimore Museum of Art with their Old Masters counterbalanced by The American Visionary Arts Museum with its mavericks who view the world through their own strange lenses.

And characters: stripper Blaze Starr and the Two O'clock Club; Barry Levinson and Homicide; writer Anne Tyler and her quirky Baltimoreans; Orioles legend Cal Ripken, Jr.; often unorthodox former mayor, governor and current comptroller William Donald Schaefer; Cab Calloway, Ethel Ennis, Billie Holiday, Eubie Blake.

And cuisine: pierogies, pasta, schnitzel, barbecue, and moussaka from the city's ethnic neighborhoods. And, of course, Baltimore's world-famous seafood: from steamed crabs to Chesapeake oysters, doused in good ole Old Bay seasoning.

Venture out into the old blue-collar neighborhoods where Baltimore becomes "Bawlmer" and you'll find folksy charm and humor along with unique architecture, art, and kitsch: red brick rowhouses and white marble steps; Formstone covered facades; screen paintings; window shrines; wall art; and Hons--true Bawlmer gum-snapping, hip-swaying, high-haired babes in electric pink and leopard print.

Covers sights, eats, history, arts, shops, and cultural and annual events.