Mt. Vernon : Buzz

We knew the Baltimore Book Festival is popular among Charm City residents, but who knew that word of the event went as far as San Francisco.

The San Francisco Examiner featured an article on the event and its "celebrity authors."

The Baltimore Book Festival took place in Mount Vernon Sept. 24-26 and featured Holly Robinson Peete, Jesse Ventura and Michele Norris.

Finally! We know our city is top-notch, but it often takes a backseat with travelers who head to D.C. instead. Well, the truth is out that Baltimore is the No. 1 underrated city for travelers.

Here's an excerpt:

"Native blue crabs seasoned with Old Bay are reason enough to visit Baltimore, but there's much more to experience in this waterfront town. Take, for example, this underrated city's revitalized Inner Harbor area, where you'll find Kimpton's Hotel Monaco; the upscale neighborhood of Mount Vernon, home to the nation's first large-scale Washington Monument and the..."

See the slideshow here.

It's easy when you live in a city to overlook what makes it a great place for tourists. With the long Labor Day weekend approaching, here're two lists of places to see and restaurants to eat in around Baltimore.

Here's an excerpt:

From the Washingtonian, "It's a city of interesting neighborhoods, and here are good ones to explore�whether you like history, antiques, science, or sports."

Read the entire article here.

From The Wall Street Journal, "What to do: Historically, tourists skipped over Baltimore for Washington, D.C., its neighbor less than an hour's drive south. But this harbor city on the Chesapeake Bay is worth a visit. Baltimore has been home to curmudgeons ranging from the acerbic journalist H.L. Mencken, who died in 1956, to filmmaker John Waters, who made "Hairspray." More recently, it gained prominence as the setting for the critically acclaimed HBO crime program "The Wire." While some Baltimore neighborhoods exemplify the blight portrayed in the television series, which ran from 2002 to 2008, other parts of the city are distinctly graceful, with historic brick and brownstone houses lending visual appeal."

Read the entire article here.

Living in Baltimore, it's easy to see that the arts play a huge role in the city. As with eveyrthing that's created here our artists do it with a flair found only in Charm City. The Washington Post captures the style in a series of articles focusing on everything from art to theater.

Here's an excerpt:

"Baltimore brews its own arts scene, with a taste of what America was and what it will be."

Read the entire series of articles here.

While Baltimore's tech community, local business leaders, government reps and citizens make a push to be the lucky city chosen to recieve Google's ultra-highspeed broadband network, it seems our fair city is already pretty darn wired, according to Forbes' list of America's Most Wired Cities.

Out of 20 cities, Baltimore ranks no. 8 on the list just three spots behind the Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia-area, the only other city in the Mid-Atlantic region to make the list. The ranking does take into account the estimated 66 percent broadband adoption rate in Baltimore, the 18 broadband providers and 10,141 people per wi-fi hot spot. It didn't count the citywide Wifi, Clear, available in Baltimore using WiMax technology.

Here's an excerpt:

"...we compiled the list by computing the percentage of Internet users with high-speed connections in a particular city and the number of companies providing high-speed Internet in that area. Since many urban residents access the Internet by wi-fi, we also measure the number of public wireless Internet hot spots."

Read the entire article here. Read the Baltimore blurb here.

Baltimore's grassroots effort to be one of the lucky city's chosen as a test ground for Google's ultra-fast 1-gigabit per second broadband deployment is just one of several currently taking shape in city's across the country. See what the other cities competing for the prize doing...

Here's an excerpt:

"Broadband-starved cities and towns across the country are going to great lengths to grab the attention of Mountain View (Calif.)-based Google, which in February said it will set up a network that can deliver speeds of 1 gigabit per second, about 20 times faster than the speediest ones sold by Verizon Communications (VZ). Google will spend "hundreds of millions" on the effort, Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg News.

To set themselves apart, some municipal officials are naming cities after Google, owner of the world's largest Web search engine. The city of Greensboro, N.C., is preparing an "Operation Google" gift package for delivery to Google headquarters and has earmarked $50,000 for promoting a Google broadband effort."

Read the entire article here.

The 400 seats at fifth installement of Ignite Baltimore, held last week at the Walter's Art Museum, sold out weeks before the event. If you didn't take the chance on the waitlist but still want to check out the speakers, we have video of a few of the best.

Here's a sample:










Watch the other speakers here.

Wonder what an art critic makes of the Walters' latest exhibit that doubles as a scientific experiment? It's good for self-exploration and scientific discovery, according to the Post's art critic, Michael O'Sullivan.

Here's an excerpt:

"Going around the room, I pretty quickly noticed a pattern in my preferences, which tended toward the rounder, more organic shapes -- a tear drop, the swell of human flesh -- and away from the sharp, spiky ones.

But here's a question: Are my preferences due to the fact that there's something innately appealing about those shapes? Or could my choices have been influenced by the fact that I know what Arp looks like -- after all, there's one of his sculptures at the entrance to the show -- and am drawn to the most Arp-y shapes?"

Read the entire article here.

If you're wondering where to go for a romantic date, Kristin Kizer has come up with a list of the city's most romantic destinations. On the list are the Senator, Fells Point and any of the city's parks.

Here's an excerpt:

"One of Baltimore's Parks -- Is there anything more romantic that a picnic in the park with your loved one? The city of Baltimore features about 6,000 acres of parks and public spaces for people to enjoy. There are large parks with wide open spaces for a game of Frisbee or ambling about, there are smaller wooded walks with trails for strolling through, there are lakeside parks where you can watch the wildlife, and there are even parks with public golf courses for the couple who likes to hit the links together."

Read the full blog post here.

The Peabody Court Hotel is celebrating its role in the upcoming Renee Zellweger film "My One and Only" with a special travel package. Set in the 1950s, the film is based on actor George Hamilton's upbringing by his mother along the Eastern Seaboard.

An excerpt from the article read:

This upscale boutique hotel is in the heart of the arts district. Mount Vernon is a cultural urban village with museums, boutiques, theater, fine restaurants and a great nightlife. The neighborhood's historic centerpiece, built in 1815, is the Washington Monument. This area of Baltimore is generally regarded as one of the most beautiful urban sites in the world.

The Romance package at the Peabody Court includes overnight accommodations for two in a Deluxe room, valet parking, a bottle of champagne with chocolate-covered strawberries, breakfast for two in George's on Mount Vernon Square or with room service for two, and a guaranteed late check out of 2 p.m.

The double room rate of $189 includes room taxes. This rate is valid on stays through Dec. 22, but could be extended if the film receives any Oscar nominations.

Read the entire article here.

Tweet of the Week

What was on the mind of Baltimore tweople this week?

@JasonKuipers, presumably on a visit to Charm City, couldn't contain his enthusiasm for the city, "Baltimore is awesome. I'd love to live in this city. Downtown Baltimore is Like darling harbor 2.0."

@history4theppl, another visitor says, "I return to the South tomorrow. Baltimore is def going on my top list for historical hotspots. So much to see & do. Hope to return soon!"

@Familytreemd had nothing but love for the Best of Baltimore party, "Best of Baltimore was an incredible evening! Thanks to all the restaurants, Baltimore Mag, & staff at the Hippodrome for a memorable party!"

@avimagic has something else to cheer about, "I have discovered Baltimore's most redeeming quality (other than my family, of course), and it is a radio station named Jack."

@Shesouldeep, takes issue with plans to bump up the city's parking meter rate from $1 per hour to $2 or $3 per hour, "I'm not feeling the metered parking rate doubling and tripling in some areas (Baltimore). That aint right!! Increase revenue in other ways."

Many tweeted about the premiere episode of Bravo's Top Chef:

@lisa_hoang says, "Nice! Executive chef from Abacrombie Restaurant (Baltimore) is on Top Chef. Hope she doesn't bomb like last year's Baltimore contestant."

@ bhawk988 was jazzed by the number of local contestants, "Top Chef Vegas should be called Top Chef Maryland/ Baltimore Looks like 4 chefs from this area wow."

Blogger Clio Bluestocking of that "Great Zoo on the Potomac" (dare we assume this is Washington?) walks the streets of Baltimore for five weeks and notices "landmarks of some very bad guys who have graced the streets of this interesting city."

An excerpt from the blog post reads reads:

Speaking of individuals willing to go to great lengths to protect systems, here we have a non-fictional bad guy memorialized in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood. That is Chief Justice Roger Taney: Maryland-born, first Catholic Supreme Court Justice, and author of the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision. Sure, he was a slaveholder who freed his slaves; but really, you have a hard time making his case as a good guy. After all, he was the man who identified the central question of the case as this: "can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution?" and decided not only that Dred Scott and his family should be kept in slavery because "Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts, and consequently that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous," but also that all African Americans were not and should not be considered citizens of the U.S. So, I consider him a bad guy.

Read the entire post here.

Home sales in the Baltimore area rose for the second straight month, giving residents a hopeful sign that the housing market here is strengthening.

An excerpt from the article reads:

The number of homes sold in July throughout Greater Baltimore rose 10 percent to 2,240, up from 2,038 during the same month last year. That's according to Rockville market research firm Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc.

Meanwhile, the median sold price in the Baltimore area � including Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties � declined by 6.5 percent to $259,950.

Both home builders and economists have said the uptick in sales could be linked to first-time buyers taking advantage of the government's $8,000 tax credit and overall better real estate prices. Units sold in June rose nearly 2 percent, marking the first year-over-year increase in Greater Baltimore in more than two years.

Read the entire article here.

Baltimore people on Twitter love their city and aren't shy about telling all twitterdom in 140 characters or less. Check this space every week as we comb Twitter for the best of what they're saying. And follow Bmore on Twitter here.

@Tawilkins says she feels sorry for people outside of Baltimore who have not experienced the pleasure of a summer snowball.

@Petote, affected by her trip on the cultural side, says the visionary art museum in baltimore was so interesting, but also, disturbing, it wouldnt get out of my nightmares last night

And that leads us to our Tweet of the Week, from @Ayakobing, who just wants everyone to know that B-more rocks! RT @hollisthomases: I am very proud to say that so many Baltimore peeps "get" Twitter. Baltimore rocks!!

Feedback from Twitter on our recent launch was very supportive. Thanks for the love, and here's a sampling:

MissMktr who tweets that if @RyanatMGH Need a reason to move to Union Square?, then Read @bmoremedia's article http://bit.ly/UG9su

DanieljGross sees a future for the 'zine @BmoreMedia just checked out the site that was recently launched. I think it could definitely catch on. Can't wait to see its growth!

GBMCMedia cosigned on Erica Mechlinski's tweet, announcing both had signed up for our e-newsletter, have you? RT @EricaMechlinski New fan of @bmoremedia. Just signed up to have it delivered to my inbox weekly. http://bit.ly/YD2Ts so did I :-)