Downtown : Buzz

Good news for thrillseekers. Baltimore company Premier Rides has been recognized for its Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster at Universal Studios in Orlando. 

It received the 2013 Golden Ticket Award for Best Indoor Roller Coaster from Amusement Today, an industry publication. It beat out Disneyland's Space Mountain and a coaster called Winjas in Germany's Phantasialand.

Located in downtown Baltimore, Premier Rides has designed roller coasters for Six Flags America, Paramount's Kings Island and the now-shuttered Sahara Hotel and Casino. It also designed the Blacklot Stunt Coaster, based on the movie "The Italian Job." 

USA Today recently featured the latest trend in hotel bars: fizzy bottled cocktails. They look like old-fashioned sodas, but there's booze in 'em.

The article highlights a drink at downtown Baltimore's B&O American Brasserie, located in the Hotel Monaco. The Grape Drink is a bottled, carbonated cocktail with homemade Concord grape syrup with cardamon and cinnamon, USA Today writes. 

"They are popped table-side and served with a striped paper straw."

Read the entire story here. 

USA Today has recognized Baltimore's Inner Harbor as one of the best waterfronts to visit across North America.
 
The site featured nine U.S. cities in the list, including Baltimore, as well as one location in Canada.
 
Baltimore was joined on the list by cities such as Sarasota, Fla., San Francisco and New York City.
 
Baltimore was noted first and was commended for the many attractions that it offers along the Inner Harbor, as well as the street performers that provide entertainment.

See the full list here.

"I grew up on stories about the glory days of Jewish Baltimore, when, in my father’s telling, Jews were really Jews," writes Jennifer Moses in the New York Times. 

Moses says Jewish Baltimore is on the rebound, in both the city and the suburbs. She points to the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Attman's Deli and Eutaw Place Synagogue. 

"Happily, Jewish Baltimore is on the rebound, and not just in the suburbs. On a cold day in February when I went in search of the settings of my father’s stories, I landed in a place where perseverance, preservation and memory have conspired to keep that vanished world available," Moses writes. 

You can read the entire story here. 

Orioles' fans heading to Camden Yards on Opening Day will have another spot where they can grab a post-game brew.

The Hampton Inn is opening the Deck at Camden Yards next to Pickles Pub, the Baltimore Sun reports. Get ready for some company if you head over there. Bar partner Fritz Brogan tells the Sun that he expects about 1,000 on Opening Day. 

"The idea for the bar came from MCR Development, the New York/Dallas-based hotel investment firm and management company that also owns the downtown Hampton Inn," the Sun writes. "Tyler Morse, MCR’s chief executive officer and a self-proclaimed “big Orioles fan,” says the recent successes of the Ravens and Orioles inspired the initial idea for the Deck."

You can read the entire story here. 

Museums and tourism officials are honoring abolitionist Harriet Tubman, 100 years after her death. 

USA Today features some of these homages, including a contemporary art exhibit "Homage to Harriet" at Baltimore's Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History & Culture. It starts March 23 and runs through June 23.

The USA Today also features three other Maryland honors to Harriet Tubman. Earlier this month, officials celebrated the groundbreaking of the 17-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, just south of Cambridge. 

"The same day, the state designated a 125-mile driving tour, dubbed the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, that cuts through her home turf on Maryland's Eastern Shore," USA Today writes.

Maryland also passed a bill to establish the 5,700-acre Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on  Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Good pizza places have sprouted up all over Baltimore and the readers of Travel & Leisure seem to have noticed. 

The magazine ranked Baltimore No. 19 on its list of 20 best American cities for pizza. Chicago, Providence, R.I., and New York got the top three spots. 

Travel & Leisure cites Chazz Baltimore in Harbor East and Joe Squared as two standout pizza joints that rely on coal-fired ovens. Joe Squared has two locations, at Power Plant Live and the Station North Arts & Entertainment District. The magazine came up with its ranking based on readers' votes in its America's Favorite Cities Survey. You can read the entire list here. 

We're just glad that someone gets us a little bit better than the the writer of this Washington Post piece.  Check out the comments if you haven't already. 

We know that Baltimore is quirky and offbeat. Apparently travel guru Peter Greenberg has gotten this memo because he's named Baltimore the No. 1 Wacky & Weird Road-Trip Spot. 

"From the creepy brilliance of Edgar Allan Poe to the dark, irreverent humor of John Waters, a sci-fi nut, horror junkie, or simply a fan of good, old American kitsch, Baltimore is the number one quintessential capital of weird, cool and quirky sites in our country," Peter Greenberg writes on his travel website. 

The CBS News Travel Editor recommends visits to Port Discovery, the American Visionary Art Museum, the National Pinball Museum, National Museum of Dentistry and Geppi's Entertainment Museum. 

Santa Claus, Indiana and Albuquerque, New Mexico got the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively. 

You've heard of Restaurant Week and probably savored a few three-course meals for $30.

Now city promoters in Baltimore and other locales are devising hotel promotions and perks to lure travelers, writes USA Today.

"Baltimore's inaugural Hotel Week..comes on the heels of New York's second annual lodging promotion, which ended in January," writes USA Today. "Another Hotel Week is being planned for the Caribbean in August, traditionally a slow time in the islands."

Next year, Baltimore may combine its second Hotel Week and Restaurant Week, Visit Baltimore CEO Tom Noonan tells USA Today.

"During Baltimore's inaugural hotel week (Feb. 8-18), travelers could find package deals from 14 hotels including the Holiday Inn, Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt Regency and Kimpton's Hotel Monaco," USA Today writes.

You can read the entire story here.  

Legg Mason's William Miller is known for his legendary investment streak. He beat the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years with the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust — a streak that ended in 2005. 

Now Miller is back in the investment spotlight for another fund he manages, the Legg Mason Capital Management Opportunity Trust. It's one of three stock mutual funds highlighted in the New York times for its performance during the fourth quarter of 2012. The fund had a 12 percent return for the quarter and invested heavily in financial and housing stocks. 

You can read the rest of the story here. 

The rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens is pretty intense  — to put it mildly.

But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Steelers' hometown newspaper, tells its readers to spend some of their time and money in a "city that abounds with great food and art."

The travel story tells readers to check out the Baltimore Museum of Art, Fort McHenry, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Little Italy restaurants and other venues. "Today, its most famous site is the landmark Inner Harbor, a historic seaport that was redeveloped from the late 1960s through the '80s," the Post-Gazette writes about Baltimore.

We'll ignore the little tidbit on picking a good Steelers bar. 

Economists are warning that the US will plunge into a recession again if Congress doesn't reach a deal to avoid massive tax hikes and spending cuts — the so-called "fiscal cliff."

But Bill Stromberg, director of global equity and global equity research at Baltimore's T. Rowe Price Group Inc., tells USA Today that investors shouldn't worry too much about this affecting their portfolio in the long run. They should build a diversified portfolio and worry instead about the artificially low interest rates that will go up at some point. 

"I personally don't think average investors should be structuring their portfolio around the idea of a short-term deadline in the market," Stromberg tells USA Today. "Their long-term asset allocation and choice of investments should be based on much longer-term horizons."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

Huffington Post recently went on an expedition to Baltimore's Lexington Market. The reason? To see the tempting display at Berger cookies' stall. 

The cake-like cookie with fudge frosting has been making its way south to grocery stores in the Washington, D.C., market.

"If you've ever had Dangerously Delicious' Baltimore Bomb pie, the critical ingredient in the oh-so decadent dessert is a little not-so-healthy treat that's been a favorite in Charm City for generations: Berger cookies," Huffington Post writes. 

The article comes with a mouth-watering slideshow. 

Fortune magazine recently interviewed money manager Henry Ellenbogen, who manages the $9.6 billion T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund, which invests in small-cap tech, finance and health care stocks. 

"He's constantly prowling for promising tech startups, spending about 100 days a year on the road, about half of them out in the [Silicon] Valley," Fortune writes. Ellenbogen has large stakes in private companies Twitter and LivingSocial, Fortune writes.

The fund has had annual returns of 21 percent, topping the small-cap index Russell 2000.

You can read the rest of the story here.