Silo Point

I went to the lounge area of Silo Point condos today; these condos were created out of the decrepit, grain elevator of Archer Daniels Midland which had not been in operation since around the 1970s; it stood deteriorating for years; then lightning hit it and damaged it further; it was an eyesore; a few years ago, it was announced that a developer bought it and was planning to turn the huge structure into condos; i've often been amazed in the last 35 years at what has been rehabilated from Baltimore's waterfront area of rotting wharves and vacant warehouses and foundries--happily amazed; the redevelopment of this site is beyond remarkable; i was happy to see the lobby entrance and happier to see the Sky Lounge area; it's the community space shared by condo owners which can be used for parties; but----when I walked out onto the deck and looked down over Ft. McHenry and out into the Baltimore Harbor --I was overwhelmed; as many times as I've seen Ft McHenry, it had never been from that perspective; i have detested some of the developers who have ruined a great deal of the brick and mortar history of Baltimore by tearing down architecture that we'll never see again and replacing it with unattractive condos; the redevelopment of this site is the most amazing I've ever seen; the interior of the condo units is stunning; i hope you go see it; buy a condo; if not to live in, buy it for the investment; even in these hard economic times, it is an excellent investment; the history of Ft McHenry isn't going away; the history of Baltimore's Port isnt going away; the amazing reuse of this land and structure isnt going away; you wont regret it; i'd like to take you there and tell you the history;

F Scott Fitzgerald

He lived several places in Baltmore. One was in Bolton Hill at 1307 Park Avenue. He finished "Tender is the Night" in that house. He also lived at what was at the time, Cambridge Arms Apts on 34th Street. The building is now owned by Johns Hopkins University and is student housing. It's one block from my apt. He lived on the top floor; I pass by it everyday.

My first publication, All-American Hhhhits

I published All American Hhhits (it appears below this post) in The Baltimore Evening Sun. It was my first publication; I had submitted a commentary piece about a baltimore doctor who was being sued in District Court by a patient; the editor liked it but had problems with it; i kept 'fixing' whatever he wanted but it just wasnt making it; it was getting close to the Fourth of July; in frustration, I submitted the article about my jewish great grandparents (David Jacob and Bessie Sass) who carried their babies in their arms and ran for their lives from Czarist Russia in the 1880s in order to escape the pogroms (slaughter) against the Jews; had they not fled and left everything behind for freedom in America, I wouldnt exist to write about it; they were willing to come to America with next to nothing and to leave everything they had worked for behind, not knowing the language or the monetary system; i felt that if i couldnt get a piece published in my home town paper around July 4th about my jewish great grandparents fleeing to America to escape death, I wasnt going to try anymore to be published;

the editor of the Commentary Page, Mike Bowler, called me and said he loved it and told me to send him an article once a month about my family and Old Baltimore; that's how I became a contributing writer on the Commentary Page; Mike Bowler was a great editor, but the next month he was switched to the Education Page (he was also teaching in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins Univ at that time); 6 short months later, the evening sun went down for good; i was so excited to see All American Hhhhits in print, I didnt realize until a friend pointed out that the article and my name shared space with Art Buchwald's (such a writer!!!!); The Evening Sun was the paper where Russell Baker made a name for himself as a reporter--he's one of my favorite writers;

my great-grandparents only son, Isaac Sass, became my grandfather (my father's father); in 1905, he married Elizabeth Nicholson, a scot presybyterian immigrant from Paterson NJ), who became my grandmother; what happened to Isaac and Elizabeth and to their family--because they were a jew and a christian who married in the prehistoric daze of 1905 , is another story for another day; but----the extended Sass and Nicholson families severed ties forever with Isaac and Elizabeth; I would like to find them so I could wish them well; my great grandmother's name before she married David Jacob Sass was Hirsch;