What exactly are community schools? How are they funded? How are they different? And how well do they work? Maryland is spending almost 4 billion dollars a year to convert public schools to the community school model, and Baltimore Banner reporters Hallie Miller and Kristen Griffith join Aaron to visit some community schools and see how it’s going …

Theo Hill hosted a series of intimate and honest conversations with people battling addiction on his WYPR podcast, One Day at a Time. His producer, Aaron Henkin, takes some time this week to remember Theo, who died recently due to complications from a stroke. Mr. Hill was 22 years substance-free at the time of his death. See omnystudio.com/listener…

It’s down in a gully near Bunker Hill Road in Hereford. Peer through the trees and you’ll see it, a vintage Baltimore streetcar, forgotten and rusting away in the forest. Hiker (and WYPR host) Ashley Sterner discovered the derelict streetcar a few years ago and has been obsessed with the mystery ever since: How did it end up there? And why? This ep…

Ask MTA administrators and transit activists, and you’ll get the same answer: No idea. It’s just been that way forever. This episode, we find a fifty-year-old archival newspaper article that reveals some clues, and we hear from present-day student commuters about how well the system is working out for them today. This episode, we hear from: MDOT MT…

When Charlie moved to Baltimore, her goal was to commute to work on a bus. It seemed like a reasonable plan. But it’s turned into a logistical nightmare. For Charlie, the bus system has proven to be unreliable, convoluted, and bewildering. Other cities can run a dependable bus service, so why can’t Baltimore? WYPR’s Aaron Henkin and Baltimore Banne…

Six months ago, Baltimore installed speed cameras on The Jones Falls Expressway, on a stretch of the highway where unsafe driving and traffic accidents have been a problem for years. So, are the cameras having their intended effect? Aaron and Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller get some answers from the Baltimore City DOT. In this episode, we h…

It’s a civic duty. It’s a triumph of democracy. And if you live in Baltimore, it can feel like a hassle. Locals say they get summons letters from the city courthouse almost every year. Is that normal? Is it like that everywhere, or just in Baltimore? Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller teams up with Aaron to figure out how jury service works (a…

The paint is worn thin, but the message is still there, a puzzling declaration from a foggy past. At some point in history, someone decided to emblazon the city’s public benches with the hyperbolically proud slogan: Baltimore – The Greatest City in America. Where’d this over-the-top motto come from? And how’d it end up on all those benches? Baltimo…

In the world of competitive lacrosse, Maryland is a powerhouse. It’s home to NCAA championship teams, national tournaments, the USA Lacrosse headquarters, and the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum. But why? How did the sport originate, and what made it such a phenomenon in Maryland? This episode, we meet: Emma, Maya, and Carla Stromberg, Co…

The neighborhood post reads like the opening lines of a short story. “Although I love music, I don’t play, and my Steinway is silent. If by chance anyone knows of a good pianist who would like to come over to practice or play, or even do a nice soiree with guests, please let me know. I am only interested in classical music. No jazz, no pop, no ragt…

They’re a tiny team. But they’re undaunted by the magnitude of the task at hand. Eric Ford and Tony Clark have been working together for more than twenty years on Baltimore’s graffiti removal unit, remediating the city’s graffiti problem, one service request at a time, free of charge. Aaron Henkin and Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller spend a…

A ton of sugar a week. That's what it takes to fuel this longtime Baltimore family business. Rheb's Candies has been crafting homemade chocolates for four generations. During the holidays, there's a line of customers out the door and down the block. This episode, we get a golden ticket to visit the rowhouse-basement factory where the magic happens.…

This episode takes on a question from a far-from-home listener. Robert Cusworth is from Maryland, he’s in the US Coast Guard, and he’s currently stationed in Guam. He noticed that one of the ships in the fleet out there is named USCG Cutter Myrtle Hazard. (Cool name, right?) Well, he heard the ship’s namesake was originally from Baltimore. So, who …

Have you seen that Rapunzel-looking brick tower next to the Hoes Heights neighborhood in North Baltimore? It just got restored, and everyone agrees it looks beautiful. That’s pretty much where the good feelings end. Now there’s a bitter argument over what’s going to happen to the little plot of land around the tower. Some folks want a park. Others …

It’s a not-so-secret weapon that gives The Ravens their home field advantage: Baltimore’s Marching Ravens are a massive musical hype machine that brings hometown crowds to their feet with the Ravens Fight Song. They’re more than a hundred members strong. Their halftime show is a spectacle of uniform precision. And their musicianship is awe-inspirin…

They’re wandering through yards, snacking on gardens. They’re hanging out in neighborhood parks. They’re strolling down the middle of the streets. Deer are everywhere. Or at least it feels that way if you live up and down the Baltimore DC corridor. Is this normal? Banner reporters Hallie Miller and Liz Bowie have been reporting on the state’s deer …

It just appeared one day, inexplicably. An empty coffin, nestled in the woods on the bank of Stony Run Creek in Wyman Park. An engraved nameplate read, “Mathilda Lorenz, died July 26, 1882, aged 18 years, 2 months, and 1 day.” The neighbors were baffled. And then, a few weeks later, just as strangely, the coffin disappeared. Baltimore Banner report…

It’s covered in graffiti, overgrown by the forest, and neglected by the city, but Fort Armistead was once a state-of-the-art coastal defense installation. Why was this place built? Whatever happened to it? What’s going on there now? Is it true that you can find tunnels into it? And what’ll you discover if you venture inside? By the way, check out B…

Our quest takes us to a ring-jousting event hosted by the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association. Then we venture into a forest to find the ruins of a Gothic mansion where the state’s first official joust was held. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore

This week’s listener grew up in Maryland, and he always just assumed there were roadside pit beef stands across the whole country. Not so! Pit beef is a hyper-regional food tradition rooted in Baltimore’s industrial past, and we head out to explore the origins and permutations of this local delicacy. In this episode, we hear from: Simone Phillips o…

Listener Kate Jakuta asks, “Why isn’t Baltimore City part of Baltimore County? And could the city and the county ever join in the future?” It’s a mystery that hopscotches us through time to the founding of Baltimore Town in 1729, the rewriting of the State Constitution in 1851, and a sly ballot referendum in 1948, which adds up to an unfortunate re…

There’s a tiny park in Baltimore’s Guilford neighborhood that’s home to an improbable monument. It’s a bronze bust of Simon Bolivar, who liberated Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia from Spanish colonial rule. Questions abound: Who made this thing? Was it a gift? Who was it from? How and why is it here? And what message should we take …

Listener Stacy Gilbert wandered into a shop called Protean Books & Records, and she found a weird little room in the back. A sign read, Dr. Gloom’s Crypt of Curiosities. She pulled aside the curtain, and when she stepped inside, she was fascinated by the otherworldly oddities on display. This week, we introduce Stacy to the crypt’s proprietor, we r…

Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood has been the epicenter of the city’s gay community for decades, but clubs and bars there have been closing while a new scene has emerged in the neighborhoods of Old Goucher and Station North. This episode, we talk with Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials about the past and present of gay life in Baltimore. See o…

Listener Andrew Cosentino wanted to know more about Baltimore’s chapter of Negro Leagues baseball history, so we caught up with Ray Banks of the Hubert V Simmons Museum of Negro Leagues Baseball, to learn about the Baltimore Elite Giants and The Baltimore Black Sox. And sportswriter Charlie Vascellaro helps us track down a historic ballfield in Dru…

Listener Joanna Reed wanted to know how the crab seasoning, Old Bay, got started and how it became such a Maryland icon. So, food writer Jen Wheeler joins us this episode to tell the story of how a German Jewish immigrant made his way to Baltimore and ended up creating the best thing to ever happen to shellfish. We pay a visit to the inventor’s ori…

Listener Josh Dix’s question about sister cities takes us down a historical rabbit hole to a moment in Cold War history when President Eisenhower announced a new ‘citizen diplomacy’ initiative to build relationships with cities abroad. Sister Cities International has been operating ever since, and today, Baltimore has nine sister cities around the …

Is it graffiti? Sort of. Is it illegal? Pretty much. Does it make people smile? Almost always. If you’re stopped at a traffic light in Baltimore, look up and you might see one of his wire sculptures hanging from the cable across the intersection, backlit by the sky. Street Artist Reed Bmore has been putting up these little artistic winks for a deca…

It turns out The Ravens aren’t the only pro football team in town. For 15 years now, the Baltimore Nighthawks have been repping the city in a hard-hitting national league where the teams compete in high-level, full contact, tackle football: The Women’s Football Alliance. This episode, we meet the Nighthawks players and coaches who are blazing a tra…

How did the rat become Baltimore’s unofficial mascot? Who’s behind this ubiquitous image? Why is it so popular? And what exactly is it supposed to mean as a symbol? This episode, we meet: Matt Fouse, rat hunter and founder of Ratczar Toya Sykes-Coates, Chief of Property Management and the Baltimore Department of Public Works and previous head of Ba…

Baltimore's sister-city, Odesa, is experiencing the tumult of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we got on the line today with Karina Mandell, chairwoman of the Baltimore Odesa Sister City Committee, to hear about her efforts to contact friends and family back home. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Have you seen those mysterious "Odd Fellows" signs on buildings across Maryland? Who meets there? What do they do? And where did that name come from? This episode, we get invited behind the curtain of a secretive, centuries-old fraternal organization with deep Baltimore roots. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Whether it’s ‘Bawlmer’ or ‘Baldamor,’ the city’s accent is a phonological puzzle. This episode, we invite locals to share their versions of the Baltimore accent, and we bring in linguistics scholars and historians to help make sense of what we’re hearing. We even answer the question, ‘Is there such a thing as a Spanish Baltimore accent?’ This episo…

Baltimore has had a longtime love affair with the breaded, deep-fried carryout dish known as Lake Trout, but what is it, exactly? Is it trout? What lake does it come from? How did it get so popular? And how did it get its name? We talk with a Baltimore food blogger, a Maryland fisheries expert, and a celebrity chef to try to get to the bottom of th…

Markers show that the water level in Baltimore’s harbor is a foot higher than it was a century ago. Projections indicate that it’ll rise at least that much more in the next hundred years. What’ll that mean for waterfront neighborhoods and businesses? How will it impact water pipes and roads? And what are we doing to cope with it? This episode, we h…

It sounds like a word-problem with a simple solution: “A city resident and a county resident get their water from the same source. They both use the same amount of water. How will their bills compare?” The answer, it turns out, is tangled up in a century-old municipal labyrinth with more twists and turns than the meandering Gunpowder River. In this…

After you set that recycling on your curb, it’s got a long and winding road ahead. This episode, we follow the trail and learn some surprising facts along the way, like: What percent of Baltimoreans actually recycle? How much of what we throw in the bins is in fact recyclable? What do oil prices and geopolitics have to do with the price of recyclab…

When it comes to the 51-foot-tall Male/Female sculpture outside of Baltimore’s Penn Station, opinions abound. Questions, too: How did it end up there? What is it supposed to mean? And what might become of it in the future? This episode, we hear from someone who’s kept his thoughts to himself, until now – the artist, Jonathan Borofsky. See omnystudi…

Baltimore’s rowhouses are renowned for their white marble front steps, but where did all that marble come from? This episode, we track down the origins of the mystery marble, and it turns out the answer is closer than you might expect. In this episode, we hear from: Community artist Megan Hildbrandt Historian Phillip Lord Thomas Doyle, President of…

This week, a listener asks why Baltimore’s traffic-light network seems so poorly organized, so we talk with the engineering masterminds behind the system. And Aaron does an experiment to calculate how much time we spend waiting at red lights. This episode, we hear from: William Haynes, Chief of the Traffic Division at Baltimore’s Department of Tran…

Some are tempted by the idea. Some are repelled. Will it ever be safe to take a dip in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor? How long will it take? And what needs to happen? Goals have been set. Deadlines have been missed. But recent studies show there is reason to hope. In this episode, we hear from: Adam Lindquist, Director of Baltimore Waterfront Partnershi…

Starting in the early 1800s, waves of Jewish immigrants started to settle in downtown Baltimore. Since then, the population has slowly but steadily moved northwest to neighborhoods like Pikesville and Owings Mills. How & why did that happen? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore

It’s on local breakfast menus next to the bacon & sausage, but what in the world is it? Where did it come from? And why do some folks love it while others fear it? This episode, a skeptical listener asks, “Scrapple, why?” So, we take a deep dive into the cultural (and anatomical) origins of Maryland’s favorite mystery meat. See omnystudio.com/liste…

Is the Baltimore Development Corporation a branch of city government, an independent company, or somehow both? What’s their agenda? Who are they accountable to? Who’s benefitting from their support? And what’s their vision for Baltimore’s future? We head downtown to 36 Charles Center and try to get some answers from BDC President & CEO Colin Tarber…

Hayley Nelson’s grandparents met and fell in love in Patterson Park back in the 1930s. She wants to know if this might be where she’s destined to meet her own Mr. Right. So, we head to the park with Hayley and try to help her meet some guys. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore

Back in the 70s and 80s, you could buy a vacant house for a dollar if you promised to fix it up and live there. What happened to that deal? Why did it end? Can the city bring it back? And by the way, are any of those original homesteaders still around? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Someone told Ashley that there are a bunch of hidden streams flowing underground below our feet in Baltimore. She asked us about it, so we set out to discover where they are and why they're down there. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore

What's The Maryland Curiosity Bureau all about? Host Aaron Henkin introduces the show and invites you to put him to work with a question of your own. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore

We first met the guys at Barbara’s Groceries back in 2015 on the 4700 block of Liberty Heights Avenue. This episode, we reunite with them, we listen back together to their original recordings, and we ask them, “How’s life changed in the past six years?” Plus, Aaron & Wendel bid a fond farewell to listeners as Out of the Blocks comes to a close.…