Oh, and Fells Point is cool and all, but definitely get yourself a $20 dat pass on the water taxi and check out some other neighborhoods like Federal Hill and Canton.

In Fells Point, do go by Cat's Eye for live music (365 days per year), Max's for a massive beer selection, Bertha's (if it's still open at that point) to get your sticker and some mussels, Pierpoint for some non-traditional smoked crab cakes, Blue Moon for brunch, Captain James Landing (water side deck, not the big boat building) for steamed crabs. Check out the Broadway market.

Do not go to Choptank.

In descending order of spendiness:

• Sagamore Pendry (5 star, super swanky bar, smack in the middle): https://www.pendry.com/baltimore/
• Hilton Harbor Point (4 star, 5-10 minute walk East of the middle of Fells): https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/bwihppy-canopy-baltimore-harbor-point/
• Admiral Fell Inn (3 star, basement Tavern, smack in the middle of Fells, supposedly haunted): https://www.choicehotels.com/maryland/baltimore/ascend-hotels/md280?mc=llgoxxpx
• Inn at Hendersons Wharf (3 star, I don't think they have a bar, 5-10 minute walk West of the middle): https://www.choicehotels.com/maryland/baltimore/ascend-hotels/md281?mc=llgoxxpx

Following as well

Many breweries don't have on-site food an allow you to BYOF (or order to there).

Mick O'Shea's! Opens at 11, Irish food and music all day.

https://mickosheas.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/StPatricksDay2023Flyer.jpg

Anywhere on the Homewood-Peabody-JHMI or Keswick-Homewood-Eastern-JHMI shuttle routes would be better than living by the East Baltimore campus. The shuttle routes and maps are here.

Aka the Charm City Circulator Purple Route. The northbound stop is at Pratt and Calvert.

Yep!

The free bus (the purple line of the Charm City Circulator [CCC]) that goes from Mt. Vernon to downtown picks up at the Washington Monument (Charles and Monument St.—as does the JHU shuttle, which you can just hop on if it comes first). Southbound CCC picks up at St. Paul and Madison or St. Paul and Centre. So you can easily hop on and save some steps either way if you want. The Circulator runs approximately every 15-20 minutes (supposedly), though it does not run late at night.

I lived in Mt. Vernon for 11 years without a car, mostly before Uber etc. existed. It's profoundly walkable.

If you walk downtown along Charles, stop into Mick O'Sheas for a pre-game drink/snack!

ETA: You'll also find plenty of scooters, e-bikes, and a N/S free bus route.

There are no detached homes in Mt. Vernon save a few carriage houses that definitely aren't for sale, or if they are, they're like 800sqf and half a mil.

Thirding Revival. Reasonable prices, smack in the middle of interesting architecture/famous shit/decent bars and restaurants/, few tourists vs. downtown, and a good community member that supported displaced businesses and ran food giveaways during the pandemic. Hotel Indigo meets many of those criteria as well, though a bit farther from Ottobar.

It's good pizza, at least it has been in my experience. Nicely fermented sourdough crust. Basically across the street from Ottobar.

Hotel Revival in Mt. Vernon has complimentary parking as part of a package and would make for a more interesting trip than an airport hotel: https://www.jdvhotels.com/hotels/maryland/baltimore/hotel-revival-baltimore/specials/park-n-play

Would have been useful had the reporter asked if the restaurant owners would be willing to pay the same fee per space, eh?

tl;dr: ask follow up questions!

I feel like this article (like many in the Banner, sadly) could have been much more informative and useful if the reporter had dug a bit deeper in his interviews. In particular, most of the owners interviewed said they would take down their parklets because the $10/sqf fee was prohibitive. OK, ask what fee would be viable for them? Would you be comfortable with $5/sqf? $7? $3? Should there be a low fee to start, with a timed escalation over 2-3 years to give you time to determine the ROI? Would credits/discounts based on quality of facility design, etc. be useful?

Especially when combined with newly-imposed design standards, if you're asking people to pay a (potentially) prohibitive fee and ALSO spend even more on a (non-permanent) redesign/redevelopment of what they have already paid for—all without a strong idea of the revenue that it will generate minus the pandemic influence—we're just going to lose the amenity and the city is going to lose any potential revenue. There needs to be a balance struck between city revenue, aesthetic considerations, and the fact that these business owners really don't know what that ROI is going to be in a changed environment. An article like this could have jumpstarted that conversation, but as is, basically reiterates what we've already heard in other outlets and in the survey.

More broadly, this is an issue I've seen in all the coverage of this issue—the city set an arbitrary $10/sqf rate, and there seems to have been no substantial public discussion at all about whether that's the appropriate rate or not—just a zero sum alternative that there should be no fees. Dig deeper, Banner (or Sun, or Beat, or whatever).

Also two delis—Krause's Lite Fare (legacy stall) and royal Deli (new).

In the same general area, check out Lauraville and Arcadia/Beverly Hills too. Lots of good home options within the $300-350 range. It's about 15 minutes from downtown, and about 35-45 from Ft. Meade (depending on if you take the tunnel or not).