Just after a late-afternoon thunderstorm, the corner of Aliceanna and Ann streets in Fells Point is alive with activity. Horns honk. A woman speaks through a PA system. A man dressed in flowing robes and a tall hat impersonates a Roman Catholic cardinal. A woman walks through the intersection dressed in an old friar’s costume. Placards are propped […]
The Semi-Free State
It was Oct. 28—adoption day—and Courtroom 2 of the Baltimore City Circuit Court was packed. Well-dressed parents and children squeezed into the hard wooden benches like churchgoers on Christmas Eve. Babies cried and young children squirmed on their parents’ laps. Adolescents dressed in big puffy jackets sat quietly, glancing seriously about the room. Our attorney sat in the jury […]
Lifeline: Chase Brexton Celebrates 30 Years
It was a warm Friday evening in 1978. Scott MacLeod and about a half-dozen other young gay men whom he didn’t know sat in a cramped basement room. “We all looked at each other and said, `Who wants to go first?’” MacLeod remembers. “And I said, `I’ll go first.’” He went into a back room, where a phlebotomist […]
In Between Days: Baltimore’s Transgender Population
The sign on the bathroom door read ABSOLUTELY NO MEN IN THE WOMEN’S RESTROOM. Cydné Kimbrough couldn’t believe her eyes. Wanting to believe the best, she carefully peeled away the Scotch tape from the corners and brought the sign to the front desk at Health Education Resource Organization Inc. (HERO). The receptionist told her what she didn’t want to […]
Speed Bump: Maryland Doesn’t Have a Meth Problem—Yet
If you’ve read a national newspaper or news magazine lately, you know the story. Methamphetamine use is moving east from the West Coast, where it’s had a stranglehold on states such as Oregon since the ’90s. Backwoods meth labs pose dangerous threats to the idyllic countryside of the nation’s rural regions. “Meth mouth” is a surefire way to detect […]
Raising a Glass: Leon’s Turns 50
It’s a typical Monday night at Leon’s. The two front doors are propped open—usual for a spring evening—but the fading sunlight does nothing to illuminate the tiny corner bar at Park Avenue and Tyson Street. At just before 8, happy hour is in its last moments, but no more than 10 men are there. Bartender Celeste Ball is […]
Rational Decisions
Courtroom 5 at the John R. Hargrove Sr. District Courthouse in Brooklyn is as nondescript as a courtroom can get. Front and center is the judge’s bench, a mammoth desk of dark wood shined to a high luster. A pile of files cascades along the front of the bench. Some of the files are inches thick, some contain only […]