Baltimore Inner Harbor

Some old family friends invited me to lunch in Baltimore's 'Little Italy' next to the Inner Harbor. It was only my second trip into Baltimore, but last time I didn't bring my camera. Some people like this area, and the city promotes itself as the 'Charm City' even though I have never heard anyone not from the city call it "charming." Others say it's a rundown industrial harbor with more rust than hope. Personally, I would rather live closer to DC and Northern Virginia than Baltimore. It was nice to go into this city to take a few photos, but it does feel like a place struggling to survive now though it once had many years of economic vitality. The city's population has declined from almost a million in 1950 to around 620,000 today.

View of Inner Harbor from Pier 5.

Knoll lighthouse on Pier 5.

Built in 1856 but became inactive in 1987.

This building is the oldest surviving screw-pile lighthouse

in the United States and is the only one of its design.

This building was originally near the front of the harbor,

but the city moved it here in 1988.

Lighthouse base.

Lighthouse shutter.

Footbridge between Piers 3 and 4.

Lightship 116 Chesapeake in front

of the National Aquarium.

USCGC Taney.

After being commissioned in 1936, this ship was

sent to the Pacific where it stopped opium smugglers

and conducted search and rescue missions near Hawaii.

Just before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the

ship received larger armaments and was put under the

Navy's command. It was in the harbor during the

Pearl Harbor attack and engaged enemy aircraft.

Throughout the war the ship participated in various

operations in the Pacific and Atlantic, and it served as

as Rear Admiral Calvin Cobb's flagship during the

Battle of Okinawa. After the war it served in peacetime

operations in the Pacific. In the 1960s it was the last ship

that had been in Pearl Harbor that was still operating,

so it became known as "The Last Survivor of Pearl Harbor."

It again served during the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

In 1986 Coast Guard decommissioned the ship

and donated it to Baltimore, where it is a museum.

View from my parking garage,

which was next to Little Italy.

Another view from the garage.